Free Madeline Carter - 01 - Mad Money by Linda L. Richards

The
year we’d spent together had certainly given me very few moments
I’d contemplate cherishing. “Well rid of him,” was how my mother
had put it. I hadn’t disagreed.
    “Madeline, it was so nice to finally
meet you,” Arianna repeated, rising, the slender rustling of some
silky fabric following her. “But we really have to go.” Then to
Ernie, “the Gunnarson’s were expecting us 15 minutes ago.” He
nodded, threw back the remainder of his Scotch, dropped a twenty on
the table to cover our drinks, then rose, all in a single smooth
motion.
    “It was wonderful seeing you again, Mandy.”
And I wondered if I was right in thinking that he’d angled his body
between me and his wife intentionally in order to cover the fingers
he ran once more down my arm. He couldn’t have missed how abruptly
I pulled it back, but he didn’t react. “And remember what I told
you: LRG. It’s a good tip.”
    When they’d gone I just sat there for a
while thinking about stuff. When Emily reappeared I couldn’t wait
to get out of there. I didn’t want to see any more clubs. I got
home as quickly as I could and hit the shower. Afterwards, I still
didn’t feel clean.
     
     

Chapter Six
     
    I spent Friday in much the same way I had
the previous four days: at my computer preparing for the following
week and my new occupation as a day trader. And I spent some time
reassuring myself: Sure: it was a crap market, but things were
still moving. And the fact that IBM is down is only really a
problem if you own a lot of IBM. I’m a pro: I know the
market. I know when movement means something real is afoot or
whether it’s just the hysterical reaction of an increasingly
inexperienced phalanx of traders — most of them at home in Helena,
Montana or Tulsa, Oklahoma or some other not-stock-connected place,
trading on their little PCs — and, in going kinda cowboy, I could
take advantage of that with my own money for my own gain. That was
the theory, anyway.
    As much as I tried to not think about it,
the vision of Ernie and his “good tip” kept sneaking into my head.
The information he’d given me — if I acted on it — could be
considered only the most borderline kind of insider trading. I
wasn’t a broker anymore: no one cared very much what I did with my
own money. And if you meet someone you used to know in a bar and
they tell you they have a new job... well, is that any more insider
trading than acting on something you read in the newspaper? Well,
it is. But it’s pretty easy to rationalize around. Especially if
you think no one will be paying attention. So I went in for a peek.
What would be the harm?
    As it turned out, the Langton Regional Group
was typical of the kind of company I’d been watching over the
previous week, now that I had no clients to service and quick
action on my mind. Langton’s 52 week high was over fifteen dollars
and they’d been trading around the six dollar mark for a couple of
months. Nothing exciting in either direction: just a solid and
long-term slide into the land of the not interesting. I knew an
announcement could change all of that quickly: news that would show
that their prospects were up. They seemed that kind of ripe.
    To most people, LRG would have been an
uninspiring little security. The Langton Regional Group made those
little glass jars that companies order by the truckload for
stuffing jams into and sending out to supermarkets. Nothing
mysterious. No shaky high tech and — heaven forbid — no tricky
resources where an oil well can dry up or an engineer’s report can
bollocks everything or people can just decide they no longer want
whatever mineral is being raped from the ground. Just little glass
jars.
    A few years earlier, LRG had been trading at
over twenty bucks, but that was then. After a while, analysts
frowned at all of the money they weren’t making and suggested this
wasn’t a very collectable stock. And, let’s face it, glass jars are
not sexy, by anyone’s