Slide by Jason Starr Ken Bruen Read Free Book Online Page B

really doing something important, his bit for the new prosperity. Meanwhile, she was thinking, And how successful have you been? You live in a shithole, can barely buy the drinks, drive a freaking banger, and have to roll some poor schmuck in a car park.
    Here he was again, now looking like he was about to bestow some great honor, going, “I’ve decided to let you be my partner.”
    She loved decided . Like he’d been deliberating over it and wasn’t she lucky she’d been picked .
    Then she thought, A kidnapper, an Irish well-groomed version of Patty Hearst. She had to admit, there was something glamorous about it. And if you did it right, shite, there could be a real payoff. Christ, wouldn’t she just kill to be rich?
    She asked, “But nobody gets hurt, right?”
    He gave her a bashful smile, said, “See, that’s my motto right there, no pain, lotsa gain.”
    This from a guy who put broken bottles in strangers’ faces.
    She went, “You’re a caring man.”
    He literally hung his head, whispered, “I put the C in care. Sometimes, I think I care too much.”
    She nodded, thinking the C applied if you meant cunt, then asked, “Have you someone in mind?”
    He sang, “ You can always get what you want .”
    Real pleased he was using can , not can’t.
    Then, scaring the shite out of her, he did a hip swivel that was supposedly Jagger, but came off like Jim Carrey in The Mask.
    “Go on,” she said. “Who?”
    “Who?” he said. “Jagger or Richards, one of those fookers. The Stones are in town, and someone’d pay plenty to get those lads back alive.”
    “The Rolling Stones,” she said.
    He looked at her, nodded.
    She said, “You want to kidnap the Rolling Stones? That’s your plan?”
    “The fook’s wrong with it?” he said.
    The idea started to grow on her. The Stones weren’t so young anymore, probably couldn’t run like they’d’ve been able to back when.
    But would there be room here for the lads? And of course she’d need a whole new wardrobe. Mick liked his women in the newest gear. God, she was already seeing Mick’s lips on her neck. So, okay, he had a few wrinkles but fuck, he still had those buns and, come on, if you haven’t sucked a Stone, have you really lived? Have you?
    She could see herself on Oprah , Oprah’s fattish face, full of curiosity, asking, And when did Mick give you the diamond ring? Then Angela would modestly flash the huge stone on her engagement finger. She’d make a joke about it, go, “I’ve got my Stone all right.” She pictured her and Mick spending winters in the south of France, and lots of little Stones with Angela’s eyes.
    “So what do you say?” Slide said. “You in or out?”
    Imagining herself and Mick getting married on an exclusive island off the coast of Who The Fook Cares, Angela sang in a voice much worse than Slide’s: “Wild horses...won’t keep me away...”

Seven
    “OK,” I said. “Forget the whole thing.” “Really?”
    “Order are orders,” I said. “The alternative is anarchy and chaos.”
    L EE C HILD, The Enemy
    Max Fisher was the shit all right. He was living it up—the kingpin of New York, another goddamn Scarface. His crib—he called it FisherLand—was a penthouse sublet on East Sixty-sixth Street and Second Avenue. He’d always liked the building because it was made of dark black glass, like the windows of a limo, and to Max, it oozed class, was a place The Donald would’ve loved before he started naming buildings after himself.
    Yeah, everything was going Max’s way, all right. He was making five grand a week in profit as what he liked to call himself, “a high-end crack dealer.” He had the freshest clothes, a live-in sushi chef named Katsu, and best of all he was getting some of the finest poontang in the city from his steady ho, Felicia, a former stripper he’d known from Legz Diamond.
    Yeah, it was hard to believe how far Max’s life had come since that weekend from hell in Alabama.
    How many other