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the time the Dow opens. And damn the man who trades in his own portfolio
before he has liquidated the firm's!"
With that, Looncraft marched into his office.
The office copy of The Wall Street journal lay open to the front page.
Looncraft absorbed it at a glance: "NIKKEI DOW IN MASSIVE SELL-OFF."
"I knew those damned Japanese would be good for something other than cameras
someday," Looncraft snorted, doffing his chesterfield coat and taking his
chair.
He logged onto the Mayflower Descendants bulletin board and typed out a
question:
"PERMISSION TO CONTACT OTHERS DIRECTLY."
"GRANTED," came the reply.
The message had obviously been monitored at other terminals, because before
Looncraft could tap a single key, other messages began flashing.
"LIPPINCOTT HERE. WHAT IS THE WORD?"
Looncraft typed: "SELL!"
And all over America, the selling began. Sell orders rushed into the DOT
system so rapidly, the computers balked at the volume. Orders backed up. Wall
Street had never seen anything like it. It was an hour before opening, and
nervous floor specialists at the New York Stock Exchange were going white.
The chairman of the New York Stock Exchange heard the reports coming up from
the pit. He went out to the observation balcony. The floor was already
littered with paper scraps. But more important, he could feel the rising body
heat, smell the sweat. The broadtape ticker was blank. Suddenly the chairman
felt a wave of sick anticipation of the numbers that would soon appear on it.
He consulted with the DOT-system computer people, nodded grimly at their
projections, and returned to his office, where he began working the phone.
P. M. Looncraft typed merrily. He hummed an old English drinking song, "To
Anacreon in Heaven," which Francis Scott Key had pillaged for the familiar
"Star-Spangled Banner" melody.
"NOTHING LIKE GOOD OLD ANGLO-SAXON INGENUITY," he typed.
Another line appeared under his:
"THE REBELS WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT HIT THEM."
"WHAT GETS UP MY NOSE IS THAT IT TOOK SO BLOODY LONG," another typed.
Looncraft typed in his reply: "BE GRATEFUL YOU LIVED TO SEE THE GLORIOUS DAY,
AND THAT YOU WERE A PART OF THE UNWRITING OF THE BLACKEST PAGE IN BRITISH
HISTORY SINCE CROMWELL."
"HOWDY, BOYS! YOU AIN'T STARTING WITHOUT ME?"
Looncraft frowned. It was that infernal Texan, Slickens. The man was an
embarrassment, British roots or not. When the new order was in place,
Looncraft intended to shunt Slickens into some barely visible position.
Perhaps governor-general of Boston, or something equally unsavory. Let him
deal with the bloody Irish-Americans.
Looncraft forced himself to be polite. He typed: "HAVE YOU BEGUN DIVESTING?"
"WHAT'S THE BLAMED RUSH? THE PIT DON'T OPEN FOR ANOTHER HOUR."
"YOU WILL NOT GET THE BEST PRICE IF YOU DAWDLE,"
Looncraft typed.
"PRICE, SMICE," DeGoone Slickens typed back. 'WE'RE GONNA END UP OWNING THE
WHOLE SHOOTING MATCH BY THE TIME ITS OVER. WHY SWEAT A FEW NICKELS HERE AND
THERE?"
It sickened Looncraft's proud British soul to think that a man who came from
such a fine family as Slickens could have, in little more than a hundred
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years, become so degradingly Americanized.
"AS YOU WISH," Looncraft typed. "MUST TODDLE." He left the computer on and
turned his attention to the glass office wall, beyond which his traders were
shouting into their phones.
Their panic appealed to him. For it presaged the absolute anarchy which would
soon reign when the opening gong sounded.
Looncraft got up and stuck his head out the door.
"Are we liquid yet?" he called.
"No, sir, the DOT is backing up. It isn't taking our orders. "
"Then get over to the Exchange!" Looncraft shouted. "Deal directly with the
floor specialists. We must be liquid. The entire economy is about to collapse.
I hear it on the street, and I hear perfectly!"
Traders stumbling and struggling against one another, the trading floor
emptied into the elevators.
The phone on the secretary's desk rang. Looncraft strode toward her as she was
telling the caller, "Let me check."
Looncraft's secretary put her hand over the receiver. "It's the chairman of
the Exchange."
"I'll take it."
In his office, P. M. Looncraft took up the phone without bothering to sit
down. "Yes, Paul?"
"We're on the brink," the chairman said hoarsely. "The DOT's in trouble. My
God, if there's that much dumping going on now, you know what will happen when
the Exchange opens."
"Perhaps you are panicking prematurely," P. M. Looncraft suggested, his tone
soothing. "After all, we came through the recent market upheavals without
difficulty. This too may pass."
"My information is that when we open, there will be more sellers than buyers.
You know what that means."
Looncraft knew. The knowledge brought a tight smile to his long cadaverous
face. It meant that the entire fabric of Wall Street was close to unraveling.
No buyers meant the sellers could not unload their stocks-not even at
fire-sale prices. No buyers also meant that the consentual understanding that
ran the stock market the one that said no matter how much prices fluctuated,
stocks would always have some irreducible value-was disintegrating. And when
that went, perhaps the monetary basis for currency would begin to unravel. If
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