Lucky Leonardo Read Online Free PDF Page A

suitcase, and the rest of the mess strewn about reminded Leonardo of…his son’s room.
    Instead of graciously offering his guest a chair and a drink, and engaging in thoughtful discourse regarding the origin of the stress that was squeezing him into a zombie, Eugene stayed standing in the middle of the room eyeball to eyeball with Leonardo. “I have not ruled out assassination,” Eugene said.
    â€œYou mean that you would shoot…”
    â€œNo, that they’re waiting till I doze off, and then will shoot me, and make up a story about a random bullet…”
    â€œI don’t think so. I don’t think you have to worry about that at all.” Leonardo spoke slowly, and in as calm a voice and with as sincere a face as he could muster. “They’re all really very worried about you. Mr. Mulverne is especially worried…”
    â€œWhat did Mulverne say?”
    â€œHe likes you. He’s proud of you. He…”
    â€œHe wants to drop me like shit, and take my Code B. Walk out, slam the door, don’t come back…”
    â€œEugene, let’s sit down…”
    â€œIt ain’t going to happen like that, doctor hootchy-kootch. Mine is mine…”
    â€œEugene, let’s sit down. Let’s talk about something that’s not about work. Maybe you can tell me the things you like to do. You know, a lot of times things aren’t as bad as they seem. We find answers. Solutions. A way to put things back together…”
    Leonardo reached out a hand, to guide Eugene to one of the office chairs on the dark side of the computer screens. He gently touched Eugene on the forearm. But the touch stunned Eugene. He didn’t see it coming. He yelped like a dog kicked, and jerked away, knocking over a stack of things behind him.
    â€œNo, no, no, Eugene,” Leonardo said. “I don’t want the mouse. I wasn’t going for the mouse…”
    Eugene waggled the index finger of his free hand back and forth in front of Leonardo’s face. “No, no, no, no, doctor.”

Chapter 5
    â€œOh, shit.” said Ben Grevere, “I think it’s over. He’s jumping up and down. He’s waving his arms. He’s really pissed. He’s holding the button. He’s going…going…no, he’s listening to the doc. He’s definitely listening to the doc. He did not press the button. Repeat, he did not press the button. The doc is calming him down. Yes, the doc is calming him down. We’re not dead. It was a close call, I thought we were dead, but we’re still alive!”
    Ben Grevere was talking on his cell phone, from his surveillance post outside Eugene’s window. He was talking in hushed tones, like a golf commentator on television. He had just watched Eugene jerk away from Leonardo’s gentle touch, and almost press the button.
    Ben was attached to the window-washer cords that stretched down from the roof. Johnny Angelo and his assistants had discretely lowered Ben down the window of the office next to Eugene’s, and when his whole body except for his eyes was below the floor line they moved him sideways a wee bit so that he could peer through the lower corner of Eugene’s window from the outside in. A front row seat.
    â€œHe can’t see you,” Johnny Angelo had assured him. “It’s like Eugene and the doc are actors on a stage, and you’re in the audience. They can’t see past the stage lights.”
    â€œYou think that’s how the visuals work?” Brockleman asked Johnny after they started the winch.
    â€œI’m not sure,” Johnny answered. “I’m not a big theater guy.”
    Mulverne and his committee, now including Johnny Angelo and Roy Mudd, the public relations manager who had taken the day off to go fishing and whose fish were on ice in the trunk of his car, had Ben’s call on speakerphone. They all cheered as the doc talked his way out of