Black-Eyed Stranger (7 page)

The eyes wavered. “I suppose such things can be. But there can be no reason—”

“Reason,” Sam laughed. “Money's enough reason. You've got money.”

“Some,” Salisbury said slowly, suspiciously. “Other men have money.”

“You're known to have money.”

“Yes, I suppose …”

“Have you got fifty thousand dollars in cash?”

The eyes flinched. “No.”

“That's too bad,” Sam said. “That's what they'll ask for.”

The man gasped, and his hands curled on the wooden surface where they had rested. The flat detail, the mention of a sum, had struck through. “Mr. Lynch,” he said honestly, “I can hardly take this in. I don't understand. Why should a kidnaper choose me and my family? I am by no means the wealthiest—”

“Ah, don't argue,” said Sam, pityingly.

“But I … I have never had the slightest connection … I'm not … We don't get into the papers. How could such people even hear of me? Hear of Kay?”

“Oh, they hear,” said Sam airily. “Then, too, the sins of the employee are sometimes visited upon the boss. It's a kind of an accident that they heard of you.”

“I don't … I don't understand you.”

“You had a watchman,” Sam bit his lip. “And when I open my mouth too much comes out,” he muttered. “Listen, don't try to understand
why.
You don't need to. It doesn't make any difference how come you were picked to be the victim. I'm telling you that you
were. She
was. Your daughter, Katherine.” Sam began to feel frantic again. “Listen, please don't argue with me. I heard it. I'm telling you. Now you've got to reckon with it.”

Salisbury pulled himself together. With a certain courage, with an effort, he was trying to fit this wild thing somewhere in his pattern. He said, “And I insist that you
do
tell me, and exactly, what it was you heard. And wait a minute. Don't go.” He brushed around the desk. He left the room.

Wants a witness, said Sam to himself, automatically. He conceded that. He looked gloomily out of the window at the heaped city and its colors, the afternoon glow on the western faces of the heaped buildings, the yellows and the tender reds and the infinite delicate variations of browns and grays. Somewhere in the lovely mass, one pin point, one sick and savage little man with a brown face and a red brain threatened these decent people in their high place. And he, Sam Lynch, knew it.

The witness was going to be Alan Dulain. Of course. Sam whirled around. He was surprised to be surprised. A muscle under his ear tightened, as his jaw cracked. His groan to himself (that he might have known) was inaudible.

Salisbury demanded order. “Mr. Lynch, will you please repeat what you just told me. And will you repeat it in all detail. Let us have, please, exactly what it was that you say you overheard. This is my daughter's fiancé. We will hear you together.”

Dulain carried his head high. He had almost a military air of being in place and correct.

Sam said, in a slow monotone, as if by rote, “I heard two men plan to kidnap Miss Katherine Salisbury. They will pick her up from the street, probably in a stolen car, probably tomorrow afternoon as she leaves this house or the Starke School, whichever is her habit, to go to her music lesson. They will either hide her alive, or they will kill her immediately. Probably the latter,” Sam said with brutal calm, “because that will be somewhat less trouble to them. They will ask at least fifty thousand dollars in ransom. That's about the whole of it.”

Alan Dulain's weight shifted. “
Where
did you hear it?”

“That's irrelevant,” Sam said.

“
Who
were the men?”

“I won't say.”

“Can't or won't.”

“Won't.”

The father braced one arm against the desk. “Alan, is this possible?”

“I suppose it's possible,” said Alan with faint contempt. “What he outlines is the classical pattern. But you must admit, Lynch, it's a little hard to accept—”

“Admit!” Sam raged. “What's the difference what I
admit?
You want a debate?”

“I'd be more inclined to credit your story if I could understand why you take the trouble to tell it.”

“Oh, no trouble,” Sam said bitterly. “No trouble, really. Happy to do it. Put my neck out for the ax.”

“
Your
neck.” Alan's lips curled. “I know a little about you, Lynch, and frankly, what I know doesn't incline me to think you a sentimentalist. Oh, I realize you must be somewhat interested in Katherine. But surely—”

“Sweet Lord!” Sam's shaking hands rose. “Why do I stand here and listen to this? Are you going to do something about protecting her? That's all I want to know.”

“You may be sure of that,” said Alan Dulain haughtily.

“I may, may I? Well, dandy! Have you got any idea, bright boy, how to protect her? Any slight notion? Or even the glimmer of what it is you've got to keep away from her?
He,
” Sam waved at the father, “hasn't. Nobody in this dream castle really believes in the seamy side. I hope
you
at least heard of it.”

“Please, please,” the father said, “no need to shout. Katherine is in no immediate danger. We must—”

“How do you know?” Sam danced with his frenzy. “Do you even know where she is, this minute?”

“Yes, of course,” the father's eye rolled.

Alan said coldly, “If it is any business of yours, she is upstairs, finishing a letter.”

“And maybe she isn't,” snarled Sam. “Maybe she changed her mind. Maybe they changed their plans. Maybe
anything!
I tell you, she is in as much danger
right now
as if the place were on fire. And what are you going to do about it?”

The father was stiff and still. Alan threw one leg over the desk corner. “I can't help wondering,” he frowned, “what is your concern. You barely met Miss Salisbury.”

Sam bracketed his temples in a stiff hand. “Look, that doesn't matter!”

“This man,” Alan swung to the father who was growing grayer, somehow, “is a pretty devious type, sir. He is a writer of so-called crime—”

“So-called!” screeched Sam. “God damn it, are you guys alive? What's the difference what I do for a living? Or what I'm doing, trying to tip you off. Can't you get it through your fat heads that right now in this town two flesh and blood men are discussing that girl and what they'll do with her when they get her?”

“That is a startling idea,” said Alan, unmoved, “but let's not be too startled to think. My point is, you simply are not the public-spirited type, Lynch, as I have reason to know. That's why I don't accept … I can't accept this … sacrifice.” His thin sharp face was cold. “I'm afraid I'd like to examine your motives a little.”

“Will you quit with the psychology!” cried Sam almost in despair. “
Listen!
”

“Yes, see here,” broke in the father. “We must be very careful that nothing like this does happen.”

“Aaaah,” said Sam on a deep indrawn groan of satisfaction. “That's right. That's it. Let me ask,” he turned hopefully to Salisbury, “have you any idea how easy it would be for them to get hold of her? Do you realize you got to lock her up? You got to have somebody with her every minute, somebody capable—”

Dulain crossed his legs. “You suggest that we, as you put it, lock up Miss Salisbury for how long?” His ankles swung.

Sam's hair stirred. “What do you want for a nickel? How do I know how long?”

“If we promise to do this, will you reveal the names of the conspirators?”

“What's this? A bargain?”

“So that the law can …” Alan hesitated.

“Can do what?”

“Act … deter …”

“You got a lot to learn about the law, sonny,” Sam said. “What kind of case you going to make out of an intuition of an intention? And don't rely on me to testify. What I could testify has holes in it, plenty. Besides I may not be around.”

Salisbury straightened. “I don't know what to make of this.” He slid into the chair behind the desk.

“Nor do I, sir.” Alan frowned.

“It is possible?
Is
he putting himself in danger?”

“I can't see how,” said Alan, “since he really isn't telling us anything.”

Sam, feeling as if his hair were rising from his head again, nevertheless took hold of himself. He tried to speak calmly. “You can't believe me and disbelieve me at the same time,” he said. “It's all one piece. I'm telling you there is a plan. I'm also telling you, if you're warned and take action and she stays safe, and
it gets known who told you,
I am liable to sudden death. Now, make up your minds. Either, I'm plain crazy, all the way through. Or I'm up here doing you one hell of a big favor. Don't forget, I'd like to be safe, too. Nothing to argue. And no bargains. Believe it all or nothing. But let me know.”

He turned his back to look blindly out the window. Behind him, he thought, eye must be crossing eye, hand signaling to hand. For the moment, he didn't care. His vision cleared, and he looked out on the glowing city and to him it was a moving, changing, clashing tangle of men, passionate and violent. And he thought to ask for safety at all was somewhat mad.

Then he heard Dulain's tenor, high and crisp. “Oh, well. A favor. What do you consider a proper reward for this … favor?”

Sam faced around, blazing, and then he closed his eyes. The dark skin around them trembled. “Well,” he said in a dead voice, “that's that. Okay. I guess you sold me the idea. To mind my own business.” He opened his eyes, not to look at them, just to see his way out of here.

“Wait a minute.”

“Get out of my way, you God-damned social worker.” Sam raised one hand. He let it fall. “She was a cute kid,” he said.

The father whimpered. “No, no, tell us. You can't go.”

“Do you believe me?” Sam asked him, almost as if this were light curiosity.

“I don't know.” The father's hand moved pleadingly, “As you say, that hardly matters. We must surely take all precautions. But, Mr. Lynch, you must see how indefinite, how impossible … And unnerving. After all, what can we do? And for how long?”

“I can see that it's unnerving,” Sam said. “I can't help it.”

“But what solution?” The gray man craved order. “Is there no way to apprehend these people?”

“No way that I know.”

“And no way to prove they exist, either,” said Alan Dulain. His face was red.

Sam's whole head was red inside.

“Unless Lynch is willing to be a little more helpful,” Dulain went on, “give us names, dates, places. At least something to check. Something besides a word of his, based on his intuition.”

Sam said, thickly, “I'll give no names. And it can't be checked. And I was never here. Excuse me for intruding.”

“Lynch.”

Sam had reached the door, somehow. He turned to the father. “Call the police. Say you've had a tip. And if you've got any charity, don't say where you got it. But first of all, get her a bodyguard. Do something. Because it won't be a kidnaping for long. It'll be murder.” Then he flung himself out of the room with an after-image of the gray stunned face on his retina.

Chapter 7

CHARLES SALISBURY clenched his hands. “What must we do? What do you think? Who is he, Alan?”

Alan was still flushed. “Told you, sir. Lynch is a cheap writer, a sensationalist. He is supposed to be on friendly terms with some very crooked people. That type. No good. Intelligent, yes, but absolutely no good.” His face grew grimmer.

“But, Kay said he was a friend.”

“My fault, sir. I took her to a place I should never have taken her and … well … they met.”

“I won't have her in contact …” began the father angrily.

“I know it, sir. I know it too well. She begged me. I thought if once she saw how cheap and flashy such a party could be—” He began to pace. “What concerns me, you see, it's possible he would know. He is just the man who might know.” Charles Salisbury's hand was on the phone. “What I do not get, is
why … why!
He is not the type to tell, sir. Now, whether Kay appeals to him … Frankly, I don't see … The place was full of flashy women. This could be a nasty kind of hoax. Lynch writes for these hideous junk magazines.”

Salisbury took his hand off the phone and clenched it again. He was a decent man and he had thought that, on the whole, his world was a fairly decent one. “I won't forgive you, Alan, if because you took Kay somewhere …”

“I can't fit it in,” said Alan. “The only thing that happened, in the fifteen minutes she was there, is that she met Lynch. I can't help wondering if Lynch is back of all of it.”

“How could that be?”

Alan shook his head. “A twisted, a devious type. God knows what he thought he might get out of you. You had no way of knowing his background. Suppose I hadn't been here?” He made this sound a serious speculation, nothing vain.

But the older man said, gravely, “Suppose his story is a bare fact and the man is acting in common decency? You dislike him. I could see that.”

“It's true, I have no patience with his type. He's intelligent, and yet, to me, he makes a mockery of the whole effort … well … of men to combine and … well … rise. For some reason he violently dislikes me. Oh, I react to that.” The blond boy smiled ruefully. “It's difficult to be fair. Meantime …”

“Yes. Yes,
what?
”

Alan reached for the phone and the book. “A guard, of course. There's a very competent firm … private investigators. I think it's imperative to have a guard. But we had better go about it as quietly as possible, sir.”