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 time, 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.