Aces and Knaves

on the pro tennis tour for a while?"
    "Yes, but she wasn't in the same class with the girls whose names end in ova. She got tired of doing all the traveling, only to lose in the first or second round."
    I unlocked the door of the guesthouse and we went inside. I wished I had made the bed. I led the way up the stairs and to the computer. I pressed the button to boot it.
    Arrow looked out the north window. "What a view you've got! I bet I can see my townhouse from here."
    "You can see most of the civilized world from here."
    Arrow came to the computer and said, "Karl, I have a question."
    "Questions are billable."
    "Richard—your father—has told me things about you. Based on talking to you so far, I gather that some of those things might not be completely accurate. There's one thing in particular...some things you said...I, uh, oh forget it."
    She was tied up in her underwear. The light dawned. "You want to know whether I'm gay."
    She nodded, almost imperceptibly.
    "What do I have to do, show you my Playboy collection?"
    "Why does he say that?"
    "A misunderstanding. Which has gotten out of hand. Now it's impossible to correct."
    "Richard is so straight-forward in business. I gather his personal life is not quite the same."
    I didn't want to get into that. I brought up Microsoft Word on the computer and Arrow sat in front of it.
    She said, "I arranged for your plane and hotel reservations from my cell phone on the way over here."
    "No wonder my father likes you. My clothes are downstairs. I can pack in five minutes."
    "If you will help me get started, I can fake it for a while. Are you incorporated?"
    "No."
    "Well, do you have a name for your business?"
    "Karl's Baseball Cards?"
    "We'll have to do better than that. That name connotes a thousand square-foot shop in a mini-mall with dusty shelves and a signed picture of Ted Williams on the wall with a crease in it. And a torn awning outside."
    She made it sound so demeaning. I had a signed picture of Mickey Mantle on the wall in the other room.
    Arrow said, "How about Cards.com?"
    "It's probably already taken."
    "Okay, we'll leave that for later." She started typing. "What are your current sales?"
    I was too ashamed to give her the correct figures so I inflated them. I gave her a few more numbers and then I went downstairs to pack. Arrow yelled questions at me, occasionally, and I answered as well as I could. When I came back upstairs she was working with furious speed.
    Within an hour, without much help from me, she had completed a professional-looking business plan, and even threw in a spreadsheet with sales and earnings projections for five years. My product line had suddenly expanded to include all kinds of sports memorabilia.
    "I can't believe you cranked this out so fast," I said, looking over the printed output.
    "I've had experience. I did some for my MBA classes," she said, modestly.
    "There's only one problem."
    "What?"
    "This is pie-in-the-sky. Any similarity between this and my business is completely coincidental."
    Arrow shrugged. "Anybody who starts their own business has got to be a little star-struck, a little unreal in their hopes and dreams. If they knew what really lay ahead of them, no businesses would ever get off the ground."
    "If you want to know the truth, I'm not interested in running a real business, with all the associated headaches. I'm happy just selling my old baseball cards."
    "I don't believe it. You've got your father's genes."
    "That's what everybody keeps telling me, but I don't see it."
    "You will." She looked at her watch. "Time to go. I'll drive you to the airport."
    As we walked past the pool toward the side of the castle, Jacie came out of one of the sliding doors, wearing a white tennis dress. I'm sure she had seen us come in. She said, "Well, who do we have here?"
    I said, "Jacie, this is Arrow. Arrow, this is Jacie," hoping to cut it short.
    They both said hello. Jacie didn't offer her hand and Arrow didn't push.
    Jacie said, "This is the first time I've ever seen Karl bring a woman home with him. Of course, he's brought lots of men."
    "Jacie, it's great to see you," I said, "but we've gotta run."
    "Don't do anything I wouldn't do." She laughed.
    "Not a chance." We made it around the corner before she could say anything more.
    "I take it Jacie espouses Richard's line," Arrow said, as we got into her car.
    "I haven't figured her out yet."
    "I have some ideas."

    Chapter 4 NED
    "Your plan looks very professional," Ned said as he