A Long Walk Up the Waterslide by Don Winslow Read Free Book Online

one today, with Tony Lama boots, brand-new jeans, piped cowboy shirt, and a vest.
    A greaseball cowboy, Jack thought. Great.
    “Just find her,” Jack said. “Find her and pay her off.”
    “I’ll find her,” answered Joey. “ You pay her.”
    “Half and half,” Jack offered.
    “And I get the half that eats?” Joey asked. “You play, you pay.”
    “I never touched her.”
    “Jack, Jack, Jack. You’re like, what, a Baptist?”
    “Yeah.” What was this greaseball talking about?
    “You should be a Catholic, Jack,” Joe Foglio continued, “then you wouldn’t be consumed by all this guilt. Look at me. Do I look like I’m consumed with guilt?”
    Jack Landis had heard that the very definition of a sociopath was a person who didn’t feel guilt, but he decided not to share that thought at the moment, so he said, “No.”
    “Because I’m a Catholic,” Joe said proudly. “See, you Baptists are supposed to—what is it?—Accept Christ as your personal savior, right?”
    “I guess that’s the basic idea,” Jack answered to get it out of the way. “Now, what are we—”
    Joey continued. “See, that’s a mistake, that ‘personal’ part. What you need is a middleman, a fixer, a priest. I go to confession every day, Jack, every day. I go to confession, I rat myself out to the priest, the priest squares it with God, then I got the whole rest of the day to chase more pussy, skim more money—whatever—and the odds are still on my side I go to heaven. I couldn’t believe it when the nuns first told me about this, I thought it was so great.
    “Believe me, Jack, this world was made for Catholic men. You want me to set you up with a priest? I think you gotta take a few classes, let him pour some holy water on you … no big deal.”
    Jack wondered how on earth he got to be partners with a man who was obviously insane. He had to get Joey focused on the problem of Polly Paget.
    “The gravy train’s derailing, Joe, you’re the guy who can get it back on the track.”
    Talking to me like he’s on TV, Joey thought. Like I’m going to buy a time-share in Candyland. Like I’m a jerk.
    I’ll show you a freaking train, Jackie.
    “I already got a plan,” Joey said.
    “You do?” Jack asked. “What is it? No, I don’t want to know.”
    “No, you don’t want to know, Jack.” Joey looked at Harold and they both laughed.
    Jack straightened his string tie, smiled into the mirror, and steeled himself to go back out into public.
    “You’re the man, Joe,” he said.
    Harold opened the door and Jack Landis stepped out.
    “And you’re the jerk,” Joey said softly.
    The bodyguard started to laugh.
    “He still doesn’t get it, does he?”
    Foglio shook his head. “Proves you don’t need brains to make money in this country.”
    Landis had any brains, Foglio thought, he’d know that I knew all about him and Polly Paget almost from the first cigarette—an insurance policy against Jack Landis canceling our deal.
    A sweet deal it is, too. So much easier than honest crime.
    And the stupid Paget skank blows it. Because maybe this cracker bastard doesn’t buy her dinner and a movie one night. Rape, my aching ass. Broad can’t sell it, then complains it’s been stolen. And then goes to the newspapers.
    “You want me to make the call, Joe?” Harold asked.
    “Yeah,” Joe said. He didn’t make phone calls himself, lest he someday appear on the Justice Department’s Greatest Hits tapes, volume five. “Yeah, reach out.”
    Reach out, reach out and touch someone.
    Joey Foglio left the men’s room humming to himself.

5
    It’s nice, Walter Withers thought, that there’s a place you can still go to hear someone do a Hart tune and not butcher it. Or do a Hart tune at all, for that matter.
    Ah, New York, New York. Sitting in a dark room, listening to a smoky piano behind a chanteuse, sipping on quality scotch with a beautiful woman at the table beside you.
    All right, maybe Gloria is not exactly beautiful in