Recoil by Brian Garfield Read Free Book Online Page B

her close and tight, not moving; she slid her fingers up his spine and rubbed the back of his neck. She felt a shudder run through him. “Jesus Maria,” he whispered, “sometimes I thought it’d never be.” Then he turned past her and patted her rump. In the house a phone was ringing; Ezio hurried inside. Gillespie had come outside and was politely looking away, down toward the water. Frank moved to the marble table and pressed the buzzer under its lip; after a moment Gregory Cestone appeared at the French doors in black trousers and white shirt and black bow tie. “Yes, Mr. Pastor?”
    â€œLet’s have some drinks out here.”
    â€œRight away, sir.” Cestone neither nodded nor smiled. He had been in some kind of fire years ago; there were legends about it and none of them coincided; whatever the incident, Cestone’s face had been burned. Plastic surgeons had reassembled it but the facial muscles were gone and it was an immobile mask. It had taken her years to get used to it.
    Cestone turned back inside and Ezio brushed past him, coming out. Frank caught Ezio’s eye and Ezio shook his head. “There’s nothing. They’ve all gone to ground.”
    â€œThat’s not good enough, Ezio.”
    â€œWe’ll get them, Frank. It’ll take a little time.”
    â€œThis time it’s taken eight years. How long do you figure on the next one?”
    â€œIt won’t be any eight years, I can promise you that.”
    â€œCan you?” Frank never raised his voice but she edged away from him; when he spoke in that tone she felt uneasily as if she were in a cage with something untamed. Yet she had never seen him lift his hand to anyone. It was what had attracted her to him in the beginning; the sensation of raw savagery absolutely controlled by the power of his will.
    Cestone pushed the wheeled drink cart outside through the doors. Gillespie came from the parapet and they gathered around the cart while Cestone made the drinks. She thought how handsome Frank looked in his nautical whites and cap.
    But then he took the cap off and rubbed his pale scalp. “Those four gentlemen made me into a bald-headed old man, Ezio. They took eight of my best years. That’s something a man can’t ever get back.”
    â€œI know that, Frank.”
    â€œNo. You don’t. You’ve never been inside. Eight years with those stinking black animals. If I hadn’t been who I am, I’d have got raped in there twice a day. Two thousand black junkie fags locked inside those walls. That’s what I lived with those eight years.”
    â€œYou look damn good, though.”
    â€œI kept fit. I made a point of it. You go too soft in there, it doesn’t matter who you are or who your friends are. You have to keep command. Nobody respects a flabby leader.”
    â€œWell you’ve never been flabby, Frank, that’s for sure.”
    Gillespie said, “Personally I never trust a fat man.”
    It made Ezio look at him angrily. Ezio wasn’t fat—he was thick but it was all solid—but she hadn’t missed the insinuation in Gillespie’s remark and she was surprised he had the nerve to utter it.
    It hadn’t escaped Frank but he decided to ignore it; he had other things on his mind. He gestured toward his wife with his drink; she smiled; Frank took a healthy swallow and turned toward Ezio. “What’s in motion?”
    â€œHell, Frank, we’re looking for them. What else can I tell you until we start hearing back? The word only went out a few hours ago. We’ve got photographs going out to every city and town where we’ve got contacts. Some of the cops here and there, the organizations, you know how it goes. It’s the biggest manhunt we’ve ever started. We’ll find them.”
    â€œParticularly Merle. Edward Merle.”
    â€œParticularly him, Frank.”
    â€œI want all four of them. But the