"Yes.
If you had any brains at all, that's just what you'd have done.
The girl died, anyway, and your staying there didn't make any difference.
Now those goddam bastards outside want twenty thousand dollars or they'll call for the police!
You think I've got twenty thousand dollars for every bitch you plug?
This is the third girl in a year you got caught with!"
It didn't make any difference to him that the girl had died.
It was the twenty grand.
But then I realized it wasn't the money, either.
It went far deeper than that.
The bitterness that had crept into his voice was the tip-off.
I looked at him with a sudden understanding.
My father was getting old and it was eating out his gut.
Rina must have been at him again.
More than a year had passed since the big wedding in Reno and nothing had happened.
I turned and started for the door without speaking.
Father yelled after me.
"Where do you think you're going?"
I looked back at him.
"Back to L.A.
You don't need me to make up your mind.
You're either going to pay them off or you're not. It doesn't make any difference to me.
Besides, I got a date."
He came around the desk after me.
"What for?" he shouted. "To knock up another girl?"
I faced him squarely.
I had enough of his crap.
"Stop complaining, old man.
You ought to be glad that someone in your family still has balls.
Otherwise, Rina might think there was something wrong with all of us!"
His face twisted with rage. He lifted both hands as if to strike me.
His lips drew back tightly across his teeth in a snarl, the veins in his forehead stood out in red, angry welts.
Then, suddenly, as an electric switch cuts off the light, all expression on his face vanished.
He staggered and pitched forward against me.
By reflex, my arms came out and I caught him.
For a brief moment, his eyes were clear, looking into mine. His lips moved.
"Jonas – my son."
Then his eyes clouded and his full weight came on me and he slid to the floor.
I looked down at him.
I knew he was dead even before Nevada rolled him over and tore open his shirt.
Nevada was kneeling on the floor beside my father's body, McAllister was on the telephone calling for a doctor and I was picking up the bottle of Jack Daniel's when Denby came in through the door.
He shrank back against the door, the papers in his hand trembling.
"My God, Junior," he said in a horrified voice. His eyes lifted from the floor to me. "Who's going to sign the German contracts?"
I glanced over at McAllister.
He nodded imperceptibly.
"I am," I answered.
Down on the floor, Nevada was closing my father's eyes.
I put down the bottle of whisky unopened and looked back at Denby.
"And stop calling me Junior," I said.
4.