by Ed McBain
At the time of his drowning last year, Eddie still hadn’t made his first million dollars. In fact, they were still paying off a $150,000 mortgage on the house, and making monthly payments on the Jamash, and the two cars, and what suddenly seemed like far too many other things.
Long before then, Alice had given up her girlish dream of making movies that would win all the prizes.
When she gets back to the house, a faded maroon Buick is parked in the driveway behind her sister’s black Explorer. The police, she thinks. A maroon Buick. Gee, fellas, what took you so long?
“I had to let them in,” her sister explains. “They have badges.”
“Sorry to bother you again,” Sloate says.
He is here with Marcia Di Luca, who has already made herself at home behind the monitoring equipment, sipping a cup of coffee Alice assumes her sister prepared.
“Long time no see,” Alice says.
She cannot quite hide the enmity she feels for these people.
“Let me fill you in,” he says. “To begin with—”
“To begin with,” Alice says, “they know you followed them.”
“How do you—?”
“The woman called me,” Alice says. “They know a maroon Buick followed them. Is that the car outside?”
Sloate makes a sort of helpless gesture.
“Even so,” he says, “the bills are marked. We feel certain someone will spot the serial numbers and call us.”
He now explains that genuine hundred-dollar bills are printed in so-called families, with serial numbers starting with different letters of the alphabet, but that the super-bills supplied for the ransom drop are all A-series bills, and they all bear the identical serial number, which happens to be A-358127756.
“Once the perps try to cash any of those bills,” he says, “someone will spot that number.”
“How is anyone going to…?”
“We sent out a list to every merchant and bank in the state,” Sloate explains, almost apologetically.
“Nobody looks at serial numbers.”
“We’re hoping they will.”
Alice shakes her head. She is at the mercy of nitwits. She is in the hands of total incompetents.
“What else did she say?” Sloate asks. “When she called?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Please, Mrs. Glendenning.”
“She said they had to check the money.”
“And?”
“She said the kids were okay. She said they just needed a little time.”
“Anything else?”
“Nothing.”
“Didn’t inadvertently say anything about where they might be holding the children, did she?”
“Nothing,” Alice says again.
“Well,” Sloate says, and sighs heavily, which Alice finds somewhat less than reassuring. “Let’s get ready for her next call.”
This time, a so-called plan is in place.
This time, Alice knows exactly what she is to say to the black woman when she calls. If she calls. Alice is not at all sure she will call. How long does it take to “check” $250,000 in hundred-dollar bills? Whatever that’s supposed to mean, “check” them. Count them?
Well, you can count twenty-five hundred bills, that’s what they came to, in ten, fifteen minutes, can’t you? Half an hour? An hour tops? So what’s taking them so long? Have they discovered the bills are fake? Will they kill the children because the bills are fake? If anything happens to the children…
“Nothing will happen to them,” Sloate assures her. “Please, Mrs. Glendenning, don’t worry.”
But Alice can’t stop worrying. She still believes these people are more interested in catching whoever’s holding Jamie and…
Well, that isn’t quite true.
Certainly, they want to get the kids back safe and sound. But in addition to a rescue operation—and she has to think of it as that— they also want to capture the “perps,” as Sloate keeps calling them, and this is the farthest wish from Alice’s mind. She does not give a damn who has the children, does not give a damn if they’re ever caught. She wants her kids back. Period.
Apparently, they have located the blue Impala.
“Our techs are going over the car right this minute,” Sloate tells her. “If we get some good latents, we’re halfway home.” He hesitates and then says, “There was a red cap on the backseat of the car.”
He shows her the cap now. It is in a sealed plastic bag with an evidence tag on it. It is indisputably the cap Jamie left at home Wednesday morning, the one she took to him later. His lucky hat. Which means he was in that blue Impala sometime during the past three days.
“What we can’t understand,” Sloate says, “is why the kids would’ve got in a car with a strange woman.”
Alice is thinking there are a lot of things Sloate can’t understand. She looks at the clock. It is now a quarter to one, and still no call. If they abandoned the car, have they abandoned the children as well? Are Jamie and Ashley now sitting alone in some apartment or some house waiting for…?
Or…
God forbid…
No!
She won’t even think that.
The telephone rings.
Her heart leaps into her throat.
“Pick it up,” Sloate says. “Remember what we said.”
Marcia Di Luca is putting on her earphones.
Alice lifts the receiver.
“Hello?” she says.
“Alice?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Rafe. How’s it going there?”
“Where are you?”
“On the road. Just thought I’d—”
“Carol’s here, did you know that?”
“Yes. That’s why I’m calling.”
“Hold on. Carol?” she says. “It’s Rafe.”
“Rafe?” Carol says, surprised, and takes the receiver from her sister. “Hi, honey,” she says into the phone. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes, fine. I’m just calling to see how you are. I called home last night, found out you were heading down.”
“I figured Alice could use a hand.”
“Bet she can,” Rafe says. “Fact, I was thinking of stopping by there again myself. You think that’s a good idea?”
Carol covers the mouthpiece.
“He wants to come by,” she tells Alice.
“Where is he?”
“Where are you, hon?”
“Just over the state line. In Alabama.”
“Alabama,” Carol tells her sister.
“Who’s that?” Sloate asks.
“My husband.”
“Tell him to save it for another time,” Sloate says. “We’re busy here.”
“Rafe, it’s not a good time just now,” Carol says.
“Whatever you say. Give her a hug for me, okay? Tell her I hope this all works out.” He hesitates a moment. “Has she heard anything more from them?”
“No, not yet. Rafe, I have to get off the phone. We’re hoping—”
“Wish you’da told me you were coming down to Florida.”
“Wish I’da known where to reach you,” Carol says.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“No, Carol, what’s it supposed to mean?”
“Rafe, I have to go now,” she says.
“We’ll talk about this when we get home.”
“Yes, good-bye, Rafe,” she says, and hangs up.
“Everything all right?” Alice asks.
“Yes, fine,” Carol says.
But Alice knows it isn’t.
The clock bongs one o’clock.
And they still haven’t called.
She doesn’t want to hear her sister’s troubles.
She wants the phone to ring, that’s all.
But they are in the kitchen now, brewing a fresh pot of coffee, and Carol takes this opportunity to unburden herself. The door is closed; all those law enf
orcement geniuses out there can’t hear what they’re saying.
“I think Rafe’s running around on me,” Carol says, flat out.
Alice remembers Rafe’s comment about Jennifer Redding after she drove off in her red convertible. She says nothing.
“I’ve had the feeling for a long time now.”
Alice still says nothing.
“He’s gone so much of the time, you know,” Carol says.
“Well, that doesn’t means he’s—”
“Oh, I know, I know. It’s his job, after all…”
“It is, Carol.”
“But he never calls when he’s on the road.”
“That doesn’t mean anything, either.”
“This is unusual, his calling now.”
“Well, if you think… why don’t you just ask him about it?”
“No, I…”
“Ask him flat out. ‘Rafe, are you cheating on me?’”
“I don’t think I could do that.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t think I could.”
Alice looks at her sister.
Carol turns away.
“What is it?” Alice says.
“There are the kids,” Carol says, and suddenly she’s weeping. She puts her head on Alice’s shoulder. Alice holds her close. The kitchen is silent except for Carol’s soft sobbing. In the other room, Alice can hear the law enforcement people talking among themselves. This is a nightmare, she thinks. At last, her sister nods, moves away from her. Drying her eyes on a tissue, she says, “I’m all right, it’s okay.”
“Leave him,” Alice says. “Kids or not.”
“Would you? If Eddie was still alive, and you found out he was…?”
“In a minute,” Alice says.
“Did he ever?”
“Never.”
And the telephone rings.
She snatches the receiver from the phone on the wall. She doesn’t give a damn if anybody out there in the living room is trying to trace the call or not. They haven’t succeeded so far, and she has no reason to believe they ever will.
“Hello?” she says.
“Alice, it’s Andy Briggs.”
“Hi, Andy. What’d you find out?”
“Well, Garland is closed today, but I spoke to a man named Farris, at home, asked him if he knew anything further about a settlement on Eddie’s policy. I told him word had it that a check had already been sent out. He said as far as he knew the matter was still pending.”
Alice nods silently.
“Alice?”
“Yes, Andy.”
“I still think we should wait till the beginning of June. If nothing happens before then, we’ll start an action.”
“It’s just that these people…”
“Yes, what’s that all about, Alice? I mentioned to Farris that some people seemed to have inside information, but he said he didn’t know how such information could have come from Garland since ‘the matter is still pending,’ his favorite expression. Who are these people? And where’d they get their information?”
“Well, they may be wrong,” Alice says.
“Apparently so. Be patient, okay? We’ll resolve this, I know we will.”
“Yes, I’m sure,” she says. “Thanks, Andy.”
“Any time,” he says, and hangs up.
She puts the receiver back on the wall. Outside, she hears the sound of a car pulling up. She looks out through the kitchen window. It is the mail truck.
The mailman greets her as she comes out the back door and walks up the path to the mailbox. He comments on the hot weather they’ve been having, and she agrees it’s been awful, and then he gets back into his truck. Next door, Mrs. Callahan waves to her as she comes out to her own mailbox.
“Morning, Mrs. Glendenning!”
“Morning,” Alice says.
Everything as normal.
Except that her children are gone.
She leafs through the envelopes. Nothing from Garland. Inside the house again, she goes through the mail more thoroughly. A bill from Florida Power and Light…
“Anything from the perps?” Sloate asks.
The perps.…another from Verizon. A third from Burdines. Two pieces of junk mail, both soliciting subscriptions to magazines she’s never heard of. But nothing from Garland. And nothing from the perps, either, no.
“Nothing,” she tells Sloate, and the phone rings again. Sloate grabs for the earphones.
Alice glances at the grandfather clock.
One twenty-five.
She picks up the receiver.
“Mrs. Glendenning?” he says.
She recognizes the voice at once.
“Yes?”
“Has the mail come yet?”
“Yes, it has.”
“Is the check there?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sure it’s on the way,” he says. “I’ll call again Monday.”
“Mr. Angelet…”
“I’ll call again Monday,” he repeats, and hangs up.
“Who was that?” Sloate asks.
“A friend of Eddie’s.”
“What check was he asking about?” Sloate wants to know.
“A check he says he mailed.”
“A check for what?”
“He owed my husband some money.”
Sloate looks at her.
She senses that he knows she’s lying.
But she doesn’t care.
10
Christine is almost afraid to break the news to him.
There is something very frightening about this man.
He’s never hit her or anything like that, he’s not a violent man, although you never can tell with the ones who look as delicate as he does. Once, back when she was still living in North Carolina, she used to date this Latino who looked like a stork, he was that slender and dainty. Actually, he was dealing dope, but that was another matter. The point is, the minute she started living with him, he began batting her around. “What’re you gonna do?” Vicente used to ask her, that was his name, Vicente. “Call the cops?” No, she didn’t call no cops. She just left. Fuck you, Vicente.
The situation is very different here. Christine knows she could never end this relationship, even if he ever did hit her, which he better not try, but she’s not afraid of that, really. He’s never hit her yet, and they’ve been together—what? It must be almost three years since they met, and a year since he cooked up this scheme of his, she can still remember the day he told her about it, she thought he was crazy. That intense look in his eyes, that’s the word for him, she guesses, intense. Everything about him is so fucking intense, man. You can almost feel him vibrating sometimes.
She thinks maybe the reason she’s afraid to tell him what she’s discovered is that this whole idea was his to begin with, and now he may think she’s trying to muscle in on it, come up with an idea of her own, you know? That was one of the things used to get Vicente in a rage all the time, her coming up with ideas of her own. It’s like these delicate guys have to prove they’re not as feminine as they look, so they put you down whenever you try to express yourself. And if dissing you doesn’t work, there’s always the fists, right? They can always give you a black eye or a bloody lip. That hasn’t been the case here yet, but she’s a little gun-shy, she has to admit, of somebody who so perfectly fits the Vicente profile of profound passion in a slight body.
He hasn’t yet asked her why she’s back so late.
All she was supposed to do this morning was ditch the Impala and rent a new car, which she did without any trouble. But going to the bank to break down the hundreds into smaller bills was her idea, not because she suspected any of the bills were counterfeit but only because cashing a big bill in a shitty little town like Cape October could become a hassle.
He’s watching television when she comes in.
The kids are locked in the forward stateroom of the boat. She doesn’t ask him how the kids are. Truth be known, she doesn’
t give a shit about the kids. Now that they’ve got the money, all she wants to do is turn the kids loose and get the hell out of here. A quarter of a million dollars can take them anywhere. Stop playing hide-and-seek with the locals here. Go to Hawaii or Europe or the Far East, wherever. Go someplace where a black woman and a white man with blond hair won’t attract the kind of attention they do here in Crackerland.
But she still has to tell him about those three queer bills, and her idea about the rest of the money.
“Where’ve you been?” he asks.
“Here and there,” she says, and goes to him and kisses him on the cheek.
“Did you get the car?”
“A red Taurus.”
“Can’t wait to see it,” he says, and gets up to give her a hug, flicking his long blond hair as he rises. His hair was short when they met three years ago, made him look more butch. She doesn’t dare tell him he looks a bit faggoty with the longer hair, which he didn’t start growing till after all this started, even though they moved out of town where nobody could possibly recognize him.
“I missed you,” he says. “What took you so long?”
“I bought some things,” she says.
“Uh-oh,” he says, but he’s smiling.
“Want to see them?”
She puts the Victoria’s Secret shopping bag on the kitchen table. He’s already recognized it, his eyes are already dancing. He may look like a pansy, but man, the opposite is true when it comes to reaction and performance, you know what I’m saying? She removes the boxes from the bag one by one, stacks them on the table. She shows him the push-up bras in the black hydrangea and the cheetah print. She shows him the leopard-print low-rise thongs. He rubs the fabric between his forefinger and thumb, as if he’s testing one of the hundred-dollar bills. She shows him the red sequin-lace baby-doll nightgown. He especially likes the black lace garter belt.
“I’ll wear it for you tonight,” she says.
“How about now?” he asks.
“We have to talk,” she says.
“What about?”
“I also bought a television set. It’s in the car.”
“A television set? What for?”
“Cost me nineteen hundred bucks.”
“What? Why’d you spend…?”
“To test the bills.”
He looks at her.