361 - Donald E. Westlake [42]
“And now your heart is full.”
“Okay. And my glass is empty.” He refilled it from the bottle of House of Lords. “I don’t expect you to feel anything like that for me,” he said. “What the hell, I’m no kind of a father or anything. But it hits me, I swear to Christ it does. You’re my son, you know what I mean?”
“Yes. I know what you mean. Forget what I said there, I didn’t mean to be a smart-aleck.”
“Sure, what the hell. But there’s two of the reasons why I want you to stick with me, you see? Because you’re my son, and it’s as simple as that. And because if you’re with me I can make my move. There’s a lot of profit in the New York operation, Ray, take it from me. God knows how much these days.”
I held up my hand. “Wait a second. Let me tell you something. That doesn’t matter, it doesn’t mean anything to me at all. I don’t care about the New York mob. If you take it, I’m not your heir.”
“If you feel that way—”
“I feel that way. Have you got any more reasons?”
“It depends what you want to do,” he said.
“In what way?”
“You still want revenge? Because if you do, you should stick with me. We’ll be after the same people.” He drank half a glass. “It depends whether that’s what you want or not,” he said.
“Sure.” I reached over to the nightstand and got the bottle. I didn’t need the glass, so I tossed it over onto Bill’s bed. I drank from the bottle, and held it, looking at it, while I talked. “I’ve been thinking about that,” I said. “Up here, since my uncle left. Trying to figure out what I’m going to do with myself. You want to hear what I’ve been thinking?”
“Well, sure. Certainly. I mean, that’s just exactly what I want, you see?”
“Yeah. All right, this is what I’ve been thinking. To begin with, every man has to have either a home or a purpose. Do you see that? Either a place to be or something to do. Without one or the other, a man goes nuts. Or he loses his manhood, like a hobo. Or he drinks or kills himself or something else. It doesn’t matter, it’s just that everybody has to have one or the other.”
“Okay,” he said. “I can see that. Like me wanting to live with my sister. So I’d have a home if I didn’t have any purpose. I can see that.”
“All right. Now me, I’ve been a kid, that’s all. So what I always had was a home. Even if I was in the Air Force in Germany, I still knew I had a home, and that was on Burbank Avenue in Binghamton, where my father lived. Then they killed him, and I didn’t have any home any more. But I had a purpose instead. Vengeance. To kill my father’s killer. That’s enough of a purpose, isn’t it?”
“Sure it is.”
“Sure it is. Only then you came along. And now my father is not my father. Is revenging a foster father just as good? No, it isn’t.”
“What about your brother?”
“My half-brother. Wait. Let me tell it to you the way I thought it out. Right now, I’m adrift. I have neither home nor purpose, only bits and pieces of purpose. To continue the vengeance of my father-who-is-not-my-father. To revenge my sister-in-law, whom I never knew. To protect my niece, about whom I care less than nothing. To assist you in your palace revolution, in which I have no stake. To even the score for the loss of my eye, which I can never get back. To save my own life, which isn’t worth saving unless I have a purpose. To avenge my halfbrother, where at least my own familial blood was spilt.”
“All right, what’s wrong with that?”
“Avenging Bill? But I need more than that. It isn’t purpose enough.” I raised the bottle and lowered it. While I got out a cigarette, I said, “In all of it, there still is one purpose worth having. But it dead-ends.”
He shifted in the chair. “What purpose is that?”
“Somewhere in New York City, there’s a man who pointed a finger and said, ‘Take away Ray Kelly’s home.’ Other men did it, but they were only extensions of the pointing finger. I can cut that finger off. Not because he killed a foster father or a half-brother or a half-brother’s wife. But because he killed my home. He left me no choice but