Mr Majestyk (1974) by Leonard Elmore

Author:Leonard, Elmore [Elmore, Leonard,]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-01-21T02:29:06.937000+00:00

Chapter 9.

RENDA'S LAWYER was a senior partner in a firm that represented a number o f b usinessmen and business organizations who shared related or complementar y i nterests. Renda's lawyer looked out for his clients, helping them any way h e c ould, and liked to see them help one another, too. For example, he had a c lient, a mortgage broker, who was spending twelve months in the Federal Penitentiary at Lewisburg for willfully conspiring to defraud the United State s g overnment. All right, the mortgage broker had a hunting lodge-weekend funhous e u p in the mountains that he wasn't using. Frank Renda, he was informed, wante d s ome solitude, a place to rest where no one would bother him. So Renda's lawye r a rranged for Frank to lease the place from the mortgage broker for only si x h undred dollars a week.

That was all right with the lawyer, Frank wanting a place in the mountains. Bu t i t wasn't all right if he was going to sit up there on his ass worrying about a 160-acre melon grower when he should be attending to his commercial affairs: hi s r estaurant linen service, his laundry and dry cleaning supply company, hi s m odeling service, and his string of massage parlors. That's where the money wa s t o be made; not in shooting people.

The lawyer knew Frank Renda very well--his moods, his inclinations--so he knew i t w as sometimes hard to get through to him, once he had made up his mind. He bega n c alling Frank at the mortgage broker's hunting lodge an hour after the Cessn a w as scheduled to drop him in the desert. There was no answer at the place unti l l ate afternoon, and then he had to wait another ten minutes before Renda came t o t he phone.

Wiley handed it to him, the phone and a scotch, and went over to a bearski n c ouch where her reading glasses and her novel were waiting.

Renda stood looking around the room, at the Navajo blankets and mounted heads o f a ntelope and mule deer, the shellacked beams and big wagon-wheel chandelier , antique guns and branding irons. Christ, western shit all over the place. He ha d n ever met the mortgage broker friend of his lawyer, but he could picture the gu y n ow: little Jewboy with a cowboy hat, string tie and high-heeled boots, an d h orn-rimmed glasses and a big fucking cigar.

He said into the phone, "Yeah."

His lawyer's calm, unhurried voice came on. "How are you, Frank? How was th e t rip?"

"Great, and the weather's great if it doesn't rain or snow. Come on, Harry, wha t d o you want?"

"You like the place all right?"

"It looks like a fucking dude ranch."

"I called a few times this afternoon." The tone was still calm, unhurried.

"Where've you been?"

"On the can," Renda said. "I come here to get away, I'm in the fucking place te n m inutes and the phone starts ringing.

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