Monday 21st October 1929
 

Before she went back to work, Susan decided to take advantage of the hotel for one last meeting. Their tea shop would be perfect.

“Mrs. Wells?” Mr. Ferris said, reverting to her much older alias.

“Mr. Ferris,” Susan said with a smile, offering a gloved hand. He sat down, pouring himself tea from the pot.

“I take it this is about your shares?”

“Yes. What is the current position?”

“I think you are going to be very pleased. Despite a rocky start, your positions have done rather well.”

“Do I have enough in the account to open more?”

“Certainly.” His suddenly poker-faced expression said more than his words. She glanced at the paper and quickly did the maths. Over the period the short had been open the share prices had dropped by half – more than enough to free up a proportion of extra funds for margin trading.

“Short radio.”

“And if you have additional funds available?”

“Short car manufacturers.”

“And the stop loss?”

“Two points above purchase price.” Ferris nodded and said nothing. It was unusually tight, since shares could gain that from one large trade in a day. “Take profits if the share price falls to fifty percent. And if any are still open, close them on the 29th.” There was no point in prudence any more. The company needed cash.

With a lighter heart, she watched Ferris leave before she packed her bags, checked out of the hotel and called Henry to take her to work. Once she got back to the office, she had another call to make.

“George, thank you for a lovely evening at the McAlpin. It’s such a pity you have to be paid to take me out.”

“Business expense, but I’m tax deductible. What can I do for you?”

“Sell shares, and buy a few.”

“No problem.”

“I’m going to need a full breakdown of my accounts, because I may have a few extra trades for you to open.” She was not sure what in yet, but if she could take profits early in a few positions, perhaps she could find a way to boost her investments going into the crash. This week of all weeks there was no point in holding reserves. “I’ll need it by tomorrow morning, or this afternoon if you can get it here that fast.”

“It’ll be with you in an hour,” he promised, and they said goodbyes and hung up, only for the phone to ring again instantly. She pounced on it, concerned one of the brokers had sudden news, or George was telling her there had been a mistake. It was neither.

“Susan?”

“Yes. Sam?” She identified the voice instantly, but the undertone of worry was unusual.” What’s wrong?”

“I’d thought you’d been – never mind. Look, can you come round really early today?”

“Of course.”

“Say before two o’clock? Tell Dave it’s an emergency. I’m calling in that favour.”

“Yes, but Sam, what’s going on?”

“I really can’t talk now. See you at two.” He put the phone down, leaving her staring in disbelief at the handset. Unless the stock market crash had started early, all she could think was that he had been raided by the FBI.

The other thing she knew she had forgotten was his delivery last week. She looked at the clock. In practice there was little she could do until she got the valuation from George. It made sense to get everything else, and this speakeasy visit, out of the way now.

She walked down to the basement quickly, to get the alcohol and to give Cet an update on the events of the weekend.

~

“Information on Williams,” her business partner demanded, as she entered. Susan knew she really was not cut out for business. All this cloak-and-dagger, two-faced, business of smiling to someone’s face and slipping a knife into their back? She could do it in wartime without a qualm but to ruin someone whose only crime was being an irritating and inconvenient product of his time? She was good at it, but that did not mean she had to like it.

“Williams is mortgaged to the hilt. He’s not a threat.”

“Could he obtain further funds?”

“Possibly, but I suspect he got the mortgage on a handshake deal.”

“Does he have other resources?”

“His workers, maybe. I have no doubt he would be up to a bit of sabotage and he might be able to play hard-ball, but he’s nothing compared to those gangsters we dealt with setting up.”

“It seems efficient to outlast them.”

“Could we buy them out instead?” Susan said, only half-joking. “We’re actually in a better financial position.”

“Their production line is fixed instead of modular. Reconfiguration would require extensive resources.”

“So does everything around here.”

“New York is an expensive location. Would relocation be wise?”

“No. It’s got a few unique benefits.”

“None detected.”

“Franklin Roosevelt,” Susan said, giving up another piece of the future. “He starts his recovery program here as Governor, then rolls it out across the country as President.”

“More resources will be available here than elsewhere.”

“Exactly. And if we can make the connections now, we might get a better chance at expanding later.”

“Understood.”

“And talking about connections I have to get to Sam’s. He’s just phoned.”

“Unusual.”

“I know.” She attached a new bottle to the still, and fished the apples out of last week’s. She dropped the flavoured bottle in her bag, reminding herself to flavour the new ethanol when she got back, and left in a rush. If anything did happen, if anything was really wrong, at least her business partner would know where she was.

~