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. I blew a cloud of smoke in his direction. “Not hard,” I answered, “not hard at all. I got a telephone call.”
He kept beating his fist into an open palm. “I don’t want the police involved, do you hear! This is a private matter.”
“Cool off, Doc. I’m not the police. However, if you try to keep me out of this I’ll buzz one of the papers, then your privacy will really be shot to hell.”
“Whom do you represent?” he asked coldly.
“Your chauffeur, Billy Parks.”
“So?”
“So I’d like to know why you put the finger on him when you found out your kid was missing. I’d like to know why you let them mangle him without a formal charge even being lodged, and why you’re keeping all this under your hat. And by damn you better start speaking and pretty loud at that.”
“Please, Mr. Hammer.”
A hand hit my shoulder and spun me, another came up from the side and cracked across my face. The punk said, “How dare you talk to Uncle like that!”
I let him get it out then backhanded him across the mouth with all I had. This time the other one grabbed my coat. He got a short jab in the ribs that bent him over, then the palm of my hand across his puss that straightened him up again. I shoved him away and got the punk’s tie in my hand. When I was breathing in his face I twisted on the tie until the blue started running up his neck, then I smacked him on each side of that whiskey-sodden face until my hand hurt. When I dropped him he lay on the floor crying, trying to cover his face with his hands.
I spoke to the general assembly rather than to him. “In case anyone else has ideas like that, he’d better have more in his hands than a whiskey glass.”
York hadn’t missed a trick. He looked old again. The fire left his eyes and he groped for the arm of his chair. York was having a pretty rough time of it, but after having seen Billy I didn’t feel sorry for him.
I threw my butt in the fireplace and parked in the chair opposite him. He didn’t need any prompting. “Ruston was not in his bed in the morning. It had been slept in, but he was not there. We searched the house and the grounds for him, but found no trace of his presence. I must have become excited. The first thing that entered my head was that I had an ex-convict in my employ. I called the local police and reported what had taken place. They led Parks away. I’ve since regretted the incident.”
“I imagine,” I remarked dryly. “How much is it costing you to keep this quiet?”
He shuddered. “Nothing. I did offer them a reward if they could locate Ruston.”
“Oh, swell. Great. That’s all they needed. Cripes, you got a brain like a fly!” His eyes widened at that. “These local jokers aren’t cops. Sure, they’d be quiet, who wouldn’t? Do you think they’d split the kind of reward money you’d be offering if they could help it?”
I felt like rapping him in the teeth. “Throwing Billy to the wolves was stupid. Suppose he was an ex-con. With three convictions to his credit he wasn’t likely to stick his neck out for that offence. He’d be the first suspect as it was. Damn, I’d angle for Dilwick before I would Billy. He’s more the type.”
York was sweating freely. He buried his face in his hands and swayed from side to side, moaning to himself. He stopped finally, then looked up at me. “What will I do, Mr. Hammer? What can be done?”
I shook my head.
“But something must be done! I must find Ruston. After all these years . . . I can’t call the police. He’s such a sensitive boy . . . I—I’m afraid.”
“I merely represent Billy Parks, Mr. York. He called me because he was in a jam and I’m his friend. What I want from you is to give him back his job. Either that or I call the papers.”
“All right. It really doesn’t matter.” His head dropped again. I put on my hat and stood up, then, “But you? Mr. Hammer, you aren’t the police as you say. Perhaps you could help me, too.”
I threw him a straw. “Perhaps.”
He grabbed at it. “Would you? I need somebody . . . who will keep this matter silent.”
“It’ll cost you.”
“Very well, how much?”
“How much did you offer Dilwick?”
“Ten thousand dollars.”
I let out a whistle, then told him, “Okay, ten G’s plus expenses.”
Relief flooded his face like sunlight. The price was plenty steep but he didn’t bat an eye. He had been holding this inside himself too long and was glad to hand it to someone else.
But he still had something to say. “You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Hammer, and in my position I am forced, more or less, to accept. However, for my own satisfaction I would like to know one thing. How good a detective are you?”
He said it in a brittle tone and I answered him the same way. An answer that made him pull back away from me as though I had a contagious disease. I said, “York, I’ve killed a lot of men. I shot the guts out of two of them in Times Square. Once I let six hundred people in a nightclub see what some crook had for dinner when he tried to gun me. He got it with a steak knife. I remember because I don’t want to remember. They were too nasty. I hate the bastards that make society a thing to be laughed at and preyed upon. I hate them so much I can kill without the slightest compunction. The papers call me dirty names and the kind of rats I monkey with are scared stiff of me, but I don’t give a damn. When I kill I make it legal. The courts accuse me of being too quick on the trigger but they can’t revoke my license because I do it right. I think fast, I shoot fast, I’ve been shot at plenty. And I’m still alive. That’s how good a detective I am.”
For a full ten seconds he stood speechless, staring at me with an undisguised horror. There wasn’t a sound from the room. It isn’t often that I make a speech like that, but when I do it must be convincing. If thoughts could be heard that house would be a babble of fearful confusion. The two punks I biffed looked like they had just missed being bitten by a snake. York was the first one to compose himself. “I suppose you’d like to see the boy’s room?”