Recoil by Brian Garfield Read Free Book Online Page A

angle.”
    â€œCI?”
    â€œSorry. Confidential informant. We’ve made some progress toward finding the leak in the office—narrowed it down to three or four people. As soon as we pin it on one of them we’ll go to work. We’ll find out who bought the information, I promise you.”
    â€œWe know who bought it.”
    â€œNot to get a prosecution we don’t. We’ve got to have evidence.”
    â€œWhen does Pastor go out in the street?”
    â€œTomorrow morning.”
    Silence dragged along for a while. Jan had fallen asleep sitting up, one shoulder tipped against the wall, the hair falling across her eyes. Mathieson looked down at Ronny’s sleeping face.
    Some time later he said, “I feel like a goldfish here. Suppose they throw a bomb into this house? We ought to clear out.”
    â€œWe may as well.” Bradleigh looked embarrassed; he was a poor dissembler.
    â€œWhat’s the matter, Glenn?”
    â€œGuess I’ve been playing dirty pool with you. Chalk it up to an excess of zeal. We should have moved you out of here six hours ago.”
    â€œHell, I know that. You’ve kept us here because you wanted them to make another try.”
    â€œBelieve me this place is covered inside out and upside down. They’d never get near you.” He put his glass down. “But you’re right, we’d better move out. Let’s start waking them up.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    Long Island: 2-3 August
    1
    F RANK ’ S DAUGHTERS CARRIED THEIR STRIDENT RIVALRY ONTO the screened porch and Anna Pastor slumped with the fatigue of dealing with them. She retreated from the parlor, out onto the flagstones.
    Beyond the statuary the lawn was neatly cut, two acres of grass sloping down to the beach. She could see Frank on the dock with Ezio: In silhouette against the silver water of the Sound they looked like cutouts of Mutt and Jeff. Ezio used his body expressively whenever he spoke; his arms rode up and down incessantly, his head rocked back and forth, he pivoted and stamped and took up defiant poses. Frank stood motionless, perhaps asking and answering, but there was no sign of it at this distance. Frank had outgrown the mannerisms of the streets long ago and prison had put a kind of rigidity into him.
    This morning when he’d come outside the walls he’d stood on the curb with his head thrown back and his eyes half closed, presenting his face to the sun as if to draw strength from it. It had been ten minutes before he’d got into the car and then he’d just sat beside her holding her hand, letting Ezio’s rapid-fire talk roll off him.
    They’d driven straight out to the Island and he’d gone upstairs with her and without a word made love to her without even bothering to draw the curtains; then he’d put on his whites and told her he needed to be alone because he hadn’t been alone in eight years and he’d taken the outboard onto the Sound.
    He’d been gone until an hour ago; at midafternoon he’d tied the boat up to the dock and Ezio had gone down there to meet him and they were still talking.
    In the meantime there’d been twenty phone calls and for a time the place had crawled with men but Ezio had sent nearly all of them away, some on errands and some simply away. Only two were left, somewhere around the place—George Ramiro down at his post in the gatehouse and C. K. Gillespie who had been on the phone in the dining room when she’d gone past a moment ago.
    Every summer for eight years she’d brought the girls out here; every summer it had got harder as they’d got older. She had never lived out here with Frank: They had been married the year before he went to prison and they’d taken a honeymoon in Italy that summer and spent the rest of it in the Brooklyn house while Frank’s lawyers tried to delay the sentencing.
    The two men came up across the garden. Frank took her in his arms. He held