Free Friends till the End by Gloria Dank Page B

again.”
    “Sounds dangerous to me.”
    “What?”
    “This particular combination of people proved fatal the last time,” Freda said dryly.
    “Oh,
Freda
.”
    “All right, all right, I’ll be there. Eddie won’t, though.”
    “No?”
    “I haven’t seen him since the police went round and talked to him,” Freda said. She sounded almost amused. “Do you think it’s something in his past?”
    “Oh. I’m sorry.”
    “I’m not. Not at all. See you Sunday.”
    If Freda had seemed reluctant. Walter Sloane was downright insulting.
    “Don’t be such an ass, Heather,” he said over the phone. “No. I’m not coming.”
    “But Walter, the
whole point
is that—”
    “I don’t care. Listen to me, Heather. One of my so called friends tried to kill me. If you think there’s any way I’m ever going to be in the same room with any of them again, you’re wrong. That includes you and Harry. I don’t know who did it, or why, but I’m no fool. Frankly, this invitation makes you two seem like the prime suspects.”
    He banged the phone down.
    “Charming as always,” said Heather out loud. She waited, then redialed the number.
    “Walter?”
    “What is it now?”
    “Linus has something he wants to say to you.” She handed the phone to the five-year-old and whispered in his ear.
    “Uncle Wally?” said Linus. “Why aren’t you coming to Mommy’s party?”
    Heather could not hear the reply.
    “I wish you’d come,” said the little boy. “Why won’t you come see us?”
    He listened for a minute.
    “Okay. Okay, I’ll tell Mommy. What? Okay. Bye, Uncle Wally.”
    Heather took the phone.
    “Heather,” rasped Walter’s furious voice, “that was low. That was really low.”
    “Walter, it’s important to me that you come to this party. It’s for you, really. You and Isabel and Richard. We’re not just your friends, you know. We’re family. It’s important that everyone not be afraid to get together again. Can’t you see that?”
    “I hope you’re satisfied,” he snarled. “I’ll be there. One o’clock sharp. But I’m not
eating
anything.”
    He slammed down the phone and Heather sat back with a satisfied smile. She looked at her youngest child.
    “Uncle Wally is angry,” said Linus. “He’s always angry, isn’t he, Mommy?”
    “Yes, dear.”
    Linus toddled off and she sat musing on human relationships. Here was Walter Sloane, the feared, the terrible; and he was mere putty in the hands of a five-year-old boy. It had been that way since Linus was born. He and Walter had taken to each other immediately. Linus called him Uncle Wally and sat on his knee and talked to him with the unselfconscious chatter of a child; and his doting Uncle Wally brought him presents and toys and got down on his hands and knees to play with him. No one could understand it. Walter had never been particularly close to his own children. Yet with Linus it was different. Linus expected him to be his friendly Uncle Wally, and to everyone’s surprise, for the duration of each visit he was.
    “That was low,” Walter had told her; “really low.” Well, perhaps it was. But she did want him to be at her party. Smiling, she took out a note pad and began to make a list of things she would need.
    “There’s a letter here for you,” Maya told Snooky.
    “For me?”
    “Yes. It’s from William.”
    “Oh,
hell
.” Snooky picked it up gingerly. “Not another letter. How does he know I’m here? Who told him?”
    “I did.”
    “Traitor Foul traitor.”
    “He called the other day and asked me whether I knew where you were. I told him you were in my living room.”
    “What did he say?”
    “He made a kind of strangled sound and said he was sorry to hear that.”
    Snooky opened the letter and read it with increasing despondency. Maya sipped her coffee and watched him.
    “What does it say?”
    “The usual. When will I get a job? How long do I think my share of our parents’ estate will last? And so on. He says at