Ashes To Ashes: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective by Don Pendleton Read Free Book Online Page A

hours a day and by the month. I would sleep at
their pleasure, eat and drink and make merry at their pleasure—and,
I presumed, kill and maim and screw at their pleasure.
    Two basically operative
phrases recurred over and over: "... at the pleasure of the
employer ..." and "... without regard to employee's personal
conscience."
    There was a covenant on
loyalty, one on secrecy, several more to cover any paranoid threat
to " ... the public image, safety, and general well being of the
employer."
    They even got my body if I died on duty—and
I right away transposed that into the situation with Bruno.
    At the bottom appeared what is sometimes
referred to as a closed-loop option; they had a binder on my life,
forever, renewable at their pleasure every thirty days but never at
mine.
    I glanced at Kalinsky and said, "The way JQ
did it, eh?"
    He said, "Always. You want to argue with the
success of it?"
    I replied, "Depends on the point of view.
Success for whom?"
    "It's a standard contract. We all work under
the same requirements, all of us here. The only difference is the
salary. And that is never negotiable. You take the whole deal or
none of it."
    "You can't really hold people to this
option. Not in this country. If a guy wants to leave ..."
    "The hell we can't. We can't physically
restrain him, no—can't make him stay if he's dead set on leaving.
Can sure as hell make him wish he had, though. He'll never work
anywhere else, for anybody, at any price, not even for himself. So
think about it before you sign. Think about this, too, though. We
already consider you under our influence. Can't let you walk away
from it now. So; whether you sign or not, we consider that we
nevertheless own a moral option, and we will enforce it."
    I carefully lay the thing on the desk while
quietly
    musing, "Some American
Indian tribe had this peculiar custom ... you save a guy's life
... then he owns you forever."
    Kalinsky grinned amiably. "Exactly."
    I said, "Bullshit."
    "Better think about it."
    "How long?"
    "Midnight."
    "Tonight," I presumed.
    He was still grinning, enjoying it.
"Midnight tonight. I guess your only decision, Ash, is are we
friends or enemies. As friends, we can be very nice. As enemies
..."
    "Another story comes to mind," I said
quietly. "One about this guy who sells his soul to the devil."
    "Devil has all the options, Ash. I'm
surprised you didn't know that. It's written in original sin."
    "JQ say that?"
    "He did."
    I said, and meant it, "Bullshit."
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Six:
Conjunction
     
    I do not mind saying that I was more than a
little disturbed by Kalinsky's attitude toward my life and liberty.
The guy sat there with a grin on his face and as much as told me
that he was taking me over, like it or not—as though I were an
open-stock corporation and he was buying up all the shares.
    The money was great, sure, but only a
pervert lives for money alone.
    I would sell the Maserati before I would
sign a deal like that, yet he made it quite clear that I was his,
signed or not.
    So I was perturbed, yes. I did not feel that
he was bluffing. He meant it, every word and wink of it, and I knew
that the threat was very real.
    But I could see no profit in a showdown at
that moment and, besides, I wanted some time with Karen before the
walls came tumbling down. She was the client, Kalinsky was not, and
I was not satisfied in my own mind that she was, indeed, in good
hands.
    So I cooled it and kept the banter going
with Kalinsky until another guy came along to show me to a guest
room upstairs. Seemed that a formal dinner party was brewing for
the evening, some twenty to thirty additional guests, and I would
be expected to "keep the kid under control" during that.
    These people apparently never heard of
thinking small or of finding a situation beyond their ability to
manage. Believe it, a guy was waiting for me inside my room, with a
mouth full of pins and a tailor's tape over the shoulder, to fit me
into a tux for the