The Lasko Tangent Read Online Free Page A

satiric emphasis, stared at it in a parody of thought, then snapped his head up smiling. “So there it is, Chris,” he said in his own voice.
    Lunch arrived and surprised us by being good. We ate in grateful concentration, spaced around a discussion of foreign films. We both liked Bertolucci and Truffaut. I thought Fellini was overrated. He thought Buñuel was too bizarre. We ended by agreeing to get dates for the new Wertmuller film. All through it, Lane looked as if he were chewing on a thought with his lunch. The thought popped out over coffee. “Why didn’t you just talk over Lasko with your boys at the commission?” Greenfeld was still on the job; he had a working reporter’s instinct for conflict.
    There was no point in explaining Hartex. “I still have newspaper habits, I guess.”
    Lane didn’t buy it, but decided to pass for the moment. “You mentioned an investigation over the phone. What’s it about?”
    “Off the record, we have an anonymous tip that someone was trying to maneuver the market price of Lasko stock. We don’t know whether it happened, or if Lasko’s involved if it did.”
    Greenfeld fell unconsciously into his press conference rhythm. “So why all this interest?”
    “Just background,” I said. I looked uncomfortably back at Greenfeld. But his eyes were fixed over my left shoulder. They stayed there long enough to make me curious. “What did you see, Lane? The Vice-President in drag?”
    “Nothing that interesting. But someone you might run into. Robert Catlow.”
    “Who’s he?”
    Greenfeld kept on looking. “One of the unofficial White House talent scouts. Very influential. He helps clear appointments to top federal jobs, like to your commission. Has a private law practice here in town. Also represents your friend Lasko. I wonder which hat he’s wearing today.” He squinted slightly. “You know the guy with him?”
    I half-turned. Greenfeld pointed me to a fiftyish man in a dark blue pinstripe. He was talking easily across a corner table. I felt a small start of surprise at his listener. Apparently, Greenfeld didn’t know Joe McGuire on sight.
    I felt the silence and turned back to my coffee. “Fairly mediocre-looking fellow,” I said casually. It was an effort; I felt as though I had just opened a closet full of dead rats. McGuire and Lasko’s lawyer. It wasn’t a new twist. I’d seen months of work go down the tubes in two hours at the Sans Souci, while the poor sucker who had done the work bolted a bologna sandwich at the agency cafeteria, fighting the flies for possession of the table. Sometimes the sucker had been me.
    Greenfeld looked a moment longer before our waiter reappeared with our tab. I took the check by way of penance for pretending I didn’t know McGuire. In turn, Greenfeld overtipped the waiter. “That was for a hair transplant,” he explained on the way out. McGuire was still hunched in conversation as we passed. The other man was talking intently now. Neither looked up.
    We stopped outside the door.
    “Good luck,” Greenfeld said. “I hear that your what’s-his-name—McGuire—keeps pretty close tabs on you guys.”
    It was droll, in an unfunny way. “I think it’s safe to say that he’s involved.” Greenfeld missed it, as I intended. Still, I felt a little rotten. I was more of a bureaucrat than I realized. Or perhaps I just wanted this one to myself. It was already too crowded, and the McGuire part was pretty thin.
    Greenfeld was looking reflective, as if he were combing through the file drawer he kept in his head. “You know,” he finally said, “back when Lasko was building up, one of his competitors refused to sell his business. One night the guy was stabbed to death coming out of a warehouse. The cops fooled with it and finally wrote it off as an attempted robbery. But the deceased still had his wallet. And Lasko bought the business. Cheap.”
    That stopped me. “Is that for real?”
    “As always.”
    I smiled. “In a couple of