Page 237

Bed Of Leaves
-4

Chapter 17 - Page 237 - Trouble In Chicago

   "This is Rhasha, and this is Shanha." Jim placed his hand on Shanha's head. Molly had wanted to go out with Jim ever since his divorce. She looked uncomfortable as she eyed him and Rhasha holding hands.

   They all walked into Molly's office. Molly only had one chair in front of her desk for clients, so Jim pulled up another chair for Rhasha, and held Shanha in his lap.

   "Molly," Jim said, "how bad is my financial situation now?" He knew he'd spent several million dollars in Africa and had no idea how much money was left in his account.

   "Jim," Molly replied, "there's something very strange going on." She typed Jim's name into the computer and brought up his file. "Look." She pointed at some numbers. "You spent over a hundred million dollars."

   She indicated other numbers. "Your original account shows a balance of 841 million dollars." Molly typed something else into the computer. "See this? This is all the checks you wrote until the twenty-first of last month."

   Molly was wearing half-glasses that had a chain attached to their arms. When Molly wasn't wearing her reading glasses, they hung on the chain from around her neck. Now she peered over their tops at Jim. "Your company is showing a higher profit, but not enough to do this." She pointed to the ending balance.

   Jim looked at the amount and couldn't believe his eyes. "Is this right?" he sputtered. "I still have 841 million dollars left in my account?"

   Until now, Rhasha had never known how much money Jim had. She heard the dollar amount, but she still didn't understand how much it was. She just looked back and forth between Molly and Jim.

   "I can't explain it, Jim," Molly replied. "I've done the figures over and over. I've had other people do the figures. They come up with the same balance." Molly looked at Jim to see his reaction. "I checked with the bank," she added, "and they show you have a balance of 841 million dollars."

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-