Read Online Straight No Chaser by Jack Batten - Free Book Online Page A

greyer than his brother. He had on a short-sleeved white shirt, green gabardine slacks, and Hush Puppies. His eye alignment appeared to be in order.
    â€œCome on up to the family room,” Ralph said.
    He led the way up a short flight of stairs carpeted in pink and into a room straight ahead. The pink carpet continued around to the left, presumably to the bedrooms.
    â€œGet you a drink?” Ralph asked. “Something nice and cool?”
    â€œVodka’d taste good.”
    â€œOne vodka coming up,” Ralph said. He’d inherited the hearty genes in the Goddard family. “Anything with it? Tang?”
    â€œIce, just ice, Ralph.”
    He went back down the stairs. The family room had flocked wallpaper in a mustard shade. The shelves along one wall held a collection of china birds, and, on a low end-table, two marble bookends enclosed a short row of Louis L’Amour novels in hardcover. There was a set of a sofa and two armchairs covered in shiny material in browns and yellows that picked up the mustard on the walls. Another chair was aimed at the TV set. The chair had many movable parts, a headrest, a footrest, arms that raised up and down. You could buy chairs like that on your Visa card by dialling a toll-free number in Akron, Ohio. I’d seen the ads. Ralph’s chair was in brown corduroy. He’d left the television on with the sound down low. It was tuned to the Blue Jays ball game.
    Ralph came back to the room empty-handed.
    â€œWhat’s your second choice, Crang?” he said. “Doreen went to the booze store today and bought the place out, it looks like.”
    â€œExcept no vodka.”
    â€œYou got it.”
    â€œWhy don’t I have whatever you’re drinking.”
    â€œThat’ll be two dark rum and Coke.”
    By the time I left the family room, I’d be on the road to gout. Why was it called the family room? If the kids were out in the world and Ralph and Doreen lived alone, wouldn’t every room in the house qualify as family room? I’d ponder the question next time I strolled Philosopher’s Walk.
    The ice in the large glasses tinkled against the sides. Ralph carried a glass in each hand. He handed one to me and leaned over to turn off the television set.
    â€œTop of the sixth,” he said. “Jays in front by three. You a baseball fan, Crang?”
    â€œYou bet,” I said. It was the second lie I’d told to a member of the Goddard family in twenty-four hours. Baseball makes me nod off, but there was no sense alienating Ralph at a time when I had more worrying matters for him.
    â€œDave didn’t appear at Chase’s tonight,” I said.
    â€œI thought that’d be it soon’s I saw you standing at the door down there,” Ralph said. He sat in the chair with the gadgets and touched something that swung it in my direction. I remembered the chair’s brand. Motolounger. I was sitting on the sofa.
    I said to Ralph, “I’ve got a name since I talked to you this afternoon. Raymond Fenk. He’s the party seems to be responsible for all the rough stuff.”
    â€œThe whole shebang buffaloes me,” Ralph said. “Dave’s been toeing the mark ever since I got him to let me look after things.”
    â€œFenk’s in the movie business. Might he have any business connection with Dave? Does the name mean something? Fenk?”
    â€œI thought you told me Dave saw this bozo and didn’t recognize him.”
    â€œThe face registered nothing,” I said. “Maybe the name does.”
    â€œFenk?” Ralph rubbed his jaw and took his time over the name. “I got to tell you, Crang, there’s a lot of people on a lot of contracts. But I don’t recollect Fenk. I could look through the files. I keep Dave’s records in apple-pie order. Nobody from Revenue Canada or any place else’d find a number out of place.”
    â€œRemind me to call you around income tax