Long Voyage Back Read Free Page B

Manhattan and New York Harbour he felt like a king.
    He loved this war crisis. He loved the way it was driving the stock market down, just as he'd known it would; loved the way it made people edgy, nervous, scared shitless. A few things had gone wrong for him during the day -Neil's report of the bent propeller shaft, the booked flights to Washington, Jim's panic, a real estate deal falling through . . . but he shook them off like so much dandruff. He was making thousands of dollars an hour on his short selling of stocks and by tonight he'd be aboard Vagabond in the Chesapeake and the whole world could blow up and he wouldn't give a damn. After he'd talked to Neil and Jimmy at noon and eaten the lunch Rosie brought into him, he'd put in a call to his stockbroker. As he waited he leaned back in his huge leather chair, the phone at his ear, his long lanky body stretched out comfortably. He was a good-looking man in his mid-forties with thinning grey hair, warm dark eyes and an easy grin.
    `Hi, Al,' he said when he got through. 'Selling panic still in full swing? . . . Down thirtyfour points! Jesus, that's even worse than I thought it would be. Or better than I thought.'
    He laughed briefly, then listened. 'Okay, good. Look I think there's going to be a turnaround sometime late today - this
    thing can't look any worse than it does right now - so I want to take my profits in most of my shorts. Give me the quotes . . . Right. Okay. I want to cover the US Home at . . . what'
    d you say it was at now? . . . at twenty-four then; the Datapoint at fifty-five, and the Microdyne at thirty. Got it? All the shares . . . Yeah, I'll hold the other two short positions .. .
    Ì'm flying down this evening . . . I've got the radiotelephone on the boat but I don't like to think about stocks or real estate while I'm at sea. I'll phone you later today if I haven't left and we'll see what we did . . . Yeah? Thanks. I'm no genius. I just know that with the jerks who end up running countries, things have to get very bad before anyone can figure out a way to make 'em better . . . Okay, Al, thanks.'
    Well well well: even Al seemed worried about a war, poor bastard. Hell, New York City didn't have anything to worry about. It was such an archetypal centre of capitalist decadence that the Russians would probably want to preserve it as an historical park for their tourists: porno shops here, Harlem there, Wall Street next . . . They wouldn't nuke New York; hell, it would destroy itself in just a few more years. Frank got up and paced back and forth across the deep rust-coloured carpet and then buzzed Rosie to see if Jason had returned yet with the propeller shaft from Hempstead. No, but he was on his way. Let's see, what else for the boat? The new charts for the Chesapeake - he had them. And the bag of specialities that Norah had got for him from Flynn's delicatessen: caviar, cashews, some of Flynn's incredible cheeses, two loaves of good bread, and Norah's own fantastic pies: the sort of stuff Neil never got aboard no matter how many commands he was given. It was Neil's one great flaw: he shopped and cooked as if he were feeding a reform school.
    But Jesus, was he lucky to have got him as Captain. Imagine, a Navy officer! The guy sails a couple of thousand
    miles with as little fuss as most men go to the corner drugstore. He loses his engine to a freak accident and still probably will make it on schedule. Oh oh. He hadn't got through yet to Jeannie Forester about the change of plans. He returned to his big chair, buzzed Rosie, and waited for her to place the call. He felt a warm anticipation for that throaty, sexy voice of hers, sexy especially because she didn't really mean to be sexy. For two years now Jeannie had become the only thing that ever took his mind off business, and he was aware that whenever he thought of her he fell victim to an almost adolescent melancholy and longing. They'd been friends for five or six years and he knew she must be aware