Read Online Comeback by Richard Stark - Free Book Online

The woman and one of the men were in that room, George Liss and the other man next door. They were tough-looking, all of them, even the woman.
    Mary had pointed out George Liss to Ralph a couple of weeks ago, as the crook her friend Tom Carmody was mixed up with, that she was so worried about. (So worried, in fact, that she'd made the mistake of talking it over with her stupid kid brother.) The hardness of Liss's face had been daunting, but nevertheless, the instant he'd heard Mary's story Ralph had known what he had to do. And while he and Woody weren't real tough guys, Zack was, wasn't he? Zack could front for them in the toughness department. And Ralph, the way he saw it, was the brains.
    Nothing happened for a long time, except that Woody just kept on talking, never saying anything at all interesting but never letting up. After a while, Ralph took his forearms off the seat and sat back to relax, not needing to follow every word. And when he looked out the left rear window, he could still see that station wagon over there, just as well.
    The chatter was getting to Zack, too. He started saying things like, "You already told us that, Woody. Shut up." Or, "Who gives a fuck, Woody?" Finally, he turned around in exasperation and said to Ralph, "Remember that pizza place? Back a couple blocks."
    "Yeah?"
    "Go get us something. Maybe if we put a lotta food in this asshole's mouth he'll shut up a while."
    Woody said, "I'm just filling the time, Zack. Jeez, what's wrong with just—"
    "Shut your face"
    Ralph said, "What if they go before I come back?" Gesturing at the station wagon across the street.
    "They won't," Zack said, and looked at his watch. "It's an hour before the fucking crusade even starts. They won't go before the money's in."
    "Boy, am I gonna spend that money," Woody said, grinning like Bozo the clown at the two of them. "I dunno, do I get a Jap bike, or a Harley?"
    Woody had already thrown this question out to general consideration twice before. Zack leveled a furious glare at Ralph: "Go. "
    "Okay, okay," Ralph said, and got out of the car.
    Zack watched in the rearview mirror as Ralph went sloping away in the sunlight, goofing along like some stumblebum on his way to the soup line. Woody continued to yak away. When Ralph passed out of sight, Zack took the spring knife out of his pants pocket, opened the four-inch blade, turned sideways, and slipped the knife point past Woody's arm and into his side, maybe a quarter-inch deep, just above the lowest rib.
    Stunned, scared, Woody recoiled against the door to his right, and Zack pursued him, pressing the blade against his flesh, maintaining that slight and dangerous penetration, his expression grim and intent.
    "Jesus, Zack! Jesus! What are you doing?"
    Quiet, but very serious, Zack said, "If Ralph tumbles, what happened to his sister, I'm putting this in there to the hilt."
    "What'd I say? Jeez, all I—"
    "You been too jumpy," Zack told him, holding the knife in place. "Too jumpy just for what we're doing here. You're running off like an idiot. When Ralph comes back, you shut up."
    "Come on, Zack—"
    Zack pressed the knifepoint into Woody's side just a little deeper. "Wake up, you fucking asshole."
    "Don't, man! That hurts!"
    In the rearview mirror, Ralph was coming, a six-pack of soda on top of a pizza box. So soon. Zack frowned at the mirror, then at Woody. "You will shut up now, asshole, or I start cutting. You got me?" He gave the knife a quarter turn.
    "Aaaaa! That hurts!"
    "And, he figures out what happened back home, you're dead meat. You got it, Woody?"
    "Yes!"
    Walking back toward the parking lot in the sunlight, carrying the pizza box in front of himself in both hands like a page boy carrying the queen mother's crown, Ralph saw Zack leaning way over to talk at Woody, and from the menacing shape of Zack's posture Ralph knew Woody was being told to shut up. Scaring the shit out of him, Ralph thought, and grinned at the idea. Yeah, Zack would be their tough