He halted a forkful of pancake halfway along its arc to his mouth. "Damned near," He explained to Segasture.
"Okay. I'll put the word out for the drivers to watch for him. You got any other rats going to come out of the woodwork back here?"
Cash shook his head. "You know, I wish I could get out and prowl around the countryside. My mother came from a place called Johnstown. I think it's around here somewhere."
"Nan. It's almost over to Albany."
"I remember, back in thirty-four, we drove all the way back there in a twenty-six chevy. For my grandfather's funeral. Only time I ever saw the man. Laying in a casket."
Cash's mind drifted into the past. It was hard to believe that he had ever been that young. "He had two wooden legs. That's all I remember about him. He was some kind of mechanic on the railroad. One day he fell asleep under an engine he was working on. Somebody got in and drove it off… You know, the only other thing I remember about that trip is playing on a barge on the Erie Canal."
"Maybe you can go over there after we close this thing up," Segasture suggested.
"No. There won't be time. We've got to get back. Funerals."
And that was the story of his life. Always there was something that had to be done. Twenty-six months in Europe, with Uncle Sam footing the bill, and he hadn't seen a damned thing but the cathedral at Cologne.
Later, in Norm's motel room, Segasture opened a briefcase and passed out weapons. "I hope we don't have to use these. Try not to. Especially you, Major. They're legal, but we might have to do a lot of explaining. So wave them around if the feeling grabs you, but don't shoot. Norm, you want to ride out there? Look the place over?"
What he wanted was to go lay an ambush at the railway station. "What if she comes in while we're gone?"
"Christ! Don't be so damned anxious. We'll find out. If the cabbies can't get ahold of me, they know who to call at the Rochester P.O. They've got to be in on the edges of this thing anyway. It's their turf."
"Sure. You're right. Let's go take a look."
Segasture drove past slowly.
"It's a goddamned mansion," Cash muttered.
"The old boy is worth a mint. And the feeling around here is that he didn't come by all of it legit."
"What do you mean?"
"Koppel… The local cops think he's connected somehow. Little visible means of support. And he has some pretty strange visitors. Mainly foreigners. The couple who work for him are German."
"Who's this Koppel?"
"The guy who owns the place."
"But… the man we want is Fial Groloch."
"Then you're out luck."
"You're sure that's the right house?" All he needed was to have to go back to Hank and admit that he had gone on a wild goose chase.
"That's the address you gave me. Hey! Calm down. It did belong to Fial Groloch. He sold out to this Koppel about forty years ago."
"But she got letters from here!" Cash protested. He shuffled mental files, dredging up everything he had learned about Fial Groloch.
"Perhaps only the name of the owner changed," Tran suggested. "The man in residence might be the same."
"Of course!" Cash jumped on it instantly. "That'd be the perfect way to cover up the fact that you're outliving all your neighbors."
Segasture's expression was dubious. "I vote we go back and party till we get word that she's here."
"What I'd like to know," Beth said, "is why, when we asked you to check the place out, back when, you didn't let us know these things. If Koppel isn't Groloch, then we're out time and money for nothing."
"She always like this, Norm?"
"She doesn't let much get past."
"Yeah. Well. It's like this. I didn't get into it as deep as it might have sounded on the phone."
"I don't think you got into it at all," Beth retorted.
"You faked it?" Cash demanded.
"Well, sort of. I called some people. In the state police, up here…"
"I get the picture. They didn't want to be bothered either. You just wanted me off your back. I'm going to remember this, Frank."
"Hey, I'm sorry, Norm. It just didn't look very important at the time. You know what I mean?"
"I know what I think. But it's too late to cry now. Come on. Let's get back. I need a drink."
Two hours at the motel were all Cash could take. He left the others with the impression that he was going to take a nap, caught a cab to the railway station.
At ten p.m. he finally admitted his folly to himself. He was just working on an ulcer. At the motel, at least, he could share the waiting with friends.
But he had this damned overpowering urge to do something.
It almost conned him into a solo recon of the local Groloch establishment.
For once terror did him a favor. It stopped him.
By sheer chance, as his taxi pulled away, he glimpsed someone through a Windless window. The man was crossing the waiting room, toward the rest rooms, at a trot.
"Damn!" Norm growled. "That Malone is stubborn." He hoped the man's bladder was choking him. Serve him right, hiding, spying on people.
He didn't get upset. There wasn't a thing he could do about it.
He went looking for Frank right away. The bartender told him that Segasture had gone to bed. Tran had turned in too. "Hell, it's still too early. Mix me a rum and Coke in a water glass. Two shots. No ice."
Maybe it was just as well. He wouldn't have to take any crap about sneaking off.
He went through three drinks before announcing, "I might as well sack out too. Ain't nothing else to do." He was dog-tired, but not really sleepy. Too keyed up.
He was about to become more keyed up.
He stepped into his room and ass deep into a "situation."
Beth was in his bed. She had fallen asleep while reading.
She didn't have a stitch on beneath that sheet. One bare, large, dark-nippled breast peeked out at him.
"So this is why she came." He closed the door gently, quietly seated himself in the room's one chair. His knees missed brushing the bed by a scant half inch.
As nervous as she was, how could she have fallen asleep? She should have been too scared to think.
Maybe she had reached the point of emotional exhaustion.
His thoughts went round and round, pecking at the situation from a hundred angles.
It boiled down to a choice between should do and want to do.
God, she looked good.
A half hour passed. The alcohol gradually caught up. He felt on the verge of collapse. He had to get to bed.
He would have to disturb her or stay awake.
He didn't want to endure the inevitable confrontation.
God damn it, it was his bed.
A disinterested fraction of his mind observed, with amusement, that, whenever he began to relax, he reacted in healthy male fashion. The resulting tension invariably caused a detumescence.
He rose, stripped to his shorts, switched the light off, slid into bed.
Beth wakened instantly, sat upright. "Norm? I'm sorry. I don't know why-"
"Shut up. Lay down. Shut up," he said again. He pulled her toward him, cuddling spoon fashion. She remained stiff, but her skin was smooth, soft, warm. She shivered, tried to pull away. "Lay still. And go back to sleep."