He Took Me to Catch the Rat, But the Rat Was Him novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: The Night Before
We did not go to the station.
Phelim kept my father three days in the brick twin in Mayfair, as his guest, with a man on the front step.
On Tuesday night, the tenth, a taxi stopped on Cumberland Street at half past eight.
I was alone in my mother's front room with the lamp on, and I heard the cab door shut.
Then I heard slow steps on the stoop, and a knock that was not quite a knock.
I opened the door on a thin man in a Florida golf shirt and a parka.
He stood on my mother's porch with his hat in his hands.
He was tanned and gray, and he had gotten small.
"Sweetheart," said my father.
"I think you've got the wrong number, Dad," I said.
"You've got the right address, though."
His face crumpled, and he laughed once, a wet, cringing sound I remembered from the kitchen when the rent was late.
"You always had your mother's mouth," he said.
"Can I come in? It's cold, and I walked the last four blocks."
"Phelim's men let you walk?" I asked.
"I told them I wanted to see the house."
"They'll be on the corner in a minute," he said, and looked over his shoulder.
I let him in, because I wanted to see him sit in my mother's kitchen.
He sat at her table in his parka with his knees together.
He looked at the afghan on her chair and at the apron on its hook.
He looked at the saucer of her good china on the shelf.
He did not look at me.
"Phelim's been good to me," he said.
"He's put me up, he's fed me."
He plucked at the brim of his hat.
"He says if I kneel tomorrow and say I made that call, the Table will let me fly out Thursday."
"Ten thousand, and I never come back."
"Say you made what call?" I asked.
"The one to the cops, sweetheart."
He wiped his nose on his knuckle.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Took Me to Catch the Rat, But the Rat Was Him are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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