A Criminal to Remember (A Monty Haaviko Thriller) Read Online Free Page B

eggs I offered and tried to make the best of it. “Well, at least we don’t have cable television. There’s probably an American Fox news spin on it by now. The right wing demigods probably hate you.”
    “Well, that’s okay. I can handle a little hate. As long as it’s not coming from Stephen Colbert.”
    “He scares you, doesn’t he?”
    “Very much.” I offered a single fried egg to Fred along with strips of toast to dip and he began to devour them. While he did so I spun channels on the radio until I got the civilized tones of the CBC morning show hosts talking about the weather and the chances of forest fires. I looked back at Fred and then at Claire. “Am I supposed to be giving Fred eggs?”
    She looked at me and then at Fred. “Let’s ask him. Fred, should we be giving you eggs?”
    He swallowed and said, “Yes. More—ples.”
    Claire corrected him. “Please.”
    Fred looked at her hard and tried again. “Pleass?”
    “Better.”
    I gave him another egg and finally got around to my own. “And what are you doing today?”
    “Selling houses. Same thing I do every other day. Also probably renting some. Maybe some buying.” Claire had passed her real estate test a few months before and was doing better than fine. She specialized in houses in the North End, the poorer end of town. However, it was the part of the city where bargains could still be found and where the market was still strong. After all, people always needed a roof over their head, no matter what the state of their finances was.
    The North End was where Claire and I lived, only we rented. We weren’t up to buying a house, not yet. I was taking baby steps—when I was a crook I had lived in hotels and motels, so renting a house struck me as a reasonable step in a good direction. Buying a house could wait, would have to wait—hell, I was still getting used to belonging to a neighbourhood!
    I was proud of Claire. Despite a generally tanking global economy she was still selling quite well and with her commissions plus the money I made babysitting we were doing okay, better than most.
    Our neighbours the Kilpatricks, for example, were in much worse shape. When the sub-prime economic mess had started the husband had had to come out of retirement and go back to managing restaurants. His wife, who worked at the Manitoba Telephone Service, had had to take extra shifts. When I talked with them about the situation, they were tight-lipped and furious, so I suggested they rob a bank, and they took a very long time before turning the idea down.
    Meanwhile, Claire and I just kept lurching along. We were making it from hand to mouth and we never had any savings, which meant we had nothing to lose. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
    On the other end of the spectrum my assorted criminal acquaintances were doing really well. Marie Blue Duck, who smuggled illegal immigrants and poor people into the States, was having an easy time as the plummeting US dollar scrambled the international money market and dropped plane fares, which made it possible for even more of her clients to come over. And Sandra Robillard, who ran her dead husband’s CCE (continuing criminal enterprise), was selling grass and tranqs like they were going out of style. That was because sins always became more popular when the world was collapsing, a rule I had memorized before I could talk.
    And, of course, Elena was doing fine with lots of overtime as she fought crime in all its assorted forms. Bank robberies by desperate honest men, fraud by desperate dishonest men and familial violence by mothers and fathers under job pressure.
    The economy made for interesting times all around.
    Our dog, Renfield, came into the room and sat down by his water dish and wagged. When his tail got wet from the water dish he had forgotten he was shocked and confused, so I gave him a little egg on a toast point and he cheered up again. While he was cheering up the radio announcer changed