Money for Nothing by Donald E. Westlake Read Free Book Online Page A

years, and how abruptly and unexpectedly he'd put everything from their life at risk. Including life itself.
    "All right," she said at last, and looked at him. "Here's what I think you should do."
    "Just tell me."
    "Well, you're part of the decision-making, too," she said. "Don't put it
all
on me."
    "Tell."
    "All right. What I think you should do is open a file in the laptop here, and put in it everything you told me, and put the date. The people's names, and what you did, and what they told you. And say in there, you're afraid for your life—"
    "I am."
    "And I think you're right," she said. "So you say in there, you're afraid, and that's why you'll go along with those people unless they ask you to do something really illegal or wicked, and you'll keep that file as a diary, and tell it everything that happens.
Then
, if the time comes that you have to go to the police, or they come to you—"
    "Oh, God."
    "You can show them the file. So they can see for themselves the fix you were in. That should count for
something
."
    "So I should write it all down," he said, "and I should go along with those people unless they want me to do something really bad."
    "And," she said, "we should have a glass of wine before we go to the Welshes. To calm us down." Gesturing at the glass in front of herself, she said, "This is no time for tea."
    "I'll bring it out," he said, rising.
    "Take your bankbook," she said, extending it toward him.
    He took it, reluctantly. "For the first time in my life," he said, "I don't really want money."
    In the kitchen, he got the wine bottle from the refrigerator and glasses from the shelf, and was pouring the wine when it occurred to him he hadn't told her about the "matériel" he was allegedly going to be storing next week.
    Well, enough for today. He could tell her about the matériel later, when he knew what it was.
     
10
     
    GUNS. UNDER THE BED WERE four long wooden boxes, about the right size to carry a pair of ski poles each. Numbers and letters were stenciled in black on the boxes, and when he pulled one out from under the bed it had a square of paper glued to the top, containing several lines of words or numbers, the most important of which were AUTOMAT-KALASHNIKOVA and AK-47.
    Josh sat heavily on the floor in front of the box he'd pulled out Assault rifles. He was storing in his bedroom, under his bed, the favorite weapon of terrorists and guerillas and revolutionaries all around the world. Four of them.
    And what else? No bombs, Levrin had assured him; but AK-47s? What else?
    Under Jeremy's crib, four cardboard boxes, heavily taped, which had markings and words on them Josh couldn't understand, but also one drawing he understood completely: The curved metal magazine that would contain the AK-47's bullets. Many of the consumers of these products around the world would be illiterate, of course, or would only speak some obscure local language, so the picture was meant to be helpful to the customer, and Josh was sure it was appreciated.
    And what else? In the closet in his bedroom, hanging in black plastic garment bags, four uniforms, a very dark green-brown, with black-and-red boards on the shoulders and silver lightning-bolt pins on the lapels and red chevrons on the sleeves. On the floor in the closet, a box of tall black lace-up boots. On the shelf in the closet, four white cardboard boxes, each containing an officer-type military hat, with a longer hard brim and higher front peak than usual, so that the hats all by themselves, without uniforms or people or anything underneath them, already looked evil.
    He couldn't have this. He still hadn't actually
done
anything, hadn't participated in anything bad, but these things were not here for the staff picnic. He couldn't let this go on.
    But what to do? Make a run for the FBI, downtown? Or maybe even phone them from here.
    No. Even if
they
weren't watching him every second, they were surely tapping his phone and no doubt had people around Foley Square,