"Elrod, P N - Vampire Files 10 - Cold Streets" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elrod P N)

sadistic, torturing the victim's family with a mixture of hope and anguish kept
things even more entertaining.
The family in this case was a widowed mother who had inherited a Great Lakes
shipping business. Mrs. Vivian Glad-well, short, a little wide in figure, in her
young forties, had been content to host bridge parties for her friends and
attend church and charity events. Her only offspring was Sarah. She was
physically sixteen years old. Mentally, she would never progress much farther
than ten. She would always be a harmless, loving child. Vivian doted on her.
Two weeks ago, Sarah took her French poodle for a walk on the estate grounds,
where she always stayed inside the wall and gates. The dog had come back to the
house, but not the girl. A terse message was tied to its collar like a Christmas
tag. In block letters it said Sarah would die if the police were brought in; the
place was under watch.
My partner, Charles W. Escott, a detective for all his protest at being a
private agent, had worked for Vivian on something minor a few months ago. He was
evidently still fresh in her mind when she phoned with barely suppressed
hysteria. He told her to bring in the cops. She refused and begged for his help.
He reluctantly involved himself. He instructed her to send her chauffeur to his
house with a spare uniform and to take a long, zig-zag route.
I'd just woken up for the night, emerging from my hidden sanctuary in the
basement to find my sometime partner apparently changing trades in the living
room. He said the chauffeur would be staying over a while, then explained why.
Escott's impersonation idea was good, allowing him to gain unnoticed entry to
the Gladwell house, but the flaw in the plan jumped right out at me. While
Escott buttoned up the dark gray uniform coat and gave a last buff to his high
boots, I took the chauffeur aside for a little chat. A short bout of forced
hypnosis eased my worry that the man might be in on the crime. It wouldn't be
the first time a servant had been turned by a bribe. Escott tipped his peaked
hat in salute to my idea but showed a grim face.
"I've rather a nasty feeling I'm in over my head on this one," he said, his way
of asking for help. Until now, the only kidnapping case he'd ever dealt with had
to do with a purloined pooch he once stole back for a client.
"No problem." I got dressed, called the head bartender of my nightclub to tell
him not to expect me any time soon, and we loaded into the Gladwell Cadillac. I
invisibly smuggled myself into the house, was introduced to Vivian, and made it
my business to hypnotize all the rest of the staff on the sly. They were in the
clear, which was too bad. A solid lead would have finished things right away.
For the next two weeks, Escott remained on the estate, phoning brief reports to
me and the chauffeur just after sunset. The kidnapper called the Gladwell house
several times, usually in the middle of the night. Vivian's conversations were
short and heartbreaking, pleading for her daughter's return and to speak with
her; the muffled voice on the other end of the line hissed dire warnings against
involving the law.
The man eventually lowered his ransom demand for a million dollars to a more
reasonable hundred grand after Vivian swore she couldn't remove such a huge sum
from her bank without drawing notice, which was true. Twice she'd gone out to
hand it over. False alarms. Escott judged the apparently cruel ploy was to see
how obedient she would be, and he assured her none of it was unusual.
"I do not think we're dealing with a professional," he confided to me in
private.