Amateur venezolano
Freddie Koontz? I said. Were you mistaken at the time of the preliminary examination? Hamilton Burger asked. Youll want to wait for it, I suppose, Vullo said. Immediately, the satphone rang again, and Stone answered. If were lucky, Stone said, he doesnt know were in Paris. And if we’re very lucky, he doesn’t know yet that we’ve left England. Lets get her here, then, Mason said. Sybil Harlan nodded. I cant stand being in there. Everybodys so uptight. Quane took another swallow of his drink and looked around. He was still looking away from me when he said,Weve got an idea that maybe might interest you. I know, Drake said, but taking too much soda comes from eating too many soggy hamburgers, and eating too many soggy hamburgers comes from working for a lawyer who wants everything fast. Actually, the way things developed, I could have gone out last night, had a nice dinner and then come back about eleven oclock and got all of the information you needed. Would you know him if you saw him again? Yes, sir. She gave him an odd look.Hows the police investigation going? There were two press conferences in the morning. Now what will you do? she asked. Why? Stone asked. Youre looking for a BMW, and this is a Norton. Chapter 51 I dont know what happened to Max. When I met him he was a sweet, big-eyed kid who was going to help change the whole world. You introduced us. We even talked about joining the Peace Corps together. What a fucking laugh. The only thing that Max ever changed was himself. He quit being a sweet, big-eyed kid and made himself hard and cynical and tough-minded. That was one of his favorite words. Tough-minded. He found out he liked to manipulate people. He was good at it. He manipulated me. I didnt mind. I knew what he was doing. But other people didnt like it and after a while they didn’t like Max. I think they were afraid of him. He didn’t seem to care. Politics suited him. It gave him a chance to manipulate people. After a while, that was about all he cared about. He didn’t even care who he worked for. He even talked about working for Wallace once, but then Wallace got shot, and that fell through. He thought working for Wallace would be a joke. When I asked him who the joke would be on he said it would be on him. Max, I mean. Then he started going into these funny deals. I don’t know what they were. He never told me. But one time he brought home ten thousand dollars in a paper sack and dumped it in my lap. He wouldn’t tell me where he got it. He said it was just a deal he’d pulled off. He was always going to pull off a big deal. He was talking about it just before he got killed. It was going to be the biggest deal of all. He was going to retire at thirty-eight and we were going to take the kids and go to Europe. He seemed excited about it. We even went to bed together, which we hadn’t done in God knows when. It was going to be a big, big deal. He was going to make two hundred thousand dollars, maybe more. Then he got killed and there wasn’t anybig deal. There was just Max dead and six hundred and fifty-three dollars and thirty-two cents in the bank. I’m going to kill myself, Harvey, I really am...