Краткая естественная история цивилизации. Марк Бертнесс

awkwardly, “He’s just like that.”

      Especially lately.

      “Like what?” Ella asked.

      Chase clamped his lips closed. He didn’t want to believe the rumors circulating about his uncle’s deteriorating mental capacity. He certainly wouldn’t help spread them.

      Greeted with his silence, Ella said, “That’s okay. I’d rather meet him and make up my own mind anyway.”

      Unfortunately, Chase had a pretty good idea of the opinion Ella Sanborn would form once she did.

      * * *

      The elevator dinged, heralding their arrival on the much vaunted seventeenth floor of the Trumbull Toys empire. Several years ago, Ella had seen a television special on Elliot Trumbull and his place of business. It had made toy stores seem drab and restrained by comparison. But when the doors opened, the sight that greeted her left her not only disappointed but baffled.

      “Is something wrong?” Chase said.

      “This is the fabled Trumbull Toy Company?” she asked before she could think better of it.

      Chase frowned. “What were you expecting?”

      Well, she hadn’t been expecting beige walls and a nondescript sitting area. Where was the life-size Randy the Robot that she’d seen in the TV special? And the basketball hoops? The foosball table and minitrampoline?

      She laughed weakly. “I guess I was expecting toys.”

      “Those are gone. I found they were too distracting and sent the wrong message to employees. This is a place of business.”

      Yes, and that business was toys. But she decided not to press the point.

      Two women and a man sat at a horseshoe-shaped reception desk talking into headsets as they tapped away on keyboards. All three were dressed as conservatively as Chase in the muted colors Ella associated with storm clouds. Admittedly, she liked bright hues and fun prints, hence her zebra skirt and the poppy-red blouse. Still...

      As a unit, they glanced in Chase’s direction, but just like the group in the lobby, and the men who’d tried to board the elevator several floors later, not one of them maintained eye contact for very long. Ella’s gaze slid to Chase. She could see why. In his dark suit, perfectly knotted tie and polished wingtips, Chase Trumbull cut an imposing figure. She shouldn’t have found him approachable much less attractive. But she did. Oh, yeah, she did, all right.

      She blamed the attraction she felt on his cowlick. She was a sucker for cowlicks, and his was a beaut. That little whirl of sandy hair just to the left of his part simply refused to go along with the rest of his fastidiously styled locks. It reminded Ella a bit of herself. She wasn’t one to go along with the crowd, either.

      All sorts of superstitions were attached to cowlicks. Some people saw them as the mark of the devil. Others insisted they were a sign of good luck. Ella’s best friend, Sandra Chesterfield, meanwhile, claimed that men with cowlicks were exceptional lovers. She’d read an article to that effect on the internet. If that was true, a man with one displayed so prominently at his hairline must be...

      Ella fanned herself.

      “Hot?” Chase asked.

      Yes, and that made two of them. But she smiled and said, “I’m fine. Cool as a cucumber.”

      His brows furrowed momentarily. Then, to the woman seated on the left of the reception desk, he said, “This is Ella Sanborn. She’s here to see Elliot.”

      “Yes. He’s expecting her.”

      “My uncle’s office is the third door on the left.”

      The door in question was closed. Ella asked, “Should I knock?”

      “Just once and then go right in. If you wait for him to answer, you might wind up standing there all day.”

      It seemed rude to barge in, even if she was expected. “You’re sure he’s not busy?”

      Chase consulted his watch. “Oh, he’s busy. It’s nearly race time.”

      “What?”

      “You’ll see.” One side of his mouth rose. It wasn’t quite a smile, but it was the closest she’d seen him come so far. It softened his features and left her a bit dazzled. It also made her wonder what Chase Trumbull would look like with a full-out grin plastered on his face and amusement lighting his eyes.

      “Good luck. Of course you don’t need it,” he said solemnly. At her puzzled expression, he added, “You found that penny in the lobby.”

      “I did.” Ella replied with an equal amount of seriousness, even though she was pretty sure that he was teasing her.

      He disappeared into the first office, whose door bore a brass plate etched with Chase Danforth Trumball III, Chief Financial Officer.

      She sucked in a breath and proceeded to the third door, passing one with a brass plate marked Owen Scott Trumbull, Chief Operating Officer. The nameplate on the third door wasn’t brass. It was bright red, and its white carnival-esque script read, Elliot Trumbull, Purveyor of All Things Fun. In spite of her nerves, she found herself grinning. After she knocked and the door opened, that grin changed into delighted laughter.

      Now this was more like it.

      It wasn’t an office. It was every young boy’s fantasy, complete with a race track that snaked under, over and around the spacious room’s eclectic furnishings.

      “You’re just in time,” said a man teetering on the top rung of a ladder that overlooked the track.

      Even though he was older now, she recognized him from the television program. Elliot Trumbull in the flesh. And he was indeed the purveyor of all things fun.

      No stuffy business attire for him. He was dressed in a professional racecar driver’s jumpsuit, complete with half a dozen endorsement patches sewn on the sleeves and chest. In one hand, he held a flag; in the other, a bright orange starter pistol. As Ella stood transfixed, he fired the gun into the air—the bullet a blank, she assumed, since it didn’t take out any ceiling tiles—and declared the race under way. On the track, three vehicles about the size of her palm whirred into action.

      “They’re sound activated by the pistol,” he told her. “After that, a computer takes over and ultimately decides the race. Care to place a bet on the winning car?”

      “Ten bucks on number seventy-seven,” she replied, without stopping to wonder if she had enough money in her purse to cover her wager.

      “Why that one?” he wanted to know.

      “Because blue’s my favorite color and seven is my lucky number.”

      “Sound reasons to pick it then,” he agreed without a trace of his nephew’s mockery in his tone. “I always go with red for the same reason. You must be Ella.”

      After climbing down from the ladder, Elliot picked his way over the track to her. She placed his age at late sixties and his weight at one-eighty with most of it centered at his waist. He had a shaggy mustache and a mop of salt-and-pepper hair that gave him a decidedly Einstein vibe.

      “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Trumbull.”

      She would have shaken his hand, but he took the one she extended and kissed the back of it instead. Make that Einstein meets Sir Galahad.

      “Call me Elliot. We don’t stand on formality around here.” His bushy brows pulled together in a frown and he muttered, “At least I don’t. I run a toy company, for the time being, at least. That should be fun, don’t you think?”

      “I do,” she agreed.

      “Good. At least someone does. Would you like something to drink?” Instead of offering the usual coffee or tea, he said, “My secretary makes the best strawberry malts this side of the Mississippi. Probably