This Is How It Really Sounds by Cohen Stuart Archer

This Is How It Really Sounds by Cohen Stuart Archer

Author:Cohen, Stuart Archer [Cohen, Stuart Archer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466849976
Amazon: 1466849975
Goodreads: 23280535
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2015-04-21T07:00:00+00:00


2

Green-Screen Universe

The jet lag was not working in his favor. When Charlie called about meeting at the bar, he was so tired he could barely get out of bed, but, after dragging himself back to his room, he slept three hours and then woke up ready to charge at two in the morning. All he could do was lie there for three hours watching television and thinking how he should have kept the girl on tap after all. Fuck, man—there he went again! He finally got up, did some push-ups, practiced some hits and kicks, and took a shower. He separated the clothes he was going to wear—a leather jacket, white shirt, blue jeans—then threw the rest into a suitcase. He checked his e-mail, saw nothing of interest, then made some coffee in his room and stared out the big picture window at the sun coming up behind Shanghai’s skyscrapers. He thought of writing Beth, saying, fuck yeah, it’s on! Just to let her know he wasn’t fucking up again. It was really happening today. Go time. Showtime. Whatever-the-hell-you-called-it time. The weird thing was, he wasn’t really that pissed at Peter Harrington anymore. Sure, the guy deserved an ass kicking on general principles, let alone what he’d done to him personally, but looking at it from the rest of the world’s point of view, which he usually tried to avoid doing, it did seem a mite extreme to fly across the Pacific Ocean to kick the crap out of somebody. Reasonable, Pete. Never be fucking reasonable! That’s the death knell: next thing you know, you’re a guy wearing shirts with royal flushes on them.

He was the first one to the breakfast buffet, watched as businessmen catching early flights trailed in with roll-on suitcases. Fucking these guys is reasonable! It’s not my job. Nope: not my job. My job is punching Peter Harrington, dirtbag financier, in the face. How’s that for reasonable?

Charlie and the driver picked him up at eight o’clock, and they drove down to the Bund. Charlie didn’t want to get out of the car because there were surveillance cameras—and if it ever came to that, he didn’t want records of them together—but he pointed out how it was going to go down. Charlie was hit-man cool. “See those lions? That’s the old Hongkong Bank. That’s where you’re going to intercept him. You’ll be waiting around the corner and Mr. Chen will be in a car over there, by that cross street. He’ll be watching me. We’ll be walking toward the bank from the opposite direction, and Mr. Chen here will be watching and he’ll text you when I’m a block away. That should be about twelve fifteen. I’ll get your man over by this second lion, and I’ll delay him there. You should be able to approach, hit him, and then walk directly over to the street by that traffic light. Do not look at me, do not speak to me, do not acknowledge me in any way. If you do, you’ll put me at risk.



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