Daniel "Danny" Pesce

Planning to Break the News

Danny Pesce sought routine; he lived it day by die-cast day. Show up early at Cantor Fitzgerald. Stay late. Ride the bus back to his parents' home in Staten Island, where he lived. Saturday, go food shopping. Sunday, wash the car.

"My brother loved to save his money," said Angela Frunzi, offering an explanation for Mr. Pesce's ascetic rhythm of life. But she admitted that no one knew what he was saving for, because he kept everything to himself. "It's probably killing him right now, me talking about him," Mrs. Frunzi said.

Sometimes he lifted the curtain ever so slightly. He fantasized about a new car. But no Ferrari or Bugatti for Mr. Pesce, 34. Even his dream was discounted — a Ford Taurus SHO.

He never bought one, but in 1997 he entered an Internet chat room where his screen name, Taurus.sho, caught the eye of Melissa L. Reynolds of Gallatin, Tenn., who did own one. They clicked.

Mr. Pesce opened his wallet for a ticket to Tennessee, and when the sky did not fall in, he bought another, then another, for more than four years.

Ms. Reynolds discovered someone Mr. Pesce's family would not have recognized. "When it came to me, no, he wasn't cheap," Ms. Reynolds said. They went out to dinner and played pool. Anything she asked for, he bought. "He was a mama's boy, basically, and I kept telling him he needed to experience other things." She thought she had finally gotten through to him when he resolved to tell his parents he was seeing her. He planned to do it this summer.