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e03f56f
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You're a very wise man. Thank you." He spread his hands. "To possess great wisdom obliges one to share it. Enjoy."
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Robert Crais |
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fe66dee
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When I went back downstairs, Jodi and Lucy were standing together, grinning. Jodi said, "You're working for Jonathan Green? My, my." Impressed. I spread my hands. "He's just another client, ladies." Mr. Modest. Lucy put her hands on her hips. "No, he's not. He's Jonathan Green."
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Robert Crais |
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a31f726
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I left my car on the street, walked up across the dead yard, and a guy I took to be James Lester opened the door. He was average-sized in dark gray cotton work pants, dirty white socks, and a dingy undershirt. His hair was cut short on the sides and on top, but had been left long and shaggy in back, and he looked at me with a squint. He was thin, with knobby, grease-embedded hands and pale skin sporting Bic-pen tattoos on his arms and shoul..
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Robert Crais |
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086f448
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His face went sullen and his breathing grew loud. He had more of the Hamm's. He had more of the Hamm's again. My neck was hurting so bad I thought it would go into spasm.
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Robert Crais |
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8e2ffeb
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I left them to their lives and walked out into the sun. You want to do the right thing, but sometimes there is no right thing to be done.
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Robert Crais |
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3db04c1
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The yard and the walk outside grew crowded with cops and media people and rubberneckers from the neighborhood drawn by gathering news vans. Between questions I watched the on-air television talent fan out among the cops. A woman I'd seen a thousand times on the local NBC affiliate was talking with her camera operator when the camera operator saw me standing in the window and pointed me out. The reporter said something and the operator train..
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Robert Crais |
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bc7c408
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When I was done, Jonathan Green looked at Sherman again and said, "We'll want these documents preserved, and we'll want to examine them as soon as practicable. We'll want the results of your fingerprint analysis, and then, of course, we'll want to do our own." Anna Sherman's jaw was tight. "Of course."
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Robert Crais |
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52be715
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I followed them out. The street at the end of the walk was jammed with media people and broadcast vans and uniformed cops trying to clear a path. Hernandez and Flutey flanked Jonathan and we crossed under the tape, and the media people surged around us, pushing their cameras and microphones at Jonathan and shouting their questions. There were so many broadcast vans that it looked as if we were in a forest of transmitters, each spindly stack..
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Robert Crais |
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1c2781b
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A short man who himself had been an attorney before becoming a broadcast journalist shouted, "Jonathan? Is it true that evidence found in the house exculpates Theodore Martin in the murder of his wife?" Jonathan smiled benignly. "I've seen the evidence that Mr. Cole found, and I'll be in consultation with the district attorney's office sometime in the next few days. Now, if you'll excuse me." More questions exploded at us from a dozen direc..
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Robert Crais |
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bf685ca
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First irate Russian thugs, now irate federal cops. Maybe Rod Serling was next.
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Robert Crais |
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a591a51
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Pike hung up, and I stood in the center of the kitchen and listened to the silence. Someone had been in my home, and it made me feel creepy and violated and angry. I pulled out the Dan Wesson, sat it on the kitchen counter, and crossed my arms. "Let's see'm come back now." Acting tough will sometimes help, but not always, and the gun did not lessen the feeling that I was vulnerable and at risk. They seldom do."
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Robert Crais |
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460d0c3
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I said, "Luce?" She looked at me. I opened my mouth but did not speak. My mouth felt dry and there was a kind of faraway ringing and my fingers and legs suddenly went cold. There are those times when intellect fails us. There are those moments when the modern man fades to a shadow and something from the brain stem reasserts itself, and in that moment the joking is gone and we frighten ourselves with our dark potential. I said, quite normall..
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Robert Crais |
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f161f92
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Forty-two minutes later, keys worked the lock, the door swung open, and Lucas Worley came halfway through the door before seeing me. He was carrying a newspaper and a Starbucks cup. He looked surprised, but he hadn't yet seen the dope on the table. "What the fuck is this? Who are you?" "Come inside and close the door, Luke. Can I call you Luke? Or is it Lucas? Lucas seems pretentious." He was a little bit taller than he had looked in the ca..
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Robert Crais |
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af2bf90
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I said, "Okay, Luke. Here's my problem. I suspect that your mentor, Mr. Green, is suborning testimony. I think he may even be involved in murder, only I can't figure out why a man in his position and of his stature would risk his ass by so doing. Do you understand that?"
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Robert Crais |
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1f810c6
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I parked in the basement, then took an elevator to the lobby where I went through a metal detector and gave my name to a guy who looked like he ate a Pontiac for breakfast. Then I took another elevator up to seventeen.
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Robert Crais |
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5c31e68
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Joe shifted in his seat. "Reality begins changing." Lucy crossed her arms and leaned forward. "Are you saying that Jonathan stays away from it?" "Sure. He's got Truly. He's got Kerris. He's hidden by layers of people. Jonathan Green's experience is that he has the ability to face twelve people and persuade them to accept the facts as he describes them. More often than not, the reality he constructs is false, but his entire experience is tha..
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Robert Crais |
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f1cbe86
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She blushed and we went into a small lab that looked not unlike a doctor's office and smelled of naphtha. A black Formica counter ran along one wall with a shelf of little bottles above it and three light trays. A single steel sink was sunk into the counter, with a binocular microscope on one side of it and a large magnifying glass on a gooseneck stand on the other. Modern crime fighting at its cutting-edge finest.
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Robert Crais |
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b2f59ba
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I walked away. Too bad you couldn't get a restraining order against negativity.
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Robert Crais |
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9cde36b
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She looked at me with clear eyes that were free of doubt or equivocation. "Of course. I knew that we would."
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Robert Crais |
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9c4cfa8
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I stood with Sherman, watching them go, and wondered at Jonathan Green's lack of concern. I was thinking that maybe he was crazy, or arrogant, or brimming with the fatal flaw of hubris, but you never know. Maybe he was just used to winning.
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Robert Crais |
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97e0f0f
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A light patter of rain began to fall, and Alexei put on the windshield wipers. We took the Alaskan Way Viaduct up past Elliot Bay into Ballard, then turned toward the water and bumped along an older part of the wharf to a warehouse at the edge of a pier. The warehouse, like the pier, was old and unkempt, with great rusted doors that slid along tracks and peeling paint and an air of poverty. Dmitri climbed out, pushed open the door, and we d..
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Robert Crais |
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e69449a
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Three men were around an oak desk that had probably been secondhand in the thirties, two of the men in their mid-fifties, the third maybe younger. The
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Robert Crais |
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573e2ed
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A fourth man entered, this guy a little shorter than the others, but wider, and hard to see when your eyes are blurring. He was in his fifties, with crinkly gray hair and a florid face and a dark blue shirt open at the neck to show a lot of grizzled chest hair. He was also holding a McDonald's soft drink cup. Large. I guess that's where Dmitri got it from.
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Robert Crais |
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cb3e020
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She didn't say anything for a time, and then she said, "Well, in this case the powers that be are probably right." I nodded, but she probably couldn't see it. "I don't believe Truly had a secret agreement with Teddy Martin. Green fabricated that, just as he fabricated the business about Pritzik and Richards."
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Robert Crais |
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32e0c5f
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He is defiling justice." Defiling. That was probably the merlot talking."
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Robert Crais |
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76279f9
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I looked at the Pinocchio clock, and gave it Stan Laurel. "Isn't this a fine development?" Pinocchio's eyes went from side to side, but he didn't say anything. He never does."
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Robert Crais |
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c9d084b
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We pulled into Spago and let the valet have the car. Lucy suggested that I wear my Groucho Marx nose as a disguise to prevent adoring fans from mobbing me, but I pointed out that then everyone might think I was Groucho Marx and I would be mobbed anyway. I decided to risk going as myself.
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Robert Crais |
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4f04df1
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The attendant smiled a goodbye at the door. "You look much better." "I've achieved a measure of peace with my uncertainty."
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Robert Crais |
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17562b1
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I put my Corvette in the carport, and met him at the kitchen door. Pike said, "Nice eye." No hello, no hey, are you all right? "Clark do that?" You can always count on your friends for humor."
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Robert Crais |
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e5fd54a
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Kara Sykes held the door. "That's fine. You'll go on in a few minutes, so we don't have much time. Please come this way." We followed her down a long hall, then through a newsroom filled with desks and production people and onto the news set. A man and a woman were seated at the anchor desk, facing cameras fitted with TelePrompTers. A floor director was standing between the cameras with his hand touching the TelePrompTer that the man was re..
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Robert Crais |
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2b211f3
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Thanks, Lyle. It's good to be here." Mr. Sincerity."
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Robert Crais |
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6c0e2c4
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It was a lovely morning, hinting at a brutally hot day. Cole squinted into the milky haze that filled his canyon, enjoyed the coffee, and noticed a red-tailed hawk circling overhead, searching for field mice and snakes. Cole said, "What do you think? Is today his day or not?" A black cat sat nearby on the deck, staring down through the rail into the canyon. The cat didn't answer, which is what you get when you talk to cats. Cole said, "You'..
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Robert Crais |
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936ecf9
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Lucy said, "The law is an adversarial contest that defines justice as staying within the rules and seeing the game to its conclusion. Justice is reaching a conclusion. It has very little to do with right and wrong. The law gives us order. Only men and women can give us what you want to call justice."
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Robert Crais |
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09724a8
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Green looked at it without touching it and shook his head. "This means nothing. For all anyone knows you wrote it yourself. It isn't admissible." "Not in a court of law, Jonathan. But we're going to try you in the court of public opinion." I shoved his desk, and Jonathan jumped backwards. "I will hound you, and I will not stop. I will tell everyone that it was you who falsified the evidence, and you who ordered James Lester killed, and you ..
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Robert Crais |
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8ff8782
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Pike didn't believe he would find anything, but he had to check, so he did, ignoring her. Pike had learned this with the Marines--the one time a man didn't clean his rifle, that's when it jammed; the one time you didn't tape down a buckle or secure your gear, the noise it made got you killed.
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Robert Crais |
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b3cf078
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A sunset breeze out of Chavez Ravine stirred the warm air. Families were outside on their porches, some listening to the radio and others just talking. Pike heard Vin Scully, calling the game from nearby Dodger Stadium, Dodgers up over the Giants, five to two. Most of the neighbors appeared to be Eastern Europeans. Across the street, five young men who sounded Armenian were standing around a late-model BMW. They laughed together, and one of..
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Robert Crais |
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f9cb5d9
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Jonna Lester slapped hard at the couch, then threw the glass pipe to the floor. She stamped both feet. Mad. "Life really sucks." "That's true," I said. "But think of it this way." She squinted at me, and I glanced toward the bathroom. "Death sucks worse."
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Robert Crais |
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86842be
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Of course." I glanced at Lucy on the deck. She and Ben were at the rail. Ben was pointing at something far down the canyon and yakking, but Lucy seemed neither to hear him nor to see. As if the other presence were out there, too, and drawing her attention. I felt my own eyes fill, but, like Angela Rossi, I also knew the tricks of survival. "We're not going to walk away, Angie. We're not going to leave you hanging."
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Robert Crais |
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46c64b8
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She touched the dash again, watching her fingers move along the gentle lines. "You always follow the money." She shook her head and made a little smile. "I've been doing this for twelve years. I've prosecuted hundreds of cases, and I have learned that people do crime for only two reasons: sex and money. There are no other motives." "What about power and revenge?" "That's just sex and money under aliases." The tiny smile again. "If you're ri..
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Robert Crais |
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c7f007e
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Chavez Ravine is a broad flat bowl surrounded by low mountains that wall the stadium from the city. Dodger Stadium sits in the center of the bowl, surrounded by black tarmac parking lots like some kind of alien spacecraft resting alone on its launching pad. All you'd need was a big shiny robot, and you'd think Michael Rennie had come back to Earth.
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Robert Crais |
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41fdda3
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I said, "Ben. Would you give your mother and me a moment alone, please?" Ben giggled. "You want me to amscray?" "Yes, Ben, I want you to amscray."
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Robert Crais |
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0b13771
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I nodded. "I mean, God, I'm paid to advise other people, am I not?" I nodded again. Getting a lot of nod practice tonight."
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Robert Crais |
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437b4f5
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When I got home that evening the cat was sitting by his bowl in the kitchen. I talked it over with him while I was making dinner, and said, "What would you do?" The cat blinked, then bent over and licked his anus. Cats lead simple lives."
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Robert Crais |
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a5a2acc
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Staying groovy had nothing to do with being cool. It was an expression used by small recon units and sniper teams in hostile terrain. They would tell one another to stay groovy when the danger level was so insanely high they popped amphetamines to stay awake and ready to rock twenty-four/seven, because anything less would get them all killed. Stay groovy; take your pill. Stay groovy; safety off, finger on. Stay groovy; welcome to hell. Ston..
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Robert Crais |