Trust by George V. Higgins Read Free Book Online Page A

gonna get to call this guy and say: ‘Uh, Mister Simmons, sir, this is Earl? And I wonder you’d be interested, a family photo album? Memento of your trips? Because we got about eighty pictures now. Or how about your lovely wife that’s in the newspaper all the time? The museums and stuff? Think she might like to buy it and then show it? You know me, Mister Simmons. I’m a very humble guy. But I got my obligations, ex-wife, kid in school, all that shit, and I could use—well, me and Penny—say about a million bucks. It’s a fuckin’ bargain, Mister Simmons. What I’m offering you. You know I’m a friend of yours. Got your best interests, heart. Think what it’d cost you if your wife got hold these things. What, five, six million dollars? This’s cheap, is what it is.’ ”
    Penny leaned back against the seat and shut her eyes. “I don’t wanna talk about it now,” she said.
    “Well, I do,” he said.
    She opened her eyes. “Tough shit, mister,” she said. “I said I don’t wanna talk about it now. I didn’t have no breakfast, ’cept what they serve the plane. And I don’t eat any damned thing that an airline says is food. Now you find a place where I can get some food. You oughta know a lot of them, somewhere around this city. Spent a lot of time here, I hear, ’fore you went to jail. And you take me there. And then I eat. And then you take me home, and I will take a goddamned bath. You got that?”
    “You got to take yourself home,” Earl said. “PartwayI can take you, and I know a restaurant. But the rest you go yourself. I got some work to do.”
    “What’s this crap?” she said. “I got to drive myself home?”
    “Hey,” he said, “we all got obligations.”

5
    Earl took the access road leading to the Lord Squire Motor Hotel off Route I-95 in New Rochelle. The hood of the Dodge shimmered heat. Penny raised her head and opened her eyes. “Hey,” she said, “what you doing?”
    “You said you wanted to eat,” he said. The motel was two stories of varicolored brick situated between a convenience store and an Esso station.
    “Here?”
she said. “You think I’m gonna eat,
here?
Like what? Canned soup and burgers? An hour ago, I wanted to eat. Now what I want’s some sleep.”
    “You’re gonna eat,” Earl said. “The sign says they got a brunch.” He took a parking place near the green canopy extending from the main entrance. “Sundays, eleven to three.”
    “Yeah,” she said. “ ‘All you can eat for two ninety-five.’ Jesus, you really are cheap. I can imagine what the eggs’ll look like. Should’ve eaten that shit on the plane. Christ, I’m hot.”
    “Three ninety-five, actually,” he said. “Plus a complimentary Bloody Mary or screwdriver. You left Moneybagsat the airport, remember?” He shut off the engine. “And you’re hot,” he said, “because I been telling you since Easter to bring this goddamned thing the shop. Get the seals checked and the Freon reloaded. And you haven’t done it. You haven’t had time. You sleep all day and you bitch all night, and then you go outta town. Supposedly because we’re setting up this rich guy, and it’s the only way we can do it. But we’re not. What we’re doing is, I’m running in place, and you’re kiting around on vacation, one week every month.”
    “Ten thousand a week is pretty good pay,” she said. “More’n you ever made. You sure you want to risk it?”
    “It’s not ten a week,” he said. “It’s ten a month, six months a year. Plus the extras, when you get ’em, so we won’t count those. Which is, twelve, twelve fifty a week, gross. You think it’s ten grand a week, when you work once a month, half the year? Then I used to get a lot more’n that—a thousand for forty minutes. You wanna figure out what that comes to, a week? That’s twenty-five dollars a minute. Plus what I made myself, my own bets.”
    “Yeah,” she said, “but you got caught. What’d they pay you in prison? How