Miss Ulig asked: “Do you want to see Mr. Loring? He’s here.”
“Send him in.”
Loring was deathly pale, with a copy of the Journal rolled up hi his fist. “I need some mone*- he said.
W. J. Born shook his head. “You see what, going on,” he said. “Money’s tight. I’ve enjoyed our association, Loring, but I think it’s tune to end it. You’ve had a quarter of a million dollars clear; I make no claims on your process—”
“It’s gone,” Loring said hoarsely. “I haven’t paid for,
the damn equipment—not ten cents on the dollar yet. I’ve been playing the market. I lost a hundred and fifty thousand on soy futures this morning. They’ll dismantle my stuff and haul it away. I’ve got to have some money.”
“No!” W. J. Born barked. “Absolutely not!”
“They’ll come with a truck for the generators this afternoon. I stalled them. My stocks kept going up. And now— all I wanted was enough in reserve to keep working. I’ve got to have money.”
“No,” said Born. “After all, it’s not my fault.”
Loring’s ugly face was close to his. “Isn’t it?” he snarled. And he spread out the paper on the desk.
Born read the headline—again—of the Stock Exchange Journal for April 17th, 1975: SECURITIES CRASH IN GLOBAL CRISIS: BANKS CLOSE; CLIENTS STORM BROKERAGES! But this time he was not too rushed to read on: “A world-wide slump in securities has wiped out billions of paper dollars since it started shortly before closing yesterday at the New York Stock Exchange. No end to the catastrophic flood of sell orders is yet in sight. Veteran New York observers agreed that dumping of securities on the New York market late yesterday by W. J. Born of W. J. Born Associates pulled the plug out of the big boom which must now be consigned to memory. Banks have been hard-hit by the—”
“Isn’t it?” Loring snarled. “Isn’t it?” His eyes were crazy as he reached for Bern’s thin neck.
Dominoes, W. J. Born thought vaguely through the pain, and managed to hit a button on his desk. Miss Ulig came in and screamed and went out again and came back with a couple of husky customers’ men, but it was too late.