"Alan Dean Foster - Lost and Found" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

LostandFound




1


Marcus Walker loved Chicago, and Chicago loved him, which is why he was in Bug Jump,
California. Well, notin Bug Jump, exactly. As even the locals would admit, one was never actually
wholly within Bug Jump. One sort of hovered around its tenuous periphery, much as the peripatetic
mosquitoes of midsummer zoned around Cawley Lake, where Marcus had pitched his tent.

One of innumerable splashes of impossible blue that spotted the northern Sierra Nevada like shards of a
scattered lapis necklace, Cawley Lake lay at the terminus of a half-hour drive up a road that had been
coaxed from reluctant Sierra granite by the judicious application of hard-rock drilling, well-mannered
explosives, and much road-crew cursing. The bumps and ruts of the road were hell on WalkerтАЩs Durango
four-wheel drive, but that didnтАЩt worry the commodities trader. It wasnтАЩt his SUV; it was HertzтАЩs.
Slamming up and down the steep grade to and from Bug Jump, the 4X4 accumulated scrapes and dings
the way MarcusтАЩs forehead collected sunburn.

All in all, he reflected with satisfaction as he heard the SUV complain through another grinding
downshift, it had been another very good year for Marcus Walker. Even if he had reached the ripe old
age of thirty. Unlike some of his rambunctious yet dismayed colleagues, he did not think it was All
Downhill From Here. Having despite several promising opportunities resolutely put off applying for
admission to the institution of marriage, he retained certain enviable options that were no longer open to
most of his friends. It wasnтАЩt, as he repeatedly and patiently explained to the curious, not all of whom
were his relatives, that he did not want to get married; just that he was pickier and in less of a hurry than
most. Sprung as he was from a home whose parents had split when he was a teenager, he was
understandably warier than the average successful young man of committing himself to a similar
mistake.

The money he made helped. He was not rich, but given his age and experience, he lived comfortably.
For that he could thank hard, hard work and perspicacity. That quick killing he had made in Brazilian OJ
concentrate, for example. He gritted his teeth as the SUV was outraged by a pothole, threatening his
insurance rider. Among the other traders who worked out of the office, only Estrada had followed the
Brazilian weather closely enough to see the possible late frost looming. When it had struck, only the two
of them had been properly positioned to deliver the necessary futures at a favorable price to their
customers.

Then there was cocoa. Not only had trading in cocoa futures done wonders for his bank account, it had
unexpected social benefits as well. Tell a girl who asked what you did for a living that you were a
commodities trader and she might shrug, make a beeline for the next bar stool, smile vacuously and
change the subject, or tentatively try to find out how well it paid. The usual reaction was for their eyes to

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 LostandFound

glaze over as thickly as the sugar on a Christmas fruitcake.