Free Crazy for Cornelia by Chris Gilson Page B

discomfort with the way they relied on their computers, Tucker’s generation
     of cyberfiends.
    Tucker’s laptop computer was an unfathomable mystery to Chester. Made of tungsten with an eerie, almost extraterrestrial haze,
     it was flatter than a comic book. When Tucker popped it open by punching his personal code into the secret clasp, the wafer-thin
     halves revealed a flat, heat-activated keyboard on one side, marked with letters and symbols so microscopic Chester would
     have to fish out his tortoiseshell half-glasses to read them. Even then, many of the coded commands made no sense. But Tucker
     played his machine like an accomplished musician, making incredibly sharp and detailed pictures spring up on the silvery screen.
    Only Tucker knew about Chester’s technophobia, that he would fire up a space shuttle sooner than he would switch on a computer.
     He kept it one of Lord & Company’s darkest business secrets. Investment bankers were expected to be comfortable with technology.
     In reality, Chester imagined himself a dumb and frightened turtle, head pulled back in its shell, attempting to cross the
     superhighway of global data. Without Tucker, he would be a flattened turtle.
    Chester marveled at how easily Tucker Fisk controlled things. Hestudied his twenty-eight-year-old protégé, whose veins coursed with the ancient blood of Anglo-Saxon warriors. He was dressed
     in an Armani Black Label suit. The fine fabric was a bit vain for Chester, who took a certain pride in buying his suits off
     the rack just as he had in college, even though he could afford suits of spun gold if he chose. Tucker’s blond hair, darker
     than Cornelia’s, was brushed back in waves from a face with a heavy, pleasing coat of flesh that revealed little in the way
     of bone structure.
    More than anything else Chester envied about him, Tucker knew how to take risks without hurting himself. At Yale, he had made
     quarterback on pure fearlessness. He wore an oversized protective helmet pumped full of air so he could wait that extra second
     to snap the ball without getting hurt too badly when they knocked him down. Chester searched his poker-player eyes, sharp
     as industrial metals.
    He thought of the way those eyes danced on the day Tucker plowed through Lord & Company for Chester like a delighted Grim
     Reaper, the smug executives who had sneered at Chester begging to do exactly as he and Tucker instructed them. What a triumph,
     walking through Lord & Company and for the first time actually feeling like the boss. Tucker had created that moment for him,
     this boy who could forge mega-deals and intimidate older executives. With the magical tungsten wafer on his lap, Tucker could
     handle any problem.
    With the exception of Cornelia.
    “Perhaps you could explain,” Chester finally asked him, “how she wound up in the Plaza fountain.”
    “She has a wild streak, but I’m working on that,” Tucker explained in his careful baritone with its faint edge of Young Man
     In A Hurry. “I arranged a special Saturday for us. No pressure on her. I invited my college roommate, Tony, and his wife along.
     Corny didn’t drink, and I thought I saw her take her medication. Anyway, she seemed okay. We all drove out to the airport
     to go dogfighting.”
    “Dogfighting?” Chester felt strangled. “My God, what were you thinking of?”
    “It’s not as dangerous as it sounds. It’s just for thrills. More like a roller-coaster ride.”
    Chester glowered at him in disbelief. “She… hates… flying.”
    Tucker’s eyes didn’t even flicker. “I know. But I figured this was agood way to cure her. Look the devil right in the eye. Watch this video we took. Corny started out a little nervous, but
     once we got into a turn fight, she had a great time. Here… My friend Tony has two old fighter planes he keeps out at Teterboro.”
    Tucker showed Chester a grainy video on his laptop screen. It was taken from a camera mounted in the cockpit of what