The creaking silver doors swing open, silenced as they slam into the wall with a gust of cold Manhattan wind. A man in a suit steps through, smiling. His smile lacks real emotion — as warm and comforting as his outfit. It’s clear that this is his first time at the shop. His outfit is so uniform that he seems inanimate - his tie too straight, jacket too dark, shoes too polished. 

“Deal. Is that your name? How are you?” The man asks the shop owner who leans on the glass counter. The counter displays the same eight untouched watches that it has displayed for the past thirty years. It seems that nobody has ever made a purchase, although his shop sees multiple customers daily. No one is sure from where Deal gets his name. No one is sure of much when it comes to Deal. All that the locals know is that on any given day, from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m., a rotund and ageing man in his mid sixties, with thinning grey hair and weathered hands can be found behind the glass counter of his shop. He’s nearly always smoking cigars, cigars which are too expensive for a middle-class shop owner. These small details are all that the locals who visit him on their way to work, and who leave Christmas cards during the holiday season, know about him. Even his main clients with whom he conducts business, know only this about him.

“Doing fine myself—and you?” Deal asks, his fatigue and loneliness ever apparent. 

The man in the suit simply nods, eyes focused with a fiery intensity at Deal.

As Deal lowers his voice and prepares to speak, the same silver doors stretch open and a young woman pops into the store with a bounce to her step swathed in fruity fragrance. She’s clad in a festive red and green swirly dress, whose brightness pales in comparison to her smile.

“Good morning, Deal! How are you today?”

“I’m doing well. And yourself?”

“I’m well. Thank you for asking! How has business been this past week? I’m glad to finally see you now that I’ve returned home.”

Deal smiled widely. 

“I know you are very busy, and I don’t want to waste much of your time,” the young woman sings, as she smiles at the man in the suit. “I’ll just drop this card off for you. I wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas. My husband said what you’ve done for him has been remarkable, and we just wanted to truly thank you. I never knew watches could have such an impact on people! He has so much more energy when he comes home from work. The trading floors can be brutally draining after all, but the effects of the stress haven't been showing on him since he met you!”

“I’m glad to hear that. It’s never a waste of time. And thank you for the card, it means a lot to me. Have a great Christmas, Ms. Miller.”

And with that, Ms. Miller turned and swung the silver doors open; her perfume and her card were the only traces left of her presence. 

Deal turns to the man, although his attention is still focused on Ms. Miller as she prances down the street. He waits until she is far enough from the shop to resume the conversation. 

“At last,” Deal begins once more, “precaution is needed, I apologise. So—where were we? Which watch would you like to purchase?”

The man in the suit hesitates.

“Which watch do you want?” Deal asks once more, this time with a bit more emphasis.

“That one looks great, I suppose,” says the man, with little enthusiasm as he points to a dusty watch. “I’m in a rush. I was told to come here before work. I need to go before I’m late.”

“This is how I run my shop. I’ve been in this business for thirty years. I’m not going to change the practices I have in place that have kept this operation running for years to accommodate your schedule. Okay?”

Deal snatches the watch that the man had pointed towards. “Let’s bring it to the back to examine further and check the quality, shall we?”

The man in the suit snorts with frustration.

Deal steps towards the door behind his counter. The door is worn and cracked from being opened so many times, and from thirty years of being pushed through a frame too small. Its once rich honeyed colour has faded into a pale tan, and the edges are splintered. He reaches for the knob, but suddenly pauses, distracted by the memory of an erstwhile shop housing the most fashionable watches.

“Goddammit, what now!” The man cries.

Unfazed, Deal smiles and thinks for a moment. “You Wall Street men. All the same. In thirty years of doing business with you boys, you are all carbon copies of one another. Always crisply dressed, emotionless, and in a rush. So paranoid about the world you live in, of what could become of you if the public knew your little secret. Sometimes I wonder what will happen to Wall Street when I die.”

The man in the suit just stares at him. “I’m in a rush. Can we please just finish this?”

Deal twists the bronze knob, and ushers the man into the room. Their words are unintelligible from the other side of the door, and their time is brief. After only a few minutes, Deal looks through the peephole of the door. Once he determines no one is in the shop, the two men return into the main room. But now, something is different. The pupils of the man in the suit are wider, and some of his fingers are reddened, almost burnt. In his hand is not a watch, but a small grey pouch.

“I’ll see you next week!” The man in the crisp suit exclaims on his way out, though his jacket now seems less crisp.

Deal sits behind the counter for the remainder of the morning, conducting his business and remembering the day in which all that he loved was lost. Deal could still hear the moans, the primitive noises that had spawned from his own chest. He envisioned the slam, the ensuing chaos, and the flames that had erupted in front of his eyes. But most of all, he could recall the bright blue colour of the car carrying his only child as it tumbled and flipped through the busy highway while he drove behind. From that day on, he understood that no consequence of his actions could inflict any more pain than that of his son’s death. After that loss, he cancelled the orders he had placed for new watches and changed his profession. The skin of his previous, law-abiding self, was shed as though it had never existed.

As 6 p.m. rolls around, Deal’s door is once again flung open, this time by a plump police officer stuffed into official looking clothing. The officer has a bushy moustache and a deep, booming voice.

“Evenin’ Deal. Hand it over,” he orders.

Deal reaches under his counter and pulls out a sealed white envelope which he had prepared moments before.

"I trust that this is the correct amount? By the weight, it seems as though you’ve had a busy week!”

 “You know it’s the right amount, John. This isn’t my first time. Remember what happened last time when I tried to keep some extra for myself? I certainly do.”

The cop laughed, Deal mustered a weak smile, and for another day, Wall Street didn’t collapse.