Money for Nothing by Donald E Westlake

Author:Donald E Westlake [Westlake, Donald E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-11-10T07:24:16.295000+00:00

29

JOSH STARTED WALKING NORTH, but Robbie didn't. When Josh looked back, Robbie said, "What are you doing?"

"It's supposed to be up this way."

"We don't walk there," Robbie told him. "It's too far to walk. You're a rich guy, we'll take a cab." Turning away, he said, "We'll get one back at the railroad station."

Following in Robbie's wake, Josh said, "Why do I always have to pay for the cab?"

"Because you're a capitalist lackey," Robbie explained.

Josh was sure there was a perfect retort to that remark, but as they walked along, southward instead of northward, he didn't hear himself say it, so he never found out what it was.

There was one taxi waiting at the station, a big old gray Chrysler station wagon. The driver was a very fat woman of probably sixty, spread over much of the front seat like melting ice cream, dressed in a green plaid flannel shirt, tan chinos, and open-toed golden sandals. She had been reading Elle Decor, which she put onto the seat beside her as they approached.

"Hi," Josh said. "You free?"

"Well, I'm reasonable," she said. "Hop in."

They did, and Robbie said, "We'd like Sandy Drive off Sands Point Road the other side of Manorhaven. Not Sandy Road or Sandy Lane." So why had Josh made all those notes?

"Sandy Drive, I know exactly where you mean." There was no meter in the cab. "That's seven dollars," she said.

Josh bet it wasn't seven dollars, not really, not for a local, but Robbie said, "Fine," and the woman started the Chrysler engine, which coughed a lot.

As they drove through town, stopping at a red light, the woman said, "What you boys doin' up there?"

Josh was trying to think of some story to make up, but Robbie said, "We're going up to Mrs. Rheingold's place."

Interested, the woman looked at them in her rearview mirror, then drove forward through the green light, saying, "Really? They hirin' again up there? Been quite a while. Got all those foreigners up there."

Robbie said, "You know the place, do you?"

"Oh, that's just the saddest story," she said.

Robbie slid forward to rest his forearms on the front seatback, near her large head with all the fuzzy gray hair. "Really?" he said. "I love sad stories. Tell."

"Well, old Mrs. Rheingold," the cabby said, "she must be ninety, maybe even more. She was one of the Caissens, old-time family around here, you know. Early settlers. Daughtered out."

"That's tough," Robbie said.

"She was the last. Miriam? Something like that. Her mom and dad both died in the 1917 flu epidemic, when she was just a little girl. She was brought up, in the big estate there, by some old aunts and people, kept dying off."

"Wow," Robbie said.

"They saw to it she had her schooling, though," the cabby assured them. "Bryn Mawr and all that. Then she met him."

Robbie said, "I thought it was gonna be like that."

"Just like that," the cabby said. "Jock Rheingold. A Dartmouth man, but it seemed as though it might be all right."

"Oh oh," Robbie said.

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