The Pariot GAme Read Online Free PDF

no choice about talk then. At least it’s about something. Anybody comes in to see Seats, it’s not four choice for the Celtics or six onna first base line for the Red Sox, it’s about a judge or something, not just some dumb mick down on A Street had his car catch on fire or something.
    “Alice,” Seats said. He did not change his position at the desk. Alice did not move from her desk outside his office. “Yeah?” she said. “Alice,” he asked, “what is going on that I don’t know about that will stand up all of a sudden and whack me on the nose when I least expect it?”
    Alice Vickery continued to read the
Herald American
while she answered. She had finished reading the
Globe
and had a Rona Jaffe novel which she had started reading the day before, as a backup to the papers. Alice did a lot of reading outside Lobianco’s office in the summer. “I wasn’t here,” she said.
    “Alice,” Seats said, “you have been here for almost thirty years and you have never been here. You must have something wrong with your bowels or something.”
    “I was in the Ladies’,” she said. “Diane was answering the phone.”
    “That’s what I asked you,” Lobianco said. “What is going on? Did Diane maybe tell you if anything was going on, while you were in there taking a goddamned bath or something?”
    “No,” Alice said.
    “There was one message,” Diane said from the room whereshe sat with the other three secretaries, each of whom was reading a novel.
    “Ahh,” Lobianco said, “a bulletin from the fuckin’ library. Don’t tell me one of you broads actually went and picked up a telephone and wrote something down for a change.”
    “It was a guy named Riordan,” Diane said.
    “Good,” Lobianco said. “Riordan. That tells me a lot. Was it Ways and Means Reardon from the House, maybe? Or Public Health Riordon from the Senate? Or Political Corruption Reardon from the DA? There’s a hell of a lot of Ree-or-dans around, Diane. Which Riordan was it?”
    “Dunno,” Diane said. She snapped her gum. “He didn’t say.”

A T THE FOOT of the sloping driveway, behind the Cyclone fence with the reverse-curve top ten feet off the ground, the low white building with the main entrance sat flanked by guard towers. The exercise yard and the cellblocks were concealed behind it, but six more guard towers were visible, concrete buildings with mansard roofs and plate-glass windows and balconies near the top. Riordan pulled the green Ford up to the main gate and opened the window. The guard in a gray uniform came out of his house. “Yessir?” he said.
    Riordan produced his credentials again. “Your business, sir?” the guard said.
    “Superintendent,” Riordan said.
    “Is he expecting you, sir?” the guard said. He was a young man and a thin one. He had a discouraged expression.
    “Yup,” Riordan said, “called him this morning.”
    The guard stood in the sun and thought about that. He looked at the credentials again. “Something to do with a prisoner, sir?” he said.
    “Yes,” Riordan said, “something to do with a prisoner. Why the hell else would anybody come here, if it didn’t have something to do with a prisoner, can you tell me?”
    The guard looked thoughtful. “I’ll call the office, sir,” he said. The guard went back into his cubicle and shut the doorbehind him. Through the tinted glass, Riordan could see him pick up the phone and push buttons. The guard talked. He nodded. He put the phone back in its cradle and nodded at Riordan. He pushed a button. The main gate rolled open.
    Riordan drove down the slope and parked in the visitors’ lot, deserted except for his car in the afternoon sun. He got out of the car, removed the sports coat, took the credentials from his pocket, put the coat in the car and locked the doors. Swiveling the right leg, he walked up to the main entrance and opened it.
    Inside it was cooler. There were two wooden benches to his left. In front of him there was a green