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

really makes no matter,” he replied, “for the Landgrave has won the game.”

The Landgrave could not contain the look of disgust that crossed his face. Taking a big swig of brandy, he turned away from the board.

The general hesitated for a moment, watching the Landgrave’s profile—then picked up his knight and took the Landgrave’s queen.

“My God! My God! I told you! He’s taken my queen!” cried the Landgrave, his face flushed and beaded with moisture, as he gripped the edge of the table.

“Be advised, sire,” Meyer said calmly, “that a queen is not a game. It is the king, of course, that should be the object of your never-wavering attention!”

The Landgrave’s face had taken on the purplish hue of apoplexy—his breath came in quick, dry rasps as his hands, gripping the table, began to shake. Von Estorff, in alarm, rushed to the sideboard for water and poured a goblet full, handed it to his friend to drink, then turned aside to Meyer Amschel.

“Are you certain we should …?”

“Perfectly. Let us proceed,” the other replied.

The Landgrave choked on the water, pushed the glass away, and threw down another mouthful of brandy instead.

“What is it the great chess master asks me to sacrifice next”—he sneered—“for the sake of winning the game?”

“Nothing,” said Meyer politely. “You may now place his king in check.”

Both men’s eyes widened as they stared at the board.

“Aha!” cried the Landgrave at last, picking up his bishop and moving it down. “Check!” he cried, leaning back with a gloating expression.

“Be advised,” Meyer commented calmly, “that a check is not a mate, although it’s true that for each action he takes, you now have an appropriate counter. The laws of chess are as beautiful as those governing the universe—and as deadly.”

As the two men made their moves under the guidance of Meyer Amschel, the Landgrave became progressively more cheerful. At last, the general himself leaned back with a smile of approval—though he saw he had lost the game.

“My dear Red-shield,” he said to Meyer, “this is the most refreshing game of chess I’ve ever played—and the most enlightening. I confess, though I play every day of my life, your mind seems ten moves ahead of mine. I’d find it most enlightening if you’d conduct a postmortem analysis of our game so I might learn what I might have played to bring about a different result.”

So Meyer Amschel remained at the board until the wee hours, instructing the two older men on the variety of moves—which he called combinations—that each might have played at each juncture in their game.

Only when the sun was rising over the river Main did the three men rise wearily from the board and make their way to bed. The Landgrave paused on the stairway to place his beefy hand on the shoulder of the little chess master.

“Rothschild,” he said, “if you can maneuver money as well as those little ivory pieces, I predict you’ll make me a very rich man.”

“The Landgrave is already a rich man,” Meyer Amschel pointed out.

“An accident of fate. But you are born with another kind of wealth—a quality the world will recognize a hundred years from now. I’m not a clever man, but I’m clever enough to recognize someone who knows more than I—and to make use of him.”

“With such a recommendation, sire,” said Meyer Amschel, “perhaps it will not require a hundred years.”

THE ZEN OF MONEY

Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in the parlors without an apology, is in its effects and laws as beautiful as roses.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30

At eight A.M., Tor walked into the New York Public Library and asked for directions to the business section. The woman who gave him instructions looked after him with a sigh as he headed toward the marble steps. Men of his appearance rarely came to the information desk of the public library.

Tor bounded up the steps, dressed in a charcoal suit of Italian gabardine. His pale gray pin-striped tie with a tiny touch of mauve was held in place by a gold stickpin that precisely matched the design of his cuff links. Several heads turned as he swung down the corridor into the business section. Inside, he asked the librarian where he could find the Standard and Poor’s and the Moody’s directories. She pointed to the appropriate shelves.

In the back of the stacks, Tor lifted the heavy volume of Moody’s from the shelf and flipped through to the more recent issues, which had already been bound. Turning to municipal bonds, he thumbed through several pages until he found what he’d been seeking.

Glancing quickly about, he turned back to the book, pulled a sharp penknife from his pocket, and cut the page from the volume. He folded the page carefully and slipped it back into his pocket along with the folded knife. Then he returned the book to the shelf, thanked the librarian, who was still staring at him, and left the library.

Less than an hour later, Tor entered the offices of Louis Straub discount brokers, on Maiden Lane. As he swung through the glass door he saw a room filled with brokers leaning over their phones, their ties loosened, jackets tossed casually over the backs of chairs. Secretaries and clerks ran from desk to desk, dropping papers into file baskets and leaving off phone messages. The floor was pandemonium.

The girl at the front desk was chewing gum and painting her nails while carrying on a busy telephone conversation. She interrupted her activities to ask Tor impatiently if there were anything she could do for him.

“I’d like to open a new account,” he told her with a wry smile. “That is—if you’re not too busy.”

She blushed, and put the caller on hold, then pushed her intercom button.

“Mr. Ludwig,” she said into the intercom as her voice echoed across the floor. “New account at the front desk. Please pick up.”

“He’ll be here in a minute,” she told Tor,