Escape the Night by Richard North Patterson Read Free Book Online Page A

furnace.”
    Charles sat very still. In a low, sardonic voice, he said, “Some men are born right. Others marry well.”
    John Carey stared at his son. “Do you think that’s why …?”
    â€œI don’t have to see the furnace room, Father. After all, I saw your bedroom.”
    John Carey’s face stiffened. Into a silence like a caught breath he hissed, “If you weren’t my son …”
    â€œI’m sure the time involved was minimal.” Charles paused to catch himself, finishing softly, “As it was until the day she died.”
    Charles’s eyes were chips of ice in an aquiline mask; a vein throbbed at John Carey’s temple. “You blame me for that, damn you—you always have.” His breathing felt ragged. “I did what I had to do, and by marrying her I also saved this firm. She knew that, and if it meant she couldn’t always have my attention at least she could say she slept with a man.” He paused to steady his voice, then added with silken cruelty, “Which is more than your vain and neurasthenic wife will ever say, isn’t it?”
    For a minute Charles’s look was open, surprised, like that of the boy John Carey remembered waiting at the train, before his face would close. Charles lit a cigarette. “I was fifteen, Father, and I was all she had.” He looked up at John Carey, face set once more. “And as she died I knew she was all we had.”
    John Carey remembered coming home too late: emaciated in death, Ellen already seemed a skeleton. “I built this firm for you.”
    â€œYou built it for yourself. I won’t put Peter at risk for your obsession.”
    â€œ Your obsession.”
    Charles paused. In a level voice he said, “It isn’t, now.”
    â€œThen you’re a fool. A man needs something that belongs to him, or he’s no man at all—or father.” John Carey plucked a cigar from his pocket, carefully unwrapping it to steady himself. “Do you remember Clayton Barth?”
    â€œOne of our salesmen.” Charles’s look turned wary. “He used to cover Texas.”
    â€œAnd Oklahoma.” John Carey waved his unlit cigar. “Sit down.”
    â€œWhat does Barth …?”
    â€œSit down, dammit. I won’t have you hovering like that.”
    Charles hesitated, then stubbed his cigarette and sat. John Carey lit the cigar, eyes narrow with concentration, letting the silence and the things in the room—fine Chinese vases, his smiling picture with Winston Churchill—work on his son. He emitted a long stream of cigar smoke. “It’s quite pathetic, really. He’d been with us fifteen years. The spring of the sixteenth year Barth approached me at our sales conference at the Biltmore and said he needed to talk.”
    Even now, John Carey could see the man as clearly as in a photograph …
    â€œHe was short, with frog’s eyes and a pouch for a stomach that made him wear his pants too high, and the room—the smoke and noise and larger men acting confident—seemed to shrink him even more. ‘Mr. Carey,’ he croaks, ‘I’d like a chance at that sales manager’s position that’s opened up.’
    â€œHe stood there holding his overcoat and hat in front of him, as if he were ready to leave should the idea bore me. There was no point mincing words: everything about him whispered, ‘Keep me where I am.’ ‘I’m sorry, Clayton,’ I say, ‘but you’re fine where you are. I’ve got someone for the other.’
    â€œHis shoulders slump. ‘Well, sir’”—John Carey’s voice rose in savage mimicry—“‘then I’d like permission to resign at year’s end …’
    â€œI couldn’t believe the servility of the man. Finally, I say, ‘Resign?’ and let him dangle there awhile. For the first time he interests me—I want to