The Hemingway Thief by Shaun Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

money.”
    â€œLook, I need the money,” Milch said. He bent his head in that aw-shucks way again and pointed to his bandages. “I can’t make the deal myself. Not in the shape I’m in. I need someone who knows how to take care of himself. Someone like you, Grady. You go up there and make the deal for me and I’ll cut you in for thirty percent.” Grady sucked his back teeth and said nothing. Milch relented. “Ok, forty percent.”

    We left Doc to tend to his patient and closed the door behind us.
    â€œYou believe him?” I whispered, and patted my pockets for cigarettes. Grady recognized it as the signal that I wanted to bum one of his. No one actually looks for anything in their pockets by patting the outsides. He offered me one from his pack and fished one out for himself.
    â€œI believe that manuscript is worth something,” Grady said, leaning in to use my lighter. “But I’m not sure we got the straight dope on why he got his ass handed to him yesterday. I say we go up tomorrow and check it out.”
    â€œWe?” I pinched my nose and leaned back against the adobe wall. I felt a terrible headache rising. The sweat on the back of my shirt had cooled, and it felt like a long, icy finger down my spine. “Look, Grady, I consider us friends and all, and the last month’s been great, but I think this seems beyond me. I think I’m done.”
    â€œAre you breaking up with me?” Grady said, affecting a puppy-dog look.
    â€œI’m just saying we don’t know for sure if Andy and Dell were the only ones after Milch. There could be others waiting up the road, you know?”
    â€œThey’ll be looking for Milch, not us,” Grady said with a condescending sniff. “All we have to do is get to Ensenada and make an exchange with some book nerd. It’ll be a cake walk.”
    â€œI already shot a guy, Grady.”
    â€œIn the foot. Come on, you’re not going to make the drop with me?” Grady asked.
    â€œNo,” I said. “And don’t say ‘drop.’ It’s a manuscript, not microfilm of Soviet tank placements.”
    â€œThere’s money in it for you.”
    â€œI got money. So do you.”
    Grady ran his hand through his hair and looked at the ceiling. “Yeah, um, as it turns out, buying a hotel in Baja cash on the barrelhead may not have been the soundest of investments,” he said.
    â€œYou paid cash?”
    â€œYeah.” Grady picked at a tear in his sleeve. “And apparently there are some back taxes.”
    â€œHow much money do you have left?” I asked.
    â€œThat’s kind of a personal question, Coop,” Grady said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Forget about that. Come on, it’ll be fun. You’re not going to let me go up there by myself, are you?”
    â€œYou just said it wasn’t going to be dangerous,” I said.
    â€œNo, I said it would be a cake walk. No one wants to do a cake walk by themselves, right?” I knew trying to talk him out of going at all was a nonstarter. I saw the junky gleam in his eye. He was an ex-cop or agent or whatever. Movies and TV taught me these guys couldn’t give up the action. They needed it as bad as the crackheads they busted needed their rocks. The best I could hope for was that he wouldn’t make me go too.
    â€œWhat the hell is a cake walk,” I said, trying to change the subject. “I hear that phrase all the time and I have no idea what it means.”
    â€œLook, the manuscript is worth something,” Grady said. He took a long drag on his cigarette. “You see how pissed Milch was when he found out we had it?”
    â€œWe don’t have it. I left it up by our lawn chairs.”
    â€œWhere do you think I sent Digby?” he said, and waved his hand absently. “And to take care of the other thing. Can’t leave a body up on the side of the road, you