Don't Ever Get Old Read Online Free Page B

Eastwood from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly .
    â€œAin’t you two supposed to be friends or something?” Jennings asked. And then he laughed at me.
    â€œOr something,” I said, and I lit a cigarette.
    The two of us regarded each other for a long, uncomfortable moment, and then Jennings spoke.
    â€œI got some news for you,” he said as his slack features tightened into a sneer. “These kids here may admire the Buck Schatz they hear about in stories, but I can see past your bullshit. I came up rough on the streets of this town. God knows what would have happened to me if it hadn’t been for Max Heller.”
    â€œAw,” I said. I rubbed at my temples. “For Christ’s sake.” The young cops downstairs had been playing a prank after all, to put me together with Heller’s protégé. Jennings hadn’t even registered to me as somebody unfriendly. I wondered how I had missed the malice in his voice before. I used to be a hard man to fool.
    â€œDon’t talk to me about Christ, you Jew bastard.” He pointed an emphatic finger at me. “I go to church. That’s one of the things Max taught me to take seriously. He was the closest thing I ever had to a father.”
    It was my turn to laugh. “Feel sorry for you, kid.”
    â€œNo.” He stood up and leaned over the desk, a sign of aggression. I noticed, about then, that there was nobody else in the room. “You don’t get to feel sorry for me. You look like a Mr. Potato Head. I feel sorry for you.”
    I didn’t say anything. For fifteen years, Max Heller and I sat five feet apart, barely speaking, until he finally got promoted. I thought he was a careerist ass kisser, and he thought I was a loose cannon.
    In the movies, we would have become unwilling partners for some reason and learned to respect each other. The reality was less exciting: we nursed a long-simmering mutual animosity, which never built toward much of a climax. Then I retired and mostly forgot about him.
    â€œForty years Max labored, doing fine, careful police work, locking up killers and closing cases, while you cruised around in a souped-up, nonregulation car, carrying an obscene nonregulation gun, shooting suspects, and getting your picture in the paper.”
    It was my turn to stand and point a finger at him. “I don’t care what Heller told you. I was the best goddamn cop in the southeastern United States. This department pinned every award they had on my chest and then they made up new ones for me.”
    â€œOh, don’t I know it,” Jennings said. “They tried to award me the Schatz Medal for Exceptional Bravery, and I refused to take the damn thing.”
    Nobody ever told me about that; I’d never even heard of this guy. I had not realized I’d gotten so far out of the loop.
    â€œBut while you were collecting your silly-ass crackerjack-box prizes, Heller was doing honest policing. You know he closed twice as many homicides as you?”
    I grunted. Heller may have mentioned that once or twice. He jumped on open-and-shut cases like a cat on a ball of string, looking to boost his clearance rate. I always let him.
    â€œWhen they passed him over for director, I never saw such a strong man so beaten down.” Jennings gave me a mean, cold stare. “He knew he was through in police work. Six months later, he was dead.”
    â€œI never did anything to harm Heller’s career,” I said.
    â€œYou didn’t have to. You represent everything that’s wrong about this department and everything that’s wrong with law enforcement. Max told me once that trying to be a cop in this town was like wading balls-deep into a river of shit, and you’re part of the reason for that.”
    I sighed. “So I guess you’re not going to do any kind of computer search for me, are you.”
    â€œGet out of my office,” said Randall Jennings.
    â€œGood to meet you,