Читать книгу The Search for the Dice Man - Luke Rhinehart - Страница 17

What a weekend! Here I was being offered by the Japs a chance at wealth beyond my wildest daydreams while at the same time my engagement and job were under threat from my father’s suddenly crawling back into the daylight.

And the threat was real. Mr Battle had tolerated my lack of wealth because I was showing some potential for rectifying the oversight, but there would be no way to rectify the Luke of the World Star and Lukedom. I didn’t want to return to the struggles and humiliations of my college years, to have to start again at the bottom somewhere, especially in the middle of a recession. Frankly I liked getting Rolexes from Honoria on my birthday, and huge Christmas bonuses, and becoming a vice president when only twenty-six. It was all a fine revenge on my father, and I was determined not to let him come back and steal it all away. What would Akito and Namamuri think of making market decisions by casting dice – they even thought trying to follow technical indicators was gambling!

I had to figure out what I could say that would convince them that I had a more reliable knack than simply following technical indicators. Like every trader I daydreamed of having an insider at some government agency who could tip me off about key economic data that would send markets reeling in one direction or another. Unfortunately, the only government official I knew worked for the City Welfare Department, and the only inside info he ever dropped on me was the number of unwed mothers getting food stamps.

And as if the weekend weren’t complicated enough, I also had to deal with Kim. On Sunday I’d tried to escape from everyone by taking a sail on the river on my thirty-five-foot cutter, but Kim and Akito had showed up in the Battle speedboat. When Akito motored off to look at the ancient Hudson lighthouse I had a tantalizing conversation with Kim that strongly hinted that chaos was closing in.

‘Nice-looking boat,’ said Kim, bouncing into the small aft cockpit and looking bright-eyed around. She was dressed again in jeans and a red T-shirt with the same beaten-up sneakers she’d worn at tennis. ‘How often do you use it – five or six times a year?’

‘A little more than that,’ I said, checking the sails as we ghosted slowly downwind in the light breeze. ‘Actually I own only half of it.’

‘I hope it’s the half above water,’ said Kim, smiling. She moved to peer down the companionway into the salon.

I looked at her rounded rear and grimaced. How I hated a behind like that, a cute behind that pretended it didn’t know it was cute – one of the prime sources of chaos loose in the universe.

Kim turned back to me, shaking her head.

‘I like canoes,’ she said, sitting down again, this time on the settee opposite me.

‘Me too.’

‘Then why’d you buy this monster?’ she asked.

‘I thought you said it was nice,’ I said, meeting her gaze evenly. What a little bitch.

‘Well?’

‘Because I can afford it,’ I said.

‘You can afford to help the poor too, or the arts. Done much of that lately?’

‘Not much,’ I said, wondering why she had it in for me – unless she was attracted to me as I was to her, and it was annoying her the way it was me.

She turned away and let her eyes follow Akito, slowly receding towards the lighthouse in the runabout.

‘Me neither,’ she said unexpectedly.

‘Are you always this critical of people you meet?’

‘No. Only a few. I can never understand why rich people spend money the way they do. Jerks can never give me an interesting answer. I thought you might.’

Akito had reached the lighthouse and seemed to be slowly circling it.

‘I think we spend most of it in order to make sure we’ll be able to have more to spend,’ I answered quietly. ‘And to make sure that other people know we have it.’

She nodded and looked away.

‘What a waste,’ she said.

‘Why do you spend your money?’ I asked.

She laughed.

‘To eat,’ she said. ‘To keep the rain out. Say,’ she added, turning suddenly serious, ‘I think you ought to know that Honoria’s a lot nicer than she seems.’

‘Well, I would hope so,’ I said, laughing.

‘No, I mean it,’ said Kim with unaccustomed sincerity. ‘She comes across as cool and controlled, but I want to assure you, underneath all that is a heart of steel.’

This time we both laughed.

‘She’s the only rich relative that I ever have any real fun with – except some of the men, of course, who figure that since I’m usually penniless I must be easy. Nori’s a little spoiled, but too bright to be a snob like the rest of them.’

‘Thanks for the data,’ I said, still grinning, ‘although I’m not sure I’ll quote you to her. By the way, where do you plan to work now that you’re back east again?’

Akito was now on his way back.

‘Beats me,’ she said. ‘I’m good at a lot of things, but most of them aren’t marketable. I can chart an astrological sign, maybe get in touch with some spirit from some other dimension, but the esoteric is unfortunately not very interested in money.’

‘Do the spirits ever tell you anything about the future?’ I asked, smiling at myself for even now looking for an insider angle.

‘Not really,’ said Kim, as she stood and shaded her eyes to stare at the approaching Akito. ‘She – the spirit – tells me to get off my butt and get a job, to stop living hand to mouth, stop mooching off rich Uncle William.’ She turned to me with a smile, her damn eyes glowing as if she were approaching orgasm. ‘No matter how many times I ask, it still tells me to work and settle down. A million spirits on the astral plane and I get a Republican free-enterpriser.’ She shook her head.

I couldn’t help smiling back.

‘I might be able to find something for you – not necessarily at BB&P.’

‘That’d be more mooching,’ she said. ‘Besides,’ she added over her shoulder as she stood to greet the returning Akito, ‘you’ve got your quest to worry about.’

‘Oh, yes, that,’ I said, although my gaze and thoughts were again on a cute behind.