Chapter 17: The Study

Chet's POV

My father was sitting in the dark in Davis Engstrom's study with a glass of Davis Engstrom's scotch.

He had not turned on a lamp.

"Close the door, son," he said.

I closed it.

"Sit."

I sat in the wing chair by the window, and the leather was still warm from someone else.

"You've been busy," he said. "A black notebook went walking last Friday."

I said nothing.

"I knew by Saturday night. I counted the shirts."

He swirled the glass.

"I'm not angry. I'm curious. What did you think you'd do with it?"

"I don't know yet."

"That's honest." He smiled. "You always were. It's a weakness, but it makes you convincing."

He set the glass down.

"The gala is Saturday. Helen signs at nine, on the stage, in front of four hundred guests."

"And me?"

"I'd like you at June's side when the pen comes out."

"Doing what?"

"Handing her the second pen. She signs beside her mother."

He said it mildly, as if he were ordering dinner.

"A family signature, after a speech I've written. She'll love it. Women do, with you looking at them."

"And if she won't?"

"She will. You'll see to it."

He leaned forward into the window light, and I saw how tired his face was, and how well he hid it.

"You're fond of her. Good. A man who's fond is persuasive. I told you not to be, and I was wrong."

"And if I don't."

He took a folded sheet from his jacket and laid it on the arm of my chair.

The letterhead was a bank's, in Spokane.

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