Read Online The Guardian by David Hosp - Free Book Online Page B

Motherfuckers.’ Charlie was sure that Gruden had never paid a dollar in taxes in his entire life, but that seemed to be beside the point. ‘Gonna bleed the
fuckin’ country dry.’ He shoveled a fork full of cold egg and potatoes off one of the plates into his mouth and looked up at Charlie as he chewed, letting his lips separate enough to
give Charlie a view of the semi-masticated breakfast. ‘You bring it?’ he asked after a moment.
    Charlie shook his head. ‘I didn’t think—’
    Gruden put his head back down in the paper without hearing the rest. ‘You catch this shit, Joe?’ he said into the table. ‘Kid asks for my help, and then he doesn’t even
bring the shit with him.’
    ‘Fucked-up world, Mr Gruden,’ said a voice from behind Charlie. Apparently one of the men sitting behind him was Joe. Charlie wasn’t sure which, though he supposed it
didn’t matter. He was guessing he’d have a hard time telling them apart anyway.
    ‘You think I got time to waste, kid?’ Gruden said.
    ‘No,’ Charlie replied. ‘I didn’t know whether you could help,’ he stammered. ‘I thought you wanted to talk—’
    Gruden looked up sharply. ‘If you didn’t know whether I could help, why the fuck you call?’
    ‘I wasn’t sure—’
    ‘You weren’t sure? Why’d you call, then? You think I’m a fuckin’ chump?’
    ‘No, I just . . .’ Charlie took a deep breath, tried to relax. Gruden was testing him. Charlie had spent enough time around bullies to recognize the tactic, and he understood that
his reaction would set the tone for the negotiation to come. He thought about all the people who had taken advantage of him throughout his life, and he willed himself to appear confident. ‘I
wanted to talk to you first,’ he said slowly. ‘I didn’t know whether you could help with this. It’s an unusual item.’
    Gruden picked up a stained napkin and wiped his mouth. ‘Is it genuine?’ he asked.
    ‘Yeah,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s genuine.’
    ‘Then I can help you move it,’ Gruden said. ‘But I gotta see it first. I can’t do a fuckin’ thing one way or another if I can’t verify that it’s the
real article.’
    ‘I understand,’ Charlie conceded. ‘But I need to know how you plan on moving it.’
    ‘You hear that, Joe?’ Gruden said. ‘Kid needs to know how I plan on moving it.’
    ‘Unbelievable.’
    Gruden narrowed his eyes as he looked back at Charlie. ‘You don’t need to know shit,’ he said. ‘If it’s genuine, I got people who are interested. You understand,
I’m gonna take sixty per cent to move it, though.’
    ‘Going rate is forty,’ Charlie said.
    ‘Like you said,’ Gruden responded, ‘it’s an unusual item. Goin’ rate don’t apply.’
    ‘Maybe,’ Charlie shot back, ‘but you said you’ve already got people interested. If that’s true, this is gonna be the easiest sale you’ve ever made.’
    Gruden blew his nose into the dirty napkin. Something escaped and landed on the front of his shirt. Charlie couldn’t tell whether it was egg. Gruden either didn’t notice or
didn’t care; it remained on the shirt. ‘Maybe the easiest, maybe the most dangerous. I guess we’ll wait and fuckin’ see,’ he said. ‘Either way, you need my
connections.’
    ‘There are other people with connections in this city,’ Charlie said. It was dangerous to try to play a man like Miles Gruden, but Charlie also knew that this was probably the
largest fence the gangster would handle all year. It was easy money to him – too easy to pass up.
    Gruden looked at Charlie for a long time before he lowered his eyes to his newspaper again. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said. ‘What do you think, Joe?’
    ‘Like I said, it’s a fucked-up world, Mr Gruden.’
    Charlie worried that he had over-played his hand. ‘Forty-five per cent,’ he offered quickly.
    Gruden folded up his newspapers one at a time, stacked them in a neat pile on the side of the table. He raised his hand and