The Kidnapper by Robert Bloch Read Free Book Online

eh?”
    “I’ll say! Steve, you sure know how to pick ’em.”
    “This isn’t all I can pick, either. What do you say we go out Sunday?”
    “You mean, for girls maybe?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Sure. It’s a deal.”
    And that was that. Saturday afternoon I took the car out myself, without telling him. I went for a long ride on the county trunk roads, out near the lakes. I covered every back road on the map, hit all the resort cottages.
    I was looking for something, and I found it.
    Sunday I showed Specs.
    “What did you drive way out here for?” he asked me. “You don’t want to buy no cottage.”
    “I was thinking we could rent one,” I said.
    “What for?”
    “Don’t be dense, Specs. Where do you think we’re going to take these dames of ours? What could be nicer than a little cottage like this, right here in the woods with nobody around to bother you? You bring ’em out here for weekends, parties, the works. And when we have our vacation this summer, think how nice it would be to shack up here for two weeks straight. Buy a barrel of beer if we like, a case of whiskey. Chances are, by that time we’ll both be lined up steady. If not we can cruise around, pick up a different set of babes each night. Change off. How’s that sound to you, Specs? Twenty-eight different broads in two weeks. Think you could stand it?”
    That was the way to handle Specs, all right. Just get him started thinking about women.
    “Boy, could I? Just you try me and see.”
    “Well, I’ll find out who’s renting this place and we can maybe line it up early for July, say. That’s the best month. It won’t cost much.”
    “That’s good, Steve. You know, I want to be careful with the money I got left.”
    “Sure, I forgot. You won’t be in on it, will you?”
    “In on what?”
    “Oh, that big deal I was telling you about.”
    “You didn’t tell me about no big deal.”
    “Last Sunday.”
    “Oh, how you was going to make all this dough in a hurry. You said it, but you didn’t tell me how.”
    “I had a damned good reason.”
    “You mean—?”
    “Never mind what I meant.” I drove away. “Forget it.”
    But of course he didn’t forget it, and when we went to eat and he got a few drinks in him, he started in again.
    So I worked the same line with him that I had with Mary. Only I told it just a little bit different. I left out all the names. I talked like it was all set up, and I had my people in on it. One for the inside work, and one for driving.
    He didn’t seem to get too upset about it. Not when I kept talking about the dough, and what it would buy. “Ought to be at least two hundred grand,” I said. “Split three ways. All in cash, no taxes, no trouble.”
    “That’s pretty dangerous, what you’re talking about.”
    “You know me, Specs. I never tackle anything I’m not sure of. And I’m sick of working. I don’t want to end up the way you’re going to—fifty years old with a lousy couple of grand in the bank and nothing to show for it.”
    “But we’re going to be all set this summer, I thought. And now you’ll be leaving town—”
    “Who the hell said anything about leaving town?” I asked him. “That’s the real beauty part of this job. It’s so safe nobody would ever know. There won’t be any running away, holing up someplace and waiting for the cops. It’s a foolproof scheme—I’ve been working on it for months. You wouldn’t find a setup like this in years. Why, the guy who’ll be doing the driving won’t even have to quit his job. In fact it’ll be better if he doesn’t—because nobody’ll get suspicious then.”
    I stared at him. “Specs, I got an idea. I don’t know how you feel about this, but I know how I feel. I’m only going to ask you once—and no hard feelings whichever way you answer. Would you like in on this? Would you want to drive the car, for sixty-six grand?”
    Specs looked at me. Then he picked up his glass and drank.
    “All right, Steve. It’s a