The Mike Hammer Collection - Mickey Spillane [220]
“Yes, I know.” Her eyes filled up suddenly and she half ran to me, her arms folding me to her.
Behind us there was a startled little gasp. I swung, pushed Roxy away from me, then grinned. Ruston was standing there in his pajamas, his face a dead white. “Mike!” he started to say, then swayed against the doorjamb. I walked over, grabbed him and rubbed his head until he started to smile at me.
“You take it easy, little buddy . . . you’ve had it rough. How about letting me be the only casualty around here? By the way, where is Billy?”
Roxy answered. “Dilwick took him downstairs and is making him stay there.”
“Did he get rough with him?”
“No . . . Billy said he’d better lay off or he’d get a lawyer that would take care of that fat goon and Dilwick didn’t touch him. For once Billy stood up for himself.”
Ruston was shaking under my hand. His eyes would dart from the door to the window and he’d listen attentively to the heavy footsteps wandering down in the rooms below. “Mike, why did you come? I don’t want them to see you. I don’t care what you did, but you can’t let them get you.”
“I came to see you, kid.”
“Me?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why?”
“I have something big to ask you.”
The two of them stared at me, wondering what could be so great as to bring me through that army of cops. Roxy, quizzically; Ruston with his eyes filled with awe. “What is it, Mike?”
“You’re pretty smart, kid, try to understand this. Something has come up, something that I didn’t expect. How would you like to point out the killer for me? Be a target. Lead the killer to you so I can get him?”
“Mike, you can’t!”
I looked at Roxy. “Why not?”
“It isn’t fair. You can’t ask him to do that!”
I slumped in a chair and rubbed my head. “Maybe you’re right. It is a lot to expect.”
Ruston was tugging at my sleeve. “I’ll do it, Mike. I’m not afraid.”
I didn’t know what to say. If I missed I’d never be able to look at myself in the face again, yet here was the kid, ready and trusting me not to miss. Roxy sank to the edge of the bed, her face pale, waiting for my answer. But I couldn’t let a killer run around loose.
“Okay, Lancelot, it’s a deal.” Roxy was hating me with her eyes. “Before we go over it, do you think you can get me something to eat?”
“Sure, Mike. I’ll get it. The policemen won’t bother me.” Ruston smiled and left. I heard him going down the stairs, then tell the cop he was hungry and so was his governess. The cop growled and let him go.
Roxy said, “You’re a louse, Mike, but I guess it has to be that way. We almost lost Ruston once, and it’s liable to happen again if somebody doesn’t think of something. Well, you did. I just hope it works, that’s all.”
“So do I, kid.”
Ruston came running up the stairs and slipped into the room, bearing a pair of enormous sandwiches. I all but snatched them out of his hand and tore into them wolfishly. Once, the cop came upstairs and prowled past the door and I almost choked. After he went by, the two of them laughed silently at me standing there with my rod in my hand and the remains of a sandwich sticking out of my mouth.
Roxy went over and pressed her ear to the door, then slowly turned the key in the lock. “I suppose you’ll leave the same way you came in, Mike, so maybe that’ll give you more time if you have to go quickly.”
“Gee, I hope nothing happens to you, Mike. I’m not afraid for myself, I’m just afraid what those policemen will do. They say you shot a cop and now you have to die.”
“Lancelot, you worry too much.”
“But even if you find out who’s been causing all the trouble the police will still be looking for you, won’t they?”
“Perhaps not,” I laughed. “They’re going to be pretty fed up with me when I bust this case.”
The kid shuddered, his eyes closed tightly for a second. “I keep thinking of that night in the shack. The night you shot one of those men that kidnapped me. It was an awful fight.”
I felt as though a mule had kicked me in the stomach. “What did you say?”
“That night . . . you remember. When you shot that man and . . .”
I cut him off. “You can get off