While My Pretty One Sleeps by Mary Higgins Clark Read Free Book Online Page A

as he yanked the door closed.
    In the years since Attica, Big Charley had gotten a lot grayer and put on more weight. The steering wheel was burrowed between the folds of his stomach. Denny said, “Hi,” not expecting an answer. Big Charley nodded.
    The car moved swiftly up the Henry Hudson Parkway and over the George Washington Bridge. Charley turned onto the Palisades Interstate Parkway. Denny noted that while the remaining snow in New York was slushy and soot-filled, the snow on the sides of the parkway was still white. New Jersey, the Garden State, he thought sarcastically.
    Past Exit 3 there was a lookout point for people who, as Denny sometimes observed, had nothing better to do than stare at the New York landscape across the Hudson River. Denny was not surprised when Charley pulled into the deserted parking area there. This was where they’d discussed other jobs.
    Charley turned off the ignition and reached back over the seat, groaning with the effort of stretching. He pulled up a paper bag containing a couple of cans of beer and dropped it between them. “Your brand.”
    Denny felt pleased. “Nice of you to remember, Charley.” He opened the can of Coors.
    Charley swallowed deeply from his own can before he replied, “I forget nothing.” He drew an envelope from his inside pocket, “Ten thousand,” he told Denny. “The same when the job is finished.”
    Denny accepted the envelope, taking sensual pleasure in its bulk. “Who?”
    â€œYou deliver lunch to her coupla times a week. She lives in Schwab House, that big place on Seventy-fourth between West End and Riverside Drive. Usually walks to and from work coupla times a week. Cuts through Central Park. Grab her handbag and waste her. Clean out the wallet and dump the bag so it looks like a junkie cut her. If you can’t nail her in the park, the garment center might be it. She goes there every Monday afternoon. Those streets are packed. Everybody in a rush. Trucks double-parked. Brush by her, shove her in front of a truck. Take your time. It gotta look like an accident or a mugging. Follow her around in one of those panhandler outfits of yours.” Big Charley’s voice was thick and guttural, as though the rolls of fat around his neck were choking his vocal cords.
    For Charley it had been a long speech. He took another deep draught from the beer can.
    Denny began to feel uneasy. “ Who ?”
    â€œNeeve Kearny.”
    Denny shoved the envelope toward Charley as though it contained a ticking bomb. “The Police Commissioner’s daughter? Are you nuts?”
    â€œThe ex-Commissioner’s daughter.”
    Denny could feel the perspiration on his brow. “Kearny was in office for sixteen years. Not a cop in the city who wouldn’t risk his life for him. When his wife died they put the heat on everyone who ever stole an apple off a cart. No way.”
    There was an almost imperceptible change in Big Charley’s expression, but his voice was the same guttural monotone. “Denny, I told you I never forget. Remember all those nights in Attica when you used to brag about the jobs you got away withand how you did it? All I need to do is make a no-name-given call to the cops and you won’t get to deliver another baloney sandwich. Don’t make me a crime-stopper, Denny.”
    Denny considered and, remembering, cursed his own big mouth. Again he fingered the envelope and thought of Neeve Kearny. He’d been delivering to her shop for nearly a year now. It used to be that the receptionist would tell him to leave the bag with her, but now he went right back to the private office. Even if Kearny was on the phone, she’d wave and smile, a real smile, not that tight-lipped snobby nod that most of his customers gave him. She always told him how great everything tasted.
    And she sure was a good-looking babe.
    Denny shrugged off the moment of sentiment. It was a job he had to do.