Zero Alternative (9 page)

‘Only once, after Bonus Day last year. It’s a bit expensive for me, we tend to hang around the cheaper places down Shoreditch.’ The Frenchman looked around, his eyes widening at the sheer amount of scantily clad beauty on display. ‘But this is awesome, much better than Spearmint Rhino.’

There were scores of women scattered around the club, some pole-dancing, others just walking the floor between tables or sitting in the smaller nooks, sharing a drink with clients.

‘Best lap-dancing club in London, and not as strict as most.’ Walker sipped his vodka, then
drained a glass of water and asked for another. Though it was only a Monday and the nightclub seemed quieter than usual, the quality of the girls was still outstanding. You could find anything, from skinny Eastern Europeans to voluptuous African-American types. Any hair and skin colour, eyes of all conceivable shape and tint, and quite a few bodies to die for.

A tall plump girl with dark hair approached them, wearing a skimpy bikini-top underneath a fishnet shirt, her heavy breasts in danger of bursting out. She stopped in front of Stephane and smiled at him coyly. ‘Good evening, guys, would you like a private dance?’ Her high voice lilted with a strong French accent. Steph swallowed and looked at Walker.

‘How much?’ Walker asked.

‘Fifty pounds for ten minutes, seventy for the two of you.’

‘Ehrr.’ The Frenchman squirmed, stuck.

Walker shook his head and decided to rescue him. ‘What’s your name, darling?’

‘Chantelle. Please, I feel sooo lonely tonight.’

‘Not for me, but maybe my idiot friend here…’ He glanced at Steph, who was nodding quickly.
The call of the wild, bloody French people
. Walker sighed and signalled to the bar girl. ‘Put it on my tab, love.’

Chantelle gave a little hop, one of her large breasts almost spilling out. She took Steph’s hand with a big smile. ‘Great.
Allons-y
.’

The Frenchman stood, almost dropping his drink before looking at him. ‘Yours, thanks – but I really shouldn’t leave you alone…’

Walker gestured at the roomful of women. ‘I’ll survive, don’t worry. See you later.’

The showgirl was studying Steph – must have realised he was not a regular. She pulled him away and started talking in a lower voice. ‘By the way, no touching, monsieur. It is strictly…’

Walker lost the rest of the conversation as the music grew louder for a few moments before quietening down again. He finished his vodka and stood up before some other girl could approach him. Quiet nights made for an easy market: worth having a look around. Glancing at the stage again, he noticed that all the dancers had left. A thin man in his fifties entered from a side door, wearing a tuxedo and holding a microphone.

‘Gentlemen,’ his deep voice boomed, ‘in just a few minutes our brand new star, the stunning Falena from Spain, will delight us with a special and exciting dance. It’s her first night at the Snake, so give her a good cheer and enjoy the show!’ He grinned, climbed down from the platform
and left, as a few of the girls returned to their poles and the music picked up again.

Walker checked the entrance, then his watch. DM was over thirty minutes late. It wouldn’t be the first time the mathematician had forgotten an appointment, but he loved the Dancing Snake. It was one of the few places where he seemed to forget his uptight, intense nature for a while. Walker exhaled, circled the stage and climbed some steps to the smoking area, a smaller glass-walled room with several easy chairs and sofas that looked onto the main hall.

An overpowering waft of burning tobacco stung his nostrils, and he almost gagged. The smokers’ room smelt like a giant ashtray that had been left too long, overflowing with ashes and butt-ends. Walker breathed in through his mouth, and lit a Marlboro.
I should quit, really. This is just nasty
.

Maybe next month. Or the one after.

He signalled to the girl patrolling the area for a drink and slouched in one of the leather armchairs that faced the main stage lower down. Seconds later his vodka had arrived and he took a tentative sip, almost gagging again. His senses felt dulled, and his head swam on a lake of alcohol. He wondered how many drinks he had burnt through, tried to count them and gave up. Too many. He was drunk.

At least he had closed almost all of his positions by the end of the day, so the following morning he could take it easy, nursing the massive headache he could feel stirring at the back of his skull. He lit another cigarette from the still-burning tip of the previous one and flushed away the harshness with a large glass of water.

Maybe he should have taken Alice Cramer up on her offer. Her firm body still lingered like a warm ghost against his shoulder and arm – she had felt ready, and excited. By the money, most likely. Sixty-eight million in a day. Prop traders at Dorfmann generally got paid a slice of their profits, between five and ten per cent depending on their track record and how well the bank had done. His book was now up over sixty bucks for the year, which meant he could expect the largest bonus of his career, something northwards of… At least four million, maybe a lot more if the floor didn’t blow up. Holy shit. The big trade had landed.

He had done it.

He could get out after January, if he wanted. This was what he’d been working his arse off for, for the last twenty years. After his father had died, the life insurance had covered Walker’s boarding school fees, and little else. He didn’t have any relatives in America, or know anybody in
Italy. He had been stuck in London: alone, poor. Excitement was only the second reason he had chosen to become a trader. Paying off debts, and then the thrill of finally having money to burn had been the main one. But it hadn’t lasted.

Trading still fired up his blood, though the adrenaline hits were fewer and far between, with the kicks coming more from the losses than the wins, these days. Gambler’s syndrome.
Get your money, and get out
. And the last few years had broken something within him – he was tired of the greed, of the incessant pressure for profits, day after day, no matter the long-term consequences. He had behaved like a perfect professional to the last, but there had to be a better way. He should be enjoying his big win instead of just feeling burnt out, hollow. And it wasn’t just the alcohol speaking. He needed a new reason, something to fight for.

The world felt as if it was driving towards a cliff, oblivious, just rolling along. And maybe DeepShare could really turn out to be what DM dreamed. Walker shrugged – it was certainly worth a try, better than killing himself to make an extra few bucks. He downed the last of his vodka and stood up, deciding to try a final look for the mathematician. If DM hadn’t arrived yet, he would grab his credit card and stagger home to throw up and crash. Swaying slightly, he left the smoking room to return to the main floor.

The music had stopped and the main platform was dark. Walker guessed a show was about to start; he searched around but there was no sign of DM, though Steph was due out of his private dance any minute. He wondered if the young Frenchman had abided by the no-touching house rule, or whether the pretty Chantelle had let him take a few liberties. The Snake, maybe because it was a members-only club, was one of the few top quality places in London where the decision was down to the showgirl.

Two spotlights flickered on, lighting up the stage just as a South American beat echoed around the room.

A man’s voice boomed, ‘Please welcome our beautiful Falena!’ and scattered applause rose from the guests. Walker glanced at his watch: five past eleven and DM was nowhere to be seen. The idiot had forgotten, or doped himself to sleep. He was about to leave when the side door opened and a stunning woman made her entrance, gliding to a stop a few feet away.

Walker stared at her for a second, transfixed. Then he grabbed a chair and decided to stay for the show.

Chapter Seven

Falena

Pienaar stopped the video-recorder and studied his notes, methodically checking off the points he had been asked to investigate. It had only taken a couple of extra broken fingers and some small electric shocks, but the mathematician had co-operated fully in the end. They had delved into the workings of DeepShare, looked at how the enormous program had evolved from a chess-playing software into a market algorithm, to how it now used all sorts of data to try and predict the future
.

A lot of what DM had said went right above his head, but the Australian had appreciated the way the machine scoured the web, from social networks to obscure newsflows and blogs. There was something God-like in its view, mixing the obvious with the inscrutably deep. But the mathematician hadn’t given away his last secret, yet
.

DM moaned, his head still sunk in his skinny chest. He feebly fought the tape that tied his naked body to the chair and gave up. Pienaar reached closer and shook him awake
.

‘
Please…
’
He coughed, tears in his eyes
. ‘
Please, can I have some water?
’

‘
In a minute. There’s something else we need to talk about
.’

‘
Oh God, no more. I’ve told you everything…
’

‘
No, you haven’t. Just one more thing
–
where
is
DeepOmega? How do we access the source code?
’

DM shook his head and sobbed, great shudders wracking his thin body
.

Falena started dancing, her long dark hair swaying under a tight hat peppered with feathers. The music boomed with a primeval sound, accelerating and slowing almost randomly. Her body was laced in a skintight suit, the snake-patterned garment stretching and rippling as she moved with liquid grace. And, though she was gliding around the entire stage, somehow she seemed to return close to Walker’s seat a little too often, her dark almond-shaped eyes fixed on his face, a faint
smile on her full wide mouth.

Walker watched her without moving a muscle, mesmerized as she slowly ripped off first the leggings and then the lower part of her top, leaving her in a G-string and bra that showed off a perfect toned body, with the firmness and delicate proportions of an athletic ballerina. Falena was beyond gorgeous, her high cheekbones and straight, slightly long nose giving her the appearance of a Greek goddess of war – or lust.

‘Wow, who’s that?’

Walker glanced to his right, his eyes immediately returning to the stage. Steph had come up behind him and was staring at the showgirl, his mouth agape.

‘No idea, but I’m going to find out soon,’ whispered Walker, adrenaline and desire washing away the fumes of the vodka. Falena shone like the ultimate ideal of quite a few girls he had taken out of the Dancing Snake in the past. He was addicted to jet-black hair and full lips, and preferred lithe bodies like hers to the pneumatic breasts and gym-sculpted shoulders sported by most lapdancers. Her oval face and slanted black eyes could have been designed just to fire up his blood. He forced himself to sit back, realised that Steph was still talking: ‘… DM here yet?’

‘No, I don’t think he’s coming.’

‘Ah, all right. What are you going to do? I’m quite beat, and my girlfriend…’

Walker kept his eyes on the dancer as Falena unlaced her bra, slid nearer him and threw it in his lap. Her breasts were larger than you would expect from her slim frame, with wide aureoles, nipples pointing upwards in the lightly chilled air. He leaned forward and placed the snake-printed underwear on the stage, smiling as she gave him a quick nod of thanks.

‘I’ll stay a while longer, I think.’

Steph grinned. ‘Do you mind if I scoot home?’

‘Go ahead, I’ll see you in the morning.’

The Frenchman nodded and patted him on the shoulder, heading towards the foyer. The music reached a thumping crescendo and Falena reacted to it, her arms and legs shooting out in a final frenzy that was almost martial-art intense in its controlled violence. She threw off her hat-piece, somersaulted and landed on her feet without a hitch, then bent lower and twisted her body into a prone shell just as the last few notes echoed and died.

The Dancing Snake might have been half-empty but the few customers still erupted in loud applause and Walker himself stood, clapping. Falena quivered and lifted her head, looking at him
through strands of black, sweaty hair. Her eyes glinted and she gave him a little satisfied smile.

Walker turned around and searched for the manager, George, then saw him at a corner of the copper bar studying a ledger. He approached the man and leant on a stool, rapping his knuckles on the counter.

‘I’d like to book a private dance with Falena.’ His throat felt dry, creaking from too many cigarettes.

George didn’t look up. ‘She’s at top rate, one hundred pounds for ten minutes, but there’s a few people ahead of you.’

‘I’ll give her five hundred quid for half an hour. And two hundred for you, but I’m not waiting.’

The manager looked up then, smiling as he recognised him.

‘Ah, Mr Walker. Of course, I’ll see what I can do.’ He picked up a pen from behind the bar, scribbled a few lines on his ledger. ‘I think we can accommodate you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘A smoking suite, I believe.’

Walker nodded. ‘I’d love the larger one at the back.’

‘Certainly. If you’d like to come with me… though it might be a few minutes until Falena gets changed.’

‘That’s all right. Please have one of the girls bring me some water, a bottle of 42 Below and another one of whatever the lady is partial to.’

The manager signalled to the barmaid. ‘I believe it’s champagne.’

Walker followed George towards the far side of the stage, his senses tingling. ‘Then the ’02 Cristal, of course.’

Eros and Thanatos

The private suite was wide, about the size of his own bedroom and lit by a few dim, hidden lamps. Walker sat sprawled in the corner of a fat L-shaped couch, his jacket off, smoking and sipping at a glass of water. His head spun, colours flashing randomly whenever he closed his eyes, and he felt a little nauseous from all the alcohol in his system. He was trying to concentrate on the quiet jazz music in the background when Falena came in.