The Border: The final gripping thriller in the bestselling Cartel trilogy. Don Winslow

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ a graveyard. I’m not watching it again.”

      “I get it.”

      “I don’t have anyone else to go to, Bobby,” Mullen says. “You have the brains and the experience to do this and I don’t know who else I could trust. You have my word, I’ll do everything I can to protect your career.”

      “Okay.”

      “Okay, you’ll do it?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Thank you.”

      Riding down in the elevator, Cirello wonders if he’s not completely, utterly and totally fucked.

      Libby looks at him and says, “So you’re a nice Italian boy.”

      “Actually, I’m a nice Greek boy,” Cirello says.

      They’re sitting at a table at Joe Allen, near the theater where she’s working, bolting down cheeseburgers.

      “‘Cirello’?” she asks.

      “It doesn’t hurt to have an Italian-sounding name on the job,” Cirello says. “If you can’t be Irish, it’s the next best thing. But, yeah, I’m a Greek boy from Astoria.”

      Almost a stereotype. His grandparents came over after World War II, worked their asses off and opened the restaurant on Twenty-Third Street that his father still runs. The neighborhood isn’t so Greek anymore, but a lot of them still live there and you can still hear “Ellenika” spoken on the streets.

      Cirello didn’t want to go into the restaurant business, and it’s a good thing he has a younger brother who did so his parents weren’t heartbroken when Bobby went first to John Jay and then to the police academy. They came to his graduation and were proud of him, although they always worry, and never really understood when he was undercover and would show up with shaggy hair and a beard, looking thin and haggard.

      His grandmother looked him straight in the eyes and asked, “Bobby, are you on drugs?”

      “No, Ya-Ya.”

      I just buy them, he thought. It was impossible to explain his life to them. Another reason undercover is such a tough gig—nobody understands what you really do except other undercovers, and you never see them anyway.

      “And you’re a detective,” Libby says now.

      “Let’s talk about you.”

      Libby is freaking beautiful. Rich red hair Cirello thinks they usually describe as “lustrous.” A long nose, wide lips and a body that won’t quit. Legs longer than a country road, although Cirello wouldn’t know much about country roads. He saw her at a Starbucks in the Village, turned around and said, “I have you for a low-fat macchiato type.”

      “How did you know?”

      “I’m a detective.”

      “Not a very good one,” Libby said. “I’m a low-fat latte.”

      “But your phone number,” Cirello said, “is 212-555-6708. Am I right?”

      “No, you’re wrong.”

      “Prove it.”

      “Let me see your badge,” Libby said.

      “Oh, you’re not going to turn me in for sexual harassment, are you?” Cirello asked.

      But he showed her his badge.

      She gave him her phone number.

      He had her down as a cop groupie, except it took him about eighteen phone calls to get her to this table.

      “There’s not much to tell,” she says. “I’m from a little town in Ohio, I went to Ohio State and studied dance. Six years ago I came to the big city to make it.”

      “How’s that going?”

      “Well,” she says, shrugging, “I’m on Broadway.”

      Libby’s in the chorus of Chicago, which Cirello figures is probably the dancer equivalent of a gold shield. And she’s looking at him with those green eyes, letting him know that she’s his equal.

      Cool, Cirello thinks.

      Very cool.

      “You live in the city?” he asks.

      “Upper West Side,” she says. “Eighty-Ninth between Broadway and Amsterdam. You?”

      “Brooklyn Heights.”

      “I guess we’re not geographically compatible,” Libby says.

      “You know, I’ve always thought geography was overrated,” Cirello says. “I don’t think they even teach it in school anymore. Anyway, I work in Manhattan, down at One Police.”

      “What’s that?”

      “NYPD headquarters,” he says. “I work in the Narcotics Division.”

      “So I shouldn’t smoke weed around you.”

      “I don’t care,” Cirello says. “I’d do it with you, except they test us from time to time. Let me ask you something, you have roommates?”

      “Bobby,” she says, “I’m not sleeping with you tonight.”

      “I didn’t ask you to,” Cirello says. “Frankly, I’m offended. What do I look like, some cheap whore, you can let him buy you a burger and you think it means you can have your way with him?”

      Libby laughs.

      It’s deep and throaty and he likes it a lot.

      “Do you have roommates?” Libby asks.

      “No,” Cirello says. “I have an efficiency, you have to step outside to change your mind, but I like it. I’m not there a lot.”

      “You work all the time.”

      “Pretty much.”

      “What are you working on now?” she asks. “Or can you tell me?”

      “We were going to talk about you,” Cirello says. “For instance, I didn’t think dancers ate cheeseburgers.”

      “I’ll have to take an extra class tomorrow, but it’s worth it.”

      “Class?” Cirello asks. “I thought you already went to college for this.”

      “You have to keep working,” Libby says, “to stay in shape. Especially if you’re going to indulge in late-night meat binges, and I realized how gross that sounded the second it came out of my mouth. How about you? Do you eat healthy?”

      “No,” СКАЧАТЬ