The Trade Read Online Free

stately, awe-inspiring. Jay loved it. He savored every
moment of the boat ride across the mouth of the Hudson. Ellis
Island moved him to tears. Some of his relatives had come through
the facility from Europe on their way to work the coal mines and
then oil fields in Ohio. Jay was having a great Saturday.
    After a quick change, Jay got the bellman to
hail a cab.
    "Shea Stadium please,” Jay said to the cab
driver. The cabbie's eyes registered tourist. No real New Yorker
ever said "please" to a cabbie, and only a tourist would ride a
taxi from lower Manhattan to Queens instead of taking a dollar
subway ride. Jay didn't even flinch when they arrived at the
stadium one hour and forty-three dollars later. He was walking on
air. He felt like King Shit, the mythical creature of his
childhood. He'd been whistling New York, New York all day. He found
his way inside and was shown to his seat by a surly usher. Fifth
row, right behind first base. Jay was in the best mood he could
remember for quite some time. Better even than when his protégé
student C. Daniel had won the regional programming contest and then
been accepted into a doctoral program to further Jay’s work on
self-replicating viruses.
    It didn't even strike Jay that he didn't know
one person in New York. At the moment he was happy. The anonymous
loneliness of the big city had neither taken hold of nor even
brushed against him yet. Besides, the towering buildings somehow
reminded him of the deep hollows near his home.
    Jay bought a hot dog and a beer from a vendor
and settled in for the game. Doc Gooden for the Mets against Jose
Rijo for the Reds. The sun was shining, it was a beautiful spring
day in New York. Not even the jetliners flying over the stadium,
taking off from and landing at La Guardia bothered him. By the time
Barry Larkin hit a home run to put the Reds ahead in their half of
the second inning, Jay Calloway had forgotten all about the CIA and
had made up his mind he was going to work on Wall Street and
continue to learn to love New York City.
    “ Excuse me please. Excuse
me.” Jay turned to look in the direction of the female voice
attached to the apparition that was approaching down the aisle.
"Excuse me, thank you.” The New Yorkers moved surprisingly quickly
and courteously out of the way, a rarity in the City, especially at
the ball yard, a testament to both the looks and assertiveness of
the twenty something girl working her way down the aisle. Her long
blonde hair fell down around her shoulders. Her navy blue eyes
glanced at each man as they politely gave way. All eyes followed
her as she got closer and closer to Jay. Few people in the area
noticed a baseball game was still going on a mere hundred feet
away.
    CRACK came the sound from the splintering
bat. "Shit,” Jay cursed in the instant that it took to realize a
sharp line drive was bearing down on the blonde apparition. The
girl, with her back to the field didn't see it coming. Jay fought
the instinctive urge to duck and instead reached out to knock down
the screaming foul ball. He deflected it with his right hand, which
instantly began to burn and swell. A kid three rows back picked it
up and held it aloft for all to see.
    "SHIT,” Jay screamed. His right hand was an
intense burning mitt of pain. He danced from foot to foot, shaking
his stinging hand. Finally he shoved his hand into what was left of
his beer, seeking something, anything that was cold. He sat back
down, the game and the girl and the city forgotten. In the crystal
clarity of the pain, the CIA came back to mind.
    "Are you alright?" he heard. Raising his eyes
he looked directly into the deepest blue eyes in the kindest,
warmest face he had ever seen. The face of the girl he'd just saved
from the baseball.
    "Yeah sure,” Jay lied. With his hand in his
beer he realized he didn't look okay. She signaled to the usher at
the end of the aisle.
    "Two frosty malts and three beers,” she
ordered.
    "Thirsty?" Jay ventured.
    The vision sat