Button Man by Paul Lyons

Author:Paul Lyons [Lyons, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Action & Adventure, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Crime, Thriller & Suspense, United States, Thriller
ISBN: 9781634508766
Amazon: B0175P5LYM
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2015-10-26T11:00:00+00:00

Days later, Hawk sits in the Family Surgical Waiting Area with Harold and Flo. Sammy has had follow-up surgery, which went well, and they’re waiting for the green light to visit. Flo paces up and back, her long slinky legs a medley of pink-and-black cling pants, her socks matching the bows in her hair and a thick leather belt.

“I just hope the surgeon is Jewish,” she says, sitting down. She picks her teeth with a plastic fork end, hesitates, and then lays down a card. “Here’s a seven of diamonds just for you, dahling.”

“Many of them are Indians or Chinese these days,” Harold says.

“I guess that’s okay if they’re trained in the right kind of surgery,” she says.

“Ginsky,” Hawk says, looking up, surprised. “You sure you’re okay, Flo?”

“They don’t let you out until you suffer,” Flo says.

“Hard to imagine Sammy laid up like that,” Harold tells Hawk, his wide face drawn. “Remember him racing Norman over the fence last year on a five-dollar bet. Norman says, ‘You’re getting old’ and Sammy says, ‘Old, you call me old?’”

How could you forget the way these old foxes carried on. The gang saying at first, “Don’t hurt yourselves, play him a hand of gin instead,” and Sammy saying, “Oh, no, Gramps doesn’t get off that easy.” And then the white-haired guys squirreled up the chain-link fence by a cracked and glass-strewn basketball court, the gang hollering and making side bets. At the top, both looked dangerously about to pitch over, feet making swipes over the barbs, then one shoe in firm and the other scissoring over. Sammy dropped the last few feet, shimmied through a rip in the rusty fence, then took his feathered shuffleboard hat from Harold.

“I love how frisky you are,” Norman said, panting as he stripped a fiver from his grapefruit roll, rubber banded in all directions. The chintzy bastards would have thousands in their pockets and play gin with Flo for five cents a point.

“Who’s old?” said Sammy, adjusting the feather in his hat, that cackle of his like tearing duct tape off a spool. “You hard-of-hearing-bastard. I came two times last night!”

“I only hope they didn’t charge by the hour,” Flo said.

Now Harold takes a flask from his jacket pocket and pours some rum into a plastic cup and adds Coke from a liter bottle.

“Want a taste, Hawk?” he asks.

Another guy in the room sees and Harold gestures him over and pours one for Hawk and one for Flo and a snort for the guy, who nods, a tear streaking his face, and wanders into the hallway.

“It makes you think about things, allowing yourself to enjoy,” Harold says. “Like that song, ‘It could be later than you think.’”

And Flo sings,

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