Super Read Online Free

now behind them.
    “Because I don’t want to spend my entire dinner listening to you whine about being washed up at forty because of
Dark Days
, Clark Gable’s snub and all the rest,” Mathews replied.
    They had a large four-chair table by themselves, so arranged through Ralph by the dining car steward. There weresmaller tables for two on one side of the middle aisle of the dining car, and for four on the other. Filling up the four-place tables with strangers was common practice in all railroad dining cars. It could be prevented only by eating late and/or heavily tipping all concerned. Rinehart knew and loved the ruling customs of luxury train travel.
    Both he and Mathews ate the roast rib of prime beef, with the great combination salad that was a specialty of the Super Chief. It was made of ice-cold lettuce and huge slices of giant red tomatoes with a vinaigrette dressing and crumbles of blue cheese.
    There was nothing to see through the windows except the flash of lights in houses and small buildings and cars and other vehicles moving along roads and highways. The moon was either not out or not bright. Rinehart, having finished his second martini and progressed well into a bottle of a nice French cabernet sauvignon, could not tell for sure where the moon was right now and was not much interested in finding out. But it triggered a thought—a very minor thought. It was based on a conversation he and Mathews had had in New York several days earlier about
Death of a Salesman
. Rinehart had been outbid five years earlier on trying to turn Arthur Miller’s play into a movie.
    “Miller was right,” Rinehart said. “No wonder Marilyn married him.”
    “She married him because she was high on pills,” Mathews mumbled, barely looking up from his book.
    “Failure in America is too easy because success is too easy.”
    Mathews set the book down in his lap and gave Rinehart his full attention. “Willy Loman wasn’t into stuff like that—”
    “You got to make millions or win Oscars because we’re a free and open country. No limit to what you can do. Be a waitress one day, a movie star the next. Be a Kansas City haberdasher one day, president the next. Anything but being on top is considered a failure because being on top is possible.”
    “Willy Loman never said or believed that—”
    “In Russia, you finish the sixth grade, find a place to live with a bathroom, bring home a chicken, you’re considered a huge success. Being on top isn’t possible so not getting there isn’t failure.”
    “So you and Willy are moving to Moscow with all the other Commies? Jesus, Dar. Before you know it, here’ll come McCarthy and the Red Police.” Mathews returned to his book.
    Rinehart and Mathews had made this trip so many times and sat in the dining car so many evenings like this. They were somewhere in Illinois, for sure. They hadn’t crossed the Mississippi yet into Iowa. That happened at Fort Madison, where the train always made a brief stop. Rinehart looked at his watch. Barely an hour out of Chicago. Still in Illinois. But
where
in Illinois?
    Rinehart saw STREATOR on a station sign as the Super picked up speed. That meant Joliet was coming a few minutes later. Many movies had been set in or were about the prison inJoliet. Just say the word
Joliet
, and people think of electric chairs and crying families of death row inmates.
    “What about a television series set on death row in a prison?” Rinehart asked Mathews, who did a double take, grinned for the first time in weeks and then closed his book and set it down. Both of them had already finished their dessert, warm apple pie with a slice of cheddar cheese melted on top and a dollop of vanilla ice cream on the side.
    “You serious, Dar? You really thinking about doing television? That is great. If I was still drinking I would set ’em up for the house.”
    He had another sip of his Coke and Rinehart took a gulp of red wine.
    Rinehart said, “Yeah, yeah. Let’s play