Quotes from Robert Crais

He said, "Say location." No hello. No howzitgoin. All Pike all the time.

Scott was feeling a little better. "Whatever you say." "I say. And if the DNA matches Daryl to the band, we have something to chase, which is all thanks to you." The

I left my car in the garage, then followed the guard's directions past a Spanish tile fountain in the lobby to the elevators, and then to the top floor. Another blazered gentleman smiled at me in the lobby, and a third just happened to be on the elevator. Both were polite and both, like the guard in the parking garage, had the corded necks of men who spent a lot of their time honing confrontational skills. Corded necks are a dead giveaway.

Pretty soon Joe Pike came back, scrubbed and fresh and bright-eyed. It's never easy to tell if someone is bright-eyed when they're wearing sunglasses, but one makes certain assumptions.

Another man came in behind Jonathan. He was a little shorter than me, but his arms were as long as backhoe shovels and his shoulders so wide they looked like they had been built of steel frame girders. The arms and the shoulders didn't go with the rest of him, as if they had once belonged to King Kong or Mighty Joe Young or some other large mammal, and now this guy was using them. He was carrying a manila envelope.

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.

Jonathan Green nodded again, then stared at the far wall for what seemed like several minutes. No one moved, and no one spoke. All of the other attorneys stared at Jonathan as if he might suddenly utter some dictum and they would have to act on it. Apprehensive.

Pike said, "What's wrong?" "His name isn't Haines. It's Hewitt, and he isn't just your ordinary junkie. He's on the run from the Russian mob, he used to be in the federal witness protection program, and he doesn't have a clue that he or those children are in danger." Pike nodded. "So where's the surprise?" You never know if he means it.

Pike studied her. She was pretty and used to it, and the clothes and the hair indicated she liked being the center of attention, which would be a problem. The Savile Row suits were still piling up bags.

I said, "Think they were cops?" "They match the descriptions you had. Both big, one bigger. Everything else is optics." Pike.

Elvis Cole "JOE—?" Cole realized Pike had hung up. That was the kind of call you got from Joe Pike. You'd answer the phone, he'd grunt something like I'm coming up, and that was it. Polite communication had never been one of Pike's strong points.

He made a sympathetic shrug, then spread his hands. "Flexibility, my friend. Flexibility is the key to all happiness. Remember that.

You're a very wise man. Thank you." He spread his hands. "To possess great wisdom obliges one to share it. Enjoy.

The first headline read: MOB BOSS INDICTED ON 39 COUNTS. The basic story was as Reed Jasper described: Vasily Markov headed an organization of Russian émigrés who had long been suspected of involvement in counterfeiting, black marketeering, smuggling, extortion, and murder, but that it wasn't until "an insider in Markov's counterfeiting ring" turned state's evidence that the grand jury could get an indictment. That insider was Clark Hewitt.

he believed the window of time through which he could enter was shrinking.

He wants you to think he matters. I guess he feels like you don't.

She said, "This isn't so bad." "Thanks. I think." The money vibe came off her like heat—the Rock & Republic jeans, the Kitson top, the Oliver Peoples shades. Cole was good at reading people, and had learned—over time—that he was almost always right. The trouble vibe came off her, too. She looked familiar, but Cole couldn't place her.

Harvey didn't set his phone to beep or buzz or vibrate like a normal person. Harvey's phone screeched with a string piece from the Hitchcock movie Psycho, the scene with Janet Leigh in the shower, the knife rising and falling, the string section shrieking with short, staccato stabs, the lone violin slashing through the fermata with discordant glissandos, more violins joining the first, violas adding their teeth, mad strings schooling like orchestral sharks at a blood-drunk feast.

Yeah, well, try living with it. Getting old is hell.

I said, "He wants to matter." "Oh, please." "Josh made a sign for the wall in his apartment. One word. It says 'Matter.' A reminder, I guess, to do something that matters.

Wozniak wet his lips. "You've got Paulette and Evelyn to think about." Wozniak's wife and daughter. The cloudy eyes flicked to Pike, as bottomless and as dangerous as a thunderhead. "I've been thinking about them, Pike. You bet your ass.

Character assassination is one of the greatest pastimes of the village righteous and

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.

Good-bye, Richard." So much for civil discourse. So much for modern men discussing a modern problem in an enlightened manner. I was thinking that it might be fun to beat him to death.