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

looking to see who approached the FBI offices.
    He couldn't go back to Fair Harbor to discuss this with Eve. She'd be horrified, and she'd have to blame him for this mess, and besides, he'd just come to town. He was supposed to have lunch now and after that go into the office. He was supposed to be thinking about Cloudbank toilet paper, not AK-47s.
    Well, he couldn't go to toe office today, he was sure of that much. He'd have a hysterical fit in the elevator, he'd faint at his desk, he'd blurt out his problems to everybody in the place.
    He did have to go out now, but it wouldn't have anything to do with lunch. Food would lie like cannonballs in his stomach, he couldn't even think about it.
    But before he left here, he had to deal with the office. He phoned, and Martha the receptionist answered, and he said, "Martha, hi, it's Josh. Listen, I can't come in today, I think I got food poisoning or something."
    "You're still out on the island?" If there was an accusation in that, she hid it well, with a flat delivery.
    "No, I came back to town this morning," he told her, "but I just keep feeling worse. Maybe it's the clams I had."
    "Seafood," she said. "That can be the worst."
    "I'm gonna nap, and maybe see a doctor. I'm sure I'll be all right tomorrow."
    "You don't sound good," she admitted.
    "I'm not good."
    "I'll tell Mr. Grimsby," she said.
    "Thanks," he said, and left the arsenal his apartment had become.
     
     
    Riverside Drive was still windy, as he crossed the sidewalk from the departing cab to the doorman opening the entrance. "Hi," he said, being unable to ignore people as totally as Mr. Nimrin could.
    "Sir," the doorman said.
    Josh crossed to that inner door, with the marble steps and the wrought iron railing. If the door's locked, he thought, if she isn't there, I won't know what to do. I don't know her name, I don't know anything.
    The door wasn't locked. He opened it, and heard that distant bell sound, and again when he shut the door. He walked over to stand beside the coffee table and look at the interior door, through which, as Mr. Nimrin had pointed out last time, she would come.
    She did. She looked at Josh in mild surprise, without recognition. "Yes?"
    "I was here with Mr. Nimrin. I need to see him again."
    "I am with a patient," she said. "Do sit down, it won't be long."
    She nodded, maybe to encourage him, and withdrew, shutting her door. He sat, fidgeting, on the same sofa as last time, and looked over at the magazines on the coffee table. But he couldn't read, he couldn't do anything but sit and feel his nerves unstring.
    It was nearly half an hour before a stunning redhead of about thirty came out, gave him a cool look she might have offered to a caged parakeet, and left, her little pink summer skirt twitching around her thighs.
    "You wanted to see
me
?"
    Oh — he'd been staring at the redhead. He turned and the older woman was in the interior doorway, giving him a somewhat skeptical smile. "Sorry," he said, and stood.
    "That's all right," she assured him. "Even matters of life and death must take a back seat to sex. Come in."
    The next room was like an antique shop, crowded with armoires, desks, hutches, sofas, armchairs. Two windows would look out on Riverside Drive through vertical iron bars, except that they were so heavily swathed in drapes.
    The woman gestured to a maroon empire settee, saying, "Sit there," while she sat in a bulky black leather armchair at right angles to it Handy to her right hand, he noticed, was a round table with notepad and pen. And handy to his own settee was a small table with a box of tissues on it.
    He said, "I have to get in touch with Mr. Nimrin. Right away."
    "Yes, I understand," she said. "I don't know your name."
    "Josh Redmont. I don't know yours, either."
    She smiled at that. "I am Harriet Linde," she said. "Elwah didn't tell you much about me, I see."
    Elwah? Then he remembered, from the
Washington Post
, that Mr. Nimrin's first name was Ellois; so that's how it was