361 - Donald E. Westlake [67]
“Good for them,” he said.
“Up till I showed up, you thought you were through. You wrote your sister, you figured to retire. Then you saw me, and it was worth a try, see if you could get the boys to accept me rather than my father.”
“I’m your father, Ray.”
“You sired me. It isn’t the same thing. You knew I wasn’t interested in your empire, so you gave me that song and dance about family and symbols, to talk me into sticking with you. When I told you my sister-in-law had been killed, that gave you the idea. If she hadn’t died, you wouldn’t have been able to pull it.”
“I would of thought of something else.” He grinned like a banker. “Aren’t you proud of your old man, boy? I think on my feet.”
“Not for much longer. There’s one more. My brother Bill. He was killed, too. He was my half-brother by blood, just as you’re my father by blood. And you’ve always got to avenge blood.” I turned to Mouse. “You’ve always got to avenge blood, Mouse? Isn’t that right?”
He swallowed noisily, and bobbed his head.
“Now, Mouse, Eddie Kapp here killed my brother Bill.”
Kapp jumped up from the bed, howling. “What the goddamn hell are you talking about? For Christ’s sake, why would I do a stupid thing like that?”
“You wanted me with you, or you wouldn’t be leading the revolt. You were afraid, once I found out Will Kelly wasn’t my father, I’d stop, I’d lose heart and give the thing up. Same as if I found out he was still part of the mob, all this time. And then I wouldn’t stick with you for a second. So you murdered Bill. I was supposed to think Ganolese did that one, too, and you could offer the partnership. ‘We both want the same people, only for different reasons.’ That’s exactly what you said.”
He shook his head. “You got it wrong, Ray. I was with you from the time Bill went upstairs to the time we found him dead.”
“No. You were gone ten minutes, to the head. And nobody else could have gotten their hands on Bill’s gun. He would have put it on the dresser. Any stranger came in, the gun would have been in Bill’s hand. You could go in and talk to him, tell him you want to be friends, and walk around the room until you angle over to the dresser, and there you are.”
When he moved, it was dirty. He jumped for Mouse, trying to shove him into me. I ran back and to the side, jumping up onto the bed and down on the floor on the other side, turning to face the door. He had his hand on the key when I shot him. I emptied the Luger into him before he could hit the floor.
Mouse lay quivering on his stomach on the floor, arms over his head in stupid protectiveness. I wiped my prints from the Luger and dropped it on the floor and went around to poke Mouse in the side with my toe. I said, “Get up. I’m not finished talking to you.”
It took him a while to get his limbs working right. I waited till he was standing, then I said, “You wait till I leave here. You give me a good five minutes. Then you go back to the party and tell them what happened. And tell them why it happened. You got that?”
He nodded. There was white all around the pupils of his eyes.
“This was a blood matter,” I told him, “not a mob matter. Blood revenging blood. There’s no need for them to come after me, to avenge Eddie Kapp. I’m his son, and I say there’s no need for it. And I don’t remember a single name or a single face that I saw here today or at Lake George two weeks ago. You got that?”
He nodded again.
“Five minutes,” I said.
I went out to the hall. The party was raging to my left, too loud for them to have heard the shots in that closed and bulkily furnished bedroom. I walked down to the right. The big man with the broken nose was sitting in a fragile chair by the door. He said, “What they doing? Shooting guns off the terrace? They’ll get cops up here if they don’t look out.”
“I hope it’s over pretty soon,” I said. “I need my sleep.”
“You moving in?”
“Just going to get my luggage.”
“You won’t get much sleep here.” He laughed. “This’ll go on for a couple days yet.”
I left, and took the elevator down, and went out to the street.
Thirty
I went into