Money to Burn Read Online Free PDF

with the masked face throw a white bag, made of canvas, out of the back door of the car as it was already moving and then drop another bag while the Chevrolet set off at full speed for Madero, against the one-way system, towards Martinez Street, in other words towards the city centre of Buenos Aires.
    The car was revving at full throttle, running zigzags, hooting its horn at everyone to get out of the way. Two of the gunmen were hanging out of the windows with half their bodies outside, their machine-guns in their hands, firing behind them.
    'Give it them round for round, bullet for bullet,' yelled the Kid while Mereles stayed very focused on the driving, crouched forwards, his face pressed up against the windscreen, without any consideration (according to one witness) for the presence of other cars or of the children coming out of school and without waiting for the traffic lights which stopped the cars on the avenue, fixated only on an imaginary line down the street drawing them on to freedom, to the flat on Arenales Street where the Girl was waiting for them, sprawled on the bed studying maths. The Crow was at the wheel of the Chevrolet, and every other car had to get out of the way and let him through.
    Everyone in the neighbourhood watched through half- open windows as the black car sped by like a rush of wind. Outside, some of them threw themselves on to the ground, or clustered behind tree-trunks, paralysed with fear, mothers who were on the streets, their children clutching their hands. When people are part of a funeral cortège and look out of the hearse window, they can see those outside removing their hats (should they be wearing hats), slowly and silently crossing themselves as the procession makes its way onwards. The relatives watch the line of people clamped to the wall, along the pavement, who pay their respects, but now from the car it's amusing to observe the disorder (or so the Kid saw it), the idiots throwing themselves to the ground, taking refuge in nearby entrance halls - looking like astonished gargoyles.
    'Is it all there?' yelled Mereles, pale in the afternoon light. He held the Chevrolet and crossed the avenue like a sudden draught, still running flat out. He felt the bag beside him without looking at it, and touched the money.
    'The loot? Is it all there?' Mereles was laughing.
    They hadn't counted it but the canvas bag stuffed with cash was so heavy it could have been filled with stones. Lumps of cement, concealing the fine notes, all in usable currency, packed into a canvas bag tied with a naval knot.
    'We were in it up to our necks,' said Dorda.
    His shirt was stained with blood, a bullet had grazed his neck, a graze that still burned him. 'But we saved ourselves, Kid, and now we've got to get there,' said the Blond Gaucho, glancing at the Chevrolet's rearview mirror. 'All the dosh in the world.'
    He too felt for a bag, then grabbed some powder. They rubbed the cocaine on their gums, they couldn't inhale the stuff at that speed, using their hands like claws to hook out the drug with two crooked fingers from the brown paper bag dangling from the car seat, then rubbing it round their gums and their tongues. Money is just the same as drugs: what's fundamental is its possession , knowing it's there, touching it, checking it's still in the cupboard, there in its bag slung among the clothes, checking there's still a half-kilo of the stuff, a hundred grand's worth, being content with that. The first day of the rest of their lives started here.
    Nothing can match flying along in a specially tuned car, with double fuel injection and your foot slammed down on the accelerator, the steering wheel stuck to your hands and taking the loot along in the back with you to go and live in Miami or Caracas. That was life at full speed ahead.
    'There's a ferry can take us across to Uruguay. It'll take two hours, two hours ten, to cross the pond,' said the Kid.
    Was that a question? No one answered. Each one did their