Why Me? Read Online Free

cars like an FBI man, drank coffee like an FBI man, sat quietly listening like an FBI man. It was terrific; it gave him a heightened self-awareness of the most delicious sort, like suddenly seeing yourself on closed-circuit television in a store window. It went with him through life, everywhere, in everything he did. He brushed his teeth like an FBI man—shoulders squared, elbow up high and sawing left and right, chick-chick, chick-chick . He made love like an FBI man—ankles together, elbows bearing the weight, hum -pah, hum -pah.
    He also, Malcolm Zachary, questioned a suspect like an FBI man, which in the present circumstance was perhaps unfortunate. While Zachary couldn’t remember any suspect ever collapsing quite so rapidly as Georgios Skoukakis, it was unfortunately true that he could also not remember any suspect ever clamming up again quite so fast. One statement—“FBI, Mr. Skoukakis. Agent Zachary”—and the suspect had opened up like a landing craft: “I confess! I did it!” But then came the first question—“We’ll want the names of your associates”—and the landing craft immediately snapped reshut and rusted into place.
    Having an awareness of other people that was less heightened than his awareness of himself, Zachary had no idea what had gone wrong. He didn’t know how fragile and false had been that self-deception in Georgios Skoukakis’ brain which he, Zachary, had destroyed by his mere presence. On the other hand he had no clue to the roiled tumble of emotions coursing through the poor man immediately after his blurted confession: the humiliation, the self-contempt, regret, horror, despair, the knowledge that he had now destroyed everything forever, with no hope of ever ever ever repairing the damage he had done.
    â€œWe’ll want the names of your associates.”
    Bang! Instant redemption. Georgios Skoukakis had destroyed himself forever, but valor was still possible. He would not betray his associates. Zachary could have put bamboo shards under Skoukakis’ fingernails, burning coals between his toes—he wouldn’t, of course, that not being the FBI way, but just as a hypothetical—and Georgios Skoukakis would not betray his associates. Very seldom is it given to a man, having failed, to atone for his failure quite so rapidly as in the case of Georgios Skoukakis.
    Of none of which was Zachary aware. He knew only that Skoukakis had cracked at the first tap of the shell. So now Zachary was standing here, ballpoint pen in right hand, notebook in left hand (exactly like an FBI man), waiting for the answer to his first question and not yet aware that the answer was not going to come. He prodded a bit: “Well?”
    â€œNever,” said Georgios Skoukakis.
    Zachary frowned at him. “I beg your pardon?”
    â€œNever.”
    Zachary’s partner, a younger man with a moustache named Freedly— Well, no. The man was named Freedly.
    Zachary’s partner, a younger man named Freedly with a moustache—
    Zachary’s partner, a moustached younger man named Freedly—
    Freedly said, “Have you got the ring on you?”
    â€œJust a minute, Bob,” Zachary said. “Let’s get the answer to this other question first.”
    â€œHe won’t answer that question, Mac,” Freedly said. “Well, Mr. Skoukakis? Is it on you?”
    â€œNo,” said Skoukakis.
    Zachary said, “What do you mean, he won’t answer it?”
    The suspect’s wife, Irene Skoukakis, said something short, fast, and probably vicious in a foreign language, no doubt Greek.
    â€œNone of that,” Zachary told her.
    Skoukakis looked terribly ashamed of himself. “I’m sorry, Irene,” he said. “I just wasn’t man enough.”
    This time the wife spoke one word in English.
    â€œNone of that either,” Zachary told her.
    Freedly said, “Where is it, Mr.