Herbie's Game Read Online Free PDF Page A
Author: Timothy Hallinan
to tell me to go away?”
“Who told you to go away?” the masked man said. “I said,
Forget it
.”
The difference in our height and the water in the gun made me get a little lippy. “Kind of a fine distinction.”
“Not so fine. You go away, you get nothing. You do what I tell you, you get five bills.”
“How much is a bill?”
“Jeez,” the masked man said. “What is this, something you have to do for a Boy Scout badge? A bill is a hundred bucks.”
“So …”
“One times five, okay? Five hundred.”
“For what?”
He sighed. “Here’s what. Go get in your car, and park it at the intersection with Coldwater, since that’s where anyone who’sheading home would have to come from. You see a black Lincoln Town Car—you know what a Lincoln Town Car—”
“Yes,” I said. “Like a Kmart Limo.”
“You follow it in, go around the circle once, and honk one time as you leave. That’s it.”
“Five hundred? For honking?”
“Yes, no, up to you. If you’re waiting out at the intersection when I come out, I’ll give you the five whether anyone’s come home or not.”
“Um,” I said. “What are you going in to get?”
For a moment, I didn’t think he’d answer, but then he said, “Oh, why the hell not? Porcelain dogs, from China. Maybe seven hundred years old.”
“That’s all?”
He raised the barrel of the squirt gun in the air like a finger. “Rule Number One—no, no, not yet. You do this, kid, and we’ll maybe get to know each other better. I been looking for someone to pass things on to. My kid will never do it, which is, I gotta tell you, like a stone on my heart.” He tapped his chest with the gun, in the general region of his heart. “You know, you get to be my age, you got a rich backlog of experience—like a tapestry, but without the unicorns. Seems like a shame I should die and it should get rolled up and dropped in the grave, a couple flowers and a handful of dirt, and everything I learned is down there with the worms.”
“You’ve been doing this how long?”
“Uhhhh.” He put a finger inside the mask and rubbed his nose. “Nineteen years.”
“Have you been caught?”
He said, “Surely you jest.”
“And you’d teach me?”
“What I said.”
My heart was on a pogo stick, bouncing so high it was bumping my vocal cords. “Keep the money,” I said. “Just teach me.”
“Okay,” he said. “Here’s Lesson Number One. It’s not Rule Number One, it’s Lesson Number One. Never, ever say,
Keep the money
.”
That night, with five hundred-dollar bills in my pocket for the first time in my life, I followed Herbie down the hill to the Du-par’s restaurant at Ventura and Laurel Canyon, open all night and deserted. Feeling like everyone behind the counter knew what we’d just done, with my heart rate at about 140, I let him lead me through the bright lights inside to a back booth. Over quarts of coffee and many slices of lemon meringue pie, I got the first of what I later came to think of as the Herbie Lectures, ten brilliantly organized disquisitions on the history, importance, economics, and aesthetics of burglary. At the end of the talk, he asked me five questions, sort of a pop quiz, and I got them all right.
The man who faced me across the table looked out from bright blue eyes set into a face crowded to the margins by a nose that looked like it had been stolen from a much larger man. His hair was in retreat, I thought, although over the decades it never seemed to recede much further, and it was an odd color, neither red nor brown, a sort of genetic indecision. He looked at me for a minute, as though trying to see in the skinny seventeen-year-old the seed of someone who might turn out to be a reliable adult, and apparently he saw it, because he finally said, “You might do.”
Feeling like I’d just gotten a job, I said, “Thanks.”
“Why do you want to do this?”
“I need it.”
“What does that mean?”
“I see everyone doing
“Who told you to go away?” the masked man said. “I said,
Forget it
.”
The difference in our height and the water in the gun made me get a little lippy. “Kind of a fine distinction.”
“Not so fine. You go away, you get nothing. You do what I tell you, you get five bills.”
“How much is a bill?”
“Jeez,” the masked man said. “What is this, something you have to do for a Boy Scout badge? A bill is a hundred bucks.”
“So …”
“One times five, okay? Five hundred.”
“For what?”
He sighed. “Here’s what. Go get in your car, and park it at the intersection with Coldwater, since that’s where anyone who’sheading home would have to come from. You see a black Lincoln Town Car—you know what a Lincoln Town Car—”
“Yes,” I said. “Like a Kmart Limo.”
“You follow it in, go around the circle once, and honk one time as you leave. That’s it.”
“Five hundred? For honking?”
“Yes, no, up to you. If you’re waiting out at the intersection when I come out, I’ll give you the five whether anyone’s come home or not.”
“Um,” I said. “What are you going in to get?”
For a moment, I didn’t think he’d answer, but then he said, “Oh, why the hell not? Porcelain dogs, from China. Maybe seven hundred years old.”
“That’s all?”
He raised the barrel of the squirt gun in the air like a finger. “Rule Number One—no, no, not yet. You do this, kid, and we’ll maybe get to know each other better. I been looking for someone to pass things on to. My kid will never do it, which is, I gotta tell you, like a stone on my heart.” He tapped his chest with the gun, in the general region of his heart. “You know, you get to be my age, you got a rich backlog of experience—like a tapestry, but without the unicorns. Seems like a shame I should die and it should get rolled up and dropped in the grave, a couple flowers and a handful of dirt, and everything I learned is down there with the worms.”
“You’ve been doing this how long?”
“Uhhhh.” He put a finger inside the mask and rubbed his nose. “Nineteen years.”
“Have you been caught?”
He said, “Surely you jest.”
“And you’d teach me?”
“What I said.”
My heart was on a pogo stick, bouncing so high it was bumping my vocal cords. “Keep the money,” I said. “Just teach me.”
“Okay,” he said. “Here’s Lesson Number One. It’s not Rule Number One, it’s Lesson Number One. Never, ever say,
Keep the money
.”
That night, with five hundred-dollar bills in my pocket for the first time in my life, I followed Herbie down the hill to the Du-par’s restaurant at Ventura and Laurel Canyon, open all night and deserted. Feeling like everyone behind the counter knew what we’d just done, with my heart rate at about 140, I let him lead me through the bright lights inside to a back booth. Over quarts of coffee and many slices of lemon meringue pie, I got the first of what I later came to think of as the Herbie Lectures, ten brilliantly organized disquisitions on the history, importance, economics, and aesthetics of burglary. At the end of the talk, he asked me five questions, sort of a pop quiz, and I got them all right.
The man who faced me across the table looked out from bright blue eyes set into a face crowded to the margins by a nose that looked like it had been stolen from a much larger man. His hair was in retreat, I thought, although over the decades it never seemed to recede much further, and it was an odd color, neither red nor brown, a sort of genetic indecision. He looked at me for a minute, as though trying to see in the skinny seventeen-year-old the seed of someone who might turn out to be a reliable adult, and apparently he saw it, because he finally said, “You might do.”
Feeling like I’d just gotten a job, I said, “Thanks.”
“Why do you want to do this?”
“I need it.”
“What does that mean?”
“I see everyone doing