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

“I’d never disparage Charles,” he said with that smile. “But I looked at your charts. As it happens, you asked him the wrong question—how many domestic wire transfers you could steal—a drop in the bucket! What about money from outside the United States?”

Good Lord, he was right! It was double the volume or more—but I hadn’t included those transfers in my study. Though I didn’t control systems like CHIPS or SWIFT—the government’s huge wire transfer networks—I certainly interfaced with them, and that money still moved in and out of our bank.

“I’m beginning to feel grateful to you,” I admitted, sipping my cognac with a smile. “It’s a deal, if we can agree on the stakes. I know what I want—I’ve thought this through all day. I want to be head of security at the Fed; I had the job, anyway, until my boss told them not to hire me. I know, with your contacts, you could get me the job back. But I won’t ask you to—unless I win, fair and square.”

“Very well,” he agreed with a grimace. “But my dear, as I told you twelve years ago, you don’t belong in a financial institution. Those people don’t know red from black—they think loans are assets and deposits are liabilities. You belong to me; I’ve invested too many years in you to watch you pumping out columned ledgers for bankers—a bunch of ignoramuses who can’t appreciate what they’ve got.”

“My grandfather was a banker,” I said with injured pride.

“Not really; he lost his shirt to men like these. Believe me, I know the story. What was he lacking—have you asked yourself? I doubt very much that intelligence or integrity is the answer.”

He motioned for the check as he continued, somewhat irritably.

“Very well—you’ll have what you want. But if I win—as I shall—I feel no compunction about collecting what I want: you’ll come to work for me, as you should have done long ago.”

“As what—Galatea, your flawless creation?” I said with a laugh, though I didn’t find it so awfully amusing. I’d escaped from this ten years ago; now again, I found myself staring it in the face. But even if I lost, I wasn’t going to be a patsy to Tor’s hubris for the rest of my life.

“For how long?” I asked him. “You couldn’t expect it to be forever?”

He thought about that for a moment.

“For a year and a day,” he said cryptically, not looking at me.

“‘The Owl and the Pussycat’!” I exclaimed. “I remember that poem: ‘They took some honey and plenty of money …’”

“‘Wrapped up in a five-pound note,’” Tor said, looking up pleasantly surprised.

“‘And they sailed away for a year and a day, ’neath the light of the silvery moon,’” I finished.

“It would seem—mature and seasoned banker that you are—you still recall your fables, my dear little pussycat,” said Tor with a smile. “Who knows—perhaps you’d enjoy losing this wager to me far more than winning it.”

“I wouldn’t bank on it,” I said.

There was only one thing that made Tor uncomfortable about the wager he’d dragged me into. In order to carry out his part of the bet, he needed an accomplice. Though he knew everything there was to know about computers, there was one necessary skill he himself did not possess.

“I need a photographer,” he told me, “and a good one.”

By coincidence, I happened to know one of the best photographers in New York. I agreed to take Tor over there the very next morning.

“Tell me about this friend of yours,” he said as we taxied uptown on Sunday. “Is he trustworthy? Can we tell him the truth about our plans?”

“He is a she, and her name is Georgian Daimlisch,” I said. “She’s my best friend, though I haven’t seen her in years. I can assure you, she’s totally trustworthy—but don’t believe a word she says.”

“I see,” he said. “The picture you paint is much clearer—we’re about to meet a reliable schizophrenic. Does she know what we’re coming to see her about?”

“I’m not sure she knows we’re coming at all.”

“Didn’t you tell me you spoke with the mother?” Tor said.

“Lelia? Yes, of course—but that doesn’t mean anything.”

Tor was silent the rest of the trip.

It had always been hard to describe Georgian, though she’d been my best friend for more years than she’d permit me to reveal. When she lived anywhere, it was at her mother’s apartment on upper Park Avenue. But Georgian never settled anywhere for long; she was a butterfly of a rare breed, and wildly independent.

Georgian wasn’t independent financially—or, I should say, no one knew exactly how much she had. As a photographer, she traveled around the world, stopping at châteaus and palaces that were far beyond ordinary means. On the other hand, she usually dressed in tattered jeans and T-shirts, and wore so many gold rings she seemed to be sporting brass knuckles.

Most of her acquaintances thought she was frivolous, sex-crazed, extravagant, and more than slightly batty; I found her serious, reclusive, and a brilliant business manager with a mind like a steel trap. How could one person engender such diverse impressions in the minds of so many? Simple—she was unique, her own creation. She’d become a photographer to fashion her own universe, and then live in it.

I saw her rarely, because when I did, she expected me to do likewise.

As soon as I’d agreed to introduce Tor to Georgian, I began to have reservations. They had a lot in common: both were highly possessive of me and thought they could fix whatever was wrong with me—but their ideas of how to achieve that fix were incompatible. Tor wanted to introduce me to reality; Georgian wanted to strike the word from my vocabulary. I feared they’d hate each other on sight.

The lobby of Lelia and Georgian’s building looked like a fancy auto showroom; it lacked only the Cadillacs scattered about the floor. Enormous chandeliers hung from the ceilings like bunches of frosted grapes; a number of deep red, flocked-velvet divans were