I raced the engine outside the house and cut it. If that didn’t wake everyone in the house the way I slammed the door did. Upstairs I heard a few indignant voices sounding off behind closed doors. I ran up the stairs and met Roxy at the top, holding a quilted robe together at her middle.
She shushed me with her hand. “Be quiet, please. The boy is still asleep.” It was going to be hard on him when he woke up.
“Just get up, Roxy?”
“A moment ago when you made all the noise out front. What are you doing up?”
“Never mind. Everybody still around?”
“How should I know? Why, what’s the matter?”
“York’s been murdered.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. For a long second her breath caught in her throat. “W . . . who did it?” she stammered.
“That’s what I’d like to know, Roxy.”
She bit her lip. “It . . . it was like we were talking about, wasn’t it?”
“Seems to be. The finger’s on Myra Grange now. It happened in her apartment and she took a powder.”
“Well, what will we do?”
“You get the gang up. Don’t tell them anything, just that I want to see them downstairs in the living room. Go ahead.”
Roxy was glad to be doing something. She half ran to the far end of the hall and threw herself into the first room. I walked around to Ruston’s door and tried it. Locked. Roxy’s door was open and I went in that way, closing it behind me, then stepped softly to the door of the adjoining room and went in.
Ruston was fast asleep, a slight smile on his face as he played in his dreams. The covers were pulled up under his chin making him look younger than his fourteen years. I blew a wisp of hair away that had drifted across his brow and shook him lightly. “Ruston.”
I rocked him again. “Ruston.”
His eyes came open slowly. When he saw me he smiled. “Hello, Mr. Hammer.”
“Call me Mike, kid, we’re pals, aren’t we?”
“You bet . . . Mike.” He freed one arm and stretched. “Is it time to get up?”
“No, Ruston, not yet. There’s something I have to tell you.” I wondered how to put it. It wasn’t easy to tell a kid that the father he loved had just been butchered by a blood-crazy killer.
“What is it? You look awfully worried, Mike, is something wrong?”
“Something is very wrong, kid, are you pretty tough?”
Another shy smile. “I’m not tough, not really. I wish I were, like people in stories.”
I decided to give it to him the hard way and get it over with. “Your dad’s dead, son.”
He didn’t grasp the meaning of it at first. He looked at me, puzzled, as though he had misinterpreted what I had said.
“Dead?”
I nodded. Realization came like a flood. The tears started in the corners. One rolled down his cheek. “No . . . he can’t be dead. He can’t be!” I put my arms around him for a second time. He hung on to me and sobbed.
“Oh . . . Dad. What happened to him, Mike? What happened?”
Softly, I stroked his head, trying to remember what my own father did with me when I hurt myself. I couldn’t give him the details. “He’s . . . just dead, Ruston.”
“Something happened, I know.” He tried to fight the tears, but it was no use. He drew away and rubbed his eyes. “What happened, Mike, please tell me?”
I handed him my handkerchief. He’d find out later, and it was better he heard it from me than one of the ghouls. “Someone killed him. Here, blow your nose.” He blew, never taking his eyes from mine. I’ve seen puppies look at me that way when they’ve been kicked and didn’t understand why.
“Killed? No . . . nobody would kill Dad . . . not my dad.” I didn’t say a word after that. I let it sink in and watched his face contort with the pain of the thought until I began to hurt in the chest myself.
For maybe ten minutes we sat like that, quietly, before the kid dried his eyes. He seemed older now. A thing like that will age anyone. His hand went to my arm. I patted his shoulder.
“Mike?”
“Yes, Ruston?”
“Do you think you can find the one who did it?”
“I’m going to try, kid.”
His lips tightened fiercely. “I want you to. I wish I were big enough to. I’d shoot him, that’s what I’d do!” He broke into tears again after that outburst. “Oh . . . Mike.”
“You lay there, kid. Get a little rest, then when you feel better get dressed and come downstairs and we’ll have a little talk. Think of something, only don’t think of . . . that. It takes time to get over these things, but you will. Right now it hurts worse than anything in the world, but time will fix it up. You’re tough, Ruston. After last night I’d say that you were the toughest kid that ever lived. Be tough now and don’t cry anymore. Okay?”
“I’ll try, Mike, honest, I’ll try.”
He rolled over in the bed and buried his face in the pillow. I unlocked his door to the hall and went out. I had to stick around now whether I wanted to or not. I promised the kid. And it was a promise I meant to keep.
Once before I made a promise, and I kept it. It killed my soul, but I kept it. I thought of all the blood that had run in the war, all that I had seen and had dripped on me, but none was redder or more repulsive than that blood I had seen when I kept my last promise.
CHAPTER 5
Their faces were those that stare at you from the walls of a museum: severe, hostile, expectant. They stood in various attitudes waiting to see what apology I had to offer for dragging them from their beds at this early hour.
Arthur Graham awkwardly sipped a glass of orange juice between swollen lips. His brother puffed nervously at a cigarette. The Ghents sat as one family in the far corner, Martha trying to be aloof as was Junior. Rhoda and her father felt conspicuous in their hurried dressing and fidgeted on the edge of their chairs.
Alice Nichols was . . . Alice. When I came into the living room she threw an eyeful of passion at me and said under her breath, “’Lo, lover.” It was too early for that stuff. I let the bags under my eyes tell her so. Roxy, sporting a worried frown, stopped me to say that there would be coffee ready in a few minutes. Good. They were going to need it.
I threw the ball from the scrimmage line before the opposition could break through with any bright remarks. “Rudolph York is dead. Somebody parted his hair with a cleaver up in Miss Grange’s apartment.”
I waited.
Martha gasped. Her husband’s eyes nearly popped out. Junior and Rhoda looked at each other. Arthur choked on his orange juice and William dropped his cigarette. Behind me Alice said, “Tsk, tsk.”
The silence was like an explosion, but before the echo died away Martha Ghent recovered enough to say coldly, “And where was Miss Grange?”
I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.” I laid it on the table then. “It’s quite possible that she had nothing to do with it. Could be that someone here did the slaughtering. Before long the police are going to pay us a little visit. It’s kind of late to start fixing up an alibi, but if you haven’t any, you’d better think of one, fast.”
While they swallowed that I turned on my heel and went out to the kitchen. Roxy had the coffee on a tray and I lifted a cup and carried it into Billy’s room. He woke up as soon as I turned the knob.
“Hi, Mike.” He looked at the clock. “What’re you doing up?”
“I haven’t been to bed yet. York’s dead.”
“What!”
“Last night. Got it with a cleaver.”
“Good night! What happens now?”
“The usual routine for a while, I guess. Listen, were you in the sack all this time?”
