Money for Nothing Read Online Free PDF Page B

them—"
    "They think I'm betraying America!"
    "Yes, exactly," Mr. Nimrin said. "And your only salvation, and mine as well, is to keep them thinking that. You sold out your country nine years ago, you've never had doubts, you've taken the agency's money, and you are now prepared to be activated and to serve your foreign masters in any way they see fit."
    "Oh, Jeez," Josh said.
    "Yes, indeed," Mr. Nimrin agreed. "If for any reason they begin to doubt you, of course they will kill you, to protect their own security. But before they kill you, your mild friend Levrin will torture you to find out what you know, and you'll get to see what
he's
really about. If we had not had this conversation, and you continued to know nothing, that would soon come out under torture, and then they would come for
me
. Now we have had this conversation, and it, too, would soon come out under torture, and once again they would come to me."
    Mr. Nimrin leaned back, the better to survey Josh. "You are my only hope for survival," he said. "I can't say I'm encouraged."
     
7
     
    NEITHER WAS JOSH. ALL THE WAY home in the new cab, Mr. Nimrin's story kept circling in his brain, and he could find nowhere in it a way out for himself.
    Was the story true? Well, the checks had been true, and the Cayman Islands bank account was true, and Levrin's appearance on the ferry dock had been true, and Mr. Nimrin looked exactly like the only extant public photo of himself, absent moustache. So it was undeniably true that he was caught up in
something
, but who knew what? It was like one of those dreams that begin in the middle: you're running, something's chasing you, and there's a cliff dead ahead.
    I'll have to tell Eve this weekend, he promised himself. I can't carry this by myself, and who else is there to tell? I've been betraying my country for seven years without knowing it, and now they want me to
do
something, I don't know what, and if I don't do it, or if I let them even suspect the truth about me, they'll kill me. After torturing me, let's not forget that part, because
they
won't.
    Will it be possible to pretend to go along with them, and yet not actually
do
anything? Anything, uh, treasonous.
    Too late, he realized. I've already done something. I've provided a safe house for foreign agents coming into America to do something America won't like.
    He overtipped the cabby, to start the belated process of becoming a good guy, and went up to his apartment, where of course there was a phone message from Eve: "Josh? It's six-thirty. Can you still be at the office? I'll try you there."
    Well, no, she wouldn't find him there, and the time was now seven-forty, so where had he been all this time? He fully intended to tell her the truth this weekend, somehow or other, but he couldn't possibly tell her any truth at all now, not on the phone.
    He wasn't used to lying to Eve, had never lied to her except about birthday presents; that he wasn't going out to buy her one, that he liked the one she'd bought for him, things like that. It's true he hadn't told her about the checks, but that hadn't been a
lie
. He hadn't made anything up in that instance, he'd merely left something out.
    Now, he would have to make something up. When Jules Verne was asked what he thought of the science fiction writings of H. G. Wells, he'd indignantly said, "Il invent!" Why did he now remember that one little item from college, when he'd forgotten almost everything else? Whatever; he would now have to reach down and find that inner H. G. Wells. Time to invent.
    When he phoned, after first drinking a long glass of water to calm himself, she said, "
There
you are! Where are you?"
    "Home," he said, still searching for an invention, and suddenly thought of Jack Crisp. "I was having a beer with Jack Crisp," he said. "You remember him."
    "He's somebody at the agency," she said, sounding confused. "But you don't like him."
    "I don't dislike him," Josh said, which was sort of true. "And, turns out, we're in