I watched him, not sure what to do, wondering if this guy was playing with a full deck.

“Are you going to turn me in?” he asked.

“I think you should leave.”

“But I need to know,” he said. “Are you going to turn me in?”

“Just beat it. I’m not going to turn you in.”

“That’s good,” he said, rising. Then he tossed the remnants of the burned hundred-dollar bill on the table and said, “That makes you part of the cover-up.”

I watched with curiosity as he turned and walked away, leaving me alone with the ashes.

WALL STREET.

Midtown had been a comfortable home for Saxton Silvers since the destruction of its offices on 9/11, but actually standing before the New York Stock Exchange building and seeing the huge American flag draped over its massive stone columns never failed to get my pulse pounding. I was in a hurry, but I stopped for a moment to take it all in. History oozing from a concrete jungle of tall towers on narrow streets. Floor traders hustling back from lunch or the gym for the end-of-day frenzy. People everywhere, rushing with purpose.

And a seven-foot bear in a boxing ring.

“What the hell?” I said to myself.

The Exchange was actually on Broad Street, which was closed to cars. FNN had re-created the Bell Ringer set outside the building, complete with the signature boxing ring. Waiting “in the other corner” was a man dressed up like that lovable bear from Jungle Book who made “The Bare Necessities” one of Disney’s most hummable tunes. Bell was still inside the building, but his plan clearly was to don his boxing gloves and beat the snot out of that poor sloth in the road-show version of Bell Ringer.

“You got a cigarette?” the bear asked as I passed.

Immediately I suspected a setup-a test question planted by FNN to see if the founder of Saxton Silvers’ Green Division and chief proponent of investment in socially responsible companies supported Big Tobacco with his own nasty personal habit. I was officially paranoid.

“Sorry, dude,” I said.

Security at the NYSE was tight, but I had clearance. I was emptying my pockets at the metal detector when my cell rang. I stepped out of line to take the call. It was Eric.

“Change of plans,” he said. “We cut a deal with Bell.”

“A deal?”

“He’s been killing us for refusing to address the rumors, but if senior management responds, it only legitimizes them. Bell agreed to back off if we just give him someone to talk to.”

“Like who?”

“You.”

“Me?”

A minute ago I wanted to take it to Bell. But now I was afraid of what I might say to him.

“Listen carefully,” said Eric. “You are not the firm’s spokes-person on the subprime write-downs. But this nonsense about our former investment advisor of the year dumping his stock has to be stopped. Here’s the plan: You go on the air with Bell, you tell him about the identity theft, and you make it clear that you’re still bullish on Saxton Silvers. That’s it. You got it?”

“Yeah.”

“Michael, I need you to knock this out of the park. Understand?”

“Totally,” I said.

“Good. Just keep it short. I’ll be watching.”

I made it through security as quickly as I could, and fifteen minutes later I walked onto the trading floor. The “Big Board” is a truly grand space, and even folks who know nothing about the market are impressed by the marble walls rising up seventy-two feet to an ornate gilt ceiling, two more dramatic walls of windows, and the famous skylight through which many a devastated trader has looked up to the heavens and asked, “Why me?” Most trading was done away from the floor these days, but the NYSE still did some of it the old-fashioned way, with traders gathering around posts to buy or sell in an open outcry auction. Even with the rise of electronic trading, it remains an icon of American capitalism, the source of countless images of despondent traders, palms to forehead, personifying the pain and tumult of Wall Street’s slides.

I walked through a section of the floor known as “Jurassic Park,” a place where older traders, many of whom started out as runners, rested and reminisced about that one golden year-they all claimed to have had one-in which they raked in a million bucks in commissions. I was headed for “Rodeo Drive,” the corridor of elite trading posts for firms like Saxton Silvers leading up to the famed NYSE bell.

“Mr. Cantella?” a woman said, catching up to me.

I stopped, turned, and saw her FNN credentials hanging around her neck.

“You’re on in five minutes,” she said. “Mr. Bell told me to do your makeup.”

I considered it, then reminded myself that my grandparents were in town. Papa had grown up on the south side of Chicago, stood in bread lines at age nine, and fought with the fair-haired kids in the neighborhood who had a problem with the fact that little Vincenzo’s first and last name ended in a vowel. He just wouldn’t understand makeup on his grandson.

“I’ll pass this time,” I said.

“Suit your shiny self.”

Say that three times fast, Papa would have said. I just didn’t have his gift for small talk-though no one could compete with the man who had managed to be on a first-name basis with every checkout girl at Publix a week after moving to Florida.

“Chuck’s waiting,” said Little Miss Anti-Shine. “I’ll take you to him.”

I followed her through the maze of trading posts, passing dozens of frenzied floor traders dressed in their mesh-backed jackets. I probably could have spotted a few friends, but I was busy gathering my thoughts on how to match wits with the one-and-only Chuck Bell, bear-slayer extraordinaire. Since Saxton Silver’s first announcement of subprime losses in the fall, Bell had been on a rampage against the firm, predicting its demise. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to confine our discussion to the sale of my own shares of Saxton Silvers stock. But I had to restrain myself. Eric had made it clear that I was not the firm’s spokesman on subprime.

I need you to knock this out of the park, Michael.

News stations were once unheard of near the floor, but now they routinely did live broadcasts there during trading hours. Bell was more of a studio guy, though he seemed pretty comfortable seated on his stool in front of the busy Saxton Silvers trading post. It was a high-energy backdrop for his show, and I noted that the sellers outnumbered-and were outshouting-the buyers. On the stool beside Bell was Rosario Reynolds. I was glad to see her there. Both times I’d appeared on her show I was treated fairly. Maybe it was because I was the only guy on Wall Street who didn’t call her Money Honey.

“All right, let’s bring on our first guest,” said Bell, speaking to the camera. “We’ve been talking about Saxton Silvers all morning, and here with us now in another Bell Ringer exclusive is Saxton Silvers’ two-time investment advisor of the year, Michael Cantella.”

I walked in front of the camera. There was no audience, no applause. But Bell did have his portable sound-effects machine. He held his microphone to it, and with the push of a button there was a loud plop-the sound of a rock dropping into a bucket of water.

Bell glanced over his shoulder at the trading screens and said, “That was the sound of Saxton Silvers stock dropping like a stone this morning.”

I took a seat on the bar stool next to Reynolds. Bell punched another button. It was the sound of a toilet flushing. I almost checked to see if Nana and her peanut-size bladder had crashed the Exchange.

“Will that be the sound of Saxton Silvers stock in this afternoon’s trading?” said Bell.

He hit the toilet-flushing button a second time. I tried to keep my composure, but it was quickly becoming apparent that, on the dignity scale, I had nothing on that poor slob in the bear suit out on Broad Street.