The Night Crew Read Online Free PDF Page B

never use your stuff again.’’ The Witch opened as she usually did, with a direct threat.
    ‘‘We can live with that,’’ Anna said. She looked out the kitchen window, at the dark line of the canal. In a couple of hours, the reflected ball of the morning sun would start crawling down its length, steaming the water, bringing up the rich smell of algae soup. She’d be asleep in bed, this whole conversation no more than a pleasant memory. ‘‘We already told Hatton that. I only agreed to talk to you as a courtesy.’’
    ‘‘Courtesy my large white Lithuanian butt,’’ the Witch snapped. Anna could hear the pause as she hit on a cigarette. ‘‘If we don’t buy, you lose a big source of your income. Gone,’’ she said. Exhaling. ‘‘Outa here. I promise you, we won’t buy again.’’
    ‘‘You take a bigger hit than we do,’’ Anna said. ‘‘You never know when we’re gonna come up with something like this jumper . . .’’
    ‘‘You’re not that good . . .’’
    ‘‘Yeah, we are: we’re the best crew on the street. And your career life at Three is what? Four or five years? And you’ve been there three? You’ll be gone in a year or two, and we’ll sell to your replacement. And we’ll make our point: You don’t steal from us. Even if it’s swimming cats.’’
    ‘‘I apologized for that,’’ the Witch shrilled.
    ‘‘What?’’ Anna shouted. She banged the cell phone three times on the table top, then yelled into the mouthpiece. ‘‘Did I hear that right? You laughed at us.’’
    ‘‘So I’m sorry now,’’ the Witch shouted back. ‘‘Name the price.’’
    ‘‘Network price,’’ Anna said. She sipped at the soup. ‘‘Three thousand for the package. Plus two grand for the cats.’’
    ‘‘Fuck that,’’ the Witch said. ‘‘Network for the package, okay, but the cats we did, we did with our own crew.’’
    ‘‘C’mon, c’mon,’’ Anna shouted. ‘‘I’m making a point here.’’
    ‘‘So’m I . . . Five hundred for the cats.’’
    ‘‘I’m serious, we don’t need you. Network plus a thousand for the cats.’’
    ‘‘Deal,’’ the Witch said. ‘‘I want to see the fuckin’ pictures in ten fuckin’ minutes.’’ She slammed down the receiver.
    • • •
    Anna called the truck, and spoke to Louis. ‘‘Send it to Three.’’
    ‘‘How much you get?’’
    ‘‘Four thousand—I got a thousand for the cats.’’
    Louis said, ‘‘Examonte, dude,’’ and repeated the price to Creek, whose laughter filled the background. Anna grinned and said, ‘‘We’re dropping thirty-five thousand bucks in the pot—that’s three times the record.’’
    Creek shouted at the phone, ‘‘We might as well quit, we’ll never do this again.’’
    ‘‘How’re the radios, Louis?’’ Anna asked.
    ‘‘Good. Nothing happening.’’
    ‘‘Call me.’’
    Anna hung up with Creek still laughing about the money. She’d wait until Creek had dropped Louis, and there was no chance of recovering for a quick run. Good stuff sometimes broke just at dawn, although the regular station trucks would be out prowling around fairly soon. Waiting for bed, Anna trailed by the Steinway, touched a few keys, yawned, flipped through the sheets for Liszt’s Sonata in B Minor. She’d been trying to clarify the fingerwork in the fast passages.
    She didn’t sit down—her head wasn’t quite right yet. She put the music on the piano, said hello to a couple of plants, enjoyed the quiet. Went into the utility room and got a plastic watering can and filled it.
    Barefoot, humming to herself—something stupid from Les Mise ´rables that she couldn’t get out of her mind—Anna took the watering can out to the porch, and started watering the potted plants. Geraniums, and some daisies: plants with an old-fashioned feel, bright touches in the shade of the jungle.
    Back inside, she refilled the can and walked through the house, checking with two fingers the soil in a