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

might be, I bit my tongue. I had more important fish to fry—and Karp was hardly the last one in the pond.

“I may have another surprise for you,” I told him, “if you can keep it to yourself. I’m nearly through with my project. I could transfer Tavish back to you in a few weeks.” A little more soap, and he’d land right in the tub.

“But this is more than I’d hoped for.…” Karp began.

“I owe you,” I assured him. “After all, you gave me that inside information. And with Kiwi trying to steal Tavish from both of us—”

“What are you talking about?” said Karp, his face darkening.

“Good heavens—I was sure you knew,” I told him. “Kiwi took Tavish to lunch last week—and said he’d be coming to work for him, not for you.”

Karp had turned a lovely shade of red.

“So Willingly’s trying to play both ends against the center,” he hissed. “I really can’t thank you enough for sharing this with me.”

He was halfway to the door when I added, “You can’t say I didn’t warn you about Kiwi, Peter-Paul. But I do suggest that you let everyone think this assignment for Pearl was your idea. We wouldn’t want it said that we were plotting behind anyone’s back—even if that’s what was done to us.”

“She’ll be gone by the end of this week,” he assured me, at the door.

I could see from his stormy expression that the seed of doubt I’d planted would not take much water to flourish into a healthy mistrust of everyone around him—most especially Kiwi. But of course, that suited me just fine.

I was singing the Valkyries’ battle cry as I went down to the garage that night, where Pearl was to meet me.

“What the hell does ‘ho-yo-to-ho’ mean?” she asked as she got in the car. “Sounds like some kind of voodoo chant.”

“A mantra for good luck on your trip,” I told her. “I made a deal with your boss, Karp, this afternoon.”

“More the fool you,” she said as she got into my car. “That creep’s so two-faced, he could pass for Siamese twins. I should have guessed that something was up—he’s been grinning at me all day. I’d like to wipe that leer off his face with a Brillo pad. Just what kind of deal did you cut?”

“Financing,” I told her as I pulled up the ramp. “He’s going to foot the bill for your new job. But I think he’ll be surprised to learn that someone else has a tongue as forked as his.”

“You lied to him?”

“I’m afraid so. I gave him some authorization forms for the Foreign Exchange Traders’ Consortium. He was so excited to unload you for the next three months, he’d have signed anything. He has just approved spending the bank’s money to send some cocaine dealers on a boondoggle to Hong Kong—at least, that’s what the paperwork says. I thought there should be something interesting in his file—in case he keeps leaning on me as he has been.”

Pearl put her hand to her mouth and laughed as I came over the rise on California Street and headed for Russian Hill.

“So if you’re not sending me off to Forex for three months—what are we discussing tonight at dinner?” she asked.

“I wanted to tell you what your new job’s really about,” I said, smiling privately at what Tor and I had worked out. “I think you’re going to like this—staying with some friends of mine in a Park Avenue penthouse.”

“Gray flannel types—or are you upgrading after all these years?”

“European nobility—of the slightly French variety. You can speak your native tongue to your heart’s content while you’re learning all about the family business.”

“Which is?”

“I understand they attend a lot of auctions,” I told her.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 10

At one in the afternoon, a large black limousine pulled out of the underground garage of an apartment house on upper Park Avenue.

In the backseat were two women, so overdressed and bejeweled they might have been pricey courtesans. They were headed toward the Westerby-Lawne auction galleries on Madison Avenue.

“So tell me about your daughter, Georgian,” Pearl asked Lelia. “Where is she now?”

“Ah, Zhorzhione, she is in France. We are making the plans to go to Greece for the printemps—what you call the springtime.”

“You know, you may speak with me in French if it’s easier for you,” said Pearl.

“Non, I feel myself more comfortable in the anglais now,” said Leila. “It is the best tongue I am speaking—I am what you say extremely fluid in English.”

“I see,” said Pearl, who was having trouble making sense of Lelia in any language. “And what’s she doing in France, other than making your travel arrangements?”

“She visits the banques: the Banque Agricole, the Banque Nationale de Paris, Crédit Lyonnais … she makes the little investments, you see, to prepare for our trip abroad. Tout droit!” Leila tapped on the driver’s shoulder. “Just ahead—it is just over there.”

“Are we there already? I’m so excited about this,” said Pearl.

“Moi aussi. It is very long since I am going to the auction galeries.”

The chauffeur pulled up before the galleries and handed Lelia and Pearl out of the limousine. Passersby turned to stare at them—both carrying fur muffs and dressed in fitted and flared, heavily embroidered Russian coats, which Lelia had taken from mothballs for the occasion.

“Now you will see, chérie, how the rich are bending le genou to the pauvres.” Lelia said as they passed through the oversized doors of the galleries.

The doorman bowed, and people in the corridor ceased their conversation. Lelia took Pearl’s arm as they strolled.

“But you’re hardly poor, Lelia,” Pearl pointed out. “You have that magnificent apartment, a chauffeured limousine, expensive furniture and clothes. Your jewels are magnificent.”

“Loués—leased; chérie. And what can be sold has been solded. The jewels—all paste. Their little brothers and sisters are gone years ago. And the chauffeur, he comes to fetch me for two hundred francs an hour—that is the limit of his service. Money is all—money is power—no one respects