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

him like the plague all these years. Though I’m not always smart enough to remember it.”

“If you want my opinion,” she informed me, “he’s the best thing that ever happened to you. You haven’t done anything even close to adventurous in years.”

“You haven’t seen me in years,” I pointed out.

But I had to agree. If Tor hadn’t gotten himself involved, it was unlikely I’d have gone through with a scheme as foolhardy as the one I was about to launch. That was what worried me so.

He caught up to us as we reached the dining room, but Lelia still wasn’t there. The rich, dark table had been rubbed with oil till it shone, the charming arrangement of white narcissus and holly was reflected in its surface. Multitiered candelabra stood at each side, and the tall champagne icers at either end. A wonderful glow was all about us; it smelled of Christmas.

We were about to be seated when Lelia dashed into the room.

“I made the solution!” she bubbled brightly.

With a complicitous smile, she drew her hands from behind her back and held out a large, revolver-shaped hair dryer. We stared at it in silence.

“Mother—you’re a genius!” cried Georgian at last. “I should have thought of that myself.”

“It is as plain as the hairs of your head,” agreed Lelia, quite pleased. “I shall make the little stand to hold it in place while you are drying the papers for the great crime. Then I shall be important, no?”

“Then you’ll be important—yes,” Tor agreed, giving her a hug.

As usual at Lelia’s dinners, the food was wonderful: cold carrot vichyssoise, aspic with baby vegetables and black truffles—arranged within the jelly, like a giardiniera—roast pheasant with gooseberry sauce and chestnut puree. When we could eat no more, the sweets and coffee arrived.

Lelia passed Tor a box of cigars and took one herself, clipping the ends and lighting each with a long taper. Tor was mellow and, as he puffed, in the mood to talk. Lelia solicitously poured him a balloon of cognac.

“You know,” Tor told me, “I’ve been thinking about this problem at the Depository for years. But if you hadn’t surfaced with that cockeyed idea of yours, I’d probably never have done a thing about it.”

“I don’t see why you need my involvement—or this bet,” I pointed out. “You’d have caught their attention just by grabbing a few million dollars and mailing it in.”

“It would hardly take a billion to prove my point about security,” he agreed. “But there’s another lesson—of vital importance—that needs to be taught. That’s why I wanted our wager. I’ve seen far too much rampant corruption and greed in the world financial community. Though they are entrusted with safeguarding other people’s money, bankers and investors—in times—often come to regard those assets as their own. They play fast and loose, taking risks, employing neither forethought nor hindsight. Whole civilizations have been destroyed through this kind of mad roulette.”

“I see,” I said wryly, hearing this pretty speech. “You’re Crusader Rabbit—setting the world economy on its ear. I thought you were the sort who never did anything for altruistic motives.”

But I knew he was right; something had to be done and soon. Banks were folding right and left, with none of it caused by men of particular honor or integrity. The “mistakes” that had been made in my own bank ranged from criminal incompetence to outright theft, but nobody blew the whistle—or even slapped a wrist. Kiwi’s intransigence over security seemed the slightest offense of the lot, when you thought of it.

“Tell me,” I asked, “how does our little bet fit into the grand design?”

“Believe it or not, it does,” he assured me, sipping his brandy. “The way I plan to invest our money will certainly drive home the point. But it’s only a gleam in my eye just now; I’ll explain later, in detail.”

“I can hardly wait,” I told him, meaning it. I was dying to know what Tor really had up his sleeve.

“If high finance were practiced as it once was—in the days of the Rothschilds, for example—” said Tor, “things might be different now. They were clever—perhaps even ruthless—but not corrupt. The Rothschilds almost single-handedly created the arena of international banking we know today. They stabilized currencies across state lines—built a world economy, where only warring special-interest groups had existed before—”

“So boring a story,” Lelia cut in. “They have to make marriage avec leur propre famille, to be accepted. That old one … he was a real cafard!”

“A cockroach,” I translated for Tor, who’d been as surprised at her outburst as I. “The Rothschilds had to marry into their own family, in order to inherit, or so I gather.”

“Quel cochon,” Lelia muttered.

“What a pig,” I explained.

“Mother—that’s quite enough,” said Georgian. “We’ve been over that all before.”

“If the truth is not spoken, these things come like the ronde d’histoire,” Lelia went on, oblivious. “Your papa, he would rise up in his tombeau … he was murdered in his … comment dit-on âme, my darlink?”

“His soul,” I said. “If we don’t discuss these things, history will be repeated. Your father’s soul was killed, he’d rise up in his grave, if—”

“I know what she’s saying! She’s my goddamned mother!” snapped Georgian.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have brought this up—” Tor began. But Lelia cut in again.

“Wisteria,” she said.

“Beg pardon?” Tor looked at her, confused.

“Wisteria—that is the name,” Lelia elaborated.

“Wisteria—it’s the name of the flower Lelia used to admire,” I explained to Tor. When he made no reply, I added, “In Monet’s garden at Giverny.”

“I see,” said Tor.

“A previous conversation,” I pointed out.

“Quite so,” said Tor.

“I’d like to show you something,” Tor informed me as he pulled his car out of Lelia’s underground garage and headed down Park Avenue.

“Now? Good Lord, it’s nearly midnight! I have a flight tomorrow morning—can’t this wait?”

“Never fear, it won’t take long,” he assured me. “It’s something I’ve bought. I want to know whether you think it’s a good investment.”

“If you’ve already bought it—what difference does it make what I