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

these bankers and brokers to use a new computer system developed by the SEC that will track the physical location of securities.”

“Securities aren’t tracked by computer?” I said, amazed.

“The trading, yes—but not the physical location,” Tor informed me. “The SEC believes that five to ten percent of all the stocks out there in bank vaults, attic trunks—even inside the Depository Trust—are either fraudulent or stolen. If they could put them all on computer, they’d find out which were duplicates or otherwise fakes. They want a physical inventory—and they want it now.”

“Sounds like a great chance for everyone to clean house,” I agreed.

“Does it?” Tor said with raised eyebrow, looking at me in the darkening light. “Then perhaps you can explain why every single institution—without exception—turned it down.”

Of course, it didn’t take a genius to figure that one out. The SEC didn’t own the banks and couldn’t force them to conduct an inventory, even if they provided the system. And none of these institutions wanted it known how many of their own securities were worthless! So long as they pretended they were real, they could keep trading them, or use them as collateral for other things. Once they were proven fakes—bingo—they’d be holding an empty bag. I realized suddenly the extent of dastardly behavior rampant in the entire financial industry—just as Tor had said. And it really made me see red.

But I realized something else, too: I’d underestimated Tor by quite a margin, and I felt dreadful about it. Why did I have to be so bloody self-righteous, assuming that I was the only one on earth with principles, and the desire to carry them through? He was right when he’d said I needed to expand my horizons. Now I knew what I had to do.

I glanced up and caught him watching me as we stood there in the mist that had turned to lightly falling snow. He was smiling his old wry smile, and for just an instant, I felt suspicious again—as if he’d mapped out the cogs in my brain beforehand, and had known precisely how many revolutions it would require to get me to this point.

“So you accept the wager, then?” he said.

“Not so fast,” I told him. “If it’s a wager, and not just a double-whammy theft—shouldn’t there be some stakes?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted, unsettled for a moment. “But you’re right. If we’re going through all these pains, I suppose there should be.”

He thought awhile as we walked arm in arm back up the empty street in search of a cab. At last, he turned to me and put both hands on my shoulders, looking down with an expression I couldn’t fathom.

“I have it,” he said with a mischievous grin I didn’t care for at all. “Whoever loses will have to grant the winner’s fondest wish.”

“A wish?” I said. “That sounds like a fairy tale. Besides—maybe the loser would be in no position to grant such a wish.”

“Perhaps not,” he said, still smiling. “I only know that you’d be in a position to grant mine.”

THE LIMITED PARTNERSHIP

Men of thin skin with a conscience all the time full of prickles, are out of place in business dickerings. A prickly conscience would be like a silk apron on a blacksmith.

It isn’t how you get your money, but what you do with it that counts.

—Bouck White,

THE BOOK OF DANIEL DREW

I was certainly relieved I’d had the chance to hike on Wall Street after lunch. Even so, I could barely put away a quarter of the dinner Tor ordered at the Plaza dining room that night—saumon en papillote, duck à l’orange, soufflé Grand Marnier, to scratch the surface—as we finished ironing out the kinks in our bet.

Tor was unwilling to reveal what his wish might be, should he win the wager. And so, based upon prior experience with him, I thought it best to come up with more substantial terms for our stakes. The ensuing negotiation began over the salmon, not the coffee. It took hours; and afterward, although my head ached long before the cognac was served, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had such fun.

Tor had always been able to explain anything with amazing clarity, but his mind itself was baroque. He was a master of complexity and intrigue, and loved to examine an issue from every possible viewpoint. I knew he’d dreamed up this wager as much out of boredom as moral indignation. As usual, life itself just wasn’t enough of a challenge.

“It’s far too simple,” he said off the bat, “just to walk off with a billion dollars; any hacker can do that. To make it really interesting, I think we should leave undefined the specific amount of the theft.”

“How can we tell who’s won, then?” I wanted to know.

“We’ll put a time limit on it—three months or so—perhaps a bit extra to plan the details. Then we take the money we’ve ‘borrowed’ … and invest it! This throws in the added challenge of speculation. So the issue is not who steals the most money, but who makes best use of it. We’ll target a reasonable sum. Whoever reaps the agreed-upon amount first will win.”

“Stealing a billion isn’t tough enough,” I commented, not expecting an answer.

But Tor was tapping away at his small machine. “Thirty million dollars!” he announced, looking up. “That’s how much you can make, with a decent return on a billion, in three months’ time.”

Without waiting to hear from me, he pulled out a pocket calendar. “Today is November twenty-eighth—nearly December,” he went on. “It should take me two weeks, as I said, for the actual theft, then the three months for the investment. With a few extra weeks to set up and prepare, I should be able to finish by … April first!”

“April Fools’ Day?” I laughed. “That seems more than appropriate. But what about me? Charles said I could steal only ten million. How can I invest that to