by Ed McBain
THREE DETECTIVES from the MCU arrived at Capshaw Boats at twenty to eleven that morning. Meyer and Kling were waiting dockside for them. They hadn’t yet boarded the Hurley Girl because they didn’t know how many, if any, rampant prints the perps may have left aboard her, and they didn’t want to mess up anything for the technicians. The chief tech, a Detective/First named Carlie…
“For Charles,” he explained.
…Epworth listened attentively while Kling told him that a Harbor Patrol Unit vessel had stopped two males and a female on the boat right here an hour or so before the abduction last…
“What’s her name again?” Epworth asked. “The vic?”
“Tamar Valparaiso.”
“Never heard of her,” he said. “Is she supposed to be famous or something?”
“Supposed to be,” Meyer said.
“Never heard of her,” Epworth said again.
“Anyway, it was only the two males who boarded the River Princess, is the name of the launch she was taken from. So we figure the female stayed behind on the boat here, at the wheel. And maybe she left some latents. On the wheel, is what I’m saying. The two males were wearing gloves, but they were up to no good. So maybe the female was more relaxed and got careless.”
“Okay,” Epworth said.
“Is just a suggestion,” Kling said.
“Wearing gloves when they boarded the launch, you mean, right?”
“Yeah, right, when they did the deed.”
“But maybe they took them off when they were on their way home, is another possibility,” Epworth said.
“Opportunities are running rife,” Meyer said.
“Might turn out to be my lucky day,” Epworth said, grinning. “What’d you say that launch was called?”
“The River Princess.”
“I think I saw a file on her back at the office.”
“Anybody get anything yet?”
“I don’t know. It was on another desk.”
“Cause this case is getting a lot of play, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“The papers, the media.”
“You gonna need us here?” Kling said.
“Leave me your card. I’ll get back one way or another.”
“We won’t be back in the office for a few hours,” Kling said. “Possible witness we’ve got to see.”
“To what? The snatch?”
“We’ve got a hundred and twelve of them.”
“Bold mother-fuckers, weren’t they?”
“Depends how you define it.”
“I didn’t say ‘brave,’ I said ‘bold.’ ”
“That they were. So when do you think you’ll be done here?”
Epworth looked at his watch.
“One, two o’clock, in there,” he said. “Depends on how clean she is.”
“We should be back home by then.”
“I’ll find you, don’t worry,” Epworth said. “Are the Feds in this yet?”
“Not yet,” Kling said.
“But you said it’s getting a lot of play, right?”
“Right.”
“They’ll come sniffing, you can bet on it,” Epworth said, and opened the gate on the Hurley Girl’s transom entry, and signaled to his crew. “Anybody been aboard her yet?” he asked.
“Just the possible perps,” Meyer said.
“Makes it easy then, don’t it?” Epworth said, and grinned.
CARELLA was sound asleep when Lieutenant Byrnes called him at twelve-thirty that Sunday. He waited a respectable four rings before remembering that this was Fanny’s day off and Teddy was taking the twins to the park, and then hastily yanked the receiver from its cradle.
“Carella,” he said.
“Steve, it’s Pete.”
“Yes, Pete.”
“I spoke to the Commish. First off, you’d better get that tape back to Honey Blaine…”
“Blair.”
“Whoever, before the city lands a very big law suit. Channel Four has already contacted the Mayor, who is not particularly known for courageous stands, anyway, and he got on his lawyerly high horse and lectured the Commish about illegal search and seizure and all that bullshit…”
“Yeah,” Carella said wearily.
“So you’d better…where is it, anyway, that tape?”
“In my bottom desk drawer.”
“I’ll call in, have a uniform run it over to the…”
“No, the drawer’s locked. I’ve got the key here.”
“This Blaine woman…”
“Blair.”
“…is sitting down there in the Channel Four offices with a battery of network lawyers, waiting for us to deliver that tape. We’ve got till three o’clock. Otherwise, they file. Can you get the tape over there by then?”
“Yes. But I still think it’s evidence.”
“The network thinks it’s a scoop worth forty million dollars…”
“More than I make in a week,” Carella said.
“…which is what they’ll sue for if they don’t get that tape by three o’clock. Can you run down to the squadroom? Messenger the tape over?”
“Sure,” Carella said, and yawned. “What time is it?”
“Twelve-thirty-five.”
“Shall I wake Cotton? Are we still on this case, or what?”
“Far as I know. Nobody’s heard a peep from the Feds, so I guess it’s still ours. Ain’t we lucky?”
“Oh my yes.”
“I guess this singer isn’t very important, huh? Did Meyer and Bert get anything on the boat?”
“I’ve been asleep, Pete.”
“Right, I’m sorry. Stick with it, the four of you. Call Loomis, see if there’s been a ransom demand yet. If this is really ours…”
“You just said it was, Pete.”
“Well, it is.”
“But you sound dubious.”
“I’m just surprised. I thought the Feds would’ve come knocking by now. Anyway, call Loomis. Is his office open today?”
“I have no idea.”
“You said he thought the perps might ask him for the money.”
“That’s what he told me, yes.”
“So how will they know where to reach him? Did you get his home number?”
“Yes, Pete.”
“Do you think they have his home number?”
“I doubt it.”
“So they’ll call at his office tomorrow, right? So let’s get our Tech Unit to set up some stuff for us. We won’t need a court order for a Tap and Trap, Loomis is a friendly, it’s his own phone. But you’ll need one for a Trap and Trace, maybe more than one. Try to get the equipment set up today, ready for when they call tomorrow, if they call.”
“I’ll get on it right away.”
“I hate kidnappings,” Byrnes said, and sighed.
Both men fell silent.
“I sure would like a look at that tape,” Carella said.
“I have a feeling you’ll be seeing it on television. Over and over again. But you’ve got till three o’clock. Play it before you take it back. Who’s to know?”
“Is that an order?”
“It’s a suggestion,” Byrnes said.
THE WATCHMAN’S name was Abner Carmody.
He was asleep when Detectives Meyer and Kling knocked on his door at one that afternoon. He complained that he hadn’t got to bed till eight this morning, time he got home from the marina and all, and he usually slept till three or four, had a late lunch (or early dinner, depending how you looked at it), and went to work again at six, putting in a twelve-hour day (or night, depending how you looked at it), from six P.M. to six A.M.
“ ‘A man works from sun to sun,’ ” he quoted out of the blue, “ ‘but a woman’s work is never done.’ So why are you waking me up?”
Carmody was in his sixties someplace, the detectives guessed, wearing striped pajamas and eyeglasses he’d put on when he came to answer the door. He hadn’t invited the detectives in yet. They didn’t
care to go in, either. The man wasn’t a suspect, there was nothing they wanted to see in his apartment.
“Sometime last night, maybe eleven-thirty, twelve o’clock,” Meyer prompted. “Twenty-seven-foot Rinker came in, passengers tied her up and drove off in a black Ford Explorer. Happen to see them?”
“What’s this about?”
“Maybe nothing.”
“So why’re you waking me up the crack of dawn, it’s nothing?”
“We can come back later, if you like,” Kling said. With a warrant, he almost added, but didn’t.
“Well, I’m up now,” Carmody said.
“Did you see the boat come in?”
“No, I must’ve been making rounds, other end of the marina. But I saw them carrying the box to the van, and driving off in it.”
“What box, sir?”
“This carton, maybe yay big,” he said, using his hands. “Two by two, three by three, no bigger’n that.”
“Heavy box? Did it seem to be heavy?”
“Not especially. Woman was carrying it. Couldn’t have been too heavy, could it?”
“The masks,” Meyer said.
Kling nodded.
“What’d they look like?” he asked.
“Was only one of them. Just a plain cardboard box. Brown, you know. What they call corrugated.”
“I mean the people who got in the van. Did you happen to get a look?”
“Oh, yeah, the van was parked right under one of the sodium lights.”
“Two men and a woman, were they?” Kling asked.
“Yessir, two men and a woman. All of them wearing black all over—jeans, sweatshirts, jogging shoes. One of the men had curly black hair, the other one straight blond hair. The girl was a redhead.”
“How old would you say?”
“The girl? Early twenties.”
“And the men?”
“I’d say late twenties, early thirties.”
“I don’t suppose you happened to notice the license plate on that van, did you?” Kling asked.
Carmody looked offended.
“I’m a watchman,” he said. “That’s my job. To watch.”
And reeled off what he’d seen on that plate, letter for letter, numeral for numeral.
A PATROLMAN with his back to them was sleeping on a cot in the swing room when Carella and Hawes came in to play the Channel Four tape. The television set down here in the basement of the old building was a relic of the eighties, with a screen much smaller than either of the men had at home, but it had a VCR attachment, and it would serve the purpose. They kept the volume low, so as not to awaken the sleeping patrolman.
Watching the tape was an odd experience.
They had heard this crime reported a hundred different ways by a hundred and twelve different people, so in a sense it was familiar to them. In a sense, they were seeing it all over again. But they were also seeing it for the very first time, objectively, no one telling them whether the men were short or tall or wearing black or blue or green, no one describing the action in often erroneous detail. There it was for them to see and to hear. It was rather like witnessing an actual address to the nation, rather than watching a bunch of talking heads commenting on it minutes later.
Hawes and Carella immediately agreed that the girl was a star.
Hawes voiced it first.
“She’s good,” he said.
But they weren’t talent scouts.
Nonetheless, she was good.
“Very good,” Carella agreed.
They were watching the part of the tape where Tamar Valparaiso was standing in uffish thought under the Tumtum tree, all unaware that she was about to be attacked. There he came now, big and muscular, the Bandersnatch, or the Jabberwock, or whoever her father had just warned her about a couple of seconds ago, suddenly leaping from behind a screen on the left side of the dance floor, looking menacing as hell in a scary clay-colored mask, the kind of guy neither of the detectives would choose to run into in a dark alley.
The ensuing rape, the attempted rape, was all too realistic.
Neither Carella nor Hawes had ever witnessed a rape in progress, but they had heard the testimony of far too many vics, and they knew damn well what the crime was all about. The dancer playing the rapist—there was no way this video could be considered anything but a choreographed visualization of a rape—seemed to understand completely that rape had nothing to do with sex (however sexy Tamar looked as her clothes kept shredding away) but instead had only to do with power. This creature, this thing, this animal seemed resolute in his rage to overwhelm this young girl half his size and weight, determined to prove by sheer force of strength that he was the superior being here, he was in control, he was the master, he would dominate, he would conquer, he would enter and invade and eventually humiliate and disgrace and demean and dishonor and utterly destroy. That was the whole thing about rape. It wasn’t about getting laid. It was about showing just who owned who, babe.
They almost felt like intervening.
Jumping up and yelling, “Police! Stop!”
Probably wake up the sleeping uniform.
But the tape was that real and that frightening.
Then, of course, it all came out all right. Unlike rapes in real life, this one had a happy ending. The girl reached up for some imaginary kind of weapon and slashed out at her assailant…
“One, two! One, two! And through and through
“The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
“He left it dead, and with its head
“He went galumphing back.”
Helpless female becomes powerful male in order to defeat another powerful male. Where was the message there?
The rap ended.
The beast in its enraged crimson mask lay dead on the floor at Tamar’s feet.
Now there was only the B-flat note again, that single repeated bass note, and Tamar fluidly moving the tune into the bluesy figure of its opening melody.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
“Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
“O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
“He chortled in his joy.”
Tamar’s eyes shone, her voice rang out. She was home, baby, she was home.
“She’s terrific,” Hawes said.
“A star,” Carella agreed.
“ ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
“Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
“All mimsy were the…”
“Don’t nobody fucking move!”
“Here they come,” Hawes said, and leaned forward.
And here they came.
The detectives watched the screen intently.
This was a professional tape, recorded by skilled technicians. This wasn’t something some passing motorist had shot from his car window because he’d happened to notice it occurring as he drove by. Nor was this something recorded on a bank or a supermarket camera, all fuzzy and grainy and virtually worthless for identification purposes. This was clear and sharp and focused and detailed and in full living color. This was the chronicle of a crime in progress and it would stand up in any court in the land.
You could not see the men’s faces because of the masks, Saddam Hussein and Yasir Arafat, two gents intent on a little mischief. They were wearing black long-sleeved sweatshirts and black leather gloves. Black denim trousers. Black socks. Black running shoes.
“Reeboks,” Hawes said.
He had just made out the label.
Carella nodded.
Weapons were AK-47s, no question about it.
The shorter of the two was left-handed. Saddam Hussein. At least, he was carrying the rifle in his left hand. Pointing it up at the ceiling, like the real Hussein about to fire at the sky. Right hand on the mahogany banister.
“Ouch!” Hawes said when Hussein slammed the black dancer with the stock of the rifle.
They kept watching.
“Son of a bitch,” Hawes said, when Hussein slapped Tamar.
> The other one, the taller one, Yasir Arafat, clapped a wet rag over her face.
“You move, she dies!” Hussein yelled.
“He sound black to you?” Carella asked.
“I don’t know. Kind of muffled under that mask.”
“Witnesses all seemed to think they were black. I’m not getting that, are you?”
“Let’s take another look,” Hawes said, and got up to rewind the tape.
“What’s going on?” the sleeping patrolman asked, raising his head.
“Nothing, man, cool it,” Hawes said.
“I was up all fuckin night,” the patrolman said, and rolled over on the cot again.
They played the tape two more times.
They both felt they were missing something.
But they didn’t know what.
4
THE FIRST THING Kellie saw when she took the padlock off the closet door, and then opened the door itself, was a pair of big brown eyes glaring out at her. She slammed the door shut at once.
“Oh, shit!” she said, and fumbled the padlock into the hasp, and snapped it shut again. “Ave,” she yelled, “she saw me! Oh, Jesus, Ave, she saw me!” and went running into the kitchen.
The two men were sitting at a small round table near the window, eating the pizza Cal had brought back from the local Pizza Hut.
“What do you mean?” Avery asked.
“I opened the door, she was looking out at me.”
“So what’d you do?”
“Slammed the door shut.”
“So it was just a glimpse, right?”
“But she saw me,” Kellie said, more softly now, like a child trying to explain to her parents that the monster under the bed actually did exist. “She’ll be able to identify me. Later. When we let her go.”
“She won’t remember what you looked like. It was just a glimpse, am I right?”
“Yes, but…”
“We’ll put on the masks. Don’t worry, it’ll be okay. It was just a glimpse.”
“What’d she do?” Cal asked. “Get the blindfold off?”
“I opened the closet, she was looking at me with her eyes wide open,” Kellie said, nodding.
“We’ll wear the masks from now on,” Avery said. “You want some pizza?”
“Is it any good?”
“It’s delicious,” Cal said. “Did she look scared?”