Hardscrabble Road Read Online Free PDF

charged him with possession of illegally obtained prescription medication. I don’t think he’s going to trial. I think
     they’re going to bargain it out to probation or even less. I don’t think he’s going to spend a day in jail.”
    “What does Markey say about it all?”
    “Not much. That he doesn’t know anything. That the only work he did for Harrigan was around the apartment, scut work, cleaning
     up. Harrigan claims he got Sherman off the street holding one of those ‘Will Work for Food’ signs.”
    “Is that possible?”
    “I don’t think Sherman would take the time to make a sign,” Mr. George said. “But Harrigan could have gotten him off the street.
     That’s where Sherman usually is.”
    “It’s odd, though, isn’t it? That he took this guy off the street, somebody like Harrigan, who’s always saying we should ship
     all the bums off to labor camps or let them die in their shoes. When was it? How long ago?”
    “He didn’t say. Harrigan didn’t. I don’t know if anybody asked Sherman. If they did, they probably didn’t get a straight answer.
     Sherman isn’t too good with time.”
    “Still,” Kate said, looking down at the palms of her hands as if they could tell her something, maybe about stock prices.
     “It doesn’t read right. Hiring him doesn’t read right. Keeping him around when he was as messed up as you say doesn’t read
     right. It’s as if he knew he was going to need a diversion.”
    “You mean he knew he was going to be arrested?”
    “Maybe. Or maybe he just knew he was going to be outed. If Markey wasn’t getting him the drugs, I wonder who was.”
    “You think Sherman’s innocent?”
    “I can’t tell yet,” Kate said. “We’ll straighten it out in the morning—can we find him in the morning?”
    “Sure. We can go out to Holy Innocents first thing, if you want. Meaning about six. Or we could catch him when he gets to
     the Liberty Bell. That’s where Sherman hangs out. At the Liberty Bell.”
    “That must be interesting for the tourists. Look, put the files I need together so I can look them over tonight, and let’s
     go someplace where I can get a Scotch the size of Detroit. Then you can tell me about your name.”
    “My name?”
    “Why you’re having so much trouble telling me what to call you.”
    Mr. George looked away. He had, Kate thought, a remarkably chiseled face, the kind of face that belonged to a male model more
     than to a law student. He looked back and blinked.
    “Chickie,” he said. “People call me Chickie. Or they used to.”
    “Used to?”
    “I’m gay. I used to, ah, before law school, I used to… camp it up. A lot. Not drag, you know, but swish, really. And then
     I gave that up. But I’m still gay. And I’m used to Chickie, so that’s what people call me who’ve known me for a while, but
     people are odd about it.”
    “You thought I’d mind that you were gay?”
    “I thought you might mind that I’m called Chickie. Except I’m trying not to be. The name is…I don’t know. Something.”
    “I’ll call you Ed, if you want. You ought to go for Edmund, though, to sound suitably Ivy League law school. But Ed?”
    “What?”
    “As long as you’re first-rate at legal research, I don’t give a flying damn if you fuck squid.”

4
    N eil Elliot Savage disliked the Catholic Church in the same way he disliked Philly steaks, and Chinatown, and that god-awful street where the silly detective
     lived. It was not hate. He wasn’t about to put a sheet over his head and ride into the nearest Chinese movie theater screeching
     about the rights of white people and real Americans. He wasn’t even about to write the kind of letter to the editor that always
     got quoted in fund-raising mailings for organizations like the NAACP and the ACLU. If he could have, he wouldsimply have retreated to a place where he wouldn’t be bothered by it all. But, of course, there was no such place anymore
     in America. The real Americans—