A Calculated Risk, Katherine Neville [english novels for students txt] 📗

“Sweetie,” said Pearl, putting her hand over mine, “you’d be expected to give up your whole division to do that. You’d be down at the bottom of the barrel, floating around with the pickles. Do you know how long it might take to crawl out of there again?”

“You’d do all that,” said Tavish, “just to prove you could rob the bank? You really must be mad.”

“I told you, I’ve made a bet,” I said, smiling again as I thought of it. “And in this case, perhaps there’s more honor among thieves than among bankers. The gentleman I’m talking about has wagered that he’s a better thief than I am. I can’t let him get away with that.”

“Perhaps the whole world has gone mad,” Tavish philosophized. “And to think that only last week, I thought Karp was the biggest problem in my life.” He looked at me, and brushed back a lock of blond hair. “So, who is this friend of yours, who thinks he can—and should—steal more money than you?”

“Have you heard of Dr. Zoltan Tor?” I asked.

They were both silent a moment.

“You’re joking,” said Tavish, his eyes boggling. “Is he still alive?”

“I dined with him last night in New York,” I assured him. “We’ve known each other a dozen years.”

“I’ve read all Dr. Tor’s books,” Tavish told Pearl with excitement. “He’s a genius—a wizard. He’s the reason I got into computers, when I was no more than a child. Good Lord, how I’d love to meet a man like that! But he must be in his dotage by now.”

“Doddering along at thirty-nine, and looking rather well,” I agreed with a smile. “You asked who made the bet with me. I’m afraid this is the sort of game Tor loves best.”

I filled them in on what had transpired, and they sat there in silence through it all. When I’d finished, Tavish was beaming. Pearl rubbed her hands over her face.

“Sweetie, you really take the cake,” she told me. “Here I’ve been abusing you all these years for being a stick-in-the-mud. I take it back; you’re not just a gray flannel banker, if you’re willing to throw it all away on a dare.”

“It’s not just a dare,” Tavish said in my defense. “It’s a principle—and frankly, I think she’s right. Now I’m sorry we sent that letter, and I hope we haven’t messed things up too badly. I’d like to help win your bet.”

“Perhaps you were right to do it,” I told him. “Anyway, now there’s nothing for it but to make it work. Are we a team?”

They both put their hands over mine on the table.

“Then let’s go get a copy of that letter so I can see it. By Monday, we have to have our scrimmage straight.”

Monday, December 7, was the beginning of the third week after my night at the opera. It seemed an eternity.

Pavel was standing at my office door, coffee cup in hand. I gave him the gift I’d brought from New York, in its sky-blue Tiffany box. He exchanged the cup for the box, and followed me into my office, untying the silky white ribbon.

“The divine Sarah!” he exclaimed, when he saw the old photo of Sarah Bernhardt Lelia had given me, in its silver art deco frame. “This is from Oscar Wilde’s Salome, just before she makes love to the Baptist’s severed head! I love it—it will go on my dresser at home. But speaking of severed heads, I hope you know what’s about to happen to yours! Lord Willingly’s spent the week in a real snit—hibernating, dark sunglasses like a movie star, curtains drawn, Do Not Disturb sign on the door—wants to see you first thing. It seems your little quality circle has gone over his head. I keep my ear to the wall, you know.”

“I’m not in yet,” I told him, sucking down my tepid transfusion.

“I’m afraid you are,” he informed me with a grimace. “There’s a worse problem. Lawrence rang up this morning, nearly at dawn—I’d just walked in the door. Said you’re to be sent up to see him first thing. Seems the lions do squabble, when there’s only one Christian to be dished up.”

Lawrence’s suite of offices was on the top floor—a cluster of glass-walled spaces that sat like a feudal fortress overlooking the city.

In the banking business, power is measured in yards of carpeting, and Lawrence had cornered the market on gray broadloom. It took ten minutes to navigate the distance from his office door to his desk; but I’d been there before, so I knew the pitfalls of the crossing. If you extended your hand too early in the traverse, you looked like a goose trying to get off the lake in a strong wind—mired in pile before reaching the goal.

Of the many executives at the Bank of the World, Lawrence was the one who never dabbled in politics and intrigue—no locker-room gossip for him. Lawrence believed not in plotting against others, but in gaining complete mastery of them. He was king of the total mind fuck—a banking term designating Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto You.

His office was the key weapon in this game. He liked to conduct meetings there, whenever possible. When you entered this no-man’s-land, the absence of color enveloped you like a battlefield shrouded in mist. Everything was neutral—shades of gray and taupe—so you knew you were losing ground, without knowing where the ground really was.

There were none of the usual amenities—no papers littering the desk, no diplomas or paintings on the wall, no snapshots of the wife and kids on the credenza—nothing your eye could cling to for refuge. The effect was like a neutralizing gun applied to your psyche, everything so understated it practically vanished. Everything but Lawrence.

Against this voidlike background, his persona burned like a hard, cold flame—a man with no ties, no attachments, no silly emotions to clutter up his decision-making prowess. He was forty, slender, handsome, and lethal.

When I entered his office, he