Bad Guys Read Online Free PDF Page A

white, plain white.
    Ivers’s clothes wouldn’t have sat well with the Old Man either. Three-piece, navy pinstripe. Sapphire stickpin in a powder-blue silk tie. Matching silk handkerchief carefully arranged in his pocket. Pastel blue shirt with a white collar. Blow-dried hair. Very ostentatious, even for the SAC of the Manhattan field office.
    Ivers swept his nail parings into his hand and deposited them in the wastepaper basket. It was the only varnished wood wastepaper basket Gibbons had ever seen in his life.
    â€œWell, Bert,” Ivers finally said, “how’s retirement treating you?”
    No one called him Bert, and no one ever referred to him by hisreal first name, Cuthbert. It was Gibbons, just Gibbons. He could have corrected Ivers—again—but this time he didn’t bother. It was good to hear these false familiarities every once in a while; it reminded him who his real friends were.
    â€œRetirement is . . . quiet,” Gibbons said. “I get a lot of reading done.”
    Ivers nodded, a dopey grin on his face. He probably thought that expression was enigmatic and inscrutable, but it wasn’t.
    â€œYou didn’t have to retire, you know? You met all the physical requirements, Bert. I’ll bet you could’ve gone on to sixty. I could’ve fixed it with Washington . . . if you’d only have asked me.”
    Gibbons exhaled, long and slow. This could almost be funny. No one wanted him out more than Ivers. He knew damn well what Ivers thought of him: an asshole from the old Bureau, one of “Hoover’s goons.” He knew what Ivers was thinking right now: Look at this dinosaur, still wearing J. Edgar’s regulation summer outfit, the seersucker suit, white shirt, regimental striped tie, black lace-up shoes (shined), summerweight straw snap-brim hat. But what the hell did he expect? After thirty years of being one way, a man isn’t interested in changing his style.
    â€œWell, Ivers”—Gibbons paused to relish the SAC stiffening as he heard his name used casually and without title—“fifty-five is old enough for an agent, don’t you think? Old warhorses just hold up the campaign.” Gibbons smiled like a crocodile.
    Ivers fingered his chin and smiled back. “I always liked your quaint allusions to the Roman Empire, Bert. Reading your reports always reminded me of my prep-school Latin exams. Do you still think of the FBI as the Roman legions enforcing the laws of the empire? Keeping the pax ?”
    â€œAbsolutely.”
    Ivers nodded slowly; he tried too hard to be clever.
    Gibbons uncrossed his legs and pulled on his earlobe. “Are the pleasantries over now, Ivers?” Gibbons was never very good at niceties.
    â€œYou want to tell me why I’m here, or shall we talk about the kids next?”
    Ivers leaned back in his chair. “There’s one kid I want to talk about.”
    â€œWho’s that?”
    â€œMike Tozzi. Have you heard from him lately?”
    Gibbons shrugged. “Not since the Bureau—in its infinite wisdom—decided to transfer him out to the graveyard.”
    â€œDo you know why he was being sent out to Butte? Because he was a cowboy, a hothead who had to learn how to take orders.”
    Gibbons grinned nostalgically. What a character Tozzi was. The only partner Gibbons ever got along with. “Well, he did come over to us from the DEA,” he pointed out to Ivers. The guys at the Drug Enforcement Administration were all cowboys, or at least that’s how it seemed a while back. When it came to nabbing drug smugglers, they believed the means always justified the ends. Gibbons pictured Tozzi riding shotgun through the Everglades on one of those propellered swamp buggies, whatever the hell they’re called. “As I remember, at one time you liked having a cowboy on board. He was good for the dirty work, you said. The attack dog in our stable, you once called him, I