Read Online A Scourge of Vipers by Bruce DeSilva - Free Book Online

and write a series of first-person human interest stories about the experience.”
    â€œOh, hell no.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause I’m forty-four years old, Chuckie.”
    â€œOh, come on now. It’s not like I’m asking you to make the team. You just have to show up.”
    â€œWhy don’t you do it?” I said. “You’re nearly my height, and you’re twelve years younger.”
    â€œBecause I’ve got a newspaper to run. Besides, basketball was never my sport. I played middle linebacker at Valdosta State.”
    â€œThere are easier ways to get rid of me, Chuckie. You don’t have to try to get me killed.”
    â€œThis is an order, Mulligan. You already refused one assignment last week. It would not be in your best interest to pull that again.”
    *   *   *
    â€œHe wants you to do what ?” Attila the Nun asked.
    â€œYou heard me right the first time.”
    We were drinking beer at a table in Hopes while the governor’s limo, a state trooper at the wheel, lurked just outside the door.
    â€œCan’t you talk him out of it?”
    â€œI tried, but he’s got a whim of iron.”
    â€œThis is crazy, Mulligan. You could kill yourself trying to keep up with twenty-year-olds.”
    â€œWho says I’m going to try to keep up?”
    â€œAre you in shape?”
    â€œDo I look in shape?”
    She thunked her bottle of Bud on the cracked Formica table and looked me up and down, then glanced at the TV over the scarred mahogany bar, where the Celtics were getting run over by the Clippers.
    â€œNot compared to those guys.”
    â€œIt’s not like I’ll be going up against Blake Griffin,” I said. “My wind is pretty good, and I can still fill it up from the three-point line.”
    â€œYou’ll have to kick the cigars for a while.”
    â€œAw, fuck.”
    â€œWhat about your knee?” she asked.
    â€œHasn’t bothered me much since the surgery.”
    â€œSounds like you’re warming to the idea.”
    â€œI hate it,” I said. “It’s a stupid prank to gin up circulation, but at least it will get me out of the office for a while.”
    I flagged down Annie, the leggy Rhode Island School of Design teaching assistant who moonlighted as a barmaid, and ordered another round.
    â€œIs this why you wanted to get together tonight?” Fiona asked. “To see if I could talk you out of a heart attack?”
    â€œNo. There’s something else.”
    I slid the cell out of my pocket and called up the photo.
    â€œEver seen this guy?”
    â€œIsn’t that Paulie Walnuts?” she said. “I loved that show.”
    â€œIt does look like him, but no.”
    â€œSo who is it?”
    â€œA guy named Lucan Alfano.”
    â€œThat sounds familiar, but—” She stared up at the pressed-tin ceiling, searching her memory. “Oh, wait. Isn’t that the Jersey guy who got killed in the plane crash?”
    â€œYeah. That the only thing you know about him?”
    â€œUh-huh. What’s this about, Mulligan?”
    So I ran down what I knew about Alfano, his briefcase full of cash, and the list found in his pocket.
    â€œ My name was on the list?”
    â€œIt was.”
    â€œYou think the cash was intended for me?”
    â€œSome of it, anyway. At least that’s how it looks.”
    We sipped our beers in silence and thought about it.
    â€œWho was he was working for?” she asked. “And what was he supposed to buy with all that money?”
    â€œI was hoping you could tell me.”
    â€œThis could be about any one of a number of things,” she said. “We’re putting some big road-construction contracts out to bid this month. The medical association and the hospitals are having fits about our proposed Medicaid cuts. My bill to tighten wetlands protections is going to the floor in a couple of weeks,