Tongues of Fire Read Online Free PDF

glance at the young couple sitting twelve feet away. They were no longer making any pretense of eating, or even being at a restaurant: They sat with their hands in their laps, heads bowed over the table as if in silent prayer. The man in the suit didn’t seem to notice anything unusual. He turned in his chair and ran his eyes methodically over the other diners.
    Rehv brought the drinks on a silver tray. It was the drink waiter’s job, but Rehv wanted to do it himself. As he began to pour, he wished he had stayed in the kitchen. He felt Abu Fahoum’s eyes on him, and it made his hands shake, not much, but enough to spill Perrier on the lavender tablecloth. Manolo noticed and hurried over with a napkin.
    â€œAre you ready to order?” Rehv asked as Manolo leaned across the table to mop up the little pool of sparkling water.
    â€œI will start with the salmon mousse in two sauces,” Abu Fahoum said. Rehv was about to tell him that one of the sauces contained champagne when the man in the suit made a little frightened noise in his throat and reached inside his jacket. Rehv whirled around to see the pimply boy on his feet, pointing a small black gun at Abu Fahoum’s back. His face was white and waxy like the face of a corpse.
    â€œNow,” the woman said in Hebrew.
    The gun went off. Manolo arched back and slumped to the floor. The pimply boy stood very still, pointing the gun. Comprehension was just surfacing in his eyes when the man in the suit shot him in the middle of the forehead. His gun was more powerful. It made a much louder noise, and knocked the boy against the wall. He fell under the table. The woman drew a small metal cylinder from her purse and threw it at the man in the suit. It shot out a pinwheel of stinging smoke as it flew through the air. The woman dove to the floor, rolled, and ran for the front entrance. The canister bounced off the chest of the man in the suit and onto the table. He grabbed it, hurled it across the room, jumped from his chair, and fired at the woman just as she went out the door. She seemed to stumble, but kept going.
    â€œLet her go,” Abu Fahoum shouted in Arabic before the man in the suit could take another step. Pink patches had appeared on his dark face: He was exhilarated.
    Rehv knelt on the floor and took Manolo in his arms. He was only dimly aware of screaming, running, and tear gas. He wanted to say, “Don’t worry, Manolo, you’re going to be all right.” But the words wouldn’t come. Manolo looked up at him, watching, waiting, his big black eyes filled with pain and fear. Then they were filled with nothing at all.
    After a long time Rehv raised his head. Pascal stood silently before him. Tears ran down his cheeks. In his hand he held le gros bonnet and he was twisting it, over and over.

CHAPTER THREE
    Abu Fahoum and his two friends went away in a limousine. The police had wanted to take the gun from the man in the suit because he had no permit, but they couldn’t because of his diplomatic immunity. Pascal went away in a taxi, Silvio took the subway. Manolo went in an ambulance, although he didn’t need one.
    Isaac Rehv walked. The rain came down hard and cold but he didn’t feel it. He walked quickly, hoping to tire himself, to trick his body into sleepiness. It would be futile, he knew; his body was not the problem. The problem was the wave that undulated inside his brain, sometimes softly, subtly licking at the edges of his thoughts, sometimes rolling over him with a smothering tidal force. Then he would hear Lena saying, “Daddy, read me a story.” She said it again and again but from so far away he could barely make out the words.
    The rain fell in cold hard balls. They bounced off the cement, became ovals, and hung in the air. In the dirty yellow light they looked like his sleeping pills. He imagined them in the palm of his hand—one, three, a dozen.
    He climbed the stairs to The Loft, his feet