Money Men Read Online Free Page A

She got up from the bed and put on a robe. Her eyes sought his reaction.
    "I had planned to drive out..."
    "...to Chino," she interrupted. "A two-hour drive to Chino prison to see Howard. After all, you certainly wouldn't want to miss your Saturday visit with him. You've gone out there every Saturday for the past year. Every single Saturday... Incredible." She shook her head.
    "We could go somewhere on Sunday," Carr said.
    She stared at the bedroom mirror. "Sure. To wherever I want. You, as usual, never have any ideas. For once I would like to go somewhere that we both want to go... Though I'm sure you'd much prefer to be sitting at a bar in Chinatown drinking with your pals." She said "pals" as if it were a curse.
    ****
    THREE
    Carr's mind wandered as he drove on the Pomona Freeway toward Chino. He pictured Norbert Waeves (known as No Waves), the pipe-smoking Los Angeles special agent-in-charge, puffing smoke and reading aloud the one-inch newspaper article about Howard. "Howard Dumbrowski, a special agent of the U.S. Treasury Department, pleaded guilty to manslaughter today in Superior Court. Accused of murdering his wife after finding her with another man in their Glendale apartment, Dumbrowski declined to make any statement in his own behalf before being sentenced to two years in state prison." Jumping for joy, the SAIC had tossed the newspaper in the air. "Hooray! He pleaded guilty! No trial! No more bad publicity!"
    The visiting-hour trips to Chino were rough at the beginning-forced laughs followed by embarrassing silences.
    Carr turned off the highway at the green overhead sign CALIFORNIA CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTE, CHINO. ONE MILE.
    The visitors' area was in the open. Metal picnic tables surrounded by a high chain-link fence. It reminded Carr of a grammar-school lunch area. At the tables sat blacks and Chicanos talking with sadly dressed wives. Restless children in T-shirts and tennis shoes wrestled on the yellow grass like bear cubs.
    Howard, with a gray crew cut and starched denims, still looked like a cop: stocky, blue-bearded, piercing blue eyes.
    During the past year his eyes had seemed to become more deep-set.
    Carr sat down. Howard smiled. He began dealing gin rummy, a ritual that had started as a compromise to avoid the hurt of conversation. Howard had nothing to talk about any more, and Carr knew that shop talk, even about the old days, brought a sadness to Howard's eyes.
    "I got a letter from my daughter yesterday. She told me about Rico de Fiore."
    Carr hesitated. "I was his cover. The guy who did it got away from me. He jumped out the motel-room back window."
    "Rico was a sharp kid. He had the touch," said the prisoner.
    Carr nodded. They looked at each other for a moment.
    Howard shuffled and dealt the cards. "Pick up your hand," he said.
    At the end of the hand Carr took a small notebook out of his sports-coat pocket, turned to a fresh page, and recorded the score of the fiftieth game.
    "I'm going to Eugene, Oregon, when I get out," Howard said. "Lumber-mill job. With the conviction, I figure that's the best I can do. I know I would have beat the rap if I'd gone to trial. Catching her in the sack and all, you know...temporary insanity...But I didn't want to embarrass my daughter with a trial. You can imagine how the press would have played up the whole thing, how it would have looked to her college friends."
    Nothing was said for a long while. Eventually Carr took over as dealer, Howard as scorekeeper.
    "Partner, there's something I gotta say," Howard said. The blue eyes flashed. "There were rough times in here, particularly the first few months. I had to fight every day. Once, I found out they were going to put ant poison in my chow. I didn't eat until I found out who it was. A big husky guy. I caught him in the yard and kicked his teeth out. Got almost all of 'em." He hesitated. "I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't know if I would have made it without the card games. I know I can make it