The Mike Hammer Collection - Mickey Spillane [166]
Bombs thudded into the earth and threw great flashes of flame into my face and rocked my body back and forth, back and forth. I opened my eyes with an effort.
It was the kid shaking me. “Mister. Can you get up? They all ran away looking for me. If you don’t get up they’ll be back and find us. Hurry, please hurry.”
I tried to stand up, but I didn’t do too good a job. Ruston York got his arms around me and boosted. Between the two of us I got my feet in position where I could shove with my legs and raise myself. He still had on my coat, but that was all.
I patted his shoulder. “Thanks, kid. Thanks a lot.”
It was enough talk for a while. He steered me outside and up into the bushes along the trees where we melted into the darkness. The sand muffled our footsteps well. For once I was grateful for the steady drip of rain from the trees; it covered any other noises we made.
“I found your gun on the floor. Here, do you want it?” He held the .45 out gingerly by the handle. I took it in a shaking hand and stowed it in the holster. “I think you shot somebody. There’s an awful lot of blood by the door.”
“Maybe it’s mine,” I grunted.
“No, I don’t think so. It’s on the wall, too, and there’s a big hole in the wall where it looks like a bullet went through.”
I prayed that he was right. Right now I half hoped they’d show again so I could have a chance to really place a few where they’d hurt.
I don’t know how long it took to reach the car, but it seemed like hours. Every once in a while I thought I could discern shouts and guarded words of caution. By the time Ruston helped slide me under the wheel I felt as though I had been on the Death March.
We sat there in silence a few moments while I fumbled for a cigarette. The first drag was worth a million dollars. “There’s a robe in the back,” I told the kid. He knelt on the seat, got it and draped it over his legs.
“What happened?”
“Gosh, mister, I hardly know. When you pushed me away I ran out the door. The man I think you shot nearly grabbed me, but he didn’t. I hid behind the door for a while. They must have thought I ran off because when they followed me out one man told the others to scatter and search the beach, then he went away too. That’s when I came in and got you.”
I turned the key and reached for the starter. It hurt. “Before that. What happened then?”
“You mean the other night?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I woke up when the door opened. I thought maybe it was Miss Malcom. She always looks in before she goes to bed, but it wasn’t her. It was a man. I wanted to ask him who he was when he hit me. Right here.” Ruston rubbed the top of his head and winced.
“Which door did he come in?”
“The one off the hall, I think. I was pretty sleepy.”
Cute. Someone sneaks past the guard at the gate, through a houseful of people and puts the slug on the kid and walks off with him.
“Go on.” While he spoke I let in the clutch and swung around, then headed the car toward the estate.
“I woke up in a boat. They had me in a little room and the door was locked. I could hear the men talking in the stern and one called the man who was steering Mallory. That’s the only time I heard a name at all.”
The name didn’t strike any responsive chord as far as I was concerned, so I let him continue.
“Then I picked the lock and . . .”
“Wait a second, son.” I looked at him hard. “Say that again.”
“I picked the lock. Why?”
“Just like that you picked the lock. No trouble to it or anything?”
“Uh-uh.” He flashed a boyish grin at me, shyly. “I learned all about locks when I was little. This one was just a plain lock.”
He must be a genius. It takes me an hour with respectable burglar tools to open a closet door.
“. . . and as soon as I got out I opened a little hatch and crawled up on the deck. I saw the lights from shore and jumped overboard. Boy, was that water cold. They never even heard me at all. I nearly made it at that. After I jumped the boat kept