361 - Donald E. Westlake [6]
“Why not?”
He lipped his cigarette, made it look terrible. His eyes jerked around in their sockets like ball bearings. At last, he said, “There’s gonna be trouble. You don’t want to get mixed in.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“That’s the favor,” he said quickly. “Even-Stephen. If they saw me talkin’ to you, they’d gun me. I’ve done enough, maybe too much.”
“If who saw you? The men who killed my father?”
“Go away.” He was getting more and more jittery by the second. “Interview’s over, favor’s done. Go away. Get outa the car.”
I laid my left arm across his chest, holding him against the seat. My right hand patted him, didn’t find anything that felt like a weapon. He was breathing hard, and looking all over the street like he expected tanks to show up any minute, but he didn’t say anything.
I kept my left arm where it was, and thumbed the glove compartment. The door dropped down, and I took out the gun. I don’t know guns, this was I guess a .32 caliber. It was a revolver, and stubby-barreled, all blue-black metal with a plain grip. The drum had places for six bullets. Two showed thin edges on each side, and those four had cartridges in them. I didn’t know about the one in line with the barrel or the one underneath. Just above where my thumb naturally rested there was a little catch. It pointed at S. I pushed it to O with my thumb, felt it click.
I took my left arm back, and half-turned in the seat, so I could face him and hold the gun in my lap aimed at him. He gave me a flying millisecond glance, eyed the street some more, and said, “I come to do a favor, that’s all. Nothing else, nothing more. All bets are off. I don’t say a word, you might’s well get out of the car.”
“Start the engine,” I said.
He couldn’t believe it. He wanted to know where I thought I was taking him.
“Home,” I told him. “Binghamton’s about a hundred thirty miles down 17. Drive.”
“I won’t do it,” he said.
“Self-defense,” I told him. “I wrestled the gun out of your hands. You were one of the men shot my father.”
He stared at me. But he picked my right eye to stare at, the glass one. He shivered and started the car.
It was a long ride. We didn’t talk much, and the highway looked too familiar. It was the same kind of situation, me in the same seat in the car. I kept looking back, and whenever a car passed us I winced, but nothing happened.
We made it in under four hours. We crossed the river on the first bridge, bypassing most of the town, but it was a little after four and rush-hour. It was slow going out to Vestal.
They built it up a lot in three years. The Penn-Can highway was going to bring civilization to the hometown after all. There were even split-level developments now, and ranch-style houses.
Bill lived in a ranch-style out on 26. There was nobody home when we got there, but the garage door was up and the car was out. I had the guy pull the Plymouth into the garage. We got out, and I switched the gun to my left hand again while he pulled the overhead door down. I’d been changing the gun back and forth from hand to hand about every half hour, when the fingers would start to cramp.
The door in the wall between the kitchen and the garage was also open, and the house was full of mosquitoes. The sink was full of dishes. The living-room floor was scattered with beer bottles and newspapers. Both were delivered, I guess. The beer bottles were twelve-ounce stubbies, the little fat ones you never see anywhere but at clambakes and sandlot ball games. There were two cases of them out in the garage and maybe a dozen cold in the refrigerator. That was practically all there was in the refrigerator.
The mosquitoes had the house to themselves. There were two bedrooms, and they were both empty. One had a crib and a white dresser and pink walls. The dresser drawers were open, empty. But Bill’s clothes were all over the other bedroom and the closet, so he hadn’t moved out. He was just boarding his kid with somebody,