That afternoon, I went up to Riverdale. It was just a week to the day since the revolution had started. Five days ago, the first sign of the counterattack had appeared in the papers, when Patros Kanzantkos fell down the stairs in his Riverdale home and broke his neck. The address was given in the newspaper story.
I took the subway as far as it would go, looking out at the big-shouldered, dull brick apartment buildings when the train became an elevated in the Bronx. At the last stop, I got a cab. I had three hundred more in my pocket from Bill’s dwindling bank account. Bill’s Luger was huge and bulky against my side, tucked under my belt. The raincoat was supposed to cover it.
The house was colonial-style, two stories, white, in a very good section, all curving roads and trees and backyard wading pools. There was a black wreath still on the door.
The obituary notice had said that Kanzantkos was survived by a wife, Emilie, and a son, Robert. It was the son who answered the doorbell, an angry black-haired boy of my chronological age, his face marred by a petulant mouth, his black suit oddly awkward on his frame.
I said, “I’d like to talk to your mother, please.”
He said, insolently, “What about?”
“Tell her Eddie Kapp’s son is here.”
“Why should she care?”
“If she wants you to know, she’ll tell you.”
That struck a nerve. He paled, and when he said, “Wait there,” his voice was harsher, more strained.
He closed the door, and I lit a cigarette and looked at the careful rock garden fronting the pretty house across the way. And then he came back and said, “All right. Come on in.” He was still angry.
I followed him upstairs to a small room furnished with two sofas and a stereophonic record player. The walls were ranked with bookcases holding record albums. Mrs. Kanzantkos, a small and brittle woman with a narrow nose, said, “Thank you, Bobby. I’ll want to talk to Mr. Kapp alone.”
He went away, glowering, reluctantly closing the door. I said, “He doesn’t know what his father did for a living?”
She said, “No. And he never will.”
“A boy should always know who and what his father is,” I said.
Coldly, she said, “I’ll be the judge of that, Mr. Kapp.”
“Kelly,” I corrected her. “Ray Kelly.”
Instantly she was on her feet. “You said you were Eddie Kapp’s son.”
“I am. I was brought up by a man named Kelly.”
The distrust didn’t all leave her eyes. “And what do you want from me?”
“I was with my father when he got out of Danne-mora,” I said, “and at the meeting at Lake George. I met your husband there. He mentioned me, didn’t he?”
“Mr. Kanzantkos rarely discussed business with me,” she said.
“All right. The point is, my father and I were separated after Lake George. I had another job to do. Now it’s done, and I want to get in touch with him again.”
“I would have no idea where you could find him.”
“I know that. But you must know at least one or two of the other people who were at Lake George. I wish you’d call one of them and tell him I’m here.”
“Why?”
“I want to get together with my father again. Isn’t that natural?”
“And he didn’t tell you where you could get in touch with him?”
“We parted hastily. I had this other thing to do.”
“What other thing?”
“I had to kill a man named Ed Ganolese.”
She blinked. The silence was like wool. Then she got to her feet. “Wait here,” she said. “I—I’ll call someone.”
“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.