The Snatchers

by Lionel White

  In the next room Red was stretched flat on his back in the sagging double bed, snoring deeply and sleeping, dreamlessly. Pearl lay wide awake at his side, curled into a tight ball and hating the big man.

  She had heard Cal Dent come upstairs and then later had followed in her mind’s eye his movements as he had stripped and climbed into bed. There was the click as he had shut off the light.

  She wanted to go in to him, but she knew that she didn’t dare. Again she thought of Red, and again she hated him. She thought of hate and that made her think of Gino, downstairs. Another rat, she reflected, but a mean, vicious one, not like Red, who was merely a big, overgrown animal.

  They were all rats, all but Dent. Fats Morn, he was probably the worst of the lot.

  Pearl finally fell asleep, mentally congratulating herself that at least she wasn’t stuck in the same house with Fats, too.

  Chapter Three

  The sun was a dull red disk riding the mist that rose from the almost flat waters of the ocean. Its opaque rays fell on the sands of the beach before the lonely cottage and died there. The air was chill and damp and nothing stirred. Only the sound of the breakers as they crashed against the shore and incessantly retreated back to sea disturbed the deadly quiet of the morning.

  The cottage itself squatted some hundred and fifty yards back from the shoreline, lonely and bleak. Its clapboard sides had been whitened by the sun and the blasting of uncountable grains of wind-born sand. Behind the cottage were the dunes.

  The low, rambling structure looked blindly at the ocean from shuttered windows. Behind the windows, closed and barred, were Terry and the child.

  Next to these twin windows, which were in a single-story wing that had been added to the building long after it had been built, was the narrow end of the original house. The architect, preferring a view to the east rather than to the south, had put the chimney at this end. The front of the house, its ground floor taken up entirely by the combination living room and kitchen, faced the east. There was a center door that divided two pairs of glassed and screened windows. The roadway led to this door. The two second-story bedrooms also had windows facing east.

  There was a circular drive in front of the cottage, and from this a pair of worn wheel tracks faded off around to the blind rear of the structure, leading to the combination garage and barn.

  It was, all in all, a poorly planned house, designed for careless weekend living rather than for comfort or convenience.

  In the rear ground-floor bedroom there were two Army cots, each covered by a pair of dirty gray blankets. The remaining furniture consisted of a well-mended old-fashioned rocking chair, two straight-backed chairs, and a small wobbly card table. A gaudily patterned linoleum rug almost completely covered the floor area. Walls were a dirty dun, with the paper peeling in several places. From the center of the ceiling an electric cord dangled a naked forty-watt bulb. The windows were all but opaque with dirt. Through them could be seen the slats of the heavy shutters, closed and barred from the outside.

  On the table were two bowls, each partly filled with the milk and dry cereal that neither Janie nor Terry had been able to finish. They had, however, emptied their glasses of frozen orange juice. Terry had been given a heavy mug of black coffee.

  An old-fashioned washbasin, with a large white pitcher, stood in one corner. There was a stringy Turkish towel over the back of one chair. A covered chamber pot stood near the washbasin.

  Terry sat on the edge of one of the Army cots and Janie stood straight between her legs. The girl was pulling a comb through the child’s straw-colored hair.

  “But Terry,” Janie said, “you should tell them I want to go home.”

  Terry Ballin’s voice was a caress as she talked with the child. Bruised and frightened, she found a new strength in trying to soothe Janie Wilton. Her voice was low and sweet, with just a trace of the accent she had brought over from Dublin three years before.

  Terry knew full well what the child was going through; she had known that lonely, lost feeling most of her life. An orphan, she had been brought up by her uncle, a man who made it a practice to get drunk and beat his wife with a deadly regularity on each week end. She herself was used to blows. She understood how Janie must feel; Janie who in the seven years of her life had known only the selfless love of an adoring and overly indulgent family.

  “Darlin’,” Terry said, her voice a whisper, “don’t you worry. Your daddy will see to it that we get back home all right. These men want money. You can be sure your daddy will give it to them. Just be a good girl now and don’t cry, no matter what happens.”

  “They can’t make me cry,” Janie said, her mouth suddenly set in childish stubbornness.

  Terry looked up, her eyes on the knob of the door as it slowly turned. A moment later it opened and Pearl stood facing them.

  “I’ll stay with the kid,” she said, not looking the girl in the eye. “You come on in the other room. They want to talk to you.”

  Terry stood up and walked toward the door.

  “Don’t leave me,” Janie said, her thin voice a near scream. She took two quick steps toward Terry.

  Pearl moved to cut her path.

  “I won’t hurt you, honey,” she said, her voice deep with that odd huskiness that usually distinguished it only when she talked with men. “You just let Pearl sit and talk with you, baby. I’ll tell you a story.”

  “I want Terry!”

  Terry Ballin turned. “Janie,” she said, and despite the caress of her tone there was a note of pleading, “be a good girl now. You stay with this lady. I’ll be back soon.”

  She closed the door behind her.

  Red and Gino, at the card table, sat facing the door. Dent stood across the room between the windows. All of them stared coldly at Terry as she entered.

  “Sit down.” Dent pointed to the ottoman.

  Terry hesitated a second, then crossed the room and sank to the couch.

  “I’m going to ask you some questions,” Dent said. “Be smart. Answer. Tell the truth.”

  Terry said nothing. She kept her eyes on Dent’s face.

  As she watched him, she was conscious of the band music coming from the muted radio. She was conscious of Gino who stared at her, his eyes black and expressionless under the brim of his hat. He sat astride a straight-backed chair, carefully cleaning his nails with the blade of a slender penknife. There was something vile about this little man with his meticulous movements, his dead white flesh, and his violent, oddly assorted features.

  Red had stretched to his feet and was leaning on the mantelpiece over the chimney. He was unshaven and the stubble stood out from the heavy flesh of his face. His hair stood like a field of red wire on his rounded head and his eyes were crinkled and good-natured under the heavy, scarred brows.

  Red took in the girl’s slender figure and rounded limbs and he felt an almost uncontrollable longing to caress her soft flesh. Goddamn it, he thought, why the hell had he ever brought Pearl in on this? If it wasn’t for Pearl, he could...

  Dent’s soft, cynical voice cut into his thoughts.

  “How long have you been with the Wiltons?”

  For a moment Terry hesitated. She would say nothing. Why, she thought, should she help them in any possible way? Why should she give them the satisfaction of answering their questions, even though the questions themselves might, to all appearances, be without value?

  “I asked,” Dent repeated, “how long have you been with the Wiltons?”

  Terry looked at the wall over his shoulder, her lips pressed together in a straight, uncompromising line. She sat perfectly still.

  Gino came to his feet; he moved with the stealth of an alley cat. The knife with which he had been cleaning his nails snapped shut and he slipped it into his pocket as he crossed the room. Before the girl had a chance to move, his right hand whipped out and he slapped her sharply

  across the mouth.

  Red moved fast and his hairy hand caught Gino by the back of his
coat. He pulled him close to his chest, a thick bare arm around the little man’s neck.

  Dent’s voice was still deceptively soft and he spoke without taking his eyes from the girl.

  “Drop him, Red,” he said. “And you, Gino. When I want her slapped, I’ll tell you about it. You can get your licks in later. Right now I’m handling the show. Get back to your chair and sit down.”

  As Red released Gino, Dent again spoke to the girl.

  “Dummy up on me, sister, and I’ll really let Gino go to work on you. It’s the kind of work he likes. Now answer me—how long you been with the Wiltons?”

  Terry opened lips still smarting from the blow. “Three years.”

  “Do you think they trust you—completely?”

  Terry nodded without hesitation. “Yes,” she said. “Completely.”

  “Trust you enough so that if we sent you for the ransom dough, they’d hand it over to you?”

  “They trust me completely,” Terry repeated.

  “Well, that’s all I wanted to know. We aren’t going to send you for the money—we have a better way of getting it. But I just wanted to know. And suppose you were to talk to Wilton or Mrs. Wilton on the phone. They’d believe anything you told them, wouldn’t they?”

  “They would.”

  “O.K., sister. Maybe you’ll have a chance to talk to them pretty soon. How’s the kid? She all right?”

  “She’s all right. But she should have some clean clothes and she should have the right food.”

  “The clothes she’s got will have to do,” Dent said shortly. “About the food, tell Pearl what you want and maybe you’ll get it.”

  Dent started to get to his feet. Suddenly he stopped, halfway up from the chair, and there was a quick, alert look on his face. He turned toward the windows in the front of the room.

  Red opened his mouth to say something, but Dent waved him silent.

  And then, a second later, they all heard it: the sound of a car engine, as the vehicle labored through the heavy sands toward the house.

  Dent moved with quiet, deadly swiftness. He reached for the submachine gun lying on the mantel as he barked out his directions.

  “Get the girl in the back room, Red,” he ordered, “and get Pearl out here. You Gino, get on the stairway. And you better have your gun handy. But for God’s sake don’t go off half cocked. Do nothing unless I make

  the first move.”

  He was across the room as he finished speaking and looking out the corner of the window toward the road.

  Hurriedly he turned back, as Red was rushing Terry Ballin through the door.

  “Jeep,” he said. “One guy. Don’t know what it is, but play it cagey.”

  Pearl hurried from the back room as Dent, the machine gun under one arm, the gin bottle and the field glasses in his hand, passed her in the doorway.

  “Cut that damned radio,” he ordered harshly. “I’ll be able to hear you, but I won’t be able to see you. Stand with your back to the door, and bang on it with your heel if it’s trouble. I’ll be ready and waiting.”

  He slammed the door behind him.

  Dropping the gun on one of the cots, Dent quickly took a roll of tape from his pocket. A second later he had slapped a strip over the frightened child’s mouth. Janie’s eyes suddenly welled with tears and she jerked to get away.

  “Tell her to lie on the bed quiet—and tell her quick,” Dent ordered Terry, who stood wide-eyed in the center of the room.

  Terry at once went to the child and whispered soothingly to her. She half covered her with a blanket and turned her face to the wall. In a moment the little girl, trembling between anger and an unrecognized fear, lay quiet. Terry stood up.

  “Watch her,” Dent snapped. He heard the rap on the outer door.

  “I ain’t goin’ to hurt you,” Red said in a low voice, walking over to Terry. “But we can’t take no chances.”

  He reached out, grabbing Terry around her slender waist. He twisted her slight body and drew her to him, so that her back was pressed to his broad body. One huge arm circled her waist and the other reached up and his large hand covered her mouth. He was careful not to cover her nose, so that she could breathe.

  Half lifting the girl off her feet, Red pulled her over beside the bed on which the child lay.

  For a second Terry attempted to struggle. She felt the big man’s arm tighten around her waist and the breath quickly collapsed in her lungs. She leaned back, her senses reeling.

  Red, his eyes on the child and waiting for the slightest sign of trouble, became aware of a new, pleasant sensation. He was conscious all at once of the girl in his arms, not as a captive, but as a woman. He released his hold slightly and his stubby chin half caressed her auburn hair. His breath came deep and hard.

  Dent crouched at the thin door, the submachine gun held lightly under his right arm. His ears were alert and he heard Pearl cross the room and lift the latch.

  “Yes?” Pearl’s throaty voice was deep and noncommittal. Dent hoped she’d have enough sense to pull her robe across her breasts, which had been half exposed when

  she had passed him in the doorway.

  The voice that answered was young and strong.

  “I wonder, miss, if you’d mind if I fished off your beach for a while. The stripers are running along here, and I’d like to throw a line in.”

  “Fish?” Pearl sounded as though she didn’t understand the meaning of the word.

  “Well,” the man’s voice went on, “you see, I’m Jack Fanwell. I live in town, but in the fall I come out this way for striped bass when they’re running. Old Mr. Albright always lets me fish his beach, but of course I know you folks have rented this place, so I just thought I’d ask if it’s O.K. first.”

  “Mr. Albright?” Pearl said, not quite able to follow. Dent cursed the girl for not remembering that Albright was the man who had rented them the cottage.

  And then Pearl was talking again. “Why, I guess so,” she said. “But let me just ask my husband.” She backed toward the door behind which Dent was concealed and she went on in a slightly higher voice:

  “Is it all right, dear, if this gentleman fishes?”

  Red was looking at Dent blankly and quickly Cal nodded to him, motioning for him to say something.

  “O.K., baby,” Red suddenly bellowed. “Sure it’s O.K. Tell ‘im to go ahead an’ fish.” He shrugged his shoulders at Dent.

  There were several more words and then the outer door again closed. A second later Dent heard the jeep’s engine.

  He nodded at Red to stay with Terry and the child and carefully opened the door and went into the living room.

  “Now, what was that all about?” Pearl asked, a bewildered look on her face.

  “Fish,” said Gino in disgust. “Who the hell ever heard of fishing in the

  middle of winter in the middle of this God-forsaken place? I don’t like it.”

  Dent didn’t like it either, but he had too much native caution to let the others know that there was any doubt in his mind.

  Lots of nuts fish,” he said shortly. “Tell me, Pearl, what did he look like? How did he act?”

  “Well, you heard him,” Pearl said. “He was a young fella, say around twenty-five or -six. Almost as tall as Red, but thin and wiry. He had curly black hair and a nice face. But he was dressed like a bum.”

  “All fishermen dress like bums,” Dent said. “Did he sound legit?”

  Pearl shrugged. “How would I know? Anybody wants to come ‘way out here for fish must be nuts. You can buy all the fish you want in the A & P.”

  Dent walked to the window and looked out. A thousand yards away he made out the jeep, pulled up near the shore. As he watched he saw the man get out and fool around for a few minutes. And then, using the powerful field glasses, he observed him climb into waist-deep waders and attach a reel to a seven-foot pole. A moment later he was standing in the surf and casting.

  “Well, he seems to handle the rod like a professional, any
way,” Dent said. “Chances are he’s on the up and up. But God, I wouldn’t know. Does Red know anything about fishing?”

  Red himself answered from the doorway.

  “Me, I like clams,” he said.

  “That’s what he knows,” Pearl said.

  Gino grunted and went to the radio.

  Dent turned from the window.

  “Pearl, get into some clothes. Get down there and talk to him. But damn it, let him do most of the talking. Sort of hint around that your husband is sick and suffering from shock and that you want to keep it as quiet around here as you can. Be sure not to let him get any information—form any suspicions. But if you can, in a roundabout way, let him know that it would be better if he were to do his fishing somewhere else. But be careful as hell.”

  Pearl nodded and started upstairs to climb into a sweater and a pair of slacks.

  Gino was back on the couch, lying with his eyes closed. Red stood at the window with the glasses, watching the fisherman, and Dent returned to Terry and the child.

  Janie sat on the side of the bed and there were tears in her wide blue eyes. Terry had just pulled the tape from her mouth.

  “It’s up to you to talk to the kid,” Dent said. “We don’t want to hurt her, but we can’t take any chances. When someone comes, we gotta be careful. Try and make her understand that. Try and make her understand that if she behaves O.K. she’ll get back to her family pretty soon.”

  Terry looked up and nodded.

  “And you,” Dent went on. “You remember one thing! You try to get away, or make any noise, and you’re dead. You wanta help this kid, just be careful and do what you’re told.”

  He turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.

  Pearl was ready to leave and Red was talking to her, his voice that of a petulant adolescent.

  “Damnit,” he said, “you don’t have to get yourself up like a Tenth Avenue chippie to talk to some dumb fisherman. You’re supposed to talk to him, not—”

  “You want I should look like some tramp?” Pearl asked, lifting her shoulder in disdain. “You think I don’t know how to dress? Why...”