Dead Cat Bounce (19 page)

“You’re African?” Creedence raised her eyebrows.

“I’m not, but my dad’s from Zimbabwe,” Jonah replied.

“Why’d he leave?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.” He shrugged. “Let’s get back to the toast.”

“Let’s!” Creedence exclaimed. She raised her glass again. “To adulthood and all its crap!” This time she held his gaze as their glasses clinked.

Jonah felt pleased that he could tell her something she didn’t know. “To adulthood and all its crap,” he replied, taking his first swig of champagne. It was cold and light, and the bubbles fizzed in his mouth, but the taste was cloying. He swallowed, and the cold swiftly turned to warmth as it entered his stomach, infusing his whole body.

“Speaking of which, don’t you think it’s about time you told me what happened today? From your perspective, I mean.”

“There’s not much to tell,” Jonah sighed. “Sounds like my dad made some kind of bad trade, and I guess people think I was involved.”

“Why would they think that?” Creedence asked, taking a delicate sip of champagne.

“No idea. I haven’t talked to the man in days. And I certainly never traded with him.”

Credence nodded sagely. “It’s been carnage in our office. Miss Amelia disappeared for most of the day and was in the foulest mood. I hate to say this to you of all people, but apparently Hellcat can’t do any business because of what your dad’s done.”

“That would figure,” said Jonah, taking another sip of champagne, this one larger than the last. His palate had become accustomed to the syrupy taste now, and he savored the feeling of cold turning to warmth as it slid down his throat. While coffee had enhanced his awareness, this champagne made him feel relaxed and uninhibited even as he recounted his humiliation on the trading floor.

As the champagne did its work, he started to really vent—to tell Creedence about his anger over his parents’ divorce and his subsequent neglect at the hands of his father. He explained how everything changed when he met the Baron and that this was why his being kicked off the floor cut so deeply—the Baron had been his mentor and guide for the last four years, and without him he felt directionless.

Creedence busied herself by preparing dinner and refilling empty glasses while he spoke, asking questions only when absolutely necessary so as not to interrupt the flow of his thoughts. When he had finished talking, just in time for dinner, she was silent for a moment. “You really hate your dad, don’t you?”

“Well, I—” Jonah sighed. “I’ve always thought I did, but I don’t think I ever really and truly hated him until this whole debacle. Before this I guess I was just disappointed and”—he looked to gauge her reaction—“sad.”

“Sad?” Creedence echoed. She took a forkful of pasta and motioned for Jonah to do the same.

“Yeah,” Jonah began, slowly wrapping his spaghetti around his fork. “All I wanted was for him to be a regular, loving dad, and he couldn’t be that person.” Jonah paused. “Or maybe he didn’t want to be.”

“Doesn’t sound that hard to me …” Creedence mused.

“You’d think that, but I can’t remember the last time we sat down and ate a meal like this.” Jonah swallowed a mouthful of spaghetti, the pasta catching in his throat.

“
You had to eat
…” Creedence said, pointing her fork at him.

“I guess …” Jonah replied, shrugging. “But we rarely did it together, especially after I went to boarding school. And when we did, every meal was a ready-made one, and we hardly ever talked about what I was up to.”

“So what
did
you talk about?”

“Imagine a job interview,” Jonah replied automatically.

Creedence’s eyes glimmered. “And here I thought you were going to say the Spanish Inquisition.”

Jonah smiled. “Close.”

“He sounds massively depressed to me.”

“Well, he should have done something about it,” Jonah snapped, then immediately apologized. “Sorry, Creedence, I told you I wouldn’t be much fun.”

Creedence waved it off.

“You know,” Jonah added, “you’re the first person I’ve ever told all that stuff to.”

“The beauty of champagne,” she replied. “Loosens the tongue. But don’t worry, your secrets are safe with me.” She motioned zipping her lips shut. “It’s heavy stuff, Jonah, what you’ve been through, but you’ll cope. The Baron wouldn’t have had you work for him if he didn’t think you were going places.”

Jonah paled at that, and she squeezed his hand, immediately sensing she’d said one thing too much. She paused, and Jonah
could tell that she was weighing her next words carefully. “But you know you have to see your dad, don’t you? He’s very upset for you. He’s outraged that you’ve been sucked into this.”

Jonah froze with a forkful of pasta hanging in midair. “How do you know he’s upset?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

“He rang me.”

Jonah dropped the fork into his plate. “He rang you! What the hell was he doing ringing you? How does he even know about you?”

“He saw us at the end of your race on Saturday.”

“How could he? He was supposed to be out of town.”

“Apparently, he
was,
but he drove up in the morning to watch you run. That was how he saw us together and decided to ring me at the office to see if I knew where you were. He told me to tell you he thought you ran an incredible race.”

“Oh! Did he? How nice of him. Shame he couldn’t be bothered to tell me himself.” Jonah wasn’t sure whether he was more or less angry at this praise from his father.

“He needs to speak to you, Jonah. He says he needs your help.” She was pleading with him now.

Jonah leaned toward her. “Is that why you asked me here? Are you my father’s ambassador?”

Creedence didn’t rise to his taunt. “No, Jonah. He rang me while you were on your way here. I was pretty pissed off that he’d brought me into it at all, so I didn’t promise him anything. I didn’t even tell him you were coming here. But he did sound desperate, and given what has happened to him you should at least hear what he has to say. Hell, just think if you were in his position and needed help. Can you honestly say he wouldn’t help you?”

Jonah gave a snort of contempt and slumped back into his chair. He wouldn’t want his father’s help even if he offered it.

“And you know what happens if you don’t see him?” Creedence asked, her eyebrows raised.

“What?” Jonah deadpanned.

“I’ll cancel our date on Saturday.”

“But that’s blackmail!” Jonah exclaimed, his face aghast, though the expression was admittedly somewhat forced.

“All I’m saying is think about it. You have nothing to lose by hearing what he has to say.” She handed him a piece of paper with a telephone number on it. “This is his number. He doesn’t want to use his usual one.” She let her words sink in while she cleared the plates away and poured the rest of the champagne into their glasses.

Jonah sat back in his chair, his eyes darting down to the piece of paper and then back up at Creedence as if afraid of being caught. After a while, he put the number in his pocket.

Creedence saw him do it and smiled to herself. She grabbed his hand and flirtatiously pulled him along to the sitting room. “Come on, let’s put on some music.”

“What are we listening to?” he asked once Creedence started furiously rummaging through her CD collection, most of which were out of their cases and in a pile on the coffee table.

“Well, given tonight’s theme of ills and angst I reckon it’s got to be the blues.” Creedence found the CD she was looking for and put it in the machine. “Muddy Waters,” she said as the music started playing.

“The Baron made me sing a Muddy Waters song on Friday at the pub,” Jonah said, seriousness once again taking over.

“I know.” Creedence chuckled.

“You know?”

“You told me!” she explained, twirling around him. “But this being the blues, we need the right lighting.”

Creedence skipped off back to the kitchen, giving Jonah a second to glance at his watch. His mouth dropped when he saw the time: It was past ten. They’d talked for more than four hours. Creedence reappeared a minute later with four candles, two of which she placed on the coffee table and two on the mantelpiece above the fire. She lit them each with a match, then bent down to carefully ignite the gas fireplace.

Jonah took another sip of the champagne, wondering why he had been so strict with himself in the past. It seemed to him that Creedence’s family had the right idea on the champagne front. He snickered to himself. If he were still at school, he’d be being told “lights out” right now, not drinking champagne with a gorgeous girl in her flat.

Creedence walked over to the light switch and turned the kitchen lights off, leaving only candlelight and firelight and Muddy Waters. She stood in front of him and began to sing, “The spark in your eyes sets my soul on fire …”

Jonah felt his heart race as she sauntered over to him, shimmying as she went. Her voice was extraordinary. It wasn’t the power or the pitch; it was the passion that she brought to the music. The spoken voice that had made his hair stand on end now ripped into his soul. There was no way he could interrupt. This was something else.

She sat down on the couch next to him, and when she reached
the second refrain of “Baby, I want to be loved,” he couldn’t resist: He grasped her and raised her face to his, his lips meeting hers as they kissed long and lovingly in the candlelight.

Elsewhere in the world, Kloot continued to silence the operatives involved in the Allegro trade. In New York, his Federal Reserve operative lay on a slab in the mortuary of a Brooklyn police station, the apparent victim of a vicious mugging. In Hong Kong, a trader had been caught in the crossfire of a Triad drive-by shooting in the red-light district. And in Chicago, another trader had evidently committed suicide with an overdose of pills and alcohol.

Meanwhile, in Richmond Park, David Lightbody lay awake in his sleeping bag, hidden in the woods.

Jonah woke at
seven
A.M.
, his head slightly heavy from the champagne. They had fallen asleep together on the sofa, but at some point Creedence had left for the comforts of her own bed, leaving him alone on the couch. He felt awkward. Here he was, fully dressed on the sofa in Creedence’s flat, memories of the previous night floating back into his mind. He thought about doing a runner and saving them both the embarrassment of accepting that last night was a mistake. Not that that’s what he thought it was—the night’s emotions still burned bright in his mind—but if there was a chance that she thought as much, he didn’t think he could bear the rejection, not after everything else that had happened.

It turned out he needn’t have worried. “Ahhh. It wakes!” said Creedence, plopping down on the sofa next to him, a mischievous grin playing around her mouth and eyes. In her hands she held a coffee cup. “Boy you sleep deeply.”

“This feels weird,” said Jonah, shifting to face her.

“What? Waking up in some girl’s flat? I should hope so. But you look very sweet when you’re sleeping. Even cuter than when you’re awake.”

Jonah wasn’t sure that he liked being called “sweet” or “cute,” but she did seem to be using those words in an affectionate way.

“Anyway,” she continued. “I’ve called out sick today, so I can spend time with a certain house guest!”

“You needn’t have—”

“Oh, pshhh,” she cut him off. “The sun is shining, the day is young, so get up and let’s go out for breakfast.”

He was about to ask about where he might find a towel and a shower when she swooped in with the details. “If you want a shower, you can use the one under the stairs. There’s a clean towel in there too,” she rattled on. “Now get moving. I want to ride on your Vespa! Do you think it’s all right if I wear a bike helmet?”

Jonah sat up. “Are you always this hyper in the morning?”

“Yes. So get used to it,” she said with mock firmness before grabbing him by the hand and pulling him up off the couch. “Like I said, shower’s that way. You’ve got five minutes.” Then she propelled him toward the door.

“I’ll be there in four,” he replied over his shoulder, feeling the warmth of the previous night all over again.

Jonah had never ridden the Vespa with somebody else on it before, and the experience wasn’t made any easier by having an excitable Creedence pointing and screeching gleefully on the back. It did, however, make it a lot of fun. She made him go past the café and
around the block three times before they eventually pulled in for breakfast. Finally, Jonah went to order coffees and croissants, and Creedence found them a table. He was trying to work out how he’d gone from the depths of despair and anxiety yesterday afternoon to his current state of euphoria when he saw the headline on the pile of newspapers next to the counter: “Rogue Trader Brings City Bank to Its Knees.” He snatched the paper up and started reading: