them today.”
“Just don’t bring
them here,” said Salateri. “I don’t want to meet
anybody like that.”
“And if you’re going
to hire them, don’t call them from here, either,” said
Foley. “A year from now I don’t want some prosecutor
going down the hotel phone bills and finding their number.”
Seaver nodded. “Of course.
I’ll be flying to Los Angeles to talk to them in person. There
are just a couple of things I should tell you. They’ll give me
a price, but expenses will be on top of that.”
“This goes without
saying,” said Buckley. “What else?”
“Once they leave their
house, it’s done. I won’t be able to call them off.
They’ll keep at it as long as it takes, and they won’t
check in with me or be any place I can reach them. If we find out
tomorrow that Pete Hatcher was the most loyal employee the world has
ever seen, it’ll be too late. He’ll already be dead.”
“I guess this is the time
to ask.” Buckley looked at his two partners. “Are we all
sure we aren’t going to change our minds?”
“I’ll chance it,”
said Foley.
They both looked at Salateri. He
knitted his brows and held up both hands. “You know it would be
too bad if we were just being paranoid. I mean, an innocent guy
suddenly has his bosses decide he’s the enemy, and then they
get him tossed in a Dumpster somewhere. But he already knows we had
him watched, and he knows we were considering getting rid of him. If
he was our friend, he’s not anymore. What good would he be to
us now?”
Linda Thompson sat in her
bedroom and rubbed the creamy mask onto the perfect white skin of her
cheeks and forehead, staring into the lighted mirror. This one was
blue, and it left three small round holes for her eyes and mouth. The
white towel wrapped around her blond hair above her blue face made
her look ghostly in the intense glow of the makeup light. She walked
to the bed and lay down to wait. The blinds were closed, but the
window behind them open, so they clacked back and forth in the dry,
hot southern California breeze. She opened her robe and let the air
blow across her naked body while it dried the facial mask. She had
already covered herself with lotion, and the air made her skin
tingle.
Linda was beautiful. She had
never been anywhere since she was nine when somebody had not
mentioned it, or looked at her in a way that made mentioning it seem
like saying it twice. She knew it was the kind of beauty that was
startling, because it seemed to take up space of its own. It was the
initial premise of every transaction she had with other people. They
didn’t seem to understand that it wasn’t a gift. It was a
torment, because it was perfection, and maintaining perfection was a
lot of work. Linda hated work.
It was only eleven in the
morning and she had already done five point five miles on the
stationary bike, worked for an hour on the exercise machines, and
done a half hour in the pool. She knew she would have felt less
bereft now if she could have had four fried eggs and a half pound of
bacon, which was what Earl had eaten in front of her before he had
gone out to work the dogs. Linda had not eaten since the cracker and
asparagus last night, and Earl had thrown that nauseating mess into a
pan in front of her and set off a racket of sizzling and popping and
smelly grease. When she had said she didn’t want any he had
given that crooked smirk and eaten all of it himself. Wolfed it down,
was the expression, and it was made for Earl.
He was tall and lean with big
knuckles and a jaw that showed what he was: ten generations of white
trash in assorted depressing hollows out of God’s line of
vision in the South, and probably the ten generations before that
being the same thing in England, all twenty generations of them
screwing with people only one or two branches over on the family
tree, so they were all completely devoid of common consideration and
never gained an ounce.
The air seemed to tear itself
apart
“Just don’t bring
them here,” said Salateri. “I don’t want to meet
anybody like that.”
“And if you’re going
to hire them, don’t call them from here, either,” said
Foley. “A year from now I don’t want some prosecutor
going down the hotel phone bills and finding their number.”
Seaver nodded. “Of course.
I’ll be flying to Los Angeles to talk to them in person. There
are just a couple of things I should tell you. They’ll give me
a price, but expenses will be on top of that.”
“This goes without
saying,” said Buckley. “What else?”
“Once they leave their
house, it’s done. I won’t be able to call them off.
They’ll keep at it as long as it takes, and they won’t
check in with me or be any place I can reach them. If we find out
tomorrow that Pete Hatcher was the most loyal employee the world has
ever seen, it’ll be too late. He’ll already be dead.”
“I guess this is the time
to ask.” Buckley looked at his two partners. “Are we all
sure we aren’t going to change our minds?”
“I’ll chance it,”
said Foley.
They both looked at Salateri. He
knitted his brows and held up both hands. “You know it would be
too bad if we were just being paranoid. I mean, an innocent guy
suddenly has his bosses decide he’s the enemy, and then they
get him tossed in a Dumpster somewhere. But he already knows we had
him watched, and he knows we were considering getting rid of him. If
he was our friend, he’s not anymore. What good would he be to
us now?”
Linda Thompson sat in her
bedroom and rubbed the creamy mask onto the perfect white skin of her
cheeks and forehead, staring into the lighted mirror. This one was
blue, and it left three small round holes for her eyes and mouth. The
white towel wrapped around her blond hair above her blue face made
her look ghostly in the intense glow of the makeup light. She walked
to the bed and lay down to wait. The blinds were closed, but the
window behind them open, so they clacked back and forth in the dry,
hot southern California breeze. She opened her robe and let the air
blow across her naked body while it dried the facial mask. She had
already covered herself with lotion, and the air made her skin
tingle.
Linda was beautiful. She had
never been anywhere since she was nine when somebody had not
mentioned it, or looked at her in a way that made mentioning it seem
like saying it twice. She knew it was the kind of beauty that was
startling, because it seemed to take up space of its own. It was the
initial premise of every transaction she had with other people. They
didn’t seem to understand that it wasn’t a gift. It was a
torment, because it was perfection, and maintaining perfection was a
lot of work. Linda hated work.
It was only eleven in the
morning and she had already done five point five miles on the
stationary bike, worked for an hour on the exercise machines, and
done a half hour in the pool. She knew she would have felt less
bereft now if she could have had four fried eggs and a half pound of
bacon, which was what Earl had eaten in front of her before he had
gone out to work the dogs. Linda had not eaten since the cracker and
asparagus last night, and Earl had thrown that nauseating mess into a
pan in front of her and set off a racket of sizzling and popping and
smelly grease. When she had said she didn’t want any he had
given that crooked smirk and eaten all of it himself. Wolfed it down,
was the expression, and it was made for Earl.
He was tall and lean with big
knuckles and a jaw that showed what he was: ten generations of white
trash in assorted depressing hollows out of God’s line of
vision in the South, and probably the ten generations before that
being the same thing in England, all twenty generations of them
screwing with people only one or two branches over on the family
tree, so they were all completely devoid of common consideration and
never gained an ounce.
The air seemed to tear itself
apart
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