Different Seasons(84)

“Just let me talk to him!”

“But what—”

The phone rattled and clunked. He heard his mother saying something to his father. Todd got ready.

“It’s Mr. Denker, Daddy. He ... it’s a heart attack, I think. I’m pretty sure it is.”

“Jesus!” His father’s voice lagged away for a moment and Todd heard him repeating the information to his wife. Then he was back. “He’s still alive? As far as you can tell?”

“He’s alive. Conscious.”

“All right, thank God for that. Call an ambulance.”

“I just did.”

“Two-two-two?”

“Yes.”

“Good boy. How bad is he, can you tell?”

“I don’t know, Dad. They said the ambulance would be here soon, but... I’m sorta scared. Can you come over and wait with me?”

“You bet. Give me four minutes.”

Todd could hear his mother saying something else as his father hung up, breaking the connection. Todd replaced the receiver on his end.

Four minutes.

Four minutes to do anything that had been left undone. Four minutes to remember whatever it was that had been forgotten. Or had he forgotten anything? Maybe it was just nerves. God, he wished he hadn’t had to call his father. But it was the natural thing to do, wasn’t it? Sure. Was there some natural thing that he hadn’t done? Something—?

“Oh, you shit-for-brains!” he suddenly moaned, and bolted back into the kitchen. Dussander’s head lay on the table, his eyes half-open, sluggish.

“Dussander!” Todd cried. He shook Dussander roughly, and the old man groaned. “Wake up! Wake up, you stinking old bastard!”

“What? Is it the ambulance?”

“The letter! My father is coming over, he’ll be here in no time. Where’s the f**king letter?”

“What . . . what letter?”

“You told me to tell them you got an important letter. I said ...” His heart sank. “I said it came from overseas ... from Germany. Christ!” Todd ran his hands through his hair.

“A letter.” Dussander raised his head with slow difficulty. His seamed cheeks were an unhealthy yellowish-white, his lips blue. “From Willi, I think. Willi Frankel. Dear ... dear Willi.”

Todd looked at his watch and saw that already two minutes had passed since he had hung up the phone. His father would not, could not make it from their house to Dussander’s in four minutes, but he could do it damn fast in the Porsche. Fast, that was it. Everything was moving too fast. And there was still something wrong here; he felt it. But there was no time to stop and hunt around for the loophole.

“Yes, okay, I was reading it to you, and you got excited and had this heart attack. Good. Where is it?”

Dussander looked at him blankly.

“The letter! Where is it?”

“What letter?” Dussander asked vacantly, and Todd’s hands itched to throttle the drunken old monster.

“The one I was reading to you! The one from Willi What’s-his-face! Where is it?”

They both looked at the table, as if expecting to see the letter materialize there.

“Upstairs,” Dussander said finally. “Look in my dresser. The third drawer. There is a small wooden box in the bottom of that drawer. You will have to break it open. I lost the key a long time ago. There are some very old letters from a friend of mine. None signed. None dated. All in German. A page or two will serve for window-fittings, as you would say. If you hurry—”

“Are you crazy?” Todd raged. “I don’t understand German! How could I read you a letter written in German, you numb f**k?”

“Why would Willi write me in English?” Dussander countered wearily. “If you read me the letter in German, I would understand it even if you did not. Of course your pronunciation would be butchery, but still, I could—”

Dussander was right—right again, and Todd didn’t wait to hear more. Even after a heart attack the old man was a step ahead. Todd raced down the hall to the stairs, pausing just long enough by the front door to make sure his father’s Porsche wasn’t pulling up even now. It wasn’t, but Todd’s watch told him just how tight things were getting; it had been five minutes now.

He took the stairs two at a time and burst into Dussander’s bedroom. He had never been up here before, hadn’t even been curious, and for a moment he only looked wildly around at the unfamiliar territory. Then he saw the dresser, a cheap item done in the style his father called Discount Store Modern. He fell on his knees in front of it and yanked at the third drawer. It came halfway out, then jigged sideways in its slot and stuck firmly.

“Goddam you,” he whispered at it. His face was dead pale except for the spots of dark, bloody color flaring at each cheek and his blue eyes, which looked as dark as Atlantic storm-clouds. “Goddam you f**king thing come out!”

He yanked so hard that the entire dresser tottered forward and almost fell on him before deciding to settle back. The drawer shot all the way out and landed in Todd’s lap. Dussander’s socks and underwear and handkerchiefs spilled out all around him. He pawed through the stuff that was still in the drawer and came out with a wooden box about nine inches long and three inches deep. He tried to pull up the lid. Nothing happened. It was locked, just as Dussander had said. Nothing was free tonight.