Two for the Money Read Free Page B

who shook his head no. Nolan lit one up. “Trip was short, few hours is all. I slept all the way. I sleep a lot these days.”
    “Meaning what?”
    “Meaning I’m getting old. Like everybody gets old, but sooner. Like you’re getting old, but worse.”
    “Forty-four isn’t old, Nolan.”
    “When you live the way I do it is, and for me it’s forty-eight.”
    “Nobody forced you into being what you are. You could’ve had what I’ve got if you’d played it just a little bit different. Do you see this place, Nolan? Not bad. My life’s a breeze, old buddy. Only time I ever work up a sweat is when I go down to the local gym for a workout.”
    “Yeah. Life’s a regular Disneyland when you don’t fall from good standing with the . . . what are you boys calling the Family now these days? Cosa Nostra? Too ethnic. The Outfit? Too vague. Better Business Bureau, maybe?”
    Werner’s smile twisted. “The term Family is back in fashion, among the insiders. We’re back to calling it the Family again.”
    “Cozy.”
    Werner got up and went to the door and flipped the lock. In his blue Banlon shirt and gray slacks he looked like something that had walked off the front of a country club brochure. He strolled over to a line of bottles sandwiched between two quarter-rows of books on a shelf halfway downthe wall behind the desk. He poured two glasses of Scotch, handed one to Nolan, and kept the other.
    “You know, Nolan, killing Charlie’s brother that time was a mistake.”
    Nolan lifted his shoulders, then set them back down. “Today it’s a mistake. Sixteen years ago it wasn’t.”
    “No, you’re wrong.” Werner’s smile was gone now. “Even then it was a mistake. Maybe less of one, since you were young and had a chance and could live a running life without much sweat. But, now, the inevitable is starting to catch up with you, and it gets closer by the day.”
    Nolan nodded. “I’m old.”
    “You’re not old . . . but you sure as hell aren’t young anymore. Look, I got to admit that when you quit Charlie, you had no choice but to turn to what you did. I mean, a murder rap hanging over your head on one side, your ex-friends gunning for you on the other. And I’ll give you credit . . . you turned out to be the most successful grand larceny artist I ever ran across. Racked up how much in those sixteen years? Near half a million?”
    “Just over that.”
    Werner waved his hands. “More or less, what’s the difference? It’s gone now. All that’s left for you is to decide what happens next. The money is gone, or as good as.”
    That was right.
    Gone.
    Nolan looked into his drink. When he’d called Werner from the girl’s apartment the day before, he’d found little need to tell his old friend about what had happened: Werner’d already gotten most of it through the Family grapevine.
    For sixteen years now, Nolan had made his way as a specialist in engineering institutional robberies. Through a number of sources, Nolan lined up other professionals, with their own specialties (drivers, strongmen, climbers, safemen, electricians, et cetera) and molded them into compact units of three to six, hitting banks, armored cars, jew-elry stores, and firms on cash payroll. Occasionally, a well-moneyed individual would also feel the squeeze of Nolan’s particular talents. He’d stayed away from places owned or controlled by what was now calling itself the Family, and he avoided Chicago and the surrounding area, where the local Family operation was helmed by his ex-employer, Charlie.
    Over the years Nolan had kept in touch, off and on, with Werner, his lone Family friend who remained as such, though then only secretly. Eleven years after the incident that had enraged Charlie over Nolan, Werner told Nolan that Charlie’s grudge had cooled. Cooled enough, at least, for Nolan to quit looking over his shoulder.
    A month-and-a-half ago, considering the matter with Charlie past history, Nolan had consented to use the