Blackwater Sound. James Hall

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СКАЧАТЬ it, enjoying every tick of the clock.’

      ‘True,’ Lawton said. ‘But I gotta say, this young lady certainly has nice bosoms. Firm and round. They’ll come in very handy for suckling her young.’

      ‘All right, that’s it,’ Harrison said. ‘Come on, Brandy, we’re out of here.’

      Arnold reached out and thumped his knuckles on the manila envelope.

      ‘Keep your ass planted right there, Charlie. You’ll get what you want, but first I got to get what I want. Quid pro quo. You know your Latin, right?’

      Charlie stared down at the baskets of fried food that sat in front of him and resettled himself in his seat.

      For thirty years Arnold and Lawton had been friends and in all that time Arnold hadn’t changed a bit. Still master of ceremonies wherever he went. For five decades he’d run a sports book out of his condo up in Hallandale. Anybody that was anybody in South Florida knew Peretti.

      Seventy-two and still commanded respect. Didn’t matter he was silver-haired with a short, stocky build. Didn’t matter he dressed like a dork. Like today in his lemon-yellow shirt, black shorts, and sandals with white knee-high socks. Big square glasses with gold frames. Behind the thick lenses his eyes were watery and dark. Everywhere he and Lawton went, people knew Arnold. The right people. They were always happy to see him, slapping him on the back, buying him drinks, lighting his cigars.

      ‘I think it’s me,’ Brandy said. ‘I think I’m the problem, Charlie. Your friend doesn’t want to do business with a woman present.’

      Arnold glanced her way, then looked at Lawton, gave him a small, disappointed shake of the head.

      ‘What’re you going to do with this generation? Never had a decent war or a good Depression to give them any depth of character. Minute they were born, they thought they were entitled to the first-class seat without doing a damn thing to earn it.’

      Brandy scooted to the edge of the booth.

      ‘Would you gentlemen excuse me? This lady needs a potty break.’

      She stood up and ambled across the room, with Arnold and the gang at the bar following her movements reverently. As she passed by the last stool and turned into the murky back room, a rack of pool balls exploded.

      ‘Nice girl,’ Peretti said. ‘At least we know that much about you, Charlie. You got good taste in broads.’

      Someone cheered at the bar, and Lawton turned in time to see a big guy on the TV with long hair and a beard toss a guy who looked just like him over the ropes into the first row of the crowd. A murmur passed along the bar. A couple of guys talking on cell phones pulled them away from their ears to watch.

      ‘I can’t tell which ones are the bad guys,’ Lawton said. ‘Used to be, you could tell.’

      ‘They’re all bad these days,’ Arnold said. ‘That’s what sells.’

      ‘Bad against bad? Where’s the fun in that?’

      Out on the river a Haitian freighter piled high with mattresses and bicycles moved slowly downstream. Along the dock Arnold Peretti’s big Bertram bumped lightly against the pilings in the swell of the freighter’s wake.

      Arnold selected a fried shrimp, dunked it in the cocktail sauce, sucked it down. He patted his lips with the napkin and smiled at Charlie.

      ‘Look, kid, I like to have a feel for the people I’m doing business with. Especially a thing like this, the likely repercussions.’

      ‘I’m an average guy. Let’s just leave it at that.’

      Arnold settled a sharp look on Charlie. He tapped the manila envelope.

      ‘When you write this exposé, you’re going to piss some people off. You ready for that, Mr Average Guy? You ready to go into hiding for a while?’

      Charlie pushed his Heineken aside. His eyes settled on the envelope.

      ‘Don’t worry, kid. It’s all there. Everything I promised. Blueprints, schematics, the whole deal.’

      Charlie swallowed.

      ‘How’d you get hold of it, Arnold? Tell me that.’

      ‘Not to worry, kid. It came into my possession, now it’s about to pass into yours. And this thing, it’s a prototype. You know, a scale model. I don’t know if the goddamn thing even works, but there it is.’

      ‘It seems damn small for what it’s supposed to do,’ Charlie said.

      ‘Like I told you, all I know is what I overheard. Sounds to me like it’s a contraband weapon. Somebody’s doing a little arms dealing on the side. I thought somebody with some investigative training should look into it, expose the bastards.’

      Arnold helped himself to another onion ring.

      ‘I need to know if you stole this stuff, Arnold.’

      ‘What? You think they said, Hey, Arnold, why don’t you take this thing out for a test drive? Damn right I stole it.’

      ‘So my article would be based on information acquired illegally.’

      Arnold waved the thought away with his big paw.

      ‘Tell me something, Charlie. All this time I been talking to you, not once have you asked me why I’m exposing this guy.’

      Charlie closed his eyes and opened them again, like Peretti was trying his patience.

      ‘All right, Arnold. So tell me. Why’re you exposing him?’

      Arnold smiled. Showed his big teeth.

      ‘Long and short of it, I want to save his ass, set him back on the right course.’

      ‘Save him?’

      ‘Yeah,’ Arnold said. ‘I’ve known him a long time. There’s a loyalty factor at work. But I still got to expose him. For his own damn good.’

      Arnold swiveled his head and stared at his smoky reflection in the mirror.

      ‘Why not go to the cops, the FBI?’

      ‘Like I got such a good working relationship with the law enforcement community. They’re going to jump up and salute when I walk in the door.’

      Charlie picked up a limp onion ring, inspected it for a second, then let it drop back in the basket.

      Arnold said, ‘Next thing you should’ve asked me but didn’t is, how come I chose you. Why the hell didn’t I call up the New York Times, Washington Post? Shit, anybody would kill to get this story.’ Arnold took off his glasses, wiped his eyes, put them back on.

      ‘You like how I write.’

      ‘Fuck, no. What do I know about writing?’

      ‘So why?’

      ‘’Cause СКАЧАТЬ