I vaguely recall stumbling into my office to rummage for an old box of NoDoz stashed somewhere there in the desk, and thinking how nice it would be just to lean back in the chair. . . .
A phone was jangling in my ear. As I pulled erect, the clock on my desk was reading ten-thirty—My God, A.M.—and I felt as if I'd been run over by an eighteen-wheeler. What the hell was in that green tea Tanaka had been brewing?
Inside the receiver at my ear was Emma, and what she had to say brought me awake like an ice-cold shower. In a voice
brimming with triumph, she announced she'd just resigned and I could consider this official notice thereof. In fact, she was price-shopping Florida condos this very minute—what did I think of Coral Gables?—and I was lucky she'd bothered to take out time to inform me of her intended plans. By Wednesday she expected to be able to loan money to the Rockefellers, in case they should need a little liquidity on short notice.
How'd you come by this sudden fortune? I asked. Where, she snapped back, have you been? The Dow Jones average was about to double, if it hadn't already. Funny, but the rest of the market was going nowhere. Oddest thing she'd ever seen. However, it only went to show what she'd always told me, and if I'd listened to her instead of those smarty-pants uptown brokers, I'd be rich now too. Stick with the blue chips. IBM was up thirty percent since yesterday, AT&T was flying, GM was selling for a price that would make you think they were back in the car business.
What the hell was she talking about! That's when I noticed a copy of Tuesday's New York Times lying there on my desk, right next to the phone. Only at first it didn't seem like the Times. Or maybe Punch Sulzberger had just been swallowed whole by Rupert Murdoch, because I hadn't seen a headline that arresting since the Posts immortal "Coed Jogger Slain in Bed." It was banner, right across the top; the Times' headline writer was practically orgasmic. But whereas the Post gets off on mere sex, the good gray Times reserves its libidinous juices for that ageless aphrodisiac, money.
New York Stock Exchange Prices Explode
NEW YORK—Volume skyrocketed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, as buyers for Big Board issues responded worldwide to a renewed confidence in American industry. Analysts are calling this the first leg of the Great Bull Market of the 1990s, saying this surge has been overdue for a decade. Leading the phenomenal rally were a number of America's foremost corporations. . . .
I came off my chair like a shot and headed for Tam's office. "Is anybody following what's going on outside?"