Morningstar Manor

Ricky was in a corner booth, slumping listlessly and suckling strong coffee.

He'd had a few with the others after the gig last night; but in the morning, it turned out it had been a few too many.-

The guy with the puff of blond hair, the quite old one, was hanging about as usual as Amarie walked across the Square to the ATM machine.

She nodded and grinned at him, "Hi Ricky," before putting her shopping bags down by the machine and fishing her card from her pocket. It was a Platinum one - the bank had changed it - and the limit was huge!

She chuckled as she took out more cash and checked her balance - still ridiculous despite the money she had moved around, despite what she had spent - reading the little slip of paper with a smile as she picked up the bags and headed for home.

She put the card and the paper in her pocket, nodded to the man again and walked on.

Friday meant a busy night at the club but the doors weren't open yet. Right now Max was sitting in his office going over paperwork and listening to the low thrum of a hard rock song. A good song. One Jimmy would probably recognize.

He should considering it was his old band.

Jimmy sat at the computer, nodding his head slightly to the music had had turned up loud. A little paper work. He tweaked this spread sheet and adjusted that one, scowling at his own scrawl on a notepad, then opened his email account.

All A OK there.

And the other?

He signed at the sight of the pristine virgin inbox. Not even the faintest trace of spam.

He leaned back in his spinny chair and said, "Arse," with considerable venom, then got up and went to ring his opposite number at Moray Records.

What he heard didn't make him feel any better.

This Monday Amarie wasn't working and had been expecting a boring day on her own in the apartment. Luckily Deacon had needed to do some work so, instead, she was up on the penthouse level - hee - lolling on the couch helping Nia dress a dolly while the Care Bears did their thing in the background.

Naturally her Wyrm was close to hand and she was working her way through the emails picking out the more interesting ones and occasionally writing a reply. She was close to the end of the list when she opened another and read the boring looking text and let out a shriek that had Nia staring at her and beginning to cry.

Mr Donato was a very busy man. His new position - all his new positions carried a considerable responsibility - he had to be seen out and about, smiling, and accompanied by the most beautiful women and powerful men money or reputation could buy. Consquently he hadn't rushed to do things that, in retrospect, he should have seen to pretty smartly. ( Read more... )

As they emerged from the elevator the lawyer shot his cuffs and stalked towards the doors, only replying to the security man's greeting with a curt nod.

The security man looked surprised but Jimmy wasn't. He and his neighbour had just had 'words', polite words that translated into local terms would have meant someone holding someone's coat and an invitation being issued to step outside.

A little quibble about Jimmy getting home at four in the morning and soothing himself before bedtime with a little classic rock. Jimmy couldn't see that it was a problem - it was GOOD music. Should make the guy feel young again.

Yawning and scratching his back he ambled towards the mailroom to see if the magazines he'd ordered had arrived.

Amarie had spotted the email a day or two before and, having never seen anything like it before, was utterly intrigued so replied to it.

The reply made her giggle: ( Read more... )

Grinning, she only hesitated for a few minutes before carefully filling in her details. She didn't tell Vinnie though. He'd have been pissed that she'd given out the details of her savings account - and even more pissed if she'd admitted there was no risk because there was only a dollar fifty in it.

From Mr.Amadou Ahijo
Bank of Africa.(BOA)
Ouagadougou/Burkina-faso.

West Africa.

( Dear Friend )

The latest girl was blonde and beautiful and had the most grating laugh that Ted had ever heard. Therefore he made it his business to keep her mouth occupied for as much time as possible. Now, for instance, she was eating a low calorie cheesecake and Ted admired her beauty and her silence.

A touch at his shoulder made him glance up and he sighed inwardly, even though his affable smile didn't waver. "Mr Donato," he said. "What a surprise. How are you?"

Abili Donato, chairman of several important committees and now Minister of Development, looked anxiously at Ted's companion and said, "I need to speak with you about - about the matter we discussed." ( Read more... )

Coat collar turned up, Ted arrived at the coffee bar at the appointed time and looked around for his partner in - not crime exactly - more seeing an opportunity and not letting tiny inconsequential legal quibbles stand in their way.

He spotted him and waved.

French menu, American attitude.

Ted nodded approvingly. At least they shouldn't have to wait an hour for their starter.

"Want a drink?" he asked Thomas.

Bill stared at the email, a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Kedves Vilmos, it started, "Dear Bill". And he recognised the name at the end - Laslo, his old friend and ex-employee before the company was bought out from under him.

But the rest:

Leszel felismerés ez Tudom. Nem tud ír sok. Túl veszélyes értem. Mi alapít egy ágy -ból dobás keverék. Akarnak -hoz bánya ez -ban titok. Nem persze hogyan biztos Én mert Tudom mi ők tervezés. Van bekerített egy térkép és egy dokumentum -val részlet. Remélem megtalálhatod valaki -hoz lefordít érted.

Ön az én -m mentőkötél, Vilmos. Segítsen nekem tűnj el ebből élő.

Bill had a horrible feeling that "veszélyes" meant dangerous.

He checked the time then rang the one person he knew who might be able to help.

'Making the desert bloom' was a laudable intention, Lazlo Svarog had always thought. But he wasn't sure if it could be applied to his present job, even if the management insisted it could.

Taking a small African town in the middle of nowhere, evicting all the small shopkeepers, demolishing the town and rebuilding it LARGE with all the bells and whistles demanded by Western tourists was all very well but you needed the infrastructure. Swimming pools needed filling. Western tourists with all their dollars and francs and GBP would be wanting several showers a day. And that is where Lazlo came in. ( Read more... )

Coming to the City for a Sunday morning meeting was no real problem because Ted had been in Chicago anyway. Of course it had meant flying over night to be there at the set time of eight am, and there fore no sleep, but Ted could catch up again on the long haul flight home.

The meeting had been most satisfactory. Lunch had been adequate. But the bar here had forty year old malt from a distillery in the Islands that had long ago bee subsumed by their parent company and Ted saw no reason why he shouldn't make a dent in it.

"Another for you Manny?" he asked, the bottle poised over his glass.