361 - Donald E. Westlake [16]
The woman of about twenty-seven, with the white bathing suit and the ash-blond hair and the vertical frown lines between her brows, would be the mother of the little girl and the sister of one or both of the people out on the float. The nondescript middle-aged heavy couple in city clothes would be her parents, he the brother of the McArdle I’d met at the law office, this one older and tougher and not a lawyer. The gross ancient bald man wearing young man’s sports clothes would be Andrew McArdle.
I stopped and looked at him. The short-sleeved white shirt showed flabby blue-veined white-skinned arms, the muscles so little able to bear weight that the upper slopes of the arms were only skin over narrow frail bone, the fat all hanging in long bags of skin underneath. The shirt was open at the throat, showing gray flesh writhing over a convulsive Adam’s apple. There was no chest. The shirt sagged down to a gross belly. Tan slacks covered the stick legs beneath, and the feet were bare, looking like frozen plaster molds.
His head sagged back, his mouth hung open, the thin-veined lids were stretched over his eyes. The sound of his breathing was very loud.
The voice I’d heard had been the middle-aged man. He stopped and looked at us. The women turned their heads and looked, and then the ash-blonde watched the little girl again. The boy and girl on the float stood still, arms at their sides, gazing in at us. The little girl ignored us. She laughed suddenly and splashed herself with water.
The ancient man gulped and rolled his head around and opened his eyes. He stared at Bill. “Willard.” His voice was a croak that had once been a ringing bass.
I came across the lawn, Bill trailing me. “Mr. Krish -man called you,” I said.
The present slowly came into his eyes. He looked at me. “Yes. Arthur, go up to the house. All of you, up to the house.”
The middle-aged woman smiled like a beautician. “You shouldn’t exert yourself, Papa.” She got up and crouched over him, hoping everyone would think she was solicitous. She was afraid to strangle him. “Don’t you talk too long, now,” she said.
Arthur said to her, “Come on.”
The ash-blonde called to the little girl, “Linda. Come here.”
She came out of the water, carrying the green pail. She stopped in front of me, serious, squinting up at me with sun in her eyes. “Why do you limp?”
“I was in an accident.”
“When?”
“Come along, Linda,” said her mother.
“Two months ago,” I said.
“Where?”
“Your mother wants you.”
They trailed by us, across the lawn toward the path. The middle-aged woman said, “I’m coming, Arthur.”
They trailed diagonally up the lawn. The last thing, the ash-blonde made the little girl empty the water out of her pail. Then they were gone, between the trees.
He told us to sit down, and we did. He kept his head back, twisted at an odd angle on a faded flower-pattern pillow. His voice was just above a whisper, no louder than his breathing. “Your father is dead,” he said.
I said, “I want to know about Eddie Kapp.”
“He went to jail. Years ago.” The head shook back and forth, slowly. “The Federal Government is a different proposition, Eddie.”
“Is he still in jail? Eddie Kapp, is he still in jail?”
“Oh, I suppose so. I don’t know. I have taken the final sabbatical, young man. I am no longer chained to the office, I—” His wandering eyes and wandering mind touched Bill again, and he frowned. “Willard? You shouldn’t be here, you know that.”
Bill was scared. He said, “No, you mean my father.” He broke the mood before McArdle said anything useful.
McArdle’s face started to close up. He was in the present again, and he remembered what he’d said. He watched me warily.
I said, “Why shouldn’t he be here?”
“Who? What are you talking about? I am retired, an old man with a bad heart...”
“My father shouldn’t have come to New York, should he? Why not?”
“I don’t know. My memory wanders sometimes, I’m not always responsible for what I say.”
The boy and girl came dripping out of the water.