Read Online Hopscotch by Brian Garfield - Free Book Online

now it wouldn’t change that.”
    â€œYou really want this fox hunt, don’t you.”
    â€œIt’s a way to pass the time.”
    â€œWant to know what I think, Miles?”
    â€œAvidly.”
    â€œI think you’ve picked this game because it’s impossible. You’ll have plenty of excuses for your failure. It’s a hell of a cheap shot.”
    â€œYou’re talking into a dead phone, Joe. I’ll see you sometime.”
    Click .
    Ross leaned back. “Of all the—”
    â€œShut up.” Cutter was jiggling the phone cradle; then he put the instrument back to his mouth. “This is extension seven six two. A call just came in on this line. I want the log on it.”
    Ross stood up and went back to his chair. The ashtray beside it was crowded with butts. They’d been waiting three days and every time he’d made a suggestion about taking some action or other Cutter had told him to go ahead if it would make him feel better. Cutter just sat by the phone and waited. It made Ross feel like an ass. He knew how Cutter regarded him: for Cutter people seemed to have glass heads. To Cutter he was a tall excitable kid, an overgrown precocious schoolboy. And the power of Cutter’s personality was such that he’d half convinced Ross he was right in his judgment. Ross wasa six-year veteran of the Agency and Cutter was making him feel like a green recruit.
    Cutter grunted into the phone and hung it up. He swiveled on the corner of the desk and said, “The son of a bitch.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIt was a local call,” Cutter said. “The son of a bitch is right here in Langley.”
    â€œHe must have the balls of a brass gorilla,” Ross said.
    â€œThere never was anybody like him.”
    â€œNo way to trace that call, is there. Well it’s not such a big town. Shouldn’t we scout around and see if we can spot him?”
    â€œHe’ll be halfway to the West Virginia line by now.”
    â€œThen what the hell do you have in mind? Sit on our asses and diddle ourselves until he calls back?”
    â€œHe won’t call back,” Cutter said. “He’s said everything he had to say.”
    â€œHe didn’t say much of anything.”
    â€œHe’s waving a red flag, that’s all. All right, it’s time we got started.”
    â€œDoing what?”
    â€œCollect the composites from the second floor. Get us a conference room for eleven-thirty. And organize some transportation.” Cutter had the phone again. “It’s Cutter,” he said into it, and covered the mouthpiece to talk to Ross again: “I’ll be with Myerson. You chair the conference. You’ll have twelve men. Take them into town and blanket the pay phones. Take the composites. Find out where he made the call from, what he was wearing, whatkind of car he’s driving, which way he went when he left.”
    â€œYou think we’ll find anybody who noticed?”
    â€œProbably not. But we’ve got to cover it.”
    Ross started gathering things together and putting them into his briefcase. Cutter had gone back to the phone:
    â€œKendig’s here somewhere. In Langley. I’ll want a few more men on it.… Nuts, he’s priority enough. He’s mailed a second chapter out to those publishers. He’s going to keep mailing chapters out until we get him. How long do you want it to take? … No. He says he wants revenge because he got canned but that’s not it. He’s like a bicycle, when it stops moving it falls down. He’s rolling again, that’s all. There’s no point to it beyond the movement itself. As long as he keeps rolling he stays upright, you follow? … Hell I’m not wasting your time. You asked me. Now he’s got to be traveling on phony papers. I’m going to need authority to call on some of the overseas stringers. We’ll have to canvas the dealers. He must