Blood risk

man."
        Mellio said nothing.
        Tucker said, "I early decided that the last thing I wanted to be was like my father. If having money meant you had to spend all of your time shepherding it and none of your time enjoying life, then money wasn't for me at all." He leaned back in his chair now, the intensity of his voice sliding away. "Money, to me, is to be spent. That appalled the old man, and it was because he found that I was unamenable that he got that clause in my mother's will. He wanted me to be an empire builder like himself. Life's too short, however, to waste in a series of boardrooms."
        "To have money you must make money," Mr. Mellio said, as if he were reading the sentence from a lacquered wall plaque. "A fortune can be squandered quickly, Michael. Even one the size of your inheritance-or the much greater size of your father's estate."
        "My mother left three million dollars, give or take a few thousand in small change. Even invested at a paltry six percent in tax-free bonds, that earns back a hundred and eighty thousand a year. I could live with that very nicely, Mr. Mellio."
        "Your father believes you couldn't, that you'd start nibbling away at the principal."
        "My father doesn't give a damn about that," Tucker said. "He simply wants me under hand so he can mold another corporate mastermind. In the next step of the court tests, or the step after that, a judge is going to agree with me. He can't continue to pay off every court official who comes up. One of them is going to be honest, especially the higher the courts get."
        Mellio dropped the pixie pose and picked up the role of the shocked banker taken aback by irresponsible accusations. He was even worse at that than at playing pixie, about as believable as Elise would be if she tried to play a sexless, weary housewife in a television commercial. "You can't be seriously implying that-"
        Tucker cut him short. "Can we talk about the loan, please?"
        Mellio moved his lips up and down, like a man with something caught in his throat, finally closed his mouth and ordered his thoughts. He said, "Michael, there is an account in this bank composed solely of the monthly allowance checks from your trust-which you have not picked up or cashed in more than three years. I believe there are now thirty-seven deposits in the account, each in the amount of ten thousand dollars. I cannot see why you would wish to make a loan when you have these funds available."
        "Credit me with at least a modicum of intelligence, Mr. Mellio," Tucker said. He sounded tired, and he was tired. This sort of fencing was something he was no good at and was, to boot, completely out of practice for. He was anxious to be done with Mellio, the bank and the city so that he could get back to the most pressing problem of all- getting Merle Bachman out of Baglio's mountain estate before the driver was forced to spill everything about the rest of them. "I am aware that my father has conditioned the delivery of those checks, and I am thoroughly acquainted with what I would be losing by meeting his conditions. I have a good lawyer. He and I have talked a great deal about all of this, all of you."
        Mellio looked shocked again, apparently decided that this was not one of his better roles, gave up on it and got very businesslike. "Okay, by signing the waiver to get your allowance checks, you'd be endorsing your father's control of the inheritance. But what does that matter, Michael? It's nothing more than a formality, anyway. Your father, by virtue of your mother's will, already has control."
        Tucker sighed again, slumped down in his chair, looked at his watch: a quarter of nine. The Klee was beginning to strain his eyes, and the dark teak paneling seemed to be closing in on him. "Signing for the allowance checks, I'd be signing away my right to carry on with the suit we now have in federal court. I'd be limiting myself to the position of a minor for the rest of my life-or for the rest of my father's life, anyway."
        "But you've said you only care about having money to spend," Mellio argued quietly. "This way, you would have that nice monthly check."
        "I said that I could get along on a hundred and eighty thousand a year, but I can't possibly make it on a hundred and twenty. One thing I did acquire from my father was expensive tastes."
        "The allowances could be raised, naturally," Mellio