Outlaws (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

by George V. Higgins

  “And it hasn’t,” Richards said.

  “And it won’t,” Gleason said, “because it happens to be real. What she wants is wonderland. That I cannot give.”

  Richards stared at him. “Lemme ask you something, Terry.”

  “Fire when ready,” Gleason said.

  “Did you say that to anyone, what you just said to me?”

  Gleason shrugged. “Her mother, sure,” he said. “I said that to Florence Walker, words to that effect.”

  Richards smiled and nodded. “Then that’s who told,” he said. “Christina’s mother sized you up, thought you wouldn’t do. So then the lady turned you in.” He laughed. “Lady’s cagey,” he said. “Fred should marry her. Two of them’d rule the world, and no one else’d know.”

  “Be a different world, though,” Gleason said. “I don’t think I’d like it much.”