Redemption Street by Reed Farrel Coleman

Author:Reed Farrel Coleman [Coleman, Reed Farrel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9781597228367
Publisher: Viking Adult
Published: 2004-03-30T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

December 3rd

I had one more week to go tilting at windmills. That was it, Katy I and agreed. My wife was an intelligent, sometimes annoyingly perceptive woman. She noticed the damage to my car almost immediately and could see I was itching to get back to whatever it was I was playing at up in Old Rotterdam. She saved her questions, because she trusted me and, given her dad’s stroke, probably didn’t want to hear the answers.

Her dad was already improving, having regained most of his strength and some of his speech. He’d be coming home in a day or two, and she said I’d just get in the way. I didn’t argue the point. Though she never broached the subject, Katy knew Francis and I weren’t ever going to be fishing buddies.

She had already left for Brooklyn to fetch Sarah when I got out of the shower. I could have left last night, but I wasn’t that anxious to get up to Old Rotterdam. Sam and Mr. Roth were entertaining enough, but my wife had it all over them. Besides, there was a stop I wanted to make on the way to the Catskills that wouldn’t have been possible the previous evening. Too many people milling about.

“Hello, you son of a bitch,” I whispered to my father-in-law as I walked into his room.

He was silent.

“What’s the matter? Nothing to say? You were pretty talkative the other morning.”

He gave me that cruel smile, though fuller, less waxy, now that he’d regained his strength. He pointed to his mouth and shrugged.

“Don’t gimme that bullshit. I was here yesterday. I heard you talking to Ma and Katy. So what was it you wanted to say to me the other day?”

He shrugged his shoulders again. “I ‘orget.”

I just walked out. I thought I heard him laughing, but that might have been my imagination.

Sam fairly did a jig when I loped through the lobby of the Swan Song Hotel and Resort. Oddly, I nearly danced one myself. I actually hugged the old bastard when he came around the counter.

“Thank God! My best full-price guest returns.”

“Your only full-price guest, you mean. I’m happy to see you, too, Sam.”

“Don’t mince words. So—how’s your father-in—”

“Still breathing, unfortunately.”

“A real romance between you two, huh?” As was his habit, Sam wagged his finger at me. “Be careful, boychik, you should watch out what you wish for. You might get—”

I grabbed the old comic’s shoulders. “What did you just say?”

“What?”

“What you just said.”

“What?”

“Oy, Sam. No, what’s on second. Who’s on first.”

“I don’t know.”

“Third base!” we exclaimed simultaneously.

“Good,” I said, still laughing, “now that we got Abbott and Costello out of the way, what did you say about watching—”

“Watch out what you wish for—”

“—you might get it,” I finished. “That’s what he was saying. ‘Watch out what you wish for.’ But why would he say that to me?” I mumbled.

“What?”

“Forget it, Sam, we’ve already been down that road. You got a room for me?”

He did, my same room. And, to make me feel right at home, he hadn’t touched it since I left.

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