Read Online Chameleon by William Diehl - Free Book Online Page B

jeweller’s loupe from his pocket, and pinching it in front of his left eye with his eyebrow, unspooled a foot or so of film, which he held up toward the light.
    ‘Whaddya think?’ Eddie said, still counting.
    ‘So far, so good. You have close-ups of everything?’
    ‘You’re lookin’ at it, old buddy. Plans and the actual installation. Just what the doctor ordered, right?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘All here,’ Eddie said and giggled like a kid. ‘I can’t believe it, man. A hundred grand. You know something? I don’t think my old man made a hundred grand his whole fucking miserable life.’
    ‘Congratulations.’
    Eddie took off his Stetson, dropped the envelope in it and put it back on. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘you need something else, I’m your man, okay? I can steal the crutch off a cripple, he won’t know it till his ass hits the ground.’
    ‘I will be in touch.’
    ‘I started boosting when I was nine. Stole my first car when I was twelve. Could hardly see over the steering wheel. I did, skit, coupla hundred jobs before I was sixteen. Never got caught. Never seen the inside of a slammer.’
    ‘You’re lucky.’
    ‘it’s talent. A little luck, maybe, but mostly talent.’
    ‘I mean you are lucky never to have been in prison. How did you manage this job?’
    ‘Right place at the right time. Security on the rig was nothing. The plans? That was a break. They had them all out one night, checking something in the transfer station. When they was through, they asked me would I run ‘em back down to engineering. I sez sure, no problem, then I just stop off in my room on the way, whip out the old Minolta, bim, bam, boom, I got myself an insurance policy.’
    ‘Just off the sleeve like that? No planning?’
    ‘You got it. You stay alert, things pop your way. Look, I knew I had something, see. I knew somebody, somewhere, would like a shot at those plans. All I hadda do was find the somebody. Then you pop up. What a break!’
    An amateur, Hinge thought. Just a blunder. But it was lucky the word had gotten to him first. ‘How can I be sure you don’t have copies? You could be peddling this material to our competitors.’
    ‘Look, that’d be dumb. I wanna do more business with you guys. I wouldn’t cut my own throat.’
    ‘That’s acceptable,’ Hinge said.
    ‘You have the drop in Camden, New Jersey, right? It’s my sister. I’m tight with the bitch.’
    ‘Yes.’
    Wolfnagle winked. ‘I’m gonna be travellin’ awhile.’
    ‘You deserve a trip.’
    ‘Yeah, right. Well, uh, anything else?’
    ‘Yeah. Got a light?’
    Did he have a light? Bet your ass, He had a fucking Dunhill lighter, that’s what he had. He took out the gold lighter, flipped it open, struck a flame and leaned over to light the cigar. He heard a faint poof, saw ashes float from the end of the cigar and then felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his throat.
    At first he thought a bee had stung him. He brushed frantically at his neck.
    Something bounced off the dashboard and fell on the
    He reached down and picked it up. It was a dart of some kind. He stared at it.
    Dumbly.
    It was going in and out of focus. His skin began to tingle. His hands had no feeling. His feet went to sleep.
    Then the tingle became pain, sharp, like pinpricks, then the pain got worse. His skin was being jabbed with needles, then knives. He tried to scratch the pain away but he could not move. A giant fist squeezed his chest. He gasped for breath. Nothing happened.
    He turned desperately to Hinge, and Hinge was a wavering apparition, floating in and out of reality. Wolfnagle looked like a goldfish, with his eyes bugged out and his lips popping soundlessly as he tried to breathe.
    It had been a good shot, straight to the jugular. The mercury worked swiftly, thirty or forty seconds after hitting the bloodstream, and when Wolfnagle began to thrash, Hinge grabbed him by the arms and jammed him hard against the car seat. Now he went into hard spasms and Hinge almost lost him.