The Mike Hammer Collection - Mickey Spillane [151]
Rain started to spatter against the windshield when I turned into the drive. The headlights picked out the roadway and I followed it up to the house. Every light in the place was on as if the occupants were afraid a dark corner might conceal some unseen terror.
It was a big place, a product of wealth and good engineering, but in spite of its stately appearance and wrought-iron gates, somebody had managed to sneak in, grab the kid and beat it. Hell, the kid was perfect snatch bait. He was more than a son to his father, he was the result of a fourteen-year experiment. Then, that’s what he got for bringing the kid up to be a genius. I bet he’d shell out plenty of his millions to see him safe and sound.
The front door was answered by one of those tailored flunkies who must always count up to fifty before they open up. He gave me a curt nod and allowed me to come in out of the rain anyway.
“I’m Mike Hammer,” I said, handing him a card. “I’d like to see your boss. And right away,” I added.
The flunky barely glanced at the pasteboard. “I’m awfully sorry, sir, but Mr. York is temporarily indisposed.”
When I shoved a cigarette in my mouth and lit it I said, “You tell him it’s about his kid. He’ll un-indispose himself in a hurry.”
I guess I might as well have told him I wanted a ransom payment right then the way he looked at me. I’ve been taken for a lot of things in my life, but this was the first for a snatch artist. He started to stutter, swallowed, then waved his hand in the general direction of the living room. I followed him in.
Have you ever seen a pack of alley cats all set for a midnight brawl when something interrupts them? They spin on a dime with the hair still up their backs and watch the intruder through hostile eye slits as though they were ready to tear him so they could continue their own fight. An intense, watchful stare of mutual hate and fear.
That’s what I ran into, only instead of cats it was people. Their expressions were the same. A few had been sitting, others stopped their quiet pacing and stood poised, ready. A tableau of hate. I looked at them only long enough to make a mental count of a round dozen and tab them as a group of ghouls whose morals had been eaten into by dry rot a long time.
Rudolph York was slumped in a chair gazing blankly into an empty fireplace. The photos in the rags always showed him to be a big man, but he was small and tired-looking this night. He kept muttering to himself, but I couldn’t hear him. The butler handed him my card. He took it, not bothering to look at it.
“A Mr. Hammer, sir.”
No answer.
“It . . . It’s about Master Ruston, sir.”
Rudolph York came to life. His head jerked around and he looked at me with eyes that spat fire. Very slowly he came to his feet, his hands trembling. “Have you got him?”
Two boys who might have been good-looking if it weren’t for the nightclub pallor and the squeegy skin came out of a settee together. One had his fists balled up, the other plunked his highball glass on a coffee table. They came at me together. Saps. All I had to do was look over my shoulder and let them see what was on my face and they called it quits outside of swinging distance.
I turned my attention back to Rudolph York. “No.”
“Then what do you want?”
“Look at my card.”
He read, “Michael Hammer, Private Investigator,” very slowly, then crushed the card in his hand. The contortions in his face were weird. He breathed silent, unspeakable words through tight lips, afraid to let himself be heard. One look at the butler and the flunky withdrew quietly, then he turned back to me. “How did you find out about this?” he charged.
I didn’t like this guy. As brilliant a scientist as he might be, as wealthy and important, I still didn’t like him.