361 - Donald E. Westlake [15]
Closed-lips smile. “Most likely.”
“What about Morris Silber?”
“Is that the case when the Times wrote the profile?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. He was minor even then. I would have no idea where he is today or if he’s even still alive.”
“But Dad had his file.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Can you think of anyone else?”
Parted-lips smile, hands spread out, trembling a bit at the end of his sleeves. “It’s been so long.”
“Sure. You said you’d call McArdle one.”
“Of course.”
He spent a few minutes on the phone. He called McArdle ‘Andrew,’ not Andy or anything like that. He didn’t say anything surprising. When he hung up he said, “Do you have a car?”
Bill spoke for the second time. “Yes.”
Krishman told him, “He lives out on the Island. Long Island. Beyond King’s Park, on the North Shore. He has an estate out there.” He gave Bill directions, route numbers and so on, and Bill nodded. Then we got up to leave. I thanked him for his answers, he congratulated Dad on producing such fine boys.
At the door, I turned and said, “Up till 1940, when you made the changeover, about how many professional criminals did you help evade the law?”
“I have no idea.”
“More than a hundred?”
Closed-lips smile. “Oh, yes. Far more.”
“Aren’t you afraid of the retribution of justice?”
“At this late date? Hardly.”
“You will never be punished by the law.”
“Never. I’m sure of it.”
“And you obviously haven’t lost your money or your social standing. Do you have ulcers, or anything like that?”
“No. I’m perfectly healthy. My doctor says I’ll live past ninety. Do you have a point to make?”
“Yes. To my brother, not to you. He needs an education. He still believes in good guys and bad guys. That they’re born that way and stay that way. And that good guys always win and bad guys always lose.”
Closed-lips smile. “A great number of people believe that. It’s comforting to them.”
I said, “Until the guns come out.”
Eight
It was forty miles out to McArdle’s place. We took the Triborough Bridge and the Expressway. For the first ten or fifteen miles it was all city, slit open by the Expressway. After Floral Park and Mineola it got more suburb. Every once in a while, there was a glimpse of Long Island Sound off to our left. But it still didn’t seem any more like an island than Manhattan did.
The last mile and a half was private road, blacktop. McArdle shared it with two other millionaires, and his place was last of the three, where the road made a hangman’s knot. There was a birdbath inside the loop, and a Negro with a power mower. The house was clapboard and brick and masonry. Windows enclosed the porch.
When we got out of the car, the Negro stopped and wiped his face with a white handkerchief. His hat was gray and he held it in his left hand, then put it back on his head. He kept the power mower running, and it sounded loud but far away, the way they do. He never quite looked at us, and he never quite looked away.
We went up the stoop and tried the screen door. It was locked and there wasn’t any bell. I rattled the door and shouted. A guy in a white jacket came out, carrying a towel. He looked at us through the screen.
“Kelly,” I said. “We’re expected.”
He pointed to his right. “Down at the dock,” he said. He went back inside.
The house was backed against a half-moon of forest. A brown path led in among the trees to the left of the house, going gradually downhill. We went down it. Behind us, the Negro put his handkerchief away and went back to work.
A voice droned ahead. The path wound downhill. Through the trees, there were blue glimpses of the Sound.
We came out on a narrow strip of shade-mottled lawn. At the lower end, a swath of smooth pebbles led down into the water. A little blond girl in a ruffled bathing suit stood half-bent in the shallows, filling her green pail with water.
The lawn was flanked by brush and trees, down the sides and overhanging the water’s edge. To the right, an unpainted dock jutted out atilt into the water. A white motorboat nodded beside it. A boy and girl of about twenty were on and off a float a ways away. Four