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notebook was on a par in value with a top-secret copy of a diplomatic document. Capps would have his buy and sell orders listed on facing pages, written down in the order received: he acted as a one-man auction market, and the knowledge of the listings in his book gave him the insider’s advantage—he knew the volume of buy orders just below the current market, the number of sell orders just above it. Specialists like Capps were forbidden to divulge the contents of their notebooks to anyone but Exchange officers and the SEC.
    Of the men on the trading floor, market specialists like Capps made up at least one-fourth of the population. The specialist’s function was to “make a market” for one or more listed stocks. Every stock listed on the Big Board had at least one specialist, sworn to “maintain a fair and orderly market” by buying or selling against the trend of the market.
    Regulations were strict: the specialist couldn’t be an officer of any company he handled on the floor; he was not allowed to operate for his own personal account if he had any public bids or offers—they always had to come first—but he was required to trade for his own account when it was necessary to keep the market balanced. The specialist split his commissions with brokers, made his income on profits in trading his own account. It was his duty to execute stop orders for clients—to buy if the stock was rising, or to sell (to prevent further loss) if the stock was falling.
    The rules were stringent; but it was not unheard of for a specialist to get nervous when the market started to slide—to start selling fast, to get in ahead of the public, which would keep buying the stock until the news caught up on the tape. Nothing, in this gambling casino, was guaranteed; nothing was certain.
    In all this bustle and press, Russ Hastings was supposed to be traffic cop and detective all at once. It was his job, the SEC’s job, not to police the price of shares, but to make sure investors were informed of all activity that might have an effect on stocks. “Full disclosure”—that was the SEC’s aim, and its limitation. The government agency could not prevent an idiot from forming a corporation and selling shares for the express purpose of hijacking airplanes to Cuba. It could only see to it that the corporation openly declared its intent, its assets, its liabilities, and its structure.
    Jostled by fast-moving traders, Hastings kept shifting his stance; he felt awkward, as if he had wandered into a football play by mistake. He watched Herb Capps conclude a trade and come forward smiling. Capps’s amiability was a shell which ended a fraction of an inch beneath the surface, beyond which there seemed no clue to his real personality. The Exchange, having put all its specialists through the strenuous screening process of examinations and investigations, assumed Capps and all the rest of them were trustworthy; but one couldn’t always go by that. Capps could easily be a rock of honor; he could just as easily be a thief.
    Capps said, “Still waiting for me?”
    â€œI’m curious about NCI.”
    Capps’s smile switched on, confidential and neighborly. “Look, I know you’re a bit of a rookie, maybe you haven’t seen this kind of activity before, and you’re wondering about it. Believe me, it goes on all the time.”
    â€œMaybe. Don’t you think NCI’s too big to be acting like a volatile penny stock?”
    â€œThree, four points in a couple of weeks? I wouldn’t call that volatile.”
    â€œIt is when you’re talking about a blue chip that’s exactly the same company it was a month ago. It’s been moving against the averages, remember. Look, maybe I’m green, but a violent upheaval in the stock of a giant like NCI could snowball the whole market into a mess.”
    The bald man gave him a dry look. “You’re