“I wonder if it’s safe,” I said.
“The house?” Inga asked.
“To drink the water.”
Nobody in the backseat laughed, but I caught Evalyn’s tiny smile in the rearview mirror. That dry wit of mine again.
As we drew nearer to the house, I could see that its windows were boarded up.
“Looks deserted,” I said, pulling up near the garage and stables in back. This surprised me, because she’d said the phones would be working.
“It is deserted, virtually,” she said. “There’s an elderly caretaker I’ve kept on.”
“Does he like growing weeds?” Inga asked sarcastically.
“The place does look a little raggedy,” Evalyn said to her maid, “but winter hasn’t quite left us. Gus’ll tend to things in due time, I’m sure.”
Inga grunted. She was very pretty, in a peasanty sort of way, but she was sour; the kind of woman whose time of the month was all month.
I helped the mistress and her maid out of the car—Inga wore her black-and-white uniform under a simple wool overcoat, while Evalyn wore a mink coat over a dark brown angora frock trimmed white, her belt white, her beret brown with a white band. I got the suitcases, including my traveling bag, out of the trunk; there were four bags, all of which I managed to carry. Neither woman made a move to help me, including waiting for me to put the bags down so I could open the side door, which was unlocked. Evalyn had called the caretaker in advance.
But that didn’t mean anything homey was waiting for us. We moved from the smallish kitchen through the big, dark, cold house where only the occasional piece of furniture remained, in every case shrouded with a sheet. The air, was stale, musty, but the house wasn’t dirty; caretaker Gus had done some work. The bedrooms were on the second floor. The third floor was closed off.
Evalyn did not allow me to switch on any of the lights.
“Means’s instructions,” she said, “as per the kidnappers’ orders, are that lights are forbidden. The idea is that Far View should continue to look unoccupied.”
“Cold in here,” Inga said, patting her arms, though still in her overcoat.
“The furnace isn’t in working order,” Evalyn said.
“The fireplaces are,” I said.
She waggled a jeweled finger. “Means said not a single light—including the fireplaces.”
“Where is Means?” I asked.
“He said he would come,” Evalyn said. “Let’s go to the kitchen. Inga, see if you can whip something up for us.”
Inga grunted.
We huddled around the wood-burning stove—which Evalyn permitted us to get going—and I held a flashlight for Inga, who morosely prepared a meal that did not include Maurice’s filet of sole with Marguery sauce or his patented parfait. Canned pork and beans was the extent of it; that and coffee. But it tasted fine to me. Evalyn seemed satisfied by the fare, as well—though I had a feeling it was the evening’s main course that she found filling: intrigue.
We were sitting drinking coffee, shivering despite the blankets around us Indian-style, when the lights of a car coming up the driveway slanted through the cracks of the boarded-up windows.
Several minutes later a big man—both tall and fat—entered; he wore a dark heavy topcoat, under which a blue bow tie peeked, and a homburg, which he immediately removed, revealing himself to be nearly bald. He had a flashlight in one hand. He clicked the flashlight on and held its beam under his chin.
“It’s me,” he said. “Hogan.”
Gaston Bullock Means had a puckish smile and a deeply dimpled baby face. Washed with the flashlight light, that face was at once sinister and benign.
Then the light was suddenly in my face; I squinted into it, grinding my teeth, remaining servile.
“Who’s this?” Means said.
“My chauffeur,” she said. “His name is Smith. I’ve just hired him.”
“Nobody’s name is Smith,” Means snapped.
“Look in a phone book,” I said, pulling my head out of the light. “You’ll find you’re mistaken.”
He dropped the beam to the floor, where it pooled whitely. “His credentials are sound, Eleven?”
Evalyn, a.k.a. Eleven, said, “Indeed.”
“All right, then,” he said to me, grandly, “henceforth you’re Number Fifteen.”
Inga spoke up, huffily. “I thought I was Number Fifteen.”
“Ah, yes…that’s right. Smith—you’re Number Sixteen.”
“Swell.”
He walked over to Evalyn, but did not sit, though there was an extra chair immediately handy. “Can I speak candidly in front of these people?”
Sure he could—we had numbers, didn’t we?
“Yes,” Evalyn said. “I brought only this skeleton staff, as per your request.”
“Good. Good.” He snapped off the flashlight and sat. He was an enormous man, as big as the wood-burning stove. “I have good news for you, Eleven. The Fox was waiting for me when I got home last night.”
“The Fox?” she asked.
“My old cellmate. The leader of the kidnap gang. The Fox. That’s how his men know him.”
The bad guys had their own code names, too, it seemed.
Means leaned forward conspiratorially. “He asked me if I had the ransom money. I told him I did. I told him to wait outside until I made sure my family was asleep, and then I would let him in, and let him see his money.”
I probably shouldn’t have spoken up, but I did. “Wasn’t that foolish?” I asked.
“Foolish?” Means looked at me as he might regard a buzzing fly.
“Foolish,” I said. “What was to keep him from stealing the money?”
He lifted his chin nobly. “The Fox was my cellmate. There is such a thing as honor among thieves!”
No there isn’t.
“Oh,” I said.
“I took him downstairs, to the basement, and took the cardboard box of money from its hiding place and piled the bills on a table. I let him examine them for himself. He was pleased right off the bat that the denominations were small and the bills old and worn, the serial numbers nonconsecutive. In other words, Eleven, the Fox is convinced that you’re going to play fair. He counted the money twice, and was delighted to find it totaled precisely one hundred thousand dollars.”
I spoke again. “Where’s the money now?”
“No longer in my home,” Means said irritably. “Locked in a safe, pending further developments.”
“Inga,” Evalyn said, sensing Means’s growing irritation with me, “get Mr. Means some coffee.”
Inga did.
“That’s ‘Hogan,’ Eleven. Always Hogan.” Means sipped his coffee with great satisfaction, saying, “We should have delivery of the book any day now. As soon as the Fox and his people are convinced the police are not watching us.”
“The book?” I asked.
“The baby,” Evalyn reminded me.
Means looked at me sharply; his eyes, which usually twinkled Santa Claus-style, narrowed and grew colder than the room, and the room was an icebox. “You ask a lot of questions for a chauffeur,” he said.
“I used to be a cop,” I said.
Evalyn blinked.
“Mrs. McLean thought,” I said, “her new chauffeur ought to be something of a bodyguard, as well as a driver, considering current circumstances.”
“I see,” Means said, his puckish smile returning, but his eyes remaining ice-cold. “And where were you a police officer?”
“You ask a lot of questions yourself, Hogan,” I said.
Means looked at me with bland innocence. “It’s the way I learn things, Fifteen.”
“I’m Fifteen,” Inga said crabbily.
“I’m Sixteen,” I said. I smiled at him. “And never been kissed.”
He beamed at that. “I like you, Sixteen. I really do. We’re going to be great friends.”
“That’s peachy. Have you seen the baby?”
“No—but by tomorrow this tim
e, with God’s help, we all will.”
Evalyn splashed coffee from the cup in her hand.
“Or the next day,” Means said, with a shrug. “The Fox promises delivery soon.”
“What about the money?” I asked.
“What money?”
“That’s code,” I said, “for one hundred thousand dollars ransom in a cardboard box.”
“Oh, yes,” Means said. “I’ve told the Fox he will not receive his booty until the book is safely in Eleven’s arms.”
“And he accepts those terms?” I asked.
“Certainly. He trusts me implicitly. I was his cellmate, remember.”
Means stood; he was as big as a grizzly bear, and every bit as dependable. “I leave you to your vigil.”
With that, and a tip of his homburg before placing it on his big bald head, Means slipped out into the cold night, where the wind howled, shaking the brittle trees like a faithless wife.
19
The furniture in my corner room was sparse—bed, nightstand, small table, dresser. There were faded places on the wallpaper where framed photos, paintings, mirrors or whatever had once hung. Wind rattled the boarded-up windows, fighting to get in, somewhat successfully. Cozy it wasn’t, but the bed had clean sheets and sufficient blankets, so I thanked God and Gus the caretaker for small favors. I stripped to my underwear—wishing I’d worn long johns—and settled in. I had a lot on my mind, but it had been a long, strange day, and sleep took me quickly.
I awoke just as quickly, when—how long after, I’m not sure—my door creaked open and a small female figure stood there; light from the hall made a shapely silhouette through a sheer nightgown, a nicely top-heavy silhouette that I recognized, even sleep-dazed, as Evalyn’s.
“Nate,” she whispered. “Are you awake?”
“Sure,” I said, sitting up. Actually, I was awake—the kind of wide awake you can be when you’re startled into it.
She shut the door and the room went nearly black. I could barely make her shape out in the darkness; she was standing next to me, next to the bed, but I sensed her more than saw her. For one thing, she smelled good, cloaked in a perfume that suggested night-blooming jasmine. Then light flashed—a match—as she lit a red candle on my nightstand, a nightstand incidentally that bore no lamp.
In the flickery light from the candle, she stood before me with her beautiful breasts outlined under the sheer black nightgown, their rosy tips staring at me like wide eyes. Speaking of which, Evalyn’s eyes were themselves round and staring—in a pale, haunted face.
“Nate,” she said, “forgive me for this intrusion.”
I threw back the covers. “You’re forgiven.”
She climbed in bed and I threw the covers back up over her, and me. She was shivering.
“You’ve caught a chill,” I said.
“No,” she said.
“What is it then?”
“You’ll think I’m foolish.”
“No I won’t.”
“I…I was in bed, almost asleep. I heard footsteps on the stairs. I wondered who might be coming up. First I thought it might be Inga, but the sounds went right by Inga’s room and came toward mine.”
She pulled the covers around her, tighter. I slipped my arm around her; she was trembling like a frightened deer.
“As they…they reached my door, these footsteps, they stopped. I thought that any moment, whoever it was would enter my room. I thought, perhaps, it was you…after last night, perhaps a midnight rendezvous….”
“I haven’t been out of my room, Evalyn.”
She nodded, as if she knew that already. “Across from my room is a doorway to the stairs to the third floor—which is shut off. I don’t even know where the key is. I heard footsteps going up those stairs. Then I heard the footsteps above me. Above the ceiling of my room.”
“Maybe it’s Inga.”
“I don’t think so. I got up, went into the hallway. The third-floor door was locked.”
“It wasn’t me up, wandering. You don’t think Means doubled back, for some reason?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. The caretaker doesn’t live on the grounds; he has a little place in Bradley Hills. Why would he be stalking around?”
“If you’re concerned…”
“It could be one of the kidnappers, checking us out, couldn’t it?”
“It’s possible.”
She turned to me; her eyes were as frightened as they were lovely. “Can I stay with you tonight?”
“You talked me into it. What about Inga? Are you concerned about what she might think…?”
“I have no secrets from Inga. Could we block the door?”
I told her we could; I got out of bed, moved the dresser in front of the door, and got my nine millimeter out of my travel bag and put it on the nightstand.
“Slide over,” I told her. I wanted to be next to the gun.
She slid over. “I’m a damned fool.”
“This house would give Frankenstein the willies.” I climbed in bed next to her. “Look, it could’ve been your imagination. You might’ve been dreaming, or hearing night sounds…”
“It is a noisy night.”
“Sure. Why don’t you get some sleep?”
“Hold me, would you, Nate? Hold me.”
I held her.
“Don’t blow out the candle,” she said.
“I won’t.”
“Why do you put up with me?”
“I like women with big money and big breasts.”
“You’re terrible.”
“You really think so?”
“No.”
The wind shook the windows, boards and glass alike; she grabbed me. She was terrified. So I kissed her, just to settle her down. It led to more.
“You must think I’m terrible,” she said, later.
“Not at all.”
“You think I’m shallow. You think I’m silly.”
“Sure. But not terrible.”
She laughed; it was a husky laugh. “I’m getting old, Nate. These breasts of mine are starting to droop.”
“Not that I can see. Anyway, I’ll be glad to lift ’em for you—anytime.”
“You. You.”
I kissed her again. She seemed to have forgotten about her kidnapper or ghost or whatever-it-was making footsteps in the hall and above the ceiling. Or had she invented that to find a way into my room, without looking “terrible”?
“That’s an ominous-looking thing.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.
“I mean the gun.”
“Oh. Well, ominous is a good way for a gun to look.”
“Have…have you ever killed anyone with it?”
“Yes. I killed a kidnapper not so long ago. That’s why Lindy thinks I’m a prince.”
“You talk about it so…casually.”
“I’m not really casual about it, Evalyn. I don’t ever mean to use a gun casually. That gun of all guns….”
“What about that gun?”
I didn’t say anything.
“What is it, Nate?”
“Evalyn, I…nothing.”
“What?”
“Well. Look, I’ll be frank with you. I might’ve dismissed you as a silly, shallow woman, if it weren’t for some of what you’ve been through. If you don’t mind my saying.”
“Such as?”
I swallowed. “Losing your son.”
She touched my face.
I touched her face.
She said, “You lost somebody, too, didn’t you?”
I nodded.
“Nate…are you…?”
I wiped my face with my hand; the hand came away wet. “No. Sweating. These blankets.”
“Who, Nate? Who did you lose?”
And I told her. I told her slowly, and in detail, about my father. About what I’d done to make him use my gun on himself. About how I carried that gun so I wouldn’t forget.
“But I do forget sometimes,” I admitted. “Lif
e and death are cheap in this lousy goddamn world. Particularly in this lousy goddamn depression.”
“I’m not by nature contemplative,” she said, hugging my arm, staring into the near-darkness. “But the thing I wonder about most is why the universe is geared so to cruelty.”
I kissed her forehead.
The wind was settling down, now; it was making a whistling, almost soothing sound.
“Why don’t you tell me about your son? Tell me about your little boy.”
She did. For perhaps an hour, she told me of her “sweet and preternaturally wise” little boy. Little Vinson was the only ghost in the house, as the candle burned down and night turned to morning, and he was not a sinister presence.
A few hours later, the footsteps in the hall and the thought of ghosts seemed foolish to us as we went down for breakfast. Evalyn was wearing a casual black-and-white frock; I’d been allowed to abandon the chauffeur’s uniform for one of my two suits. Inga was fixing bacon and eggs—Gus the caretaker had dropped off some fresh supplies, it seemed—and the smells of the food and the morning were refreshing.
But Inga seemed even gloomier than usual.
We sat at an unpretentious square table in the kitchen as Inga served us our eggs and bacon and toast with a side order of bloodshot, black-circled eyes.
“My dear,” Evalyn said to the maid, “you must have had a dreadful night!”
Inga said nothing.
“Serve yourself, dear,” Evalyn told her, “and join us.”
Sullenly, Inga did. Her blonde hair hung in strings as she poked at her food. Suddenly she looked up, her eyes as wide and haunted as Evalyn’s had been when she entered my room the night before.
“Madam, if it is just the same to you, could I please change my room tonight?”
“Why, dear?”
“Somebody kept pulling the sheets off my bed every time I went to sleep.”
“Inga,” I said, “is there a lock on your door?”
“Yes—and I used it.”
“And your windows are boarded up, like mine?”
“Yes.”
Evalyn leaned forward, her blue eyes piercing. “You mean to say, Inga, that someone pulled the sheets off your bed when you were alone in the room, with the door locked and the windows boarded up?”
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