Arrow's Rest by Joel Scott (best books to read all time .TXT) 📗

bit of burglary for MacLean. Two years for each of them. They’ve been friends ever since and went sailing offshore together for a few years on an old wooden sailboat Kane inherited. He lives aboard in the downtown fishermen’s marina now. We’ve been told that MacLean sleeps aboard some nights.”

“Wooden. Good to know,” Albright said.

“Kane has been clean since his release, a couple of minor assault charges resulting from bar fights a few years back that were dropped. His partner, the First Nations guy, MacLean, was knifed during a jewellery store robbery shortly after leaving prison, but charges were stayed when it turned out he was stabbed by his accomplices. They were notorious gangsters from Quebec and there were some questions about whether MacLean even knew what was really going on. He was badly injured and the doctors thought he would never walk again. There was a lot of sympathy for him at the time. It was a big story back then, you probably heard about it. Made all the cable news stations.”

“I never watch TV,” Albright said. He rose smoothly to his feet signalling an end to the meeting. He rotated his hips, loosening his shoulders, and slipped on his suit jacket and walked over to the sideboard mirror and adjusted his tie.

“How do I look?” It was the rhetorical question of a practised politician. He knew he looked good. He was a big man and had to stoop slightly to check his hair. It was, as always, perfect. Maybe he’d accentuate the swept back thing a little more; it couldn’t hurt with his base. He’d speak to his barber.

“Have to be at my best tonight. A lot of important people going to be there, a lot of money going to be raised. I’m having a small do afterwards for some of the guests in a private suite at the hotel. Would you care to join us? You’ll meet some interesting people. I can guarantee it.”

“I’d love to, but I’m afraid I’m booked up for this evening.” Sullivan hoped he sounded sincere.

“Ah well. Perhaps next time.”

“Absolutely. I look forward to it. I should leave now. I’ll be in touch.”

The lawyer turned and headed for the door, trying not to hurry. It seemed now that every time he met Albright it was incrementally worse. They seldom met in the same place twice nowadays, and that in itself was concerning. He had a permanent suite in the hotel where he did most of his party business, and a string of different properties where he held those meetings he wanted to remain private. Did he even own any of them? Richard Sullivan realized that Albright knew a hell of a lot more about him than he did about Albright. Maybe it was time that changed.

James Albright watched Sullivan scuttling off, an amused smile on his face. That had been exquisite, letting that tiny glimpse of his new self slip out into the open and seeing the smooth-polished lawyer break into a slimy sweat as the silence stretched. Since the red flags had popped up on his check-up a year back, it was becoming harder to behave as if nothing had changed when everything had. They’d done all the tests, given him all the referrals, the names of the top specialists, the whole nine yards. When the last doctor he’d seen, an earnest grizzled veteran with a wall of fancy diplomas behind him, had begun lecturing him on philosophical positivity, Stephen Hawking, and the quality of life still available to him, it was all he could do to refrain from grabbing the man by the neck and crotch and heaving him out of his office window onto 5th Avenue sixteen floors down.

His whole life had been about being in control, and to think that at this late stage he would hand over his care and governance to an individual or an institution was beyond laughable. Not going to happen. He had chosen instead to take off the gloves, shed the veneers, and become the man he was meant to be. Rather than sinking into morbid depression, he had become liberated, spreading his wings and learning to fly. The rules no longer applied.

“Yippee!” he suddenly whooped at the mirror, and the man in the mirror grinned and winked right back at him.

He finished his drink, pulled out his cell phone, and called for Malcolm. Five minutes later he was seated in the back seat of the Mercedes limousine reading over his speech for the evening ahead as Wagner blared from the Blaupunkt.

His driver smiled at him in the mirror.

“You’re looking good this evening, sir.”

“I feel good, Malcolm. Going to break the bank tonight.”

“God’s will, sir.”

“God’s will, Malcolm.” His response was automatic. Religion was just another cloak to be put on or taken off as the situation called for, and what with his early days back in the boonies, he could Jesus right up there with the best of them. Albright leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment and thought about the evening that lay ahead. If he did really well tonight, mightn’t he deserve a reward? But he mustn’t think about that right now. He crossed his legs against the stirring and went back to his notes for the speech.

Chapter 17

Cat snatched up her rucksack and resisted the urge to fire it across the room. She probably would have if it hadn’t contained a good ten grand’s worth of camera equipment. That little Welsh bastard Reese owed her big time for this. She didn’t shoot this kind of crap; they all knew that, and especially him. She’d worked for him for almost a decade, dozens upon dozens of shoots over the years, at all sorts of events and never ever at one of these. She didn’t give a fat rat’s ass how many fashionistas might be attending or how much coverage the event would attract. She was well enough known in her field to be able to pick