Into the Fire by Linda Davies

Author:Linda Davies [Davies, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0006511880
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 52

One week was a long time on a trading floor, and Hugh Wallace was beginning to think he might just be getting away with it. Beating Helen, beating detection, beating the system. His lifelong conviction that he was, deep down, a loser, seemed in danger of being wrong, and it filled him with a strange thrill. He mustered something of his old fifty-million-dollar waddle, crossed the floor with a smile and a wave of his baseball cap and made for his office. His bruises were fading, along with the terrifying feeling of physical vulnerability. Over the weekend, he'd invented a stonking new trade. When he showed it off, he would be Wallace the winner again. Maybe his nickname would come back into the trading floor lexicon: Huge Stash. He grinned to himself; if only they knew.

Rankin appeared with a breakfast bag. Wallace scooped one arm through the air beckoning him into his office. Rankin trailed in, the musky smell of bacon sandwich following him.

'For God's sake,' hissed Wallace. 'You look as guilty as a pervert in a playground. Don't you get it? Every day's a victory for us. You should be euphoric. We're getting away with it,' he mouthed, glancing around quickly. 'Go and see a hooker, lie on a sunbed, act like you're glad to be alive.'

'The day I need your advice on how to live I'll top myself.'

'Why wait around?'

'Why don't you go fuck yourself ?' said Rankin, biting off half the sandwich. 'You know, you really don't have a shred of conscience, do you?'

'I have a skin to save. So do you. Get out there and play your part.'

Survival had done bad things to Wallace's ego. It was as if he was on a massive dose of Prozac. Rankin found his ebullience profoundly depressing. He considered giving Wallace the finger, ran it through his thinning hair instead as he left Wallace's office.

Wallace drank his double espresso and went through his e-mail. The telephone rang.

'Yeah?'

'Hugh, come by my office, would you? I'd like to have a little chat.'

Zaha Zamaroh in molten chocolate form. Wallace jumped up from his slouch. 'Yeah. Er, on my way.' He wondered if he should keep her waiting, decided against it. Instinct told him he was in for a stroking, not a whipping. He wandered off across the floor and arrived at Zamaroh's office three minutes later.

She was wearing vermilion nail polish and a lime green suit which on a pale skin would have looked terminal, but on her it glowed like phosphorescence on a dark sea. She reached out the pointed talons. Harvard, Oxford and Wharton would have gone to horrible waste, but Wallace thought, not for the first time, that Zamaroh would have made a hell of a madam.

'Hugh, please, sit down.'

He gave her a quick wolfish grin, and curled down onto the white duck-down sofa.

She smiled back, rested her chin on bridged fingers and studied him for a moment. Wallace felt an equal mixture of excitement and discomfort.

'Well done,' she said.

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