Mortality Bridge Read Online Free PDF Page A

throw up. Van’s head was still against the steering wheel, the eyes so like his own still stared at nothing, and he still laughed when he first saw it. The bloodrose still bloomed in one dulled eye. No time had passed in that tableau.
    He wiped his palms on his thighs. “Jemma got a CAT scan last week.”
    Phil shook his head. “All this time and this is how you say hello.” From somewhere he brought forth an iPhone in a beige leather case monogrammed with a single letter M. He tapped the screen and frowned. “Jemma, that’s the wife, right?”
    “We’re not married.”
    A wide smile. “For purposes of conversation.”
    Madge arrived with Phil’s coffee.
    “She started getting headaches. Having dizzy spells, short term memory lapses, problems concentrating.”
    Phil spooned sugar and dumped clotted creamer into his coffee and stirred it with a finger.
    “Sometimes blurred vision.”
    Phil blew across his coffeecup and sipped and toasted Madge who had already left them.
    “A month ago it started getting worse. She’d stare at nothing for twenty minutes and then pop out of it without being aware the time had gone by. Like a little epileptic fit.”
    Phil drained his coffee in one gulp and looked around for their waitress.
    “Two weeks ago she fell down when we were out shopping. She didn’t even reach out to stop her fall. Just fell. She nearly broke her nose on the concrete.”
    The empty coffeecup pushed away and the iPhone went back into a pocket. “Well we all have our little problems, Niko-lodeon.”
    “Her doctor thinks it could be some kind of cerebral virus. But you know what it is. Don’t you.”
    A hand spread across the linen shirt. “Me? I’m just a gobetween, Niko-rama. A glorified mailman. I pick up and I deliver.”
    “Then deliver this.”
    The smile vanished and the man grew absolutely still. “Careful, Niko-san.”
    “Just one word.”
    “I’m all ears.”
    “Don’t.”
    “Don’t? Not even please don’t?”
    Madge returned and refilled their cups.
    “Thanks, beautiful. I’ll bet you’ll make some guy very happy someday.”
    “I’ve made too many guys happy already.”
    He brayed like a mule. “Bam! Let me shake your hand. You can call me Phil for short.”
    She avoided his hand like an Aikido master. “I wouldn’t call you Phil for long.”
    Phil watched her go and shook his head. “That’s so great. These girls. They’ve seen everything. You gotta love em.” He saw Niko reaching into his valise and grew annoyed. “Oh have a heart, will you? Have some selfrespect.”
    Their food arrived and Phil looked up wide eyed at Madge. “Madge my darling dear, I am going to devour this fine meal as if you prepared it with your own loving hands.”
    “Don’t blame me for it.”
    Phil dug in and talked to Niko with his mouth full while he gestured with his dirty fork. “Trust me when I tell you that we have the best lawyers ever born. A lot of them. And they’ve been over our boilerplate about a million times each. But you and every other armchair Daniel Webster think you’re going to be the one to find the loophole and beat the rap. Well you’re not.” Egg sprayed from Phil’s mouth. Niko watched him devour his omelette like a man who had not seen food for a long time.
    The son of a bitch was right about the contract. In the bad old days after Niko had cleaned up but before he’d owned a nice big house in the Hollywood Hills he’d once taken the contract to a lawyer named Carlton Howard, whom Niko’s manager Avery Kramer had recommended. Howard was thin and graysuited and gold cufflinked, round spectacled and baldspotted. For all that he had the same leonine largesse and sleepyeyed look Niko would later learn to recognize in sparring partners who could kick his ass at will. Niko gave him the contract with much trepidation. It had never been out of his possession. He told the lawyer that the document was part of an elaborate prank and that he wanted to be sure it read