Reckless with misery, I made a plunge. "Yes, the whole thing."

"You withdraw your money from the bank?"

"Every cent of it."

"Are you not going to deposit any more?" said the clerk, astonished. "Never."

An idiot hope struck me that they might think something had insulted me while I was writing the cheque and that I had changed my mind. I made a wretched attempt to look like a man with a fearfully quick temper.

The clerk prepared to pay the money. "How will you have it?" he said. "What?"

"How will you have it?"

"Oh," I caught his meaning and answered without even trying to think: " – in fifties."

He gave me a fifty-dollar bill.

"And the six?" he asked dryly. "In sixes," I said.

He gave it to me and I rushed out.

As the big door swung behind me I caught the echo of a roar of laughter that went up to the ceiling of the bank. Since then I bank no more. I keep my money in cash in my trousers pocket and my savings in silver dollars in a sock [4].

3.7.1 Vocabulary notes

get rattled – терять спокойствие, нервничать

wicket – окошко (кассы)

to transact business – вести дела

to shamble – волочить ноги, тащиться

to open an account – открывать счет

accountant – бухгалтер

sepulchral voice – замогильный голос

to prompt – побуждать, толкать, подсказывать

to draw a cheque – выписывать чек

to withdraw money from а bank – изымать деньги из банка

cash – наличные деньги, наличность

savings – сбережения

4.1 Text 1

Tracy Whitney was young, beautiful, intelligent and about to marry into wealth and glamour. She was on top of the world. Until suddenly, betrayed by her own innocence, she was in prison, framed by a ruthless Mafia gang, abandoned by the man she loved.

Beaten and broken, but kept going by her dazzling ingenuity, Tracy emerged from her savage ordeal determined to revenge herself on those who had destroyed her life and to fight back against a society that denied her success and happiness. No one would ever cheat her again.

From New Orleans to London and on to Paris, Madrid and Amsterdam, with intelligence and beauty her only weapons, Tracy played for the highest stakes in a deadly game, matching her wits against the successful and the unscrupulous.

Only one man can challenge her. He’s handsome and persuasive and just as daring. And only one man can stop her. An evil genius who shadows her every move – a man whose only hope of salvation is Tracy’s destruction…

Tracy met Charles Stanhope at a financial symposium where Charles was the guest speaker. He ran the investment house founded by his great-grand-father, and his company did a good deal of business with the bank Tracy worked for. After his lecture, Tracy went up to disagree with his analysis of the ability of third-world nations to repay the staggering sums of money they borrowed from commercial banks worldwide and western governments. Charles at first was amused then intrigued by the impassioned arguments of the beautiful young woman before him. Their discussion continued through dinner at the old Bookbinder’s restaurant.

In the beginning, Tracy was not impressed with Charles Stanhope even though she was aware that he was considered Philadelphia’s prize catch. Charles was thirtyfive and a rich and successful member of one of the oldest families in Philadelphia. Five feet ten inches, with thinning sandy hair, brown eyes, and an earnest, pedantic manner, he was, Tracy thought, one of the boring rich.

As though reading her mind, Charles leaned across the table and said, “My father is convinced they gave him the wrong baby at the hospital.”