Operation Bamboozle Read Online Free Page A

that he knew at once there was a price to pay. “Which leg?” he asked. Her right leg rubbed the inside of his thighs. “Oh,
that
leg,” he said. “Why are we talking about legs?”
    â€œThey matter. If I were crippled, would you still love me?”
    â€œNot as much as I do now.” That made her eyes open wide. “Look, you started it,” Luis said. “Anyway, what if I go to jail? Would you wait for me?”
    â€œSure.” They kissed again, much more softly. “No, probably not.”
    â€œSee? That’s what we share: deep suspicion. We’re totally unreliable. It’s the glue that sticks us together.”
    â€œLast night it was hot sex.”
    â€œTrue. So maybe I’m wrong. I feel further research is needed.”
    â€œYeah, I can feel that too. But I’m hungry, so let’s go eat. After that …”
    â€œI am the slave of science,” Luis said. “Glue has me in its grip.” They were just words, and words didn’t always have to mean anything; but they made her laugh, and that was good enough.
2
    Nobody wants to get his hands filthy, checking some other guy’s oil and water, when he could just as easily lay those hands on his girl, who sooner or later will get ants in her pants waiting for himand consequently will slip easily and treacherously into the smooth, clean arms of his best friend. Allegedly best.
    So the least popular duty at the Texaco station was the evening shift, six p.m. to midnight. That’s how Frankie Blanco got the job—the last guy quit, usual reason, and the manager was very happy when Frankie said he liked the shift. He didn’t say why. It gave him all day to snoop on the Chrysler couple, that’s why.
    He was sitting in his Chevy, watching the house on Cliff Boulevard, when they came out and he followed them into town.
    By noon he had got through a pack of Pall Malls. He was always a happy smoker, forty a day at least, and now he was hitting sixty. It calmed his nerves, and besides they were free. The gas station had a smokes machine. Boost it in the right place with a screwdriver and out came a pack. His boss knew and didn’t care. He’d sooner the guy stole a quarter from the till to feed the machine, that would be sensible and quick and do less damage. But Frankie preferred his kind of theft. He preferred Pall Malls, too, because they didn’t wear those little white ankle socks that took away the kick in the throat.
You can light either end,
the makers boasted. Frankie approved. Life was complicated enough already, for Chrissake.
    He was opening his second pack as he watched the pair go into a place called
The Picture Show.
    â€œLast chance,” Julie said. They had browsed the art galleries of El Paso, their feet ached and they had bought nothing but ice cream. Now they paused to let their eyes adjust to the gloom. “Hold the front page,” she said. “Breaking news. Cowboy dies, gunplay suspected.” She pointed to a painting of blazing revolvers in a crowded saloon. “Okay, the party’s over. Let’s vamoose.”
    â€œThat one’s kinda special,” the owner said. He came out of the back room: short and stocky build; steel-gray hair turning white and clipped short; army fatigues. “What you got here is the death of John Wesley Harden, fastest gun in the West, shot in the head while playin’ dice right here in the Acme Saloon, 1895. Killed forty-four men afore he was 25. Look close, you’ll see double-four on the dice. Fifty bucks.”
    â€œPeople actually hang this in their homes?” Luis asked.
    â€œTheir money. Their choice.”
    â€œWe’ve seen enough dead cowboys today to fill Boot Hill,” Julie said. The rest of the stock was familiar to them. Paintings of rodeo riders in action, of prickly-pear cactus in bloom, ofbighorn sheep and mountain lions in noble poses, of Apache braves with blank