Read Online The Lasko Tangent by Richard North Patterson - Free Book Online

plant.
    “This bench looks good enough.” I sat down gingerly, feeling somehow that it was an act of commitment.
    It was Gubner’s turn to stare at the swanboats.
    “Let’s have it,” I said.
    He turned to face me. Gubner usually looked raffish; today he seemed strained.
    “His name is Alexander Lehman,” he began. “He was my friend, at Brandeis, twenty years ago. My best friend. Still is. I was in his wedding, things like that. None of which you give a shit about. But he’s also the controller at Lasko Devices. It looks like he’s involved in some pretty bad things. And you’re about to help him cut his own throat.”
    “How so?”
    Gubner’s eyes hardened. “That subpoena your boys sent scared the piss out of him. So now he wants to spill his guts. And when you vultures are through, he’ll be out a job—with no career, and maybe no marriage.”
    “I’m just doing my job. I didn’t ask your boy to do these ‘pretty bad things.’ And I didn’t ask for this little chat.”
    “Fuck you, Chris,” he said without feeling.
    I let it pass. “Look, Marty. I’m sorry your friend went sour. But it’s no good holding a wake. Make sure I get everything he knows, and I’ll try to help him.”
    Gubner tugged at his thick black hair as if trying to find a handle on himself. “You can’t promise for McGuire.”
    “Would you rather tell it to him?”
    He shook his head. “No. I want you to carry the mail for him. Remind people that he helped.”
    “I’ll suspend judgment until I hear his story.”
    “What about immunity for testimony?” It was a gesture; his voice wasn’t hopeful.
    I shook my head. “You’ve got no cards, Marty. Anything else?”
    “No, I’ll let him tell it himself. I’ll be hearing most of it for the first time anyhow.”
    I was surprised. “Why are you letting him talk before you know what he’s going to say?”
    Gubner looked away at nothing. “Christ, I’d almost rather shoot him. But he’s got some hangup—he’d rather tell it to the government. Says he doesn’t want me in the middle. I’m just holding his hand.” Gubner’s anger mingled Lehman, himself, and me in a disillusioned mix. I wondered why Lehman inspired that much grief.
    “Ready?” I asked. Gubner got up without a word. We walked with our separate thoughts out of the park and over to the Ritz. I had missed something in Gubner. He had always projected the studied cynicism of a shell-game artist who dared you to find the pea. I supposed he had his reasons. But Gubner had done himself a disservice; he was better than that. I wondered if as much could be said for Alexander Lehman.
    The Ritz bar was a soft-lit room off the lobby, as understated as a grey pinstripe and as quiet as a bank vault. The marble tables focused on a large window which looked back to the Garden. Most of the tables were empty. In one corner two middle-aged gentlemen sat in quiet conversation. Both wore grey suits with handkerchiefs carefully arranged in their breast pockets, and talked with the attentive gravity of serious men discussing money. I liked the place well enough. But today it seemed funereal. I half-expected to find Lehman stretched out on a table, made up for burying.
    But Lehman was alive enough. Gubner steered me toward a man who sat facing the window. I moved toward the table, feeling edgy. This seemed the wrong place to be doing our business. Lehman’s back conveyed queasiness like a contagion.
    I reached the table and stood over him. My imagined Alexander Lehman was tall and slender. The real one was short and pale, with brown hair and the boyish roundness of a child comic.
    “Mr. Lehman?”
    “You’re Mr. Paget.” He said it with the sad expectancy of a man who had been formally introduced to a terminal disease. “Please sit down.” The voice went with the face; it had the youthfulness of an adolescent’s. But at second glance there was something older in him, like seeing your paperboy grown up and