Free The Deadliest Option by Annette Meyers

show me someplace else. I got business to do and it’s piling up.”
    “Bruce, I don’t know what the nature of this trouble is, but you can’t go anywhere until it’s cleared up. You took a hundred and fifty thou upfront from Loeb Dawkins. Even if they clear your license with the Exchange, they won’t transfer it until you pay it all back.”
    “Fuck that, Wetzon. What do you think I was doing there for three months, jerking off? I did real business, more than most of those losers in that office. They fuckin’ owe me. Besides, I guarantee they’ll transfer my license. They have no choice.”
    “Dirtbag,” Smith said loudly from her corner of the room.
    Wetzon turned her back on Smith. “I don’t understand, Bruce. Am I missing something?”
    “I went to work with a wire the last week. I have everything on tape. I’ll talk to the SEC if they fuck with me.”
    “Scuzz,” Smith said.
    Wetzon’s head began to throb. “Bruce, look, I didn’t hear that. Okay? I’m afraid I can’t help you this time. They’re my clients.”
    “Sleazebag,” Smith said.
    “Okay, Wetzon, no hard feelings.”
    “No hard feelings, Bruce.” She put the phone down slowly. Again, where were her obligations? Should she tell her clients that the broker she placed there claims he has illegal dealings on tape?
    “Well?” Smith demanded.
    “I need a moral judgment here. Let’s talk about this, Smith. Seriously.”
    “No hard feelings.” Smith giggled. “Just a nice hard fee we get to keep because he waited three months before he self-destructed, thank-you-very-much.”
    “Somehow, that makes me feel grubby.”
    “Get real, Wetzon.” She laughed. “Precisely what kind of moral judgment do you want to discuss?”
    “I’m not sure you’re the right person to discuss moral judgments with. I’d be better off with Oliver North.”
    “If you’re finished being funny Wetzon, I want to tell you that Oliver North is a patriot and a hero. I’d feel privileged to be associated with Oliver North.”
    Wetzon laughed. Smith was so dead-on serious, she was funny. “Okay, partner mine, try this on for size. Bruce Pecora just told me he’d be reinstated and Loeb Dawkins would transfer his license because he’s got them on tape doing something illegal.”
    “Oh, shit! Did he really?” Grudging respect crept into Smith’s voice. “I didn’t know the sleaze was that smart.”
    “Wait a goddam minute, Smith. Before you get too carried away with Bruce’s brilliance, we have a problem—”
    “What problem? We don’t have a problem. We’ve gotten paid.”
    “Don’t we have to tell Mike Norman that Bruce was wired?”
    Smith jumped to her feet. “Are you crazy? We’ll do no such thing. In fact, we don’t know about it, never knew about it. Read my lips, Wetzon, never never never.”
    “Okay, okay.” Wetzon threw up her hands. “He never called here.”
    “We can say he called and wanted us to move him—which is true, right?”
    “Right.”
    “And we said no, right? We did say no, didn’t we?”
    “ We did .”
    “You’d better leave me a copy of his suspect sheet just in case Mike calls when you’re not here. Do we have Pecora’s home number?”
    B.B. knocked and opened the door. “Sam Herlihy for you, Smith.”
    “Mmm. That’s nice. Stroking managers does pay off sometimes.” She sat down at her desk, yawned elaborately and picked up the phone. “Well, hi there, Sam. How are you doing?”
    “B.B., make a copy of Pecora’s sheet for Smith.”
    “Okay, but who’s Sam Herlihy? He got nasty on the phone. Didn’t want to hold—”
    Wetzon looked over at Smith. Her body language spelled fury.
    “He’s the manager at L.L. Rosenkind.”
    Smith rose out of her chair, the icy calm before the storm. “I will do nothing of the kind and don’t threaten me. Oh, really? I beg your pardon, Sam, but we will talk to anyone from your office who calls us and we will continue to call into your office and talk to