361 - Donald E. Westlake [65]
“Thank you.”
She seemed glad to leave the room. She closed the door softly after her.
Ten minutes later, the door opened again, and the son came slipping in. He shut the door after him and leaned against it and said, his voice low, “I want to know what’s going on.”
“Nothing’s going on,” I said.
“She’s keeping something from me,” he insisted. “You know what it is. You tell me.”
I shook my head.
“Why are you here?”
“It has nothing to do with you.”
“My father?”
“No.”
“That’s a lie. Who’s my mother calling?”
“I have no idea.”
He came away from the door, arms high. “I’ll twist it out of you—”
Before I had to do anything to him, the door opened and his mother was standing there. She ordered him from the room, and he refused to go until he found out what all the mystery was. They screamed at each other for five minutes or more. I spent the time looking at the record collection. Classical music and stringed dinner music. One small section of Dixieland jazz.
When at last Robert left, his mother said to me, “I’m sorry. He should have known better.”
“As you say, it’s your business.”
“Yes. I phoned a friend of my husband’s. He promised to call back as soon as possible. Would you like to come down to the kitchen for coffee?”
“Thank you.”
The kitchen was white and chintz. Through the window, I could see a well tended back lawn and a flagstone patio. Rose bushes lined the fence at the back of the property. From the cellar came the drumming rhythm of someone at a punching bag. That would be Robert, forcing me to talk.
We waited in silence. She didn’t ask me any questions. We sat there twenty minutes before the phone rang in another room on the ground floor. She excused herself and went away, coming back a minute later to say, “He wants to talk to you.”
It was Kapp. He said, “Ray? Is that you?”
“Yes, Kapp, it’s me.”
“You recognized my voice?”
“Why not?”
“That was you got Ganolese Monday night?”
“That was me.”
“I’ll be a son of a bitch.” He sounded happy, and half-drunk. “You lovely little bastard, you’re a chip off the old block. You’re done now, huh?”
“I’m done. It’s squared away. And there’s nothing else for me to do. I’d like to stick with you.”
“Goddamn it, Ray, you don’t know how that makes me feel. Oh, goddamn it, boy, that’s great. I hoped to God you’d decide that.”
“I’m glad,” I said. “I came looking for you right away, as soon as I was done with the other.”
“Do you want me to send a car?”
“Are you in the city? If you are, it’d be quicker for me to take the subway.”
“Sure thing. We’ve got ourselves a suite at the Weatherton. That’s at Lexington and 52nd.”
“I know where it is.”
“It’s under the name Peterson. Raymond Peterson. You remember?”
“I remember. I’ll be right there.”
I hung up, and the woman said, “I’ll drive you to the subway, if you want.”
“Thank you.”
We went out to the garage. From the cellar came the drumming of the punching bag.
Twenty-Nine
I walked the block from the subway stop to the Weatherton Hotel. I remembered it. It was the one where Dad had stayed, where we’d both stayed the night before they killed him. Kapp wouldn’t know that.
I asked for Mr. Peterson’s suite, and they sent my name up, then told me the fifteenth floor. I rode up in the elevator. 1512 was to the left. I could hear party sounds.
I knocked on the door and a smiling man with a broken nose opened it and said, “You’re Kapp’s kid, huh?”
“That’s right.”
“Put her there! He keeps tellin’ us how great you are!”
His hand was huge, but soft. I shook it, and went inside.
The suite went on and on, room after room. A nervous little man took over from the first one and showed me my bedroom. I left the Luger on the bed, under the raincoat. Then I followed the nervous man through more rooms to the party.
It was a huge parlor, with French doors leading to the terrace. A radio played bad music in one corner, competing with a television set across the way. Sectional sofas and coffee tables were scattered all around. Two portable bars stood full and handy.
There