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

early on, I wasn’t as sick then. He had a legitimate business going on at the time. Can’t remember what it was.” He frowned in concentration. “Some kind of building maintenance, maybe. Janitor service? Doesn’t matter anyway. Louie was dealing on the side then, he had a couple of guys working for him. Pretty small-time operation, I think.”

Clarke slid the last beer across the table towards Froggy and waited.

“This car came by when I was there one day. A big black limo with tinted windows. It had one of those lifts on the back for a wheelchair. Guy in the back seat rolled the window down and talked to Louie. He was all puffed up when he came back. Said it was the man.”

“The man.” Clarke raised his hand and signalled for another round. He waited until the server left.

“How long ago was this?”

“Not long after I came out here. Three or four years ago? Something like that.” Froggy sounded almost normal now, the hunger fed, the desperation gone for another few hours.

“What do you think Louie meant by ‘the man’?”

“Somebody important I suppose. I don’t know.”

“Could you describe him?”

“Not really. Small, I guess, ’cause I remember thinking he looked like a kid except for the grey in his hair. Glasses maybe.”

He closed his eyes for a few moments, then opened them again. “Maybe not. But I think the lift was for him. There was that look about him. Or maybe it was something somebody said.”

“How about the driver?”

“I remember he got out of the car and went into the office and talked to Louie. Came out with a small package. Pills, I guess. Big guy, I mean really big, maybe like six-six and three hundred pounds plus. Not really fat either. Scared the crap out of everybody.” Froggy shrugged. “That’s all I can remember.” He looked anxiously at Clarke.

“Better than nothing, Froggy.” Clarke took a fifty out of his wallet. “I’m going to leave this at the bar, order you a burger, and tell them to drop the change on the table. Take care of yourself.”

Froggy nodded and smiled, in the happy place now. He pulled the two beers in close, as if someone might attempt to steal them. The money was an unexpected bonus, another chance to punch a ticket on the fentanyl train. Maybe this time he’d be lucky and get back to Marie and the girls waiting at the end of the line. He sat hunched at the table, his eyes half closed, a scarred man in a tattered coat lost in dreams of the past.

The bartender dropped his order and change on the table, and Froggy carefully wrapped the burger in its napkin and stowed it in his coat pocket for later. He drained the last beer, picked up the money, and floated out the door to find a dealer. It wouldn’t be difficult.

Chapter 32

“What do you mean she turned me down?” Albright’s tone was incredulous.

“She said she was flattered, realized what an honour it was to be asked, and had spent a lot of time thinking about it, but in the end she decided she just wasn’t ready for that big a change in her life. She said she still enjoys her present work and wants to continue on with it for a while.”

Albright came out from behind his desk and walked towards his aide and halted a foot in front of his face.

“Why didn’t you put her through to me immediately?” he shouted.

“I told her you would want to speak to her, sir, but she said she would rather not.”

“Rather not speak with me.”

“Yes, sir, those were her exact words. And then she hung up before I could say anything else.”

Malcolm realized he might have stuttered slightly over the last part of his statement. Albright was glaring at him, and he tried to focus on the space between his eyes like it said in the books he’d read on anger management, receiving end. He thought if he looked away the man might strike him.

“Who the hell does she think she is, turning me down?”

Malcolm took this to be a rhetorical question and remained silent, his face screwing up into what he hoped was a representation of intelligent and obliging agreement.

“Get out of my sight. Now!” Albright screamed.

Malcolm fled, wondering, and not for the first time, why he didn’t just up and quit. The money was good, but at times like this it was nowhere near worth it. And times like this were becoming more and more frequent of late. He thought if he didn’t make the break soon, he might not be allowed to.

“Send me the brothers,” Albright yelled after him, and his aide took out his cell phone and made the call as he escaped back to the sanctuary of his office. He collapsed into his chair in front of the computer, called up his resumé on the screen, and began working feverishly on it.

The Mercedes rolled up in front of the building, and Albright climbed into the back seat and cranked up the Wagner. He’d sat through the whole Ring Cycle on three successive nights on his trip to that specialist in Germany and had been enthralled. It spoke to him now more than ever. The brothers, whose taste ran more to country, closed the partition window and shut off the front speakers after loading Albright’s luggage, and the three men headed out on the highway towards Blaine. Albright turned back for a last look as they pulled away and wondered if he would ever return. He wasn’t a superstitious man, but he had a strong premonition that he would never see his office or the city again. He found that he was fine with that.

The great thing about knowing the future, inasmuch as it applied to you anyway, was that, as the man said, it concentrated the mind. As the tracks narrowed and the end approached, it was sinful not to focus on what was most