A Calculated Risk by Katherine Neville (most difficult books to read txt) 📕

Louis Straub was the largest discount broker in the nation. The firm handled enormous volumes of securities for those who didn’t need help in planning their portfolios or estates.

Five years earlier, a young man named Louis Straub had seen a need in the United States for a brokerage house that handled stocks and bonds as if it were a supermarket—where clients could pick out what they liked themselves, and the brokers would simply ring up the sale. They didn’t give coffee or personal attention to their clients. The whole transaction at Louis Straub was so quick and clean that often a broker could not even remember his clients’ faces. That was why Tor had come here.

Mr. Ludwig, a small, balding man, came through the swinging gate and shook Tor’s proffered hand almost without looking at him.

“You’d like to open an account, Mister …”

“Dantes. Edmund Dantes,” Tor said. “Yes. Actually, it’s open and shut. I’d like to buy some bonds as Christmas gifts for my nieces. I’ve made a list of what I want.”

“So will it be a cash transaction? We take credit cards or personal checks, if you have two forms of ID.” He was leading Tor across the floor to a small messy desk at the back of the room.

“I’ll give you a cash deposit, we’ll choose the bonds, then after you tally it up, I’ll bring you a cashiers’ check in about half an hour.”

“We can’t purchase anything until we have the money or a line of credit established, you understand,” said Ludwig.

Tor nodded, and handed him the torn page of Moody’s, with a collection of bonds circled on it.

“You have a lot of nieces,” said Ludwig, looking at Tor with a faint smile.

“I do this every Christmas,” Tor replied. “Usually, my broker handles it for me, but it’s late in the season and he’s just gone on vacation. They’re very sweet girls; I’d hate to miss Christmas.”

Ludwig looked at Tor as if he were wondering just how old these girls were—and how closely related. But he bent his head to the sheet and began tapping numbers into his calculator.

“Without checking our computer, I can’t tell you exactly what’s available or what the buy-in rate will be,” he told Tor. “But it looks as if you’re talking about fifty thousand dollars, max, for these bonds, Mister … ah …”

“Dantes,” Tor repeated. “Fine. My office is at Thirty Park Avenue—the Cristo Corporation—if you need to reach me. Why don’t you start working on the list, and I’ll be back with a check for fifty thousand at ten-thirty. If there’s any variance in price, you can credit me or give me a check for the difference.”

“Okay,” Ludwig agreed. “Do you mind my asking a question? It seems you’ve picked one of each type of bond here—you’ve got dozens of different types. I mean, why not just give your nieces one each of a few different kinds? It’d make things much faster and simpler if I could buy blocks of multiples at a time. You could still give them separate certificates.”

“I just don’t think that Susie would like to have the same bonds as Mary Louise,” Tor said.

Besides—he could hardly give the real reason why he needed to buy an individual bond of each type. He was already on his feet to head for the door.

“See you within the hour,” he said.

He crossed the floor, swung through the gate without a nod at the chatting receptionist, and headed for a restaurant near his bank. The bank wouldn’t open until ten, but it didn’t take long to draw up a cashiers’ check. And then they’d be in business.

While Tor was sipping a coffee in a small café off Wall Street and waiting for the bank to open, Georgian was getting out of a taxi in front of a massive concrete building in the Bronx.

The building was surrounded by high mesh fences with barbed wire at the top, and there was a guard gate. About every hundred feet along the perimeter of the fence, a guard stood watch with a German shepherd. All the guards wore guns in hip holsters, and they all looked up attentively as Georgian approached the guard station.

She was wearing a dress that left little to the imagination: electric-red suede, and extremely short. She wore high black patent-leather boots, and over one shoulder was draped a slinky black wool cape.

“Hi,” Georgian greeted the guard. “I hope I’m not late for the ten o’clock tour. I took the subway as far as I could, but then I had to take a taxi. I’m almost completely broke, and I’m frozen to pieces.”

“That’s okay—the tour hasn’t started yet,” the guard told her. “It starts over there at the main entrance. You can step in here to warm up if you’d like, and I’ll have the cart come pick you up. They always expect a few stragglers at the gate.”

“Oh, thank you so much,” said Georgian, stepping into the tiny booth as the guard picked up the phone.

She pulled off her mittens with the Santa Claus faces on the backs, and rubbed her hands together as the guard spoke a few words into the phone. She observed through the glass walls of the booth that the other guards posted around the fence were glancing at each other with grins and nodding toward the booth. Her guard turned back to her.

“So how come a girl like you is interested in touring a printing plant on a gloomy day like this?” he asked.

“I had no idea how bad the weather would be,” Georgian replied, looking out at the overcast skies, heavy with the promise of snow. “I’m a student at the Art Students’ League, and I’ve wanted to come here on tour for ever so long. All my classmates told me you have the finest master engravers here on the entire East Coast.”

“Oh, that’s certainly true,” agreed the guard. “U.S. Banknote is the oldest security