Joseph Finder QUOTES

41 " He looked up as I approached. His eyes were rheumy, and he looked lost. His chronic psoriasis had gotten much worse since I’d last seen him: large flakes of skin were coming off his cheeks and forehead. He reminded me of a molting reptile, a snake shedding its skin, as if the scales were falling away to reveal his corrupt inner core. But then he smiled when he saw me, and the old familiar glint was in his eyes. He waited for me to sit down, adjust my chair, the legs scraping against the linoleum. Then he said, “They must have told you.” “Told me what?” I said. “About the cancer. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)

42 " I shrugged, put my hands up, and turned around, my back to Taylor. Bondarchuk scuffed into an orthogonal position to my left, just far enough away that I couldn’t jump him. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)

43 " Often? That’s a relative concept when you’re in here.” He licked his lips. They were chapped, startlingly red against the snow white of his Methuselah beard. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)

44 " Here’s the thing about close combat in real life: It’s almost always over in a matter of seconds. Not like in the movies, where your hero has the luxury to strategize and maneuver and grapple for minutes on end. Fortunately, when your life is in danger, your brain kicks in. Deep inside your brain this little almond-shaped gland called the amygdala sends out the signal to make your body start pumping out dopamine and adrenaline and cortisol. Time seems to slow, your focus sharpens, you suddenly start perceiving way more stimuli than normal. Neurologists call this tachypsychia. Everyone else calls it the fight-or-flight response. Cavemen who didn’t have it got eaten by saber-toothed tigers. So I made a quick decision. I could either be incapacitated by a Taser, or I could put myself within the reach of Bondarchuk’s fists. No choice. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)

45 " I nodded sagely. “If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.” Masur looked at me quizzically. “Dan Quayle said that,” I added. Whether he actually did or not, I liked the quote. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)

46 " He was convinced this was a bribe, a kickback, to some Pentagon big shot, and he wanted proof. But that was a tall order, even to someone as brilliant as your brother. It’s a little like understanding algebraic combinatorics if you still don’t get long division. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)

47 " You make Gifford Industries sound like some sort of two-bit Mafia-owned New Jersey garbage-hauling company.” I thought of a few rejoinders—I’m just wired that way—but I held my tongue. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)

48 " Then you’re either naïve or you’re not paying attention. You don’t remember that vice chairman of Enron who was just about to testify before Congress, about to name names in the biggest corporate scandal ever, but before he could get on a plane to Washington, he was found shot to death in his car? ‘Suicide,’ they called it, of course. Then a couple of months later, a consultant for Arthur Andersen whose big client was—you guessed it, Enron—was found shot in the head in a forest in Colorado? And then a banker with the Royal Bank of Scotland who was about to testify against his colleagues in guess what case—that’s right, Enron—was found dead in the woods outside London. Another apparent suicide. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)

49 " She rose as Leland came over to her desk and hugged her. He was tall and rotund, with arched bushy eyebrows and sagging jowls, a large head and rosy cheeks and a white crew cut. Those who met him for the first time found him physically intimidating, and indeed, in repose, he often wore an imperious expression, made even more threatening by his arched brows. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)

50 " Surely you know the Thirty-Six Stratagems.” I shook my head. “The ancient Chinese art of deception.” “Oh, right. Sun Tzu. Jay Stoddard’s favorite.” “Forget Sun Tzu’s Art of War. That’s so commonplace.” He held up a gnarled, age-spotted finger. “Far more interesting than Sun Tzu is Chu-ko Liang. Perhaps the most brilliant military strategist ever. One of his stratagems was to defeat your enemy from within. Infiltrate the enemy’s camp in the guise of cooperation or surrender. Then, once you’ve discovered the source of his weakness, you strike.” Somehow the setting—the visitors’ room of the Altamont Correctional Facility—made my father’s advice a little less authoritative. As I walked out of the visitors’ room, I savored a feeling of relief. Because at that moment I knew that my brother was alive. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)

51 " After all, Stoddard Associates was a high-powered private intelligence firm. A corporate espionage agency, though Jay Stoddard would never use those words. An august and influential, if shadowy, enterprise. Not some cheesy gumshoe operation with frosted-glass windows and the lingering stench of stale cigar smoke. We occupied twelve thousand square feet of the ninth floor of a sleek office tower at 1900 K Street in Washington, with a curved façade of glass and stainless steel and slate spandrels. K Street, as everyone knew, was the Champs Élysées of Washington lobbyists. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)

52 " Ms. Heller,” said the man, “if you can hear me, say something, will you?” “What do you want, I’m shouting!” Lauren said at the top of her voice. “Now I see it,” one of the female voices said. “Like she’s trying to talk. I don’t know what she said.” “I think she said ‘Ow. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)

53 " SHE FELT a hard pinch on her neck. “Hey!” she protested. Her eyelids flew open. The light was unbearably bright, just as painful, but everything was gauzy and indistinct, like there was a white scrim over everything. She wondered whether she’d fallen back asleep for several hours. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)

54 " She smiled, nodded, and kept walking. She waved her badge at the proximity sensor, stepped into the revolving door, and entered the cavernous atrium. Right in the center, surrounded by tropical foliage, was a huge bronze globe, the continents sculpted in sharp relief. On the front of the globe, set at a jaunty angle, was the Gifford Industries logo, which couldn’t have been more hokey: retro squared-off streamlined script that must have looked futuristic when it was designed in the 1930s. A couple more people waved at her, flashed sympathetic looks, and she ducked into the express elevator to the twenty-fourth floor. She slid her security card into the slot, and the elevator rose. The lights in the executive suite were already on, which surprised her. She was normally the first one in. She passed her prox badge against the sensor until it beeped, then pushed open the glass doors. When she rounded the corner, she saw someone sitting at her desk. Noreen Purvis. 23. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)

55 " Gabe’s room was as dark as a cave. He was asleep under the covers, a barely discernible lump. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)

56 " It’s better than the Green Line,” Galvin said with a "

― Joseph Finder , Suspicion

57 " Piazza Navona. "

― Joseph Finder , Extraordinary Powers

58 " The man was remarkably . . . well, homely. Ugly, not to put too fine a point on it. His face was deeply pitted with scars, obviously the victim of a terrible case of adolescent acne. He wore horn-rimmed glasses and had thinning brown hair, round shoulders, a pigeon chest. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)

59 " That’ll show them,” I said, then realized that sarcasm was probably a bad idea at this point. “Come on, Gabe. You can’t pay attention to jerks like this. You know what I always say—never let an asshole rent space in your head. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)

60 " Arthur Garvin’s voice was hoarse and adenoidal. He sounded even worse than the day before. "

― Joseph Finder , Vanished (Nick Heller, #1)