The Last Hand Read Online Free PDF Page B

the money.
    â€œMum mentioned something.”
    â€œWhat? When?”
    â€œBefore she left. I asked her when you were going to retire.”
    â€œWhat did she say?”
    â€œShe said you had to quit soon. How do you feel about it?”
    Salter looked for the honest answer that would reinforce this new bond between them without alarming Seth or depressing himself. “I’m nervous,” he said. “I don’t have any plans. I don’t know what happens next.”
    Seth grinned. “Read ‘Ulysses’,” he said.
    Salter’s year and a half at university provided the reference. “I did look at it once. I didn’t get far. I couldn’t see why they banned it.”
    â€œThat comes at the end. I didn’t mean the novel, the poem. Tenny-son.”
    â€œWhat’s that about?”
    â€œUlysses at sixty, picking up his oar for the last time, maybe, but still heading out to sea.”
    â€œGood poem? Readable?”
    â€œTerrific.”

4
    There was a time, in the sixties, when Harry Barberian’s steak house was one of the few Toronto restaurants that out-of towners, especially show business people on the road, recommended to each other. In those days Toronto had a French restaurant, La Chaumiere, a spaghetti house, George’s, and a fish restaurant, The Mermaid, several steak houses and, of course–the backbone of Canadian dining since the last spike was driven into the Trans-Canada Railroad bed–the dining rooms of the major hotels, the railroad hotels. And the Park Plaza. Most of the other eating places in those days competed in offering the cheapest breakfast in town.
    Now there are sixteen Yellow Pages of restaurants offering a range of cuisines from couscous to curried goat, a choice as varied as that on the West Side of New York below 120th street. Most of the dining rooms of the sixties are gone now, but Harry Barberian’s has kept its place of honor among the local steak-eaters, and visiting actors still recommend it to each other.
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    An earnest discussion of how long the restaurant had been there, and how much a twelve-ounce rib steak had cost the first time they had been there, and when that first time was in each case, took Salter and Marinelli through the awkward time, until the predinner scotch took hold and they could come to the point, whatever that was.

    Marinelli coughed, adjusted himself in his chair, sipped his drink, moved his knife and fork slightly, and said, “Thanks for coming along, Charlie. Gives me a chance to show my appreciation for all the help you’ve been over the last few years. And still to come, I hope. How old are you now?”
    â€œSixty.”
    â€œUh-huh. I figured about that. You know Harry Wycke? Used to be in Homicide years ago, then moved to Community Affairs? Retired last year. You know him?”
    â€œI use his cabin for fishing.”
    â€œYeah? Well, I bumped into him the other day. He lives near me. He thought you’d reached mandatory retirement already.”
    â€œThis year.”
    â€œBut you could retire now, couldn’t you?”
    â€œAny time in the last eight years.”
    â€œWhy don’t you just take the money and run?”
    â€œYou think I should? If I was a senator I would stay around for another fifteen years.”
    â€œYeah, and you’d get a living allowance for the days you weren’t in Florida, too. But most normal people look forward to putting their feet up by now. They plan for it.”
    â€œI’ve got a pension, my wife has her own money, and my kids are independent, more or less.”
    â€œSounds good. How’s your dad?”
    â€œHe died last year.”
    Marinelli looked for a new start.
    â€œYou hear some people talk about nothing else,” he said finally. “Can’t wait to retire.”
    â€œSome of the jobs people have to do I’m not surprised. But I’m already doing everything I