Free the Hunted (1977) by Elmore Leonard Page B

and Valenzuela listening before beating th e shit out of the guy and burning his rig. That wa s business, his job. The situation now was personal.
    All right, how did you get through to somebod y like that? Rosen smoked cigarettes and though t about it quietly, trying to keep fear out of it. Ho w did you go about stopping somebody like that?
    You didn't; you stayed out of his way. Ther e were no alternatives. Get the money and the passport and run.
    LEAVING THE BLACK MUSLIM ASLEEP at Norman' s hadn't been a bad thing to do. He was a big boy, an d if he wanted to drink that much it was up to him.
    Waking up with the hangover and the Israeli gir l who snored wasn't so bad either. Hangovers wer e made to be cured with cold beer and hot lamb an d peppers stuffed inside pita bread. The girl woul d still be sleeping when he left. At times, though, h e wished he could wake up and remember everythin g from start to finish. The details came gradually an d sometimes, long after, unexpectedly.
    He had gone to the Singing Bamboo with Raymond Garcia to meet Raymond's girlfriend Rivka, who was the receptionist at the Australian Embassy. Rivka was depressed. She had fixed up her good friend Sadrin with a date, an American, an d the sonofabitch had stood her up. Like it wa s Davis' or Raymond's fault because the guy wa s American. Poor Sadrin was sitting home, dressed , alone, playing her piano. Davis said why didn't sh e go to bed; it was eleven o'clock. Rivka made pouting sounds in Hebrew and Davis said okay, call her.
    He went to pick the girl up in Raymond's Z-28 , which he'd have for the next two weeks, rumblin g along the dark street, feeling the car under him: '72
    Z-28 Camaro, the hot setup from here t o Jerusalem, a screamer with its 302 V-8, Pirelli radials on American racing mags, lime green with a white stripe that came up over the hood and dow n the trunk lid to the spoiler.
    The next part was weird.
    The Israeli girl, Sadrin, wore a yellow dress an d pearls and played Chopin on the piano softly. H e remembered that. He remembered drinking brand y with lemon and soda. She drank more than he ha d ever seen an Israeli girl drink as they talked, and sh e started to laugh at things Davis said. They finishe d the brandy and got into a bottle of white wine tha t was starting to turn, the girl laughing and tellin g him how funny he was. He felt good, he felt attractive to her. She said to him, "You give pleasure to my eyes." She put him in the mood with her cris p yellow dress and pearls--that was one of th e strange parts--and her round full lips that he tol d her looked like a basket of fruit. He didn't kno w where he'd gotten that, but she liked it and laughe d some more and when they started kissing it felt lik e she was sucking his mouth, trying to get him all in.
    It was good, but it was hard work and she wor e him out in bed, working away, her mouth clampe d to his, Davis thinking she was never going to come , thinking what the fuck am I doing here? But he sa w her in her yellow dress and pearls sitting alone. H e remembered how glad she had been to see him, t o see somebody, anybody, and he let her work at it a s long as she wanted, finally getting his mouth fre e and telling her she was pretty--she wasn't bad-- a nd that he loved her mouth and her eyes and he r body--much bigger and heavier out of the yello w dress--telling her nice things as he held on and sh e bucked against him. She went into the bathroo m after and got sick in the washbasin. She moane d and told him she didn't feel good and wanted to di e and didn't have an aspirin. She went to sleep, tha t big girl, calling for her mother in Hebrew.
    Out at the Marine House--he didn't see anyon e around--Davis got cleaned up: put on a shirt an d jeans and a white snap-peak civilian cap he like d that was broken in, well shaped. He liked to wear i t low over his eyes when he was hung over . . . taking time now to eat a couple of egg-and-onion sandwiches with two ice-cold