Read Online Money for Nothing by Donald E. Westlake - Free Book Online

first time, Josh — with difficulty — hailed one again today, and rode all the way home alone.
    But he wasn't alone once he got there. He walked in his front door into the living room and this time, sitting on the sofa there, drink in hand, completely relaxed and at home, was not Levrin with his scotch and water but a very lanky long-haired brunette in a silver sheath, holding in one hand a tall champagne glass he recognized as one of his own, containing no doubt champagne. Yes; there on the coffee table, atop a Tweety potholder, was their white ceramic ice bucket, with an opened champagne bottle angled up out of it, very like, he suddenly noticed, a howitzer out of a fort.
    This woman, who might be thirty in a minute or two, rose when he came into the room, and was very tall indeed, probably six foot three, at least an inch taller than Josh, and about a hundred pounds lighter. Her nearly black hair fell in long folds to frame a long but delicately beautiful face and to brush her bare shoulders as she moved. Her smile was frank, but not quite suggestive. "You are Josh Redmont," she said, with a charming hint of accent.
    He almost said,
I'm married
, but a more appropriate moment for that statement would arrive eventually, he was sure. So all he said was, "Yes, I am. I live here."
    "It is a charming little apartment," she told him. "I am Tina Pausto. I am to be billeted with you for a while."
    "Billeted? You're moving in?"
    "Andrei Levrin thought," she told him, "you would be too lonely here, without your family. As the day approaches, you see, we must all concentrate. You will forgive me if I say nothing about the operation itself."
    "Sure," he said, because she didn't
have
to tell him anything about the operation itself. He already knew far too much about the operation itself.
    With a graceful gesture, and a slight dip of the knee, she said, "Would you join me? Champagne at vespers."
    An empty glass stood on the coffee table beside the ice bucket. Josh looked at it, looked at the half-full glass in Tina Pausto's hand, and said no, thank you. Or that's what he thought he was saying, but what he heard was, "Yes, thank you."
    She did a perfect bunny dip, emphasizing her breasts by not displaying them, and poured him half a glass, then topped up her own, then, as the bubbles receded, topped up his. As she put the bottle back into the icebucket and he reached for the glass, their arms did an intertwining thing, all in motion, never quite touching, that Josh found stunning, as though he'd just entered some sort of electric field. Like those science fiction movies where people shimmer through doorways because they're entering a different dimension.
    Well, he didn't
want
to enter a different dimension. Levrin and Mr. Nimrin had him in trouble enough, with the FBI and no doubt the CIA and all the police departments of the world, and the giant army of Kamastan, and who knew who all; he wasn't going to let them get him in trouble with Eve.
    So, as Tina Pausto resumed her place on the sofa, gesturing for him to join her there, he stayed on his feet. He said, "How many people are going to live here now?"
    "Just we two, at present," she said. "When you go away for the weekend, others may drop by."
    To suit up, no doubt. Desperate to quantify the dangers that surrounded him, and even eliminate one or two of them if possible, he said, "Are you supposed to sleep with me?"
    She raised an eyebrow at him, with the faintest of smiles, as though he were guilty of some breach of politesse, as though he'd raised a topic that would not have been voiced in gracious company. "That was not discussed," she said.
    "Well, where
are
you going to sleep?"
    "Wherever we decide," she told him. "The apartment is small, but not
that
small. I'm sure the living arrangements will sort themselves out."
    She
was
supposed to get him into bed! To keep his loyalty, to interrogate him when he was befuddled, for whatever reasons spies had when they employed femme