Cold Blood Read Online Free PDF

Trades at forty-five. Never been so low. Fill a barrow. Bye, Charlie.”
    But all the successes that Kerensky initiated somehow failed to be completed. People began to believe him less. They had only to glance at the roadside flowers to see they were actually wilting in the heat. From that it was a short distance to noticing the pouches deepening beneath his eyes, that he was losing weight, that his clothes now hung poorly on him, as if he were a peasant. His voice grew hoarse. Was it cancer of the throat, perhaps? Then he took to bringing up Lenin’s name gratuitously so that, it seemed, he could abuse him in a cheap, rather womanish way.
    Gradually, by these imprecise but convincing signals, one began to understand that Kerensky no longer believed in himself. And the reason for this was sensed by all: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
    Even though they’d grown up in the same small town, even though Kerensky’s father had actually taught Lenin at school, even though Kerensky controlled the state, the army, the secret police and the executioners themselves, the fact remained that he was eleven years younger than Lenin and was afraid of him. I was sure of it.
    By a flourish of his pen, he could have had Lenin killed. No one would have been shocked. In fact, the more imaginative his demise the more impressed Russians would have been. What was vital was to get it done.
    Every day La Zipfa expected the discovery of Lenin’s corpsein some humiliating corner such as the outlet into the Neva of the main sewer. A fisherman would hook it. The leader of the Bolsheviks, drowned in shit! His cause would be totally discredited. Every day that she was disappointed, she grew gloomier.
    I said, “Cyn, it’s not going to happen. Kerensky is too feeble. You should get out of the country. You don’t have to live here, you know.”
    â€œMe quit? After all the effort I’ve put into being someone who matters? Look you here, Charlie boy, I’m right about the old buzzard. And to show how confident I am, this morning I installed my servants permanently at the mortuaries here and in Moscow with orders to telephone me the
instant
Lenin’s cadaver is presented. ‘Lift every sheet,’ I commanded them. ‘Vomit as much as you want.’ That’s the language they understand. I’m telling you, one morning it’ll happen. The phone will ring. Mine before anyone else’s. I’ll make a
killing.
Then shareholders will have the most fabulous Settlement Day that the Exchange has ever seen. After that I’ll get out. Hey, did you buy Archangel when I said? They were down to twenty last night. Buy another barrowful. Follow them down. All the way. Yeah, that’s right, corner the market. What’s a few thousand roubles to a Rykov.”
    The next time I met her, in the fog and mud of that fatal St Petersburg autumn, she came up with her best line ever.
    â€œCharlie,” she said, “I’ve made up my mind. You were right all along. That Kerensky doesn’t have the balls for the job. I’m off. When the ship docks in the US of A, I’ll be back to plain Cynthia Cohen again, older and wiser. But first I’m going to have myself a party and on the invitation cards will be printed this, like they print the headings in a book, all la-dida—‘
Every woman of blue blood should buy herself some stock when she gets her period, to celebrate it not being red
.’ Maybe some of my friends will laugh enough to go out and buy. Maybe for a morning the Exchange’ll soar. Then I’ll be able to get out a rich woman. And you know what I’ll regret most? Not having laid you. I’d have given you the time of your life. Too bad you’re still in love with your wife. Couldn’t you spare just one afternoon for me...? I guess not. You’re too honourable beneath all that warpaint. You know, Charlie, thiscould be the beginning of goodbye for our sort.