The Coldest Mile Read Free Page B

spot trying to find his cool, but it just wasn't there no matter how deep he went. He wondered if he'd ever reach that place again.
    Chase felt as if he should just wait on this barrenshore for the hurricane to hit and take him and everything else along with it.
    One of the henchmen bent and peered around the engine block at Chase and said, “Boss wants you.”
    So here it was.

S melling of old man's aftershave and wearing a blue ascot—Christ on the cross, seriously, an ascot— Jackie Langan was seated in his office. Chase walked in and decided he didn't mind the pale chamois paint all that much himself.
    Hovering nearby were two strongarms—-Jackie's personal bodyguards, a couple of the guys who ran for the Juicy Fruit and the Vicks. They carried long-barreled .357s in shoulder holsters under poorly fitted sport jackets. The hunch- shouldered tailor hadn't made their suits for them.
    Their biceps were so huge, the clothes so tight, and the gun barrels so long that it would take them two and a half minutes to draw their weapons if trouble ever came down.
    Jackie wanted to make Chase wait for a minute so he pretended to be busy with some paperwork on the desk even though he hardly glanced at the pages. Chase figured it was something that LennyLangan had done and Jackie was now emulating without quite getting the nuances right.
    Chase didn't really mind. He knew how disturbing it was to feel the presence of a powerful father or father figure not even in the room. Perhaps long gone, perhaps even dead, but forever present in your blood. You couldn't get away from it, couldn't really make peace with it. You just had to put up with it.
    Eventually Jackie looked up and said, “So far as I can tell, the men of this organization are broken into three main groups. Accountants, capos, and muscle. Which are you?”
    Chase thought Jackie was forgetting a few guys, like the butler, the doctor, and the groundskeeper who took care of the golf course. But Jackie was after effect.
    “I fall outside those categories,” Chase said.
    “Yeah, you do, I suppose, so how about if you tell me, what's your purpose?”
    “General man-about-town.”
    That made Jackie's face close up like he'd just sucked a lemon out of somebody's ass. It seemed to pretty much be Jackie Langan's everyday expression. “Are you making a joke?”
    “You would think so, wouldn't you,” Chase said.
    It looked as if nobody had told Jackie about snuffing the other chauffeur or the fact that Chase had come aboard. Probably just an oversight, but Jackie seemed like he wanted to make a big deal out of it.
    He was still asserting himself in the organization.From what Chase had picked up, Jackie had spent years floating through Ivy League universities failing law school. He'd worked with diction coaches to lose his Brooklyn accent, but now that he'd returned to become head of the outfit he had to struggle to reacquire it.
    He sounded like he'd been watching old film noir lately, studying up on how Eddie G. used to do it. He tried for a dead- eyed stare and didn't come close. He had no idea how to get anybody to respect him. The ascot didn't help.
    “What the hell does that mean?” Jackie asked. “Man-about-town?”
    Chase said, “I'm a driver.”
    “Another chauffeur?”
    “The new chauffeur.”
    “So that's why you've got grease under your nails.”
    “I've been tuning your cars.”
    Jackie's mouth went slack. “You didn't touch my Ferrari, did you?” The hysteria was already creeping back into his voice.
    “Yeah, I did.”
    “But nobody touches my Ferrari.”
    “No, nobody has,” Chase said. “The battery was dead, the belts were loose, your brakes were gone, and the intake valve was busted. I fixed it.”
    “I don't like this.”
    “You don't like this?”
    “I don't like you talking back,” Jackie said.
    “I thought we were having a conversation.”
    “You're still talking back.”
    “I am?”
    “You are, goddamn it.”
    Chase assessed his