Angels Read Online Free PDF

advertisements above the windows. Bill Houston was up at the front of the bus, standing there with his arm wrapped around the silver pole and leaning over as if looking for something he’d dropped in the driver’s lap. “Listen. Got a proposition for you,” he was telling the driver.
    â€œNo,” the driver said. “Nope, no propositions. I just can’t listen to any propositions.” He was a compact young man with a boot-camp style crew-cut under an official bus driver’s hat supported solely by his ears. It was plain he didn’t want to talk to Bill Houston.
    â€œYou got nothing better to do than listen to me,” Bill Houston said. “Ain’t nothing else happening. We’re the only ones on your bus.”
    The driver glanced around and touched the buttons of his shirt with the fingers of one hand. “Look. There’s certain rules on this bus,” he said.
    â€œCourse there’s rules! Has to be rules to make everything work out right, right?”
    The driver rubbed his chin, unwilling to agree too hastily.
    â€œCertainly!” Bill Houston said. “Hey, I learned all about rules in the Navy. When it comes to rules, you just listen to me.”
    â€œI’m not listening,” the driver said. “You can’t get me to listen.”
    Jamie imagined a great blade protruding for miles from her window, levelling the whole suburbs six feet above the ground. She sat there waiting for Bill Houston to get arrested.
    Bill Houston rode the floor of the bus like the pitching and heaving deck of a great ship. “There has to be rules to make things run right,” he was explaining, “ but. If you got an idea about breaking the rules to make things run better, why goddamn it then a course there ain’t a reason in the world not to break the rules.”
    â€œI don’t know. Look—what are we talking about?” the driver said.
    â€œNow, here it is: I’m going to pay you a little extra to take this bus where we want to get to, that’s all. I’ll pay you all the extra you want.”
    â€œNever happen.” The driver shook his head. His hat seemed to stay in one place while his head moved from side to side beneath it. He stopped at a light and put his elbow on the steering and his chin in his hand.
    â€œWhat! Wait up one second,” Bill Houston said. “I ain’t even said where we’re going yet. This is a winner. Going to make you a lot of extra cash. You want to listen?”
    â€œNo sir. Don’t want to listen.” The driver removed his hat and put both hands over his ears.
    Fishing several dollars from his wallet, Bill Houston held them before the driver’s face. The driver shook his head.
    â€œOkay, I’ll name you a figure,” Bill Houston said. The figure was thrown from his heart, from the depths of his body: “Fifty bones.”
    The driver took his hands from his ears and drew a small printed sheet from the shelf below his steering wheel. “I got my specific route right here,” he said. He snapped the paper several times with his finger. “This is it. If I don’t see it on here, then it just isn’t it. That’s all.”
    Bill Houston took all the money from his wallet and held it out to the driver like a bouquet. “Tell you where to point this thing,” he said. “We want to see the Liberty Bell. Over in Philly.”
    The driver’s eyes grew wide. “Sure. One in the morning.”
    â€œRight here”—Bill Houston thumbed the money—“right here is, here is, here is—ninety-six dollars! Ninety-six big old big ones, boy. Now how much you make tonight all night, driving down your specific route there? Don’t seem exactly like the big time, does it?”
    The driver looked over his printed sheet carefully, as if hoping to find that Philadelphia had become part of his route.
    Bill Houston fanned his sheaf of