by Lionel White
“Any other course than this will lead to disaster. For your benefit as well as the benefit of the persons you hold prisoner, I plead with you to follow these instructions.
“You have until eight o’clock this morning to reach a decision.”
Fats turned from the window and laughed.
“Yeah—safe custody. Opportunity to consult our lawyers. Why, goddamn it, they’d tear us limb from limb. We wouldn’t have a chance in hell.”
Dent nodded. “They want to dicker,” he said. “That’s good. At least they know the spot they’re in, as well as the spot we’re in. One thing, you notice he didn’t say what they’d do if we didn’t give up. That’s the kicker in the whole thing. That’s what’s got ‘em stopped. They’d threaten if they dared to threaten. But by God, if we can’t get out, at least they can’t get in!”
Gino put his head around the door. “They can starve us out,” he said.
Dent laughed. “Don’t be a damn fool. They can’t starve us without starving the kid. You think they’re going to let her suffer?”
“Cops,” Gino said. “Cops! Sure they’d let her suffer. They’d let her die. They don’t care, just so they get us.”
“You’re a fool,” Dent said. “You might, but they wouldn’t. Remember, everybody in the country is in on this one. This time the cops got to act human. Don’t forget, the Wilton family carries a little weight, too.”
“Cal’s right,” Fats said. “Whatever they do to us they’re doing to the kid. Shoot at us, and they’re shooting at the kid. Use tear gas on us, they also use it on the kid.”
“It isn’t only that,” Dent said. “They could use the gas on us and figure to revive the kid once they broke in. Except for one thing: They’d be afraid we’d kill the kid before they ever got here.”
“Afraid?” Gino said. “They could bet on it!”
Dent looked at him coldly. “Better get back to the window,” he said.
At five-forty-five they turned on the floodlights.
The suddenness of it brought Dent whirling from where he was standing, by the fireplace. A sawed-off shotgun was in his hand as he reached Fats’ side.
There must have been at least two dozen of them, and apparently the police had sneaked around on all sides of the cabin to place them in the dark.
The concentrated light was blinding in its intensity. It was as though the beach cottage had suddenly been transplanted to the center of Yankee Stadium during the middle of a night ball game. Outside the cottage, and for a distance of a hundred yards in every direction, it was as light as though the sun were at its zenith. Beyond the lights was the gloom, sparkled with hundreds of pin points of light where cars had drawn up a mile or so away from the cottage.
Gino rushed in from the other room. “Hell,” he said, “what’s this?”
“Floodlights,” Cal said. He was quick to recover his wits. “Nothing to worry about.”
“I can get ‘em,” Gino said. “I can pick ‘em off, one by one.” He lifted the rifle with the telescopic sight.
Quickly Dent pushed the barrel toward the floor.
“Don’t be a fool. So you pick them off and what good is that? It’ll soon be daylight anyway. Let them have their lights. It’s better for us, anyway. At least no one can come within shooting distance without being seen. So what difference does it make? It changes nothing. We couldn’t get away anyhow, and they still can’t get in here.”
Gino turned and went back to the other room. As he went his eyes fell on Terry and Janie, lying under a blanket on the couch. There was a mean look about his mouth.
Terry had dozed off in a fitful sleep and the sudden flash of lights had brought her wide awake. Janie stirred restlessly in her sleep. Terry tightened her arm about the child and lay still. She listened as the others talked.
Upstairs, Red leaped off the bed as though he had been shot. He shook his head like a fighter who had taken a left jab to the jaw. And then, without looking out the window, he staggered toward the stairway and started down.
Pearl, too, came wide awake. She had only just fallen asleep, but as the room was suddenly bathed in illumination, her large blue eyes opened wide and she lay dead still, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. It took her a minute or so to realize where she was. And then, believing only that she had been sleeping and had awakened after sunup, she turned restlessly and put one arm over her face. A few moments later she was gently snoring. One stocking was torn and she hadn’t bothered to remove her high-heeled shoes.
Gino was back at the window by the time Red lumbered into the room. Red yawned deeply and said, “What the hell?”
Fats turned and stared at him.
Dent shrugged his shoulders. “Floodlights.” He said it quietly.
“Yeah,” Red said. “My side hurts,” he added. “I should have a doc.”
“You’re lucky to be alive,” Dent told him. “You lost some blood, but I don’t think you have to worry. Anyway, there won’t be any doctors for anyone. You’re more likely to need an undertaker. We’ll make up some breakfast and you’ll feel better.”
Fats talked over his shoulder and told Red about the broadcast. Red nodded, but he wasn’t quite sure what it was all about.
“Cal,” he said, after looking out the window intently for several minutes, “how the hell we gonna get outa this one?”
“Leave it to me,” Dent said. “Peel some spuds and I’ll get the coffee going.”
“Whyn’t we have the dames do it?” Red asked.
“Leave ‘em sleep,” Dent said. “I don’t want ‘em around till we need ‘em.”
He went over to the sink and washed out the coffeepot.
The sun came up just after seven o’clock and quickly burned off the mist. The floodlights were extinguished and Dent went to the window with the field glasses. His breath came fast as he looked.
The police had done a swift and efficient job of it. There must have been at least fifty patrol cars that he was able to see. Sandbag barricades had been placed at strategic points. Dent noticed two men, several hundred yards off, stringing wire. He figured they were putting up a loud-speaker system. Far off across the dunes Dent saw what looked at first like a black cloud. He readjusted the glasses.
“My God,” he said. “There must be fifty thousand people out there.”
Fats, at his side, laughed. “They’ll be putting up hot-dog stands next.”
“They’re keeping ‘em well away,” Dent said. “I guess they figure there can still be a little gunplay.”
“There still will be,” Fats said, “if they start moving in.”
Gino looked in from the other room. “So what happens at eight o’clock?” he asked. “What happens then, when we don’t give up the kid?”
“I start negotiating,” Dent said. “The first thing I want is some food.
I want some more medical supplies. I want some whisky.”
Red looked at him with his mouth open. “What for, for God’s sake?” he said. “We want out, don’t we?”
“Yeah, we want out. But we got to plan it. It isn’t going to be good enough to get out. I got to figure some way to get out and get at least a running start.”
“They ain’t gonna give you no start at all,” Gino said.
“Yes, they will,” Dent said. “As soon as they’re sure we won’t give up and that we won’t give up the kid, they’ll start listening to reason. You’ll see.
“Let’s have the breakfast,” Gino said. “Better bring mine back here.”
It was during the seven-thirty news broadcast that the police released the information that they knew the identity of Cal Dent. They had found his fingerprints on the submachine gun abandoned at Land’s End Tavern. They correctly guessed that he was the ringleader. Eyewitness descriptions of Fats tallied with the officials’ original suspicions and they properly tagged him as a definite member of the gang.
Pearl and Red were still being referred to as Mr. and Mrs. Mason. Up to this point, they had no
idea how many more persons constituted the mob. The fact that Pearl had mentioned a brother-in-law convinced them that there was at least one more person involved.
“They know everything,” Gino sneered as the broadcast finished. “The only thing they don’t know is how to get the kid back.”
As soon as Red had finished his breakfast, Dent sent him into the back room to take Gino’s place. He walked over then to Terry and shook her by the shoulder. Terry looked up at him. Her face was very pale.
“Take the kid and get in the other room,” he said.
Terry nodded and stood up. She awakened Janie, who had slept through the last few hours as quietly as though she were in her own bed at home.
Terry started to shut the door, but Dent ordered her to leave it open. A few minutes later he heard Red and the child talking in whispers.
As the hour hand approached eight, everyone in the room felt an increased sense of nervousness. Even Dent wasn’t sure. Eight had been set as the deadline. He wondered what the next step would be.
At five minutes before the hour, Pearl came downstairs. Her lipstick was smeared and there were blue smudges under her eyes. The flesh of her cheeks was tight and without colon She looked more dead than alive.
Dent, wanting to prepare her for whatever was to happen, quickly told her about the broadcast.
As Pearl drank a cup of coffee, Dent watched the police cars through the field glasses. He noticed sudden activity up and down the line. Most of the policemen and officials were carefully keeping out of sight. Activity seemed to center around a large truck with a pair of loud-speakers on its roof.
They had all been expecting it, but when the sounds suddenly burst on the clear morning air, everyone in the room jumped. The voice came from the sound truck.
“It is three minutes to eight, Dent,” the voice said. “In exactly three minutes we want you to start coming out of that door. Come out in single file with your hands in the air.”
Red was still in the back room with Terry and Janie, but Gino and Fats and Pearl stared at Dent. Dent himself walked over to the mantle. He
took out a pen and a piece of scratch paper. Carefully he wrote:
“We want six more hours. The child and the girl are unharmed. If you want to keep them that way, don’t rush us and don’t make a wrong move.”
He folded the paper several times and inserted it in the neck of an empty Coca-Cola bottle.
“Bring the kid in,” he said.
No one moved.
“Fats,” Dent said. “Get the kid in here.”
Fats went to the back room and a moment later returned with Janie Wilton.
Janie looked frightened.
“Listen,” Dent said. “You are going to walk out on the porch with me. Then I am going to throw this bottle. Then we’re coming back in. Don’t cry and don’t call out to anyone.”
He took Janie by the arm and for a second tears started to come to her eyes. Terry stood in the doorway watching, fright heavy in her face.
“Don’t take her,” she said suddenly. “Don’t. God, haven’t you done enough?”
“Shut up,” Dent said. “She won’t be hurt unless someone fires—and they won’t.”
Janie was wide-eyed as Dent opened the front door. Fats and Gino each sat at a front window, guns tucked under their arms. Pearl and Terry stood together near the center of the room, breathlessly watching. Red stood in the doorway between the two rooms. He muttered under his breath.
Dent leaned low and held the child in front of him as he opened the door. He pushed Janie out and stood directly in back of her.
“I’m throwing a message,” he yelled. “Have one man come and get it. We won’t shoot.”
A second later his arm came up and he flung the bottle away from him.
“One man, unarmed,” he called. “More than one and we shoot.”
He quickly backed into the room, pulling Janie after him.
Both Pearl and Terry let out a long, deep sigh. Janie suddenly began to cry, and Terry hurried her into the back room. Red followed them.
There was no movement for several minutes, and then a lone man carefully stepped from behind one of the police cars. He had stripped off his jacket and was in his rolled-up shirt sleeves. Carefully holding his arms well out from his sides, he walked toward the house. Watching him through the field glasses, Dent could see the beads of sweat on his forehead as he came up to the point where the bottle had landed in the sand.
The man reached down and picked it up. He was half running as he returned to the police line.
“What good is that?” Fats asked. “So what, we got a little time.”
Dent swung on him, anger in his voice. “Listen,” he said. “We need time. We gotta have time. We gotta figure some safe way out of this. We must plan every last detail. Another thing, I wanted to see just how far we could go. What they’d do once they had me in their sights. I proved one thing, if nothing else. They’re not going to take any chance on the kid’s getting hurt. That’s what I wanted to find out and I found out. We’re holding the cards in this game; the trick now is how well we play them, For that I need time.”
“Time!” Pearl screamed the word. “Time to die, that’s what you’ll get. That’s what we’ll all get. I want to get out of here. I don’t care what they do to me. I don’t want to be shot.”
She sat down suddenly on the couch and started to cry.
“For God’s sake, somebody get her upstairs,” Dent said. “I’m trying to think.”
Chapter Twenty-two
They had talked it over for hours, but they still hadn’t got anywhere.
Fats still held out for what he considered the simplest and safest plan. He wanted to use Janie and Terry as hostages, get into the Packard, which still stood some fifteen feet from the front door, and make a run for it.
“One thing would be sure,” he said. “They’d never dare shoot so long as we had the girl and the kid with us. At least we’d have a chance to get away from here.”
“What, with a flat tire, for God’s sake?” Dent said. “You think they’re going to just sit there and watch us change it?”
“It would get us out of here and we can jack the first car we come to,” Fats said. There was no conviction in his voice.
“No,” Dent said. “No, we wouldn’t even get a good start. Do you see that mob out there? Do you realize that they’re more dangerous than all the police in the country? The cops will stay clear of us as long as we have the kid. But once let that mob start running wild and nothing on God’s earth would be able to stop them.”
“There’s no answer,” Gino said. “For me, the best answer is to stay right here and shoot it out. We can’t get away, so let’s take as many of
‘ern with us as we can.”
Pearl, sitting on the couch and staring at the floor, looked up at Gino, fear deep in her eyes.
“Give up and take our chances,” she said. “Give up, while we’re still alive.”
“And spend the rest of our lives behind bars? The hell with that,” Red said. “We’d be lucky to get life. I think Fats has the right idea.”
“None of you are thinking,” Dent said. “There must be an out if we can only figure it. Let’s break it down this way: Getting out by car is fine, up to a point. But it’s too big a gamble. There is also the sea and there is the air as possibilities.”
“You expect them to supply us a boat?” Gino asked. “Don’t make me laugh.”
“They could,” Dent said. “Only trouble is, there’s no way a boat could land in this surf. No, a boat is out.”
“And where do we get another plane?” Fats asked.
Gino sneered. “Dent,” he said, “you’re crazy. You think those cops are going to help you make a break? You think—”
“Listen,” Dent interrupted. “Right there I think you got it. I think that’s the very angle we have to play. So we can’t figure an out—well, let’s let them figure an out. Let’s put it up to them for a
change. We got the kid and they want the kid—unhurt. We want to make a clean getaway—also unhurt. All right, we’ll just send them a note and tell them to figure out the angle.”
“They’ll never play ball,” Fats said.
“What have we got to lose?” Dent asked. “Nothing. If it don’t work, we can always try your idea. We can always try for a getaway using the kid as a shield.”
“And we can always shoot it out,” Gino said, “when that don’t work.”
“We’ll try it my way,” Dent said. “I’ll get a note ready.”
Pearl had been watching the men as they talked and she suddenly stood up. She walked over toward Dent.
“Cal,” she said. “Cal, let me take the note over. I can’t help here any more. I want to give up. I want to get out of here. I don’t care what they do with me. I can’t take any more of this.”
“You’re nuts, Pearl,” Red said, speaking from the doorway leading into the other room. “For God’s sake, sit down. Ain’t nobody gonna leave here.”
Dent looked at the girl thoughtfully. He was thinking, Why not? What harm could it do, letting her go? God knows, it was going to be hard enough for the rest of them to make the break. If she wanted to give up, what difference would it make? He stood up and started toward Red.
“So what?” he said. “So maybe...”
Suddenly Pearl realized that every eye in the room was on Dent. In that split second, her nerves finally gave way completely. There was an insane look on her face as she quickly turned and reached for the latch to the front door. She pulled it open. She was half crying and half screaming as she started running.
Red was the first to realize that she was making a break for it. He pushed Dent aside and was out of the door like a streak.
“Pearl! Come back, Pearl!” he yelled as he stumbled across the porch, his hand out to grab her.
Fear, hysteria, whatever it was gave her a sudden insane strength. In a burst of energy, she ran like some wild thing.
Dent had reached the door and stopped. As he watched he saw that Pearl was going to outdistance Red. But Red wasn’t turning back. It was as Dent swung the door closed and turned back into the room that the crash of the Tommy gun cut the sudden silence.