Running Stupid: (Mystery Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

a big country estate; a big nineteenth century manor house surrounded by a massive garden. I’d love a nice big, meadow green, flower-filled garden. The sort they open up to the public and charge them to enter. It’s always been a dream of mine.”
     
    Jester smiled. “That lot will set you back twenty million, max. You still have eighty-million left.”
     
    “Well,” the driver took a few moments to mull it over. “I guess I would buy a new car for my wife and I.”
     
    “What’s her name?” Matthew was quick to interrupt.
     
    “Julie.”
     
    “Excellent,” Matthew said with a nod. “Continue,” he instructed.
     
    “I would probably set up a business,” Charles said. “I’ve worked all my life. It would be nice to be on the other end for once. I want to be the man giving orders. I don’t have power issues, don’t get me wrong, I just want that experience as a …” he lingered on the sentence, struggling to finish it.
     
    “Payback,” Jester offered.
     
    “I suppose. Payback seems a harsh word. I mean no harm.”
     
    “That’s the way the world works, Charlie. You eat shit all your life just to get to the top. When you make it up there, right to the end of the line, you want revenge, so you start feeding shit down the line,” he explained in a leisurely tone.
     
    The driver nodded.
     
    “Two cars, half a million at the most. Fluffy dice included. You still have a lot of money to spend, Charlie. What else do you want?” Matthew asked as the car turned off at the second exit.
     
    The driver pondered for a moment and then answered the question as best he could. “I honestly don’t know. I mean if I had time, I’m sure I could make a list a hundred foot long, but right now ...” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
     
    Matthew shrugged his shoulders. “An hour ago,” he explained, his voice relaxed, “I didn’t have this money.” He paused, contemplated. “Do you know what I intend to do with it?”
     
    The driver looked at Matthew’s reflection in the rear-view mirror, eager to hear the answer.
     
    Matthew continued, “I have absolutely no idea. One hundred million, no idea.” He thought. “One hundred million, no idea,” he repeated with a smile. “I guess that’s what they call having more money than sense.”

 
6
     
    Matthew Jester and Charles Edinburgh walked through the doors to The King and Spade pub. Outside, the sun had slipped away and the world had turned an eerie grey. The pub was half-full. Three bartenders served around twenty-five customers, consisting of a middle-aged majority and a teenage and elderly minority.
     
    A large bar stretched through the middle of the building, with stools placed at intervals along one side. Matthew Jester and Charles Edinburgh, receiving recognition and judgemental stares from every eye that fell their way, sat down next to each other at the bar.
     
    Charles looked around the bar with a curious expression. Matthew stared at a young female bartender currently serving another customer. Half a dozen customers were drinking at the bar, hunched over on the stools. Behind Matthew, sitting amongst the half dozen oak tables that dotted the area, were another handful of customers.
     
    In the corner furthest away from Charles, a jukebox played. Melodies of rock eras gone-by floated through the pub, but were crowded out by the brash sound of a television set, the large plasma television tuned into a sporting news channel and mounted on the far wall.
     
    Content with his surroundings, Charles returned his eyes to the bar. The young waitress had finished serving her customer and made her way over.
     
    “Hello,” she said, her face reddening by the second, her voice filled with a nervousness. “What can I get you?”
     
    “Jack Daniels,” Matthew said with a smile, staring into her shy eyes. “Double, with ice. And a lemonade, please.”
     
    The waitress nodded. She struggled to hold Jester’s stare.
     
    “Could you