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  THE KIDNAPPER

  Steve Collins is looking for the Big Score, the crime that will set him up for life.

  He thinks he’s found it. He’s going to kidnap Shirley Mae Warren, daughter of a wealthy banker and industrialist. The $200,000 ransom will get Collins his new start.

  He can’t do it alone. He’ll need help. First, Shirley Mae’s nanny, Mary—for her, Collins is the perfect lover. Then, a driver and front man—the man Collins calls his best friend.

  The plan goes wrong. The child dies. And Collins sacrifices all—friend, lover—to save himself.

  The Ransom Demand

  It was on dime-store paper, mailed in a flimsy envelope. The letters were rubber stamps, from a kid’s printing set. The special delivery package also included Shirley Mae’s hair ribbon, as proof. But the words were proof enough.

  MR AND MRS WARREN

  GOT YOUR KID. SHE IS ALL RIGHT. BUT IF YOU EVER WANT TO SEE HER ALIVE ANY MORE DONT CALL THE POLICE. GET $200,000 CASH READY IN TENS AND TWENTIES AND DONT MARK THE BILLS EITHER. THEN WAIT FOR A PHONE CALL. WILL TELL YOU WHERE TO BRING THE MONEY BUT NO FUNNY STUFF. OR ELSE YOUR KID WILL GET HURT.

  Look for these Tor Books

  by Robert Bloch

  AMERICAN GOTHIC

  THE KIDNAPPER

  THE NIGHT OF THE RIPPER

  NIGHT-WORLD

  THE KIDNAPPER

  Copyright 1954 by Robert Bloch

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  First TOR printing: March 1988

  A TOR Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

  49 West 24th Street

  New York, NY 10010

  ISBN: 0-812-51576-5

  Printed in the United States of America

  Chapter One

  I came into town about the first of May. I took a fast ramble up from Florida and saved myself about fifty bucks. Riding freights has never bothered me any, and the extra money might come in handy if I had to lay around a while before getting a job.

  Turned out I didn’t have any trouble, though. I staked myself out in a rooming house over on Clay Street, and the first paper I bought carried a Help Wanted for tool and die makers. That’s one line where there’s always openings, and it pays pretty good. Pretty good for a working stiff, anyway.

  I went right over to Foster Brothers and they put me on night shift. A big layout they had there, doing government contract work, so it was steady. And they didn’t ask too many questions. I told them my uncle died last winter and I went down to Florida to clean up the estate. If they checked back, they’d find out about my last job, with Pitt Steel, but that wouldn’t tell them anything. What the records would show was that I quit in December. Nobody had ever tied me to the filling station job I pulled off just before I left town. So I had nothing to worry about.

  Night shift is all right for a single guy with no strings tied to him. What you do is, you get off at two a.m. and grab something to eat and go home and lay around, reading magazines or listening to the all night disc jockey shows they got on for a while. Along about four you hit the sack, and at ten in the morning you get up and you have all day free ahead of you. I didn’t go on again until five, and I could even have taken a day job if I wanted to.

  But you don’t catch me working any more than I have to. And even the night shift got me down, after a while. They had a smart aleck foreman name of Tom Cutrelli, one of those wise Dago boys—you know the type; get married at eighteen, have six kids in a row, work hard and save to buy income property. A real factory man, always bitching at us. He and I didn’t hit it off together from the start.

  The only guy I got friendly with was the one working next to me. His name was Leo Schumann, but everybody called him Specs. Little guy, about thirty, with bad teeth, and these real thick glasses. I guess he was kind of lonesome; anyway it didn’t take long before we were kidding around together. Not too much, though, because Specs wasn’t what you would call a sharp character.

  But we’d smoke in the john together, and talk, and after a week or so we’d hit some all-night eatery after work and talk some more. I found out all about it, and there wasn’t much to know. He was an orphan, and he’d been in the medics for a while until they kicked him out on account of his eyes or something. He worked up right from apprentice and saved his dough, but he didn’t know what to do with it.

  “Why don’t you grab yourself off a broad and get married?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know any, Steve,” he said.

  He called me “Steve” because that’s the name I always go by—Steve Collins—and it’s even on my Social Security and stuff. My birth certificate says Stanley Kolischek, but I never used that after I ran away from the old man. The reason was, at first, I was afraid they’d come after me for beating him up so bad. Besides, I never liked being called a Polack.

  I guess Specs didn’t like to be called Specs much, either. And it turned out he only had one problem—he needed a woman.

  Now you take me, I’ve never had any trouble along those lines. When I ran away I was fifteen, but big for my age, and I wasn’t what you would call bad-looking. Got a nice build, and I always bought nice clothes, when I had the dough for it. None of this flashy stuff. I never had to grow long sideburns and stand on the corner and make noises at pigs. There was always all the stuff I could handle, whenever I wanted it. Last winter I ended up with a dame who ran a motel north of Miami. She was all right in the hay department and she treated me good, but she’d been married before and she got so she thought she owned me; besides, I generally like them younger. So I was glad to blow out of there when the time came.

  Anyhow, Specs didn’t have any luck with broads. Oh, he went down the line regular, every Saturday and Sunday night, and being the kind of guy he was, he would shell out extra dough to a girl if he liked her. But none of the girls liked him. I don’t know what was wrong with him, really; lots of guys who look worse than Specs never seem to be hard up. But somehow, he just wasn’t the type, and it got him down.

  After we got better acquainted, he’d sit there by the hour and talk about it. What was wrong with him, why couldn’t he get to first base with the dames he saw at church on Sunday morning, why wouldn’t they go out with him? And he would ask me what it was like to live with a broad, have somebody crazy about you, whether it was different than going down the line.

  At first that kind of stuff got on my nerves, and I didn’t say much. Then, after about a month or so, I got so I talked about it a lot.

  Finally, one Saturday night, I went out with him to this place. I hadn’t been doing anything except maybe go to a few shows in the daytime, because I wanted to save some dough for next winter. I hadn’t made any real plans yet because it was too early; one thing I figured was that this time I’d be going down to Florida in style and shack up at some decent hotel instead of ratting around. So I laid off drinking and cut down on smoking and didn’t fool around.

  Only it doesn’t work out so good, not when you’re still young the way I was, and you’re used to getting it regular. Before I knew it I was just as bad off as Specs—and like I say, I ended up this Saturday by going down the line with him.

  It was a crummy place, and they had nothing but hags. By the time we got there, about three a.m., most of them were canned up, and they’d been doing a rush business for maybe five or six hours.

  Specs, he found what he wanted right away, some blonde with dyed hair and a figure like your grandmother’s broomstick. We were drinking downstairs, and two of these tomatoes were hanging around me; a fat, greasy little one that must of been Mexican or part-Indian or something, and a tall redhead. She wasn’t so bad, if you didn’t mind taking a chance. The trouble wa
s, I did mind. I got burned once that way, and let me tell you it wasn’t the kind of a thing you joke about. Don’t let anybody tell you it’s no worse than a bad cold.

  But even that greasy little one was better than nothing, and I was half-way up the stairs with her before I knew it.

  “Aw to hell with it!” I said.

  “What’s the matter, Daddy?” Jesus, I hate that, when they call you “Daddy.”

  “Nothing. Here’s a present for you.” I slipped her a five and went away, not even waiting for Specs to come down.

  I went to a tavern near the shop that’s open all night on Saturdays, and I hung one on. I spent eighteen bucks and I got good and loaded, but when I crawled in the sack Sunday morning I knew it wasn’t enough.

  I was going to have myself a woman, a real woman. Or else there’d be trouble.

  I didn’t know it at the time, but I was going to get both—that same Sunday afternoon.

  Her name was Mary Adams.

  Chapter Two

  The way it happened was I went to this movie downtown, about five o’clock. I had a hell of a headache when I got up, and I didn’t feel like eating much. So I took a bus downtown, and there was this movie.

  I went in to see it, and it was this real old one I’d seen before—the one about Houdini, some stage magician from way back. But it was in Technicolor and this sexy dish ran around in tights, and that part made me think about the way I felt. For a minute I wanted to get up and walk out again—and then this Mary Adams came in and sat down next to me.

  Of course I didn’t know her name then. The way we got to talking was during the intermission when I went out and got some popcorn and I noticed her sitting there, because the lights were on.

  She wasn’t a bad-looking dame; nice and young, about twenty, I figured, with dark brown hair and brown eyes. She was wearing a skirt and sweater and a jacket over the sweater, but I got a pretty good look at her, and what I saw I liked.

  So I asked if she would like some popcorn, and she said no, thanks, and I said well, would she go for some coke then. And she said, “You’re not drinking coke,” and I said, “I’ll fix that.”

  I went out and got two cokes and brought them back, and she gave me a kind of funny look, but she said, “Thank you,” and took a coke. And after that she had some popcorn, and we got to talking, and it was easy.

  By the time I got her dated for supper and out of there, I had all the dope. Her name was Mary Adams, and she was a maid, and she had Sundays off. Her folks lived up north someplace, but she stayed at the place she worked, out on Shore Point where all the big shots live. She was supposed to meet her girl friend at the show, but the girl friend got sick or something and called it off. So she came alone, because there was nothing else to do.

  I figured I could show her something else to do. And I played it right. All through supper I was a good little boy. With my blue suit on and all, she could of taken me for a guy who worked downtown in an office—or a bank, maybe. She was the timid kind, and I didn’t want to scare her off.

  It worked. After supper I asked her if maybe she’d like to go out dancing, and she said no, she wasn’t dressed. But I told her I knew a place where they had a juke-box and it didn’t matter.

  “Not a tavern,” she said. “I don’t go to taverns.”

  “Well, it’s a sort of tavern, yes. But mostly people just go there to dance.”

  In a pig’s hinder they went there to dance, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. I just wanted to get her inside.

  Well, we went there and we danced. I got her to switch to rum and cokes, by letting her taste mine so she could see it wasn’t strong or anything. The way the stuff hit her was something. I guess she was telling the truth when she said she never drank.

  But she was drinking now, and out on the dance-floor we were getting better acquainted every minute. At first she told me about her boy friend, some guy she used to go around with up north before she came down here to work. He was in Korea now. They used to go dancing a lot together.

  “But you know something? You’re a better dancer than Ken. He—oh, I don’t know—the way he held me, you’d think I was going to break.”

  She’d break, all right, but that didn’t stop me from holding her.

  Then I wished I had a car. That’s what cars are for, when you get ready to operate with a dame like this one who hasn’t been around.

  But I didn’t have a car.

  That was a hell of a note, because I was beginning to get the score on this Mary Adams. This boy friend of hers, this Ken, hadn’t made the grade with her. I could tell. And from her way of talking, I could see she was scared of a lot of things—drinking, and smoking, and getting picked up by strange men. Two or three times she told me, “You know, I can’t help feeling funny. I never did anything like this before.” Of course they all pull that, but with her it was true.

  Then I thought of Specs. He had this heap of his, but he never drove it much. Maybe he’d be home tonight—and he only lived three blocks away or so.

  I parked Mary down at our table and said, “Excuse me, will you? I have to make a phone call.”

  That was all right with her. So I beat it over to Specs’ and he was home, all right. I didn’t have any trouble. He gave me the keys and he wouldn’t even take the fiver I offered him.

  “Just so you bring it back before morning,” he said.

  I promised and thanked him and got out of there in a hurry. In ten minutes I was back with Mary, and in twenty I was driving her home—she thought.

  There’s a beach just before you get to Shore Point, with a big parking space. The cops don’t come around there very often at night, and I knew you could drive even further in back of the regular parking space and hit a gravel drive right inside the woods. That’s where we went.

  Even now, it’s hard for me to figure out the way I felt about Mary. I don’t go for this love crap. The big thing about a woman is the way she can make you feel, so you’re just crazy to get at her and have her. And if she’s really good, maybe you’ll keep on wanting to have her again, for a long time.

  Well, I was crazy to get at Mary, that night. But there was something else, too. She was such a big overgrown kid; she wasn’t fat, or even plump, but she had those dimples and her arms were round like a little girl’s arms, and she looked at you with her big eyes as if she didn’t know what would happen next, but trusted you. That was it. She didn’t fight me, even after she figured out what I was going to do. She just, well, surrendered. Like they say in the popular songs.

  Of course, I was seeing to it that she got her kicks, too. And that helped. But she just let go, and that was the big thing. None of this, “Please—don’t!” business. No scratching or fighting back. She just let go. And that did something to me, because I knew I had really found what I’d been wanting for a long, long time.

  The way I’ve got it figured out, there’s only two kinds of women. There’s one kind, the ordinary kind like the dame I shacked up with who had this motel. The kind who goes for you and then after a while takes you for granted. The kind who thinks she’s pretty hot stuff, and thinks everything is coming to her. That’s the kind of woman most guys marry nowadays.

  But there’s still some of the other kind, if you can find them. The kind I mean is like the kind in this song, My Man, or whatever the hell it’s called. You know, where she sings about what a sonofabitch the guy is, how he beats her and everything, but she can’t help it because she loves him.

  That’s the other kind. The best kind, for me.

  Out at Shore Point, that night, I found out what Mary Adams was. I had to hurt her, it was the first time, but she loved it.

  And that’s how I got my woman.

  Chapter Three

  Monday night, back at work, Specs started to ask me questions.

  “How come you walked out on me Saturday night?” he wanted to know.

  “You don’t catch me paying for it,” I told him. “Hell, I went downtown Sund
ay and picked me up some real stuff.”

  “You did, huh? Is that why you wanted to borrow the car?”

  “Sure. And let me tell you, that old back seat of yours really got a workout.”

  “Honest?”

  “What’s the matter with you, don’t you believe me?” I went ahead and told him all about it, then.

  “And what do you know?” I said. “I gave her my phone number at the rooming house, and this noon she was calling me up already, asking please could she come over. Could she come over? Boy, I had her up in my room right up until four, I was almost late for work.”

  “But how could she get off?” Specs asked. “I thought you said she was a maid or something.”

  “Of course she’s a maid. Works for some rich bugger and his wife, Warren, out in Shore Point. But they have this kid, see, about four years old, and Mary takes her to a nursery school. She doesn’t have to call for her until four and so she generally bums around downtown or does shopping for the family in the afternoon. Only from now on, she’s got better ways of spending her spare time.”

  “I don’t see how you do it,” Specs said. “Nothing like that ever happens to me.”

  “Things don’t happen,” I told him. “You got to make them happen. Trouble with you, you just sit around and wish. Me, I figure out a plan. You can get anything you want if you know how to go after it.”

  “All right, you guys, break it up.” Cutrelli came down the line and gave me a dirty look. I went back to work, then. I didn’t let Cutrelli bother me because I was feeling pretty good.

  It was kind of funny, in a way—me telling Specs about how you plan if you want to get something. Because he was the guy who owned the car and had a couple grand stashed away in the bank, and I was just goofing around.

  But what I told him was the truth, really. I knew it. You can get what you go after if you really sit down and figure out the right way, and then work it through. Trouble with me, up to now, was I never wanted to put in the work. But I knew I could think about a problem and come up with the answer whenever I felt like it. I always had what you call an analytical mind. I never stop thinking.