361 - Donald E. Westlake [45]
I wanted to act. But I didn’t want it to be finished. Once I acted and it was over with and I’d done what I’d set out to do, then there wouldn’t be anything for me at all any more. A walk on the bottom, it didn’t matter at all.
I had trouble sleeping nights. I kept some House of Lords by the bed to help. And the light was always on. I spent a lot of time staring at the ceiling. I hadn’t wanted any of this. The things I was doing to myself were as bad as the things they’d done to me. But I couldn’t go back. July twelfth was back there, the last good day Ray Kelly had ever had, and I couldn’t get back to it. I had to keep moving the other way, hoping there was a way out at the other end.
Toward the end of the week, Kapp came to me and said, “We’re going to have to go into town and do some shopping. Some people are coming up. Maybe Monday, Tuesday of next week. I got the list.”
We bought groceries, and a lot of beer, and more House of Lords. We also got four Army cots and some cheap blankets and pillows. When we got back the phone was ringing. It rang all weekend. Kapp chewed his cigars to shreds. He was smiling all the time now, like a winner. Even when he was just sitting still, he was doing something. I envied him.
The warm spell broke on Saturday. A sudden wind came down out of the north, turning the lake choppy gray. We closed the windows, and turned on the electric heating units in all the rooms. The sun rectangles were gone from the straw rugs. In the sky, the clouds hurried south.
Sunday, I put on a sweater and went for a walk on the dirt road. It was quiet. Under the evergreens the ground was brown. I thought it would be nice to walk among the trees forever. I’d like to be an Indian, before the white man came.
The phone had been ringing when I left, and it was ringing again when I came back. I carried a folding chair down and sat on the dock and looked out over the lake. That night, the phone stopped ringing.
Monday the first one came. It was in the middle of the afternoon, and I was pouring us fresh drinks in the kitchen. A car horn sounded for just a second. I looked up the slope past the trees and the hedge and saw the side windows of the car and a face under a chauffeur’s cap. I said, “Somebody here.”
Kapp came around the table and stood beside me. He said, “Go see who it is.”
I hopped up the steps and through the gate and over to the car. It was a pearl gray Cadillac, like McArdle’s hearse. Three men were bulky in back. The chauffeur was a black cap and a round large nose. He kept both hands on the wheel, high up, and didn’t look at me.
I went past him and bent and looked in the side window. The man in the middle said, “Let’s see Eddie Kapp.”
I said, “He wants to know who you are.”
“Nick Rovito.”
I went down and told him and he said, “Okay.” Then he went out, slamming the screen door, and shouted, “Hey, Nick!”
Up in the car, one of them shouted, “Is that you, you son of a bitch?” Then car doors slammed, and I saw the chauffeur maneuver the car out of the road.
The three men came down. They all looked alike. In their fifties, barrel-bodied, bull-necked, heavy-headed. Wearing tight topcoats, keeping their hands in their pockets. Smiling with thick lips and thin eyes. Rovito stuck his hand out and Kapp shook it. The other two grinned and nodded at Kapp, and he grinned and nodded back. Then they came in.
Rovito looked at me and said, “What’s your name?”
“Ray Kelly.”
He looked at me and pursed his lips and put his hands back in his topcoat pockets. Then he turned to Kapp and said, “Mmm.” It seemed to mean, “I’ll let you know.”
Kapp said, “Come on in and have a drink. House of Lords.”
One of the others said, “Not for me. Doctor’s orders.” He looked embarrassed.
Rovito looked at him. “Do you still know how to pour?”
“Sure, Nick.”
“Then pour.”
They went into