361 - Donald E. Westlake [12]
“He changed. Reformed. Quit the syndicate and moved away.”
His eyes had sad, shredded edges. “That’s true?”
“Something like that.”
“That was really him, in the paper?”
“You know it.”
He made a fist and pounded the pattern. “How the hell can I have any respect for him?”
I popped the eye out and got to my feet. I put it on the dresser and said, “Get up, Bill.”
He was puzzled. “Why?”
“You lose respect too easy.”
“I don’t want to fight you, Ray.”
He came off the bed with his hands spread, and I hit him on the side of the jaw.
The third time I hit him, he swung back. I was at a disadvantage, I didn’t always judge the distance right. I walked into a few. I kept getting up. He started to cry, and his face was as red as his hair, and he kept knocking me down again. Then he put his hands at his sides and shook his head and whispered, “No more.” I got up and hit him with my left hand. He didn’t dodge or raise his arms or defend himself or fight back. I hit him with the right hand. And the left hand again. He blubbered, “No more.” I hit him right hand and then left hand. He dropped to his knees, and the vibration knocked the Gideon Bible off the nightstand. I hit him right hand, from the knees coming up, and he went over on his back. He wouldn’t get up.
I got the eye from the dresser and went into the head. I washed my face and watched myself put the eye in. It didn’t make me want to throw up any more. My knuckles were scraped and there was a ragged cut on the left side of my jaw.
I went back and sat down in the chair again. After a while, Bill sat up. He said, “All right.”
I said, “You going back to Binghamton?”
“No. You’re right.”
I wasn’t sure he knew. I said, “Why did you think I came here? To play Summer Festival?”
“No,” he said. “I know that.”
“Do you know what we’re doing here?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“We’re looking for the people who killed Dad.”
“For the cops?”
He looked at me. “Jesus,” he said. He shook his head and looked away. “No,” he said. “Not for the cops.”
“For us,” I said. “Why?”
He looked at me level this time. “Because he was our father.”
“That’s right,” I said.
Seven
We spent the evening in the room, with separate bottles of Old Mr. Boston. Johnson woke us on the phone at nine in the morning. I talked to him. He said, “Those plates are registered to a ’54 Buick. Stolen three months ago. Not the car, just the plates. Lots of Plymouths stolen. It’s a popular car.”
I said, “Thanks. The retainer cover it?”
“If that’s all you want,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Listen, Mr. Kelly, you don’t have to dislike me.”
“I don’t dislike you.” I hung up and forgot him. I spent a few minutes with the phone directory and a pencil, and then we went out to eat.
It was now McArdle, Krishman, Mellon & McArdle. It was a building on the east side of Fifth Avenue, just down a ways from the cathedral. Friday morning, the early tourists streamed north to look at the cathedral and the Plaza. We pushed across their path from the cab to the doors. The tourist ladies wore green cotton dresses. All the little boys had hats like Daddy’s. I gave mine up when I was twelve. It was a Sunday hat, for church. I never wore it in New York. Lots of people don’t take their kids to New York. It doesn’t mean anything.
The elevator had chrome doors on the first floor. On the twenty-seventh, they were metal doors painted maroon. A clever sign-painter had fit the whole name of the law firm on the frosted glass of the door. We went in and I asked the girl for Mr. McArdle. “The first one,” I said. She acted snooty, like a whole dancing class at once. She gave us the second one.
He was about forty, with a soft body and a pale round face. His eyes were wet behind black-armored spectacles. “Well, boys,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“Nothing,” I said. “We want McArdle number one.”
“My father isn’t an active part of the firm any more.” He smiled, like a man selling laxative. “I assure you, I’m almost as good a lawyer as he.”
He was playing us for teenagers. I said, “Sure. We’ll take Krishman.