High stakes - By Dick Francis Page 0,15
been.’
‘I like to know,’ she said with mild apology.
‘I don’t blame you.’
‘For the sakes of the wives.’
‘Yes.’
I pulled up in due course in front of the Café Royal at Piccadilly Circus, and helped her out of the car. As we went in she looked back and saw a small thin man taking my place in the driving seat.
‘He works for me,’ I said. ‘He’ll park the car.’
She looked amused. ‘He waits around to do that?’
‘On overtime, Saturday nights.’
‘So he likes it?’
‘Begs me to take out young ladies. Other times I do my own parking.’
In the full light inside the hall she stopped for another straight look at what she’d agreed to dine with.
‘What do you expect of me?’ she said.
‘Before I collected you, I expected honesty, directness and prickles. Now that I’ve known you for half an hour I expect prickles, directness and honesty.’
She smiled widely, the white teeth shining and little pouches of fun swelling her lower eyelids.
‘That isn’t what I meant.’
‘No… So what do you expect of me?’
‘Thoroughly gentlemanly conduct and a decent dinner.’
‘How dull.’
‘Take it or leave it.’
‘The bar,’ I said, pointing, ‘is over there. I take it.’
She gave me another flashing smile, younger sister to the first, and moved where I’d said. She drank vodka martini, I drank scotch, and we both ate a few black olives and spat out the stones genteelly into fists.
‘Do you usually pick up girls in the street?’ she said.
‘Only when they fall.’
‘Fallen girls?’
I laughed. ‘Not those, no.’
‘What do you do for a living?’
I took a mouthful of scotch. ‘I’m a sort of engineer.’ It sounded boring.
‘Bridges and things?’
‘Nothing so permanent or important.’
‘What then?’
I smiled wryly. ‘I make toys.’
‘You make… what?’
‘Toys. Things to play with.’
‘I know what toys are, damn it.’
‘What do you do?’ I asked, ‘In Westchestcr.’
She gave me an amused glance over her glass. ‘You take it for granted that I work?’
‘You have the air.’
‘I cook, then.’
‘Hamburgers and French fries?’
Her eyes gleamed. ‘Weddings and stuff. Parties.’
‘A lady caterer.’
She nodded. ‘With a girl friend. Millie.’
‘When do you go back?’
‘Thursday.’
Thursday suddenly seemed rather close. After a noticeable pause she added almost defensively, ‘It’s Christmas, you see. We’ve a lot of work then and around New Year. Millie couldn’t do it all alone.’
‘Of course not.’
We went into dinner and ate smoked trout and steak wrapped in pastry. She read the menu from start to finish with professional interest and checked with the head waiter the ingredients of two or three dishes.
‘So many things are different over here,’ she explained.
She knew little about wine. ‘I guess I drink it when I’m given it, but I’ve a better palate for spirits.’ The wine waiter looked sceptical, but she wiped that look off his face later by correctly identifying the brandy he brought with the coffee as Armagnac.
‘Where is your toy factory?’ she asked.
‘I don’t have a factory.’
‘But you said you made toys.’
‘Yes, I do.’
She looked disbelieving. ‘You don’t mean you actually make them. I mean, with your own hands?’
I smiled. ‘Yes.’
‘But…’ She looked round the velvety room with the thought showing as clear as spring water: if I worked with my hands how could I afford such a place.
‘I don’t often make them,’ I said. ‘Most of the time I go to the races.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I give in. You’ve got me hooked. Explain the mystery.’
‘Have some more coffee.’
‘Mr Scott…’ She stopped. ‘That sounds silly, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, Miss Ward, it does.’
‘Steven…’
‘Much better.’
‘My mother calls me Alexandra, Millie calls me Al. Take your pick.’
‘Allie?’
‘For God’s sakes.’
‘I invent toys,’ I said. ‘I patent them. Other people manufacture them. I collect royalties.’
‘Oh.’
‘Does “oh” mean enlightenment, fascination, or boredom to death?’
‘It means oh how extraordinary, oh how interesting, and oh I never knew people did things like that.’
‘Quite a lot do.’
‘Did you invent Monopoly?’
I laughed. ‘Unfortunately not.’
‘But that sort of thing?’
‘Mechanical toys, mostly.’
‘How odd…’ She stopped, thinking better of saying what was in her mind. I knew the reaction well, so I finished the sentence for her.
‘How odd for a grown man to spend his life in toyland?’
‘You said it.’
‘Children’s minds have to be fed.’
She considered it. ‘And the next bunch of leaders are children today?’
‘You rate it too high. The next lot of parents, teachers, louts and layabouts are children today.’
‘And you are fired with missionary zeal?’
‘All the way to the bank.’
‘Cynical.’
‘Better than pompous.’
‘More honest,’ she agreed. Her eyes smiled in the soft light, half mocking, half friendly, greeny-grey and shining, the whites ultra white. There was nothing wrong with the design of her eyebrows. Her nose