Read Online Murder Among Children by Donald E. Westlake - Free Book Online

unknown quantity that could cause him trouble. Finally he shrugged and said, “Why struggle? I’ll get it later.”
    “Don’t start making trouble for those children,” I said.
    He gave me the mock-innocent look again. “What makes you think I’d make trouble?”
    “We had some like you in my old precinct,” I said.
    He didn’t like that. He said, “We don’t have any like you, Tobin. We like it that way.”
    Simple insults don’t bother me any more, so I said, “Just remember to leave them alone.”
    “Or?”
    “Or I see if I can make trouble for you.”
    He frowned at me, not sure of himself, and said, “You think you can? With your past history, you think you can make trouble for anybody?”
    “I don’t know. I can try. I still know a couple of people. I could do my best to make a smell in your area.”
    Frowning, he turned away from me, walked around the kitchen table, stood facing the refrigerator for a minute. I heard him say under his breath, “Everything cuts twelve ways.” Then he rubbed a hand across his face, as though he were tired, and shook himself like a dog coming out of water.
    The swinging door pushed open, startling the both of us, and Bill walked in, absorbed in something inside his own head. He stopped two paces into the room and blinked at us. “I’m sorry, Dad,” he said, “I didn’t know anybody was here. I thought you were all in the living room.”
    Donlon looked at Bill like a man seeing a long-lost relative. “Your father and I just had some private talk to do, son,” he said, his voice unusually soft. “But we’re just about done.”
    “I’ve just got to get a couple tools,” Bill said. He went over to the tool drawer near the sink.
    Donlon said, “Working on a project, eh?”
    “Yes, sir.” Bill got wire cutters and the smallest screwdriver out of the drawer.
    “Model plane?” Donlon asked him.
    “No, sir. Some phonograph stuff. Excuse me.”
    Donlon’s eyes followed him as Bill left the room. Donlon shook his head and said, “That’s when they’re good. Kids, I love kids. You ever do any PAL work when you were on the force, Tobin?”
    “I never seemed to have the time.”
    “Well, you got kids of your own. I can’t have any. Thought it was Mrs. Donlon for years, but it’s me. Doctor said it’s me.” He rubbed his face again, and it came out as hard as it had been before. “But they grow up bad,” he said, “the most of them. Like that bunch you’re protecting in there. The smaller kids are all right, but later on they turn bad.”
    “Not all of them.”
    “What do I care?” He gnawed on a knuckle for a second, then shook his head and said, “On this other thing, we deal.”
    “You’ll lay off?”
    He spread his hands out, palms down, and said, “Everybody floats.” His eyes glinted.
    I didn’t trust him, there was something too sudden and electric about him, but I knew this was the best I’d be able to get from him, so I said, “Good. It’s a deal.”
    “Now,” he said, “everybody goes home.” He didn’t say it menacingly or like an order, but as though it followed naturally.
    Which it didn’t. I said, “Stop pushing.”
    He seemed confused for just a second, and then tightness came over his face and he said, “All right, Tobin, play your game, whatever it is. But don’t show your face.”
    “I won’t.”
    “Say good-bye to your guests for me,” he said, and walked around me, and pushed open the swinging door.
    I followed him down the hall to the front door. He opened it and went out, leaving the door ajar. I stood there in semi-darkness, my hand on the knob, and watched him walk out through belated twilight to a black Plymouth parked at the curb, unmarked but obvious; he was driving an official car on his unofficial business.
    When Donlon got into the Plymouth and drove away, I shut the door and went back to the living room.

12
    T HERE WAS CONVERSATION IN the living room now, animated conversation, the whole group