Read 1978 - Consider Yourself Dead for Free Online

so hot about that? Okay, Grandi has quite a place and he seems loaded, but the job’s only worth six hundred a week.’
    Marcia conveyed a prawn to her mouth.
    ‘You have yourself a job, honey!’
    ‘You think so? Six a week? You must be making thousands.’
    She regarded him thoughtfully.
    ‘What so wrong about six hundred a week?’
    ‘I’ve got ambitions.’ He continued to eat. Then after a pause, he went on, ‘I want to live like these slobs,’ and he waved a hand to take in the whole of the restaurant. ‘I want real money, not a crappy six hundred a week.’
    ‘Who doesn’t?’ She finished the prawn salad and leaned back in her chair. ‘But, honey, use your head. You have your foot in the door. You’ve started right. Tell me about the job. What do you do?’
    Frost told her. He was still telling her when the duck was served.
    ‘Have you met Grandi’s daughter?’ Marcia asked as they began to eat.
    ‘Not yet. Marvin tells me she has hot pants.’ Frost grinned. ‘That’s something I could take care of for her.’
    ‘Not with Amando around.’
    Startled, Frost stared at her.
    ‘You know about him?’
    ‘Honey, I know everyone around here. It’s my business. I have a date with that creep every first Saturday of the month.’ Marcia pulled a face. ‘There’s a cold fish: strictly an in and out job: nothing fancy: just letting off steam, but he pays.’
    ‘He’s right out of a horror film.’
    ‘You can say that again.’ She smiled at him. ‘How about Marvin, the other guard? Do you jell with him?’
    Frost shrugged.
    ‘I wouldn’t know yet. It’s early days. From what I’ve seen of him he is a dedicated cop: a guy without ambition.’ He ate, then said, ‘This duck is fantastic.’
    ‘All the food here is fantastic.’ She paused to look directly at him. ‘Honey, you shouldn’t gripe. Sitting in a chair, just watching, getting well fed and well paid, isn’t something to gripe about, is it?’
    ‘I’ve got big ideas. I look around. You, and everyone around here, are loaded. Grandi! A goddam wop! It kills me to think a wop could have so much money.’
    ‘He worked for it, honey. I worked for what I’ve got. What you put in, you take out. If you want real money, begin to think what you can put in.’
    Frost scowled.
    ‘You sound just like my jerk of a father. He was always yakking about putting in and taking out. He put in, sweating his stupid guts out fourteen hours a day, but he never took out.’ Frost clenched his fists as he thought back into the past. ‘My father! Now there was the original pea brain! Don’t feed me this crap about putting in and taking out. That’s strictly for the birds!’
    The waiter came and removed the plates. Frost sat back and looked around the lush room. This was his scene!
    This must be his future background if he could only find the key to the fast buck. His mind floated around his ambitions: to own a villa like Grandi’s, to own a big motor cruiser, a Lamborghini, to snap his fingers to have a doll drop on her back, and to have big money to spend.
    The coffee was served.
    Frost was so wrapped up in his futile dream of wealth that he wasn’t aware that Marcia was studying him searchingly.
    ‘A nickel for your thoughts,’ she said.
    Frost smiled crookedly.
    ‘This joint! All these slobs with money. What I wouldn’t do to be one of them!’
    ‘I told you, honey: this is the city of the fast buck,’ Marcia said. ‘You’ve only just arrived. Be patient.’ She pushed back her chair. ‘I have a call to make,’ and before he could get to his feet, she was already walking away, waving to people who waved languidly back.
    The wine waiter appeared.
    ‘A cognac, sir?’
    ‘Go peddle your swill someplace else,’ Frost snarled.
    He felt so frustrated he had the urge to get away from this lush room with all these stinking rich around him, but he restrained himself. He had come here for one purpose: to get this blonde, sensational woman on a