The Trade Read Online Free PDF Page B

was struggling to keep
them from bursting out of her incandescent eyes. She looked
straight into his tired baby blues.
    "I can't,” she said evenly. "I can't,” she
repeated, more slowly with sadness in her voice and tremors in her
lower lip. "I can't.” And she was gone. She turned and ran away.
Leaving him standing there with his heart that had been so newly
awakened now slowly breaking. Jay walked back to the hotel, mile
after lonely mile through the suddenly desolate streets of the big
city that he was learning to love and hate at the same time. Only
miles later did Jay notice that somehow Tonia had managed to slip
the note with his phone number from his damaged hand.

    In a non-descript van, parked only thirty
yards from where Tonia Taggert and Jay Calloway had embraced and
parted, a man poured coffee into a mug for his partner and then for
himself.
    "She's really something ain't she?" the one
man asked.
    "Yeah. I'd do her,” the other answered.
    "The boss ought to love these pictures,” the
first said.
    "No shit,” the other answered. The two men
finished their coffee then slowly stored the camera equipment
they'd had focused on the two joggers. They set off after Jay at a
slow pace. They figured they knew where he was going so they laid
back a long distance. The rest of their day was going to be very
easy.

    Jay arrived back at the hotel. He was
ravenously hungry, despondently lonely, and near exhaustion from
the walk. He ate, showered and spent half the day in bed watching
baseball and listlessly looking at his offer sheet from MacKenzie
Lazarus. The other half he spent down in the arcade, racking up
high scores on his favorite machines. As he played, he worked the
numbers on the offer sheet. The numbers cheered him up a little,
and so did the benefits. Three weeks’ vacation to start, full
relocation expenses, a 401K plan that he was eligible for
immediately with one for one matching. MacKenzie Lazarus would pay
for his first and last month's rent and the deposit on an apartment
in Battery Park City, the nicest neighborhood close to his work.
The one thing he noticed that was missing, however, was a job
description. They'd told him what he'd be doing and who he'd be
working with, but there was nothing in the offer sheet about his
duties. He made a note about it.
    Back in his room, Jay lay back on the bed and
thought about whether he really wanted to come to New York. His
only data points were what he'd heard and what he'd seen the last
few days. Jay liked to have a lot more information before making a
decision. Finally he decided to postpone the decision until after
the negotiations. He also decided to play hard to get.
    Jay added twenty percent to the starting
salary MacKenzie Lazarus offered. He changed the three weeks of
vacation to four and added a first class round trip plane ticket to
anywhere in the world once a year. His negotiating plan was
starting to take shape. He added two more notes, a single office
with a window and a view and access to the corporate fitness club
and personal trainer.
    "Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Jay said
to himself.
    The game he was watching ended and Jay
clicked off the television. He reached for the phone, picked
through his papers, and dialed the number Rick had given him out
west. After ten rings, he hung up.
    Jay Calloway brushed his teeth and went to
bed.
    In the room next door, one of the two men
who’d been listening and taping nodded at his partner.
    “ Did you get the number?”
he asked.
    “ Yes.”
    The tired watcher nodded again, and the two
men shot rock, papers, scissors. Scissors cut paper, and scissors
went to bed.

Chapter
     
    "That's 20% more than we offered. I don't
even get four weeks yet,” Dan Landford scowled across the table at
Jay Calloway. The Monday morning negotiating session was off to a
tense start. Bill Beck's face remained calm. Jay deftly shifted his
chair to face Dan and Bill more directly. He had carefully planned
his next move,