She threw her head back and laughed. “I can always-”
“I’m not finished. Next I would send you back to the sisters. That school has-”
“You think I’d stay?”
“I have asked you not to interrupt me. However, you tell me that you would not obey.” He came around to stand before her and his voice was ominous, so that she held still while he took her hands. “Patricia, do you remember where your mother died?” He lowered his head to hers. “In a sanatorium, Patricia.”
The girl stared at her father, her light eyes large and anxious.
“And if I cannot guide you, my own daughter-”
He did not have to finish his threat, because Pat crumbled. She leaned across the desk, head down, and pounded her fist on the top with the insistence of an automaton. Her teeth were clenched and she held her breath.
Then Pendleton put his hands on her shoulders and spoke with the gentleness he kept for his daughter. “I’m sorry, my dear. I’m sorry to frighten you. I only want your happiness, your well-being.”
“I understand.” She sounded surprisingly controlled, and there was a weird matter-of-factness in her tone. “May I go now?”
“My dear-”
“Please. Let go. Can I have the car to drive back to school?”
“You’ve had no sleep, Patricia.”
“Exam week. I’ve got to get back.”
“I’ll have someone drive you.”
“Thank you.”
“Good night, my dear.”
“Good night,” she said, and closed the door when she left.
Chapter Five
Benny knew the city well and for a while nobody found him. He laid low and didn’t leave the room he had taken except at night. He walked the streets, figuring on his moves and waiting for the time.
The nights were getting warmer. He walked past the little shops with the black windows and the big warehouses near the river, and his steps sounded like the only steps in the world. Then the waiting became like a fever and he walked faster, until the feeling passed and he turned back to his room with the damp spot on the ceiling and the bed with the musty Army blanket.
When he opened the door there was nothing but the black hole of the room. Then the door jumped out of his hand, slammed shut, and the black room was a crowded cage of fear and danger because the gun hit him in the spine. There was a breath on the side of his face, and when the bed creaked a voice said, “Keep still, Tapkow.”
He did. He felt the sweatband of his hat grow tight and itchy, but he kept his hands down as if they were stones.
“Turn around, Tapkow, and out the door.”
The gun behind him nudged him and the creak on the bed got up. Two of them in the room.
“Out the door, Tapkow.”
He found the doorknob and yanked. They followed him closely down the stairs and into the street, where a beat-up Plymouth waited. One drove, the other sat next to Benny. After a while he noticed that he’d been wrong about the car. Beat-up old stock cars don’t shoot off on the pickup and their motors don’t purr like cats.
All the time, from the room to the car, the guy next to him had kept a gun in his side. Benny sat still. He sat and concentrated on the chance, the always final chance, that this was not the end-that it wasn’t over yet.
They drove around for a while and ended up by the river. There was a pier, a motor launch, and then they splashed through the black water with the city blinking in the distance.
Benny didn’t see the yacht till they cut the motor and swung around. One of the goons whistled, somebody answered. They made fast and took him up the side. He almost fell when they led him through the low door of the cabin, and then, in the light, he saw that the room was just like any den, with leather chairs and a library table. They banged the door and Benny sat in a chair. Just like any big den, except that the windows were round. A warm room, but Benny felt cold.
Then the door opened. Benny looked, stood up, and then he did a thing that happened only sometimes. He took off his hat.
Alverato came in slowly, “Drink, Tapkow?”
Benny started to tremble. He couldn’t control it any longer, couldn’t keep it coiled forever, the waiting, the hope for a chance. Now that it was happening, he couldn’t quite believe it.
“Big-Alverato-” he stammered.
“Look, Tapkow. Not Big Alverato. It’s either Big Al or Mr. Alverato. Here’s you’re drink.”
Benny took it.
“Call me Al, Tapkow. Sit down.”
“Yes, Mr.-Yes, Al.”
Alverato watched how Benny tossed his glass. “You scared or something?”
Benny put the glass down but didn’t answer right away. He’d had the shakes. He’d had a lot to lose besides his life, and now that part was over. Now he was going to start again where Pendleton had meant to stop him.
“Hey, Tapkow, are you with me?”
“Hell, yes.”
And now all he had to do was sit and wait to see what Alverato wanted.
“How long you been away from Pendleton, Tapkow?”
“A week or so.”
“You been pretty thick with that queer, right?”
Benny didn’t like that. “I never saw him any more. I had my own territory.”
“That’s why you were driving him around in that monkey suit, huh?”
“That’s the night I left.” Benny felt himself get tense again.
Alverato laughed. He gave out big, wet guffaws that made the little curls on his head jump like springs. Then he ignored Benny while he prepared himself a cigar. He chewed one end of it flat and soggy before he started to light up. Benny waited.
“How’d you like to make a grand or so?”
“That depends, Al.”
“On what?”
“On where it’ll get me.”
Alverato thought that over and started again. “Look, I saw you the first time when you and that bookkeeping bastard was at my house. Right then, I figured you for a sharp kid and a right guy. Maybe I can use you.”
Now Benny sat up.
“So I ask you again: you been pretty thick with Pendleton?”
“What do you mean, thick?”
“I mean thick! What in hell’s the matter with you, Tapkow? You don’t know American or something?”
Benny wasn’t sure just how to play it. If he knew the angle, what Alverato wanted, then he could play it right. But Alverato hadn’t said a thing.
“You’re fishing, Alverato. You think you’ll fish around and put me through the hoops, and then maybe you’ll let me have a proposition. I’ve been around a while, Alverato.”
“Shut up already!” Alverato’s face was suddenly thick with blood. He went for another drink. He didn’t offer Benny one this time. “Let’s have some answers, Tapkow. You used to drive for Pendleton?”
“Sure. But I was running my own territory.”
“Jesus, Tapkow, don’t you ever shut up? The hell with your lousy territory. I want to know if you’ve driven for Pendleton!”
