A Calculated Risk by Katherine Neville (best time to read books .txt) 📗

When I rapped at the door, Tor opened it at once. He was standing there in evening clothes, looking elegant. As he ushered me into the room I saw a large silver bucket sitting where the samovar had been, and before it, two crystal glasses.

“Champagne, madame?” he asked, folding a linen towel over his arm. “I hear you’ve scored quite a success today.”

“I’m sorry—I don’t drink,” I told him.

“Champagne isn’t drinking—it’s celebrating,” he told me, and filled the glasses with dangerous-looking bubbles. “Incidentally, do you own a dress?”

“Of course I do.”

“I’d like you to go home and put it on,” he said. “I want to escort someone to dinner who has legs. I’ve been meaning to discuss the subject with you, anyway. Stop trying to look like a boy; you’re fooling no one, no matter how you try.”

“You’re taking me out?” I was flabbergasted.

“This compulsive innocence is unbecoming,” he told me. “Drink your champagne.”

I took a slug, but the bubbles went up my nose and burned my throat and I coughed. I started to hand back the glass.

“Don’t guzzle that down like a horse at the trough,” he chastened me. “Champagne is meant to be sipped slowly.” He replenished the glass.

“It tickles my nose.”

“Well then, take your nose out of it. Now, tell me about your success this afternoon. Then I’ll take you home to change into something more presentable—if that is possible.”

So I told Tor that Alfie, as expected, had used the meeting to try to humiliate me in front of the client. He’d introduced me as an expert in everything, then turned over the entire meeting to me, to let me prove it. And Louis—who hadn’t been aware of this plan—had started chewing stomach pills and throwing black glances at Alfie. He was a wimp who was about to lose the account, and had trusted Alfie to bail him out, not to sabotage him. But things had not turned out as either of them had planned.

Thanks to Tor’s tutorials, I knew enough about the transportation industry, and our role in it, to knock their socks off. Before we left the boardroom, the client—who’d been about to bid our firm farewell—had decided to place a big equipment order instead. The chairman of the board, Ben Jackson, even complimented Louis and Alfie for bringing me to his account.

“While you were achieving star status,” said Tor, “what were Louis and Alfie doing—picking their noses?” He was pouring me some more wine, though my toes were already tingling.

“I’m getting drunk,” I told him.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” he said, nodding for me to proceed.

“They interrogated me all the way back in the cab,” I said, “to learn how it was I’d learned all this stuff so fast. I hope you don’t mind—I told them I’d been working with you. At first they didn’t believe me, but when they did, they spent an hour discussing how they might use this to their own advantage.”

“And how was that?” Tor asked, smiling at me.

“It seems that you failed to inform me what you really do around here,” I told him. “You’re our firm’s secret weapon—the one-man think tank of Monolith Corp.” Tor winced, but I went on. “Louis thinks that if you could be induced to spend a few hours here and there with selected clients, the way you have with me, it would be worth millions to his division alone.”

“Quite true,” Tor agreed, “but it’s more fun to spend them with you. That’s the sort of thing Louis could never comprehend; he’s got a soul made of cardboard.”

He leaned over and turned the empty bottle upside down in the icer, then stood up.

“They actually believed they could use me as a ‘lever,’” I went on. “That you’d be willing to go on spending your time with me like that forever. I’ve risen considerably in Louis’s esteem—and Alfie pretends to feel the same—though neither of them can figure out why you did it.”

“They’re perfectly right,” Tor said, offering me his hand and escorting me to the door. “I am going to—and I can’t figure out why, either. But while we ponder this weighty question I suggest we go to dinner.”

Tor had a dark green Stingray, and he drove it very fast. He dropped me at my apartment house near the East River, and waited in the lobby.

I changed into a dress: black velvet, and very short. When I returned to the lobby, I found him seated in a large chair, looking gloomily at the ceiling. When he saw me, he squinted his eyes as I crossed the space between us, then stood up and took my arm.

“What a lovely spot you’ve chosen,” he said, motioning to the lobby. “Replica of Bluebeard’s castle, isn’t it? Good location, though.”

He didn’t speak again till we were ensconced in the car and pulling away from the curb.

“I compliment you,” he said then, studying the road as if I weren’t there. “It seems you do have legs, after all. I applaud your decision not to show them often; Manhattan has enough traffic congestion as it is. Tell me—do you like to eat at Lutece?”

“I’ve never been there—but I know it’s horribly expensive,” I told him. “I can’t understand French menus, and I’m not a big eater, so it seems—”

“Never fear. The portions are small, and I’ll order for you. Children shouldn’t be permitted to select their own meals.”

Tor was well known at Lutece; everyone kept calling him “doctor” and making quite a fuss until we were settled. After he’d ordered, I broached the subject I’d been wondering about.

“You greeted me with uncorked champagne. How is it you knew—before you saw me—that there would be something to celebrate?” I wanted to know.

“Let’s say that a little bird told me,” he replied, studying the wine list as if committing it to memory. Finally, he looked up. “A friend of mine phoned—name of Marcus.”

“Marcus? Marcus Sellars?”

Marcus Sellars was the chairman of the board of