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

see what he’ll say.
    â€œHis eyes are begging me for help. ‘It’s Clayton, Jr.,’ he stammers. ‘With that sales manager’s job I would travel less. What I mean, Mr. Carey, is the boy needs me now his mother’s dead …’
    â€œâ€˜My wife died, too,’ I tell him. ‘I haven’t quit yet.’
    â€œâ€˜I know, sir. I hope you got my letter …’
    â€œâ€˜So what do you propose to do?’
    â€œHe looks embarrassed. ‘There’s a bookstore in Stillwater. I can buy half an interest if I manage it, too. I could see Clayton, Jr., at night, and I know the business …’
    â€œâ€˜Then you know how bad a business that can be.’
    â€œâ€˜Yessir.’ I can smell liquor through the Sen-Sen he’d been chewing and realize he’s shakier than last year. All at once it strikes me that he thinks the road is making him a drunk, when having a job he could halfway do was what held him together. ‘But I’m worried about little Clayton,’ he’s saying. ‘He’s gotten too inward. Spending that much time alone will twist a man …’
    â€œHis voice trails off and I wonder if he’s talking about himself. ‘You’re all right in this job,’ I tell him. ‘The boy can respect that, and you’ll make a living.’
    â€œHe keeps shaking his head with that weak man’s stubbornness. ‘It’s for the best, Mr. Carey.’
    â€œâ€˜Then you’d better resign now,’ I say. ‘I don’t want you selling with your mind somewhere else.’
    â€œHe looks pale, as if it shocks him that anything he says or does has consequences. ‘But my security … I need time to arrange things.’
    â€œI wave a hand. ‘You’ll get half a year’s severance pay and I’ll carry your life insurance for the next eighteen months. Anything else?’
    â€œHe just stares at me. Finally, he shakes his head and turns away. I watched him walk into the crowd of salesmen, looking smaller with each moment. Never saw him again.” John Carey put down his cigar, watched it burning slowly in the ashtray. “Fourteen months later the salesman’s job in Barth’s old territory opens up again and who should call me begging it back but Clayton. Even long distance his voice was slurry. His bookstore had failed, he needed a job—to support ‘little Clayton,’ of course. ‘Please,’ he kept saying, ‘I know the territory. Not just the cities, but the stores in Ardmore and Wichita Falls. I know their names …’
    â€œI cut him off. He’d lacked the sense to know the job was more than money to him, and called his stupidity love for a son.
    â€œThree weeks later to the day, my secretary brought in a copy of the life insurance policy I’d extended with a two-sentence letter signed Clayton Barth, Jr. I remember it—tight, coiled handwriting. The letter said his father had put a revolver to his forehead and pulled the trigger. I guess the boy thought I should feel guilty.” John Carey’s voice became an angry blast. “Why should I, when his own father never cared enough to show his son a man, even at the end.” The wintry smile John Carey gave was no smile at all. “Our policy excluded suicides.”
    Charles studied his father. Quietly, he asked, “Why are you telling me this?”
    John Carey stared at his cigar; it was no longer lit. “Because I don’t relish Peter having a eunuch for a father.”
    Charles looked steadily at John Carey, as if debating whether to say more. Then he shrugged. “I don’t equate leaving here with suicide.”
    â€œThere are different ways to kill yourself.”
    â€œThen think how much closer you’ll feel to Phillip.”
    The room was very still. John Carey asked, “So you no longer care whom I choose.”
    Charles’s eyes