Nobody Dies For Free Read Online Free Page B

call me; I’ll call you. Also, a gun: nothing fancy,
just a basic Glock for now. More interesting tools will be provided
when required for the job at hand. There’s some ammo in there too.
Get some practice in. Records say you’re a good shot, but scrape
the rust off, please. And one more item in the package: the keys to
your new car. I hope a Lexus is all right. It’s parked around the
corner. Now get out of here. Pick a city, any city in the
continental states, and get yourself an apartment or even a house
if that’s what you want. You’ve got enough money stocked away from
when you were married, so you can set yourself up, but don’t worry
about running out. As I said before, you’ll be well paid for your
work. Now get out of here and get back to civilization, Monroe.
Cradle, Wisconsin is not your kind of town.”

Chapter 3: A
Bullet Misplaced
     
     
    Monroe chose Boston. He had
to settle somewhere in the United States. He wanted a city and
preferred the east coast to the west. New York was too tight and
full for his tastes; Miami was too hot; Washington was too
political. But Boston seemed ideal: wonderfully historical, the
closest major city to his birthplace and childhood world, and
familiar enough from his college days in Cambridge to have
sentimental meaning. But far enough removed in time from his CIA
days to have a sense of freshness about it. Boston it would be
then, for now at least.
    He drove the whole way from
Wisconsin to Boston, enjoying the feel of the new Lexus as it
rolled over the highways like a marble on a silk tablecloth. He
spent his first week in Boston sleeping in hotels while he renewed
his acquaintance with the city, relearned the major routes, and
looked for more permanent lodgings. Money was not an issue; he had
enough left from France to start off in the upper-middle class
lifestyle and go from there, assuming he would hear from Mr. Nine
in the near future.
    It would not be a house,
Monroe decided immediately upon beginning his quest. One man did
not need that much space. An apartment would do, a nice penthouse,
a beautiful blank canvass of a residence that he could furnish to
his personal tastes. He intended to keep it simple at
first.
    He found a suitable place, a
top-story penthouse with a poetic view of a large park, and managed
to fill it with furniture, probably more than one man needed as he
soon found that he rarely occupied any spot other than one large
armchair, his bed, and the kitchen chair that quickly became his
default perch for breakfast. He rarely watched television, except
for the news. Having spent too many hours in front of a monitor and
keyboard when still with the CIA, he avoided the computer. He
filled his afternoons with reading, reacquainting himself with the
classics—everything from Chaucer to the middle of the twentieth
century, trying to alternate between the major canon material like
Shakespeare and the joyously pulpy stuff like Chandler and Fleming.
On most evenings, he ventured out into the city and experimented
with different restaurants: Italian, Japanese, Thai, Greek,
American, fusion styles. He ate a bit of everything, except French
food, for that might bring up memories of Genevieve and rob him of
his appetite.
    He worked too on honing the
skills he had long ago acquired, but which had been mostly dormant
in Paris and had come back to the surface only briefly during the
hunt for al-Hamsi. He found a nearby shooting range and got to know
his Glock quite intimately. He took the Lexus beyond the borders of
the city and found empty rural roads on which to drive too fast and
make dangerous turns in preparation for times when he might be
pursued or have to do the chasing himself. On other days, he went
out into the city, chose a person at random, and followed them as
long as he could while still being certain that they had taken no
notice of him and became not the least bit suspicious. With most
subjects of such exercises, he stayed on the trail for