The Comedy is Finished by Donald E. Westlake Read Free Book Online Page B

the window. After the bitch with the scars vacated the pool, Koo spent a while studying that window, considering the possibility of maybe throwing a chair through it or something. Water would rush through the opening, but long before the room filled up the pool would have emptied below the window level. It would be like a James Bond flick; heave the chair, brace himself against the side wall until the water level in room and pool equalized, then swim to freedom!
    Yeah; carrying an American flag and shooting Roman candles out his ass. “When I was twenty I couldn’t pull a stunt like that.” Also even when he was twenty the noise and racket involved in wrecking a swimming pool would attract a certain amount of attention. Also also, this window happens to be two thicknesses of very heavy-grade plate glass, and if he did throw a chair at it probably the chair would bounce off and crack open the Koo Davis skull. “I got trouble enough,” Koo reluctantly decided, and since then he’s had no further thought of escape. He’s stuck here with these meatheads until they decide to do something else.
    Scrabble click . Koo looks over at the door, where the sound came from, the sound of a key in the lock, and he can’t help a little thrill of fear, that buzzing adrenalin surge like when you’ve just had a near miss on the freeway. “Company,” Koo says. “And me not dressed.”
    The door opens and two of them come in. One is the sarcastic-looking fellow who was in here the last time, and the other is the sullen-faced bearded character who showed him the gun at the studio. The bitch with the scars isn’t along, for which Koo is grateful, but on the other hand neither is the worried-looking guy who apologized for Koo’s nosebleed. Koo misses that one, he was the only touch of common humanity in the whole mob. And speaking of mobs, just how many of these people are there?
    The two young men come in, closing the door behind themselves. The bearded one puts a small cassette tape recorder on the nearest table, then stands silently with his back against the door and his arms folded over his chest, like a harem guard in a comedy, while the sarcastic-looking fellow says, “How you doing, Koo?”
    “I got nothing to say, warden,” Koo snarls. “To you or the D.A.”
    “That’s good,” the fellow says, then looks in mild surprise at the plastic container with the whiskey in it. “Not drinking? Wait a minute—not eating either?”
    “I’m on a diet.”
    The fellow frowns at Koo, apparently not understanding, then suddenly laughs and says, “You think we’re trying to poison you? Or drugs maybe, is that it?”
    Koo doesn’t have a comic answer, and there’s no point giving a straight answer, so he just stands there.
    The fellow shakes his head, amused but impatient. “What’s the percentage, Koo? We’ve already got you.” Then he goes to the counter beside the bar, lines up three plastic glasses, and pours a finger of whiskey in each. “Choose,” he says.
    “I won’t drink it.”
    “Just pick one, Koo.”
    “How come you call me by my first name? You’re no traffic cop.”
    “ I’m sorry, Koo,” the fellow says, with his most sarcastic smile.“I’m just trying for a more relaxed atmosphere, that’s all. For instance, you can call me Peter, and this is Mark. Now we’re all friends, am I right?” He gestures at the three glasses. “So decide. Which one?”
    “My mother says I can’t play with you guys anymore. I got to go home now.”
    The bearded one—Mark—says, “Pick a glass.” There’s nothing comic in his manner at all. In fact, there’s the implication in his voice that if Koo doesn’t pick a glass, this guy is going to start using his fists again.
    Shrugging, Koo says, “Okay. I say the pea is under the one on the left.”
    “Fine,” says the sarcastic-looking fellow: Peter. He picks up the other two glasses and hands one to Mark. “Happy days,” he says, toasting Koo, and then they