My Son, the Druggist by Marvin Kaye

Author:Marvin Kaye [Kaye, Marvin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784086428
Publisher: Head of Zeus Ltd
Published: 2012-10-30T17:37:00+00:00

IT WAS A NONDESCRIPT corner tavern, and the people in it at that time of day were deadly serious about getting drunk. The only sound was the clink of glassware.

Lukas had just downed a double Dewar’s and was chasing it with a pint of Michelob when Marty and Bill Finney slid into his booth and sat opposite him.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Lukas asked, glaring.

“Your sister wanted someone to make sure you were all right,” Marty replied.

“I wonder which sister that could be?” Lukas mused, heavily sarcastic. “All right, you see I’m okay, now butt out.”

“Look, it’s none of my business,” Marty began, and got no further.

“You’re damn right it isn’t! Who the hell are you, anyway? How long did you have to suck up to my old lady to—”

“Jesus Christ!” Marty exclaimed. “She’s dead! Don’t you care about that at all?”

Lukas said nothing for a time. He drained the rest of his beer, held up his hand for a refill and waited till he got it before replying.

“There was a time,” he said softly, “when I would have been able to feel sorry about her, but that was two years ago. She made me get out of the house, and ever since, nothing’s been right. Christ, I cried then, but she threw me out. That’s when she died.” He downed the scotch in two convulsive swallows, wiped his lips roughly with the back of a finger.

Bill Finney put a hand on Marty Gold’s arm, restraining him from further comment.

“Luke,” Finney said, “I don’t wish to be tactless, but may I ask a question?”

The other nodded. “Go ahead.”

“Are you still on the stuff?”

Lukas evaded his eyes. “That’s not the problem.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No. I have ... debts.”

Bill Finney exhaled like an asthmatic walrus. “How much? Or is it more important to ask to whom?”

“You don’t want to hear the answer.”

Bill Finney grimly shook his head.

Marty Gold looked from one to the other, baffled.

“Do you mind telling me what you’re both talking about?”

His roommate answered him. “There is a substratum of particularly virulent virus that preys on impecunious theater people, making loans at usurious interest rates; Or favors. I suspect Lukas here is the host body for one.” He peered inquisitively at the other, and Lukas nodded.

“I blew a couple thousand in a poker game, and I had no choice about paying it back fast. It was either pay it, or get my thumbs broken.”

“Why didn’t you go straight to one of your relatives?” Bill Finney asked.

“Fat chance,” Lukas sneered. “Melinda doesn’t have it, Dinah is halfway across the country, and the fat doctor and his wife haven’t spoken to the rest of the clan for years.”

“What about your mother?”

“I just hit her for the money I lost in the game. I couldn’t go right back.”

“I thought you did just that when you found her body.”

Lukas’ two glasses were empty again and he signaled for another round. “That was the plan I had,” he said. “I figured if I took out

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