Read Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen : A Novel (9781101565766) for Free Online Page A

Cynthia, who had come up behind her father.
    â€œMy daughter, Cynthia,” Billy said by reflex. It was more, he immediately thought, than he had intended to say.
    â€œHow do you do?” the priest responded. “I’d be most grateful if I might have a word with you, sir.” The man appeared to be in his late thirties, Cynthia’s age, and Billy wondered what he’d seen in his vocation that had brought such desperation to his eyes. A second later he gestured for the priest to follow him.
    When they reached his study, Billy stopped abruptly. Behind him was the six-by-twelve-foot oil painting
The Cavalry Campfire
by Frederic Remington, which his father had given him after his mother’s death and the older man’s move to an apartment that was too small to accommodate it. “Are you from the local parish?”
    â€œNot really.”
    â€œWe’re not Catholics. We’re Episcopalians, which may not have anything to do with why you’re here. What can I do for you, Father?”
    The priest hesitated. Then, after gesturing for permission, he closed the single door to the front hall. “Oh, I’m afraid it’s too late for anything of that sort.”
    â€œSorry?”
    â€œYou’ve done just about everything you could do.”
    â€œForgive me, but I really must ask . . . What I’m trying to say, as courteously as possible, is that we have dinner reservations—a family evening, you understand—and I really must watch the clock.”
    â€œYes, of course, the clock,” the priest replied, then sat down.
    â€œWhy are you here, Father?”
    â€œNot for the reason you think.”
    â€œAre you sure? I may be a bit ahead of you on this one. What sort of donation did you have in mind?”
    â€œOne that’s bound to surprise you,” the priest answered, removing, from a side holster, the brand-new Walther P99 Compact he’d been given for this job.
    â€œTo which cause, may I ask?” Billy inquired, without at first noticing the priest reach inside his suit jacket. “You say you’re not local and we’re not among your flock—” His first sight of the pistol stopped him short. In the pit of his groin, he felt an immediate convulsion. Its supplier had fitted the weapon with a modified laser sight, whose orange-red pinpoint bounced along the surface of Billy’s blue blazer, tracing his left rib cage and lung.
    â€œThe cause of justice?” the priest whispered. Billy thought he heard a question mark in this reply and wondered what, if anything, it might mean.
    His visitor, moving behind him, motioned for Billy to step forward. Once Billy had complied, the priest slithered alongside him, carefully remaining just beyond reach.
    â€œJustice?”
    â€œUsury is still a crime, Mr. Claussen. You may have made it lawful; you and your like may have managed to pull that one off. I’ll be the first to grant you that. But it’s still a crime—in the eyes of God! Let me assure you of that.”
    â€œI don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    â€œ
Thirty
percent interest? Then you change the terms of your own free will: double the minimum payment just like that when a man falls sick or his kid does and he’s an hour late—or a minute, mind you, on the due date. That’s all it takes.”
    â€œI see what you’re driving at, but, really, Father—hear me out—you’ve got it wrong.”
    â€œNo, no, no, no, no. You’re the one’s got it wrong. ‘And Jesus went into the temple of God . . . and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers.’ Matthew 21:12. It’s the only time in the whole Bible when our Lord used force, which never crossed your mind, did it? It crossed Ezekiel’s mind—he prophesied it. Listen to me. I had a job in an assembly plant coming to me. But then the job goes overseas. Better for everyone,