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Executive Times |
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2008 Book Reviews |
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Wall
Street Noir by Peter Spiegelman |
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Rating: |
*** |
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(Recommended) |
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Click
on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Spread The
Wall Street contribution to the Akashic Noir series contains seventeen short
stories and was edited by Peter Spiegelman, who also wrote one of the
stories. Wall
Street Noir shows that the reach of Wall Street has spread far beyond
lower Manhattan, and each story in this collection will bring reading
pleasure. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning of the story titled, “Five
days at the Sunset,” by the editor of this collection, Peter Spiegelman, pp.
220-223: Lethe,
South Dakota. Not much to it. Not much more than a wide place at the end of
an off-ramp—a frozen, flinty afterthought to the interstate, just right for
gassing up, taking a leak, and heading out again. Not much to see besides the
filling station and the quick-mart, the Sunset Motor Inn, the plow barn for
the county road crews, and the Lethe Lounge next door. No reason to hang
around. "Not
unless you're lost or out of luck," the desk clerk had said. She was
maybe twenty, and her pimpled face was round and sort of vacant, but she'd
got it exactly right. I made up a name and paid cash for the room. There
was no particular, reason I stopped in Lethe no particular draw it
had over any of the hundred other shitholes I'd driven through in the past
week, and nothing about the peeling paint and blistered plywood of the Sunset
that was especially tempting when I pulled off the highway that first
night. I hadn't planned on anything more than a few hours sleep and
maybe a shower, but when morning came I couldn’t get out of bed. I don't know how long I lay there, listening
to the wind in the light poles, fingering the thin sheets, and smelling the mildew and my own sour breath.
There was a constellation of brown stains on the ceiling, and if I squinted
they looked like the outlines of the states I'd passed through. Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois. Blind panic, fear, anger, and, as I crossed the
Mississippi, a floaty, detached kind of feeling. It was a funny buzz—like a
contact high but more fragile. It vanished like smoke whenever I thought of
Mia. The sun had crawled right to
left across the window shade by the time I managed to reach for the remote. I
channel-surfed until I found CNN, and watched what passed for news until
someone knocked at the door. It was the pimply girl, wearing a coat like a
sleeping bag and carrying a can of Lysol and an armful of dingy towels. I
pulled on some clothes and let her in. Then I went to the Lethe Lounge. It was a cinder-block bunker
with a satellite dish on the roof and chicken wire on the windows. Inside was
nighttime, and the smell of beer, cigarettes, fried potatoes, and piss. There
was a jukebox near the door, and a pool table and pinball machine in back. I
hadn't seen the cruiser in the parking lot, and I almost bolted when I
noticed the state trooper at the bar. Sweat pricked on my forehead when he
turned to look, and my knees went soft, but then he turned away, no more
interested in me than the bartender was. I took a deep breath and slid
onto a stool and ordered a Coke. I looked at the TV mounted on the wall,
and—miracle of miracles—it was tuned to CNBC. I sipped my Coke and watched,
and after an hour a piece about the bank came on. It was nothing new, a
summary of the story so far—Rumors of Trading Irregularities at Ketchum
Leeds; Ketchum Stock Plunges as Management Confirms Derivatives Losses;
Widely Held Ketchum Shares Imperil Pension Funds; Fed Considers Bailout Plan
for Ketchum. A parade of talking heads came next, predicting doom and
disaster all around for Ketchum management, for shareholders, for anyone
who'd ever used a piggy-bank. And then there was Carter Strickland. It was a night shot. A
square-faced, forty-something fratboy climbs from a black Town Car in front
of a green office tower the Ketchum Leeds headquarters. Snow falls around him
and camera flash flares off his forehead and gelled blond hair. A chorus of
questions rises, and Strickland somber and determined pledges to get to the
bottom of things. I smiled and wondered when the last time was he'd worked
past dark. Then the final headline Ketchum
Derivatives Guru Sought and a grainy photo on the screen and my stomach
clenched. Without thinking I touched my chin. I'd lost the mustache and the
little beard outside of Chicago, and I still felt naked without them. Derivatives
guru. I shook my head. I watched CNBC until the
bartender changed the channel to bull riding, and after that I watched the
place fill up with highway department guys and cowboy truckers and a parade
of assorted shitkickers. I switched from Coke to Scotch, and sat motionless
on my stool until a rangy guy with a three-day beard staggered against me. He
wore a red baseball cap with Reno printed on it, and - he squinted
and looked me up and down. His eyes caught on my L.L.Bean boots, my
corduroys, and my North Face parka, and he bared a row of yellow teeth. "You from the coast or
from back east?" he asked. His voice was deeper than I expected. I made
a noncommittal noise, and the guy squinted harder. Something knowing came
into the yellow smile. "Well which is it? San Fag-cisco, or Jew York
City?" I looked at the narrow, knobby face and the tobacco-stained lips,
and felt my throat close. The rangy guy put a finger against his pitted nose
and pushed it to one side. 'Don't bullshit me," he whispered. "I
kin always sniff it out." Before I could answer, or even swallow hard,
the bartender rapped heavy knuckles on the counter. "You buying, Ross, or just
standing around?" he said to the rangy guy. His voice was flat and
rumbling, and he reminded me of the football coach at my high school. Maybe
he reminded Ross of something, too, because he ordered a Bud and walked away
as soon as he got it. "Asshole," the
bartender muttered, and shook his big bald head. "You want a
refill?" I
told him no, and left. The air was like a knife in my chest on the way back
to the Sunset, but I stopped in the parking lot anyway, and looked up at the
night. There were no stars, just low gray clouds, like a pot lid pressing
down. If you
like this genre, the stories in Wall
Street Noir will be very appealing. The writing is creative, and usually
fine. In between checking out current spreads, relax by reading a story or
two in Wall
Street Noir. Steve
Hopkins, December 20, 2007 |
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Go to Executive Times Archives |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the January 2008 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Wall Street Noir.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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