Stolen Away

by Collins, Max Allan

  I sighed heavily, sat forward; the backs of my hands were black. “Do you remember why I’m here? The name Al Capone ring a bell? You wouldn’t play Capone’s game, remember? And now he’s sitting back in Cook County Jail, waiting for his last appeal to be turned down.”

  Face smudged with soot, Lindbergh gave me a testy look. “What’s your point?”

  I spread my white-palmed black hands like Jolson singing “Mammy.” “If Capone took your boy, using his East-Coast bootleg gang connections to do so, he had to figure out long ago that he fucked up.”

  His eyes were slits. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if the initial idea was, ‘Snatch Lindy’s kid and deal myself outa stir,’ Capone knew weeks ago he failed. So none of these so-called kidnap gangs—not Jafsie’s, or the Commodore’s, or goddamn Gaston Means’s—may have your kid. All Jafsie’s ‘kidnappers’ most likely have is somebody on the inside—some servant who’s feeding them information, a sleeping suit, a copy of the first note that Capone’s kidnappers left behind…which gave ’em something to pattern the later notes on, and which got ’em fifty grand from you. And now Jafsie’s ‘kidnappers’ are as gone as your dough.”

  “I don’t believe any of that.”

  I shrugged. “It’s just a theory. But it’s as good as any.”

  “If you’re right, Charlie is…” He couldn’t say it.

  I patted the air, gently. “He could be. He could be. On the other hand, suppose Capone had Charlie snatched, then faded when he saw his get-outa-jail plan go south. He’s not going to…excuse me for even bringing this up…but he’s not going to murder your boy and have a capital rap hanging over him.”

  “So where would that leave Charlie?”

  “Well, maybe with the people Capone contracted to do the kidnapping. Some bootleg bunch really might have the boy. They might be playing out the ransom hand, too.”

  “In that case,” Lindbergh said, perking up, “maybe the real gang is trying to contact me…through Commodore Curtis, or even Means!”

  I swigged the beer. “Anything’s possible in this crazy enterprise.”

  He nodded, raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’ve been in contact with Commodore Curtis. And he says he’s in contact with his bootlegger friend, ‘Sam.’”

  “You want me to check Curtis out? Not to mention Sam.”

  He shook his head curtly. “No. I’ll follow that lead myself. All I’d like from you is to get a bead on this son-of-a-bitch Means. What about Mrs. McLean?”

  “I’ve been calling her home. She’s away on a trip somewhere—due back late tonight or early tomorrow. The butler wouldn’t say, of course, but my hunch is Means has her chasing her tail.”

  “I feel terrible about her hundred thousand dollars.”

  “How do you feel about your fifty?”

  He smiled a little, like a mischievous kid. “Worse than I do about her hundred thousand. Would you go down and see her?”

  So here I was again, in Washington, D.C., in the pleasant if quirky company of Evalyn Walsh McLean.

  “I know I look like hell,” she said, sitting up. She lit herself a cigarette from a gold box on a nearby glass-and-mahogany coffee table; she used a matching gold decorative lighter. Exhaling smoke grandly, she said, “Forgive the robe. Even though I was expecting you—and you know how pleased I am to see you again—I just couldn’t make myself spruce up, somehow. Nate, I’ve been through the mill.”

  “What mill, exactly?” I sipped a Bacardi I’d made myself. “Where have you been, Evalyn?”

  Her smile was self-mockingly thin. “To hell and Texas, and various purgatories between. After Far View was deemed inappropriate by the ‘kidnap gang’—as I’m sure you’ll recall, darling—Means arranged for a new ‘drop point,’ at Aiken.”

  “Aiken?”

  “It’s not a condition, dear. It’s a town in South Carolina. I have a place down there—it’s where my son Ned is in school. Means told me the gang was willing to attempt a delivery of the ‘book’ there, so I went down with Inga and, not wanting my son to walk in on this Gaston Means-directed tragicomedy, rented a little cottage. Means came down and had a look around, seemed to approve of the setup, said he’d let the gang know I was there. The next morning he reappeared, and informed me dramatically that one of the kidnappers wanted to meet with me—that very afternoon!”

  I had gotten up and gone to the liquor cart and was pouring her some sherry. “Face-to-face with one of the kidnappers, huh?”

  She arched an eyebrow ironically. “Not just any kidnapper—the mastermind himself: the ‘Fox.’ At two o’clock that afternoon, a car stopped in front of the cottage—Means walked in, all smiles, followed by a stranger right out of Little Caesar.”

  I gave her the sherry. “How so?”

  She painted an image in the air. “He was tall, thin, wore his hat low over his forehead, wore an expensive-looking camel-hair overcoat. He kept that coat on all the while—hands jammed in his pockets, as if he had a gun in either pocket. But he spoke well—he seemed to be an individual of some polish and education.” Her face looked angular and lovely in the fire’s shadowy flickering. “The Fox said he wanted to look through the place, make sure there were no hidden microphones. Means and Inga stayed in the living room, while I showed our guest around. He looked in closets, under beds, wiping off everything he touched with a handkerchief. Odd.”

  “What made that odd?”

  “He was wearing thick gray suede gloves at that time.”

  “Oh.”

  She inhaled smoke; let it out. “After he’d searched the house, the Fox asked if he might have a look around the grounds; I consented, sent him off alone. When he returned, he told Means that he was satisfied I was playing it straight with the gang. Then the Fox turned to me and said that within forty-eight hours, the ‘book’ would be handed over to me, personally, on a side street not far from the cottage.”

  “Yet somehow it never happened.”

  She smiled ruefully. “The arrangements were typically Means-baroque. Four automobiles would be waiting, two on one side of the street, two on the other, the child would be handed over in the middle, with machine guns trained on me from every car.”

  I had to smile. “Means does like his melodrama.”

  “I do wish you’d been there, Nate. I wish you’d stayed with me through all this.”

  “So do I. I would’ve grabbed that goddamn Fox and skinned him. Then we’d be somewhere.”

  She nodded, putting out one cigarette, getting another going. “Well, the Fox may have spoken like an educated man, but he was as big a scoundrel as Means. Before he left, the blackguard made a veiled threat about my children, should I ‘cross’ him. Then he left, and Means left with him.”

  “And what happened, to prevent the ‘drop’ from taking place, machine guns and all?”

  “Means arrived the next day, and said it was all off. Things were in an awful mess, he said. The gang members were quarreling amongst themselves. Lindbergh had apparently paid ‘fifty grand’ through that other negotiator…”

  I sat up. “What? What’s this?”

  She raised both eyebrows in casual surprise. “Didn’t I ever mention that? Means said, oh, weeks ago, that Lindbergh was working through another negotiator, when of course Gaston Means was the only appropriate negotiator….”

  Jesus. Had Means known about Jafsie, weeks ago? And had he known about the ransom payment in St. Raymond’s Cemetery, before the papers guessed it?

  Her expression sharpened, now, in response to my reaction. “From, what I’m seeing in the press,” she said, “about lists of marked bills, that much of his story is true, isn’t it? There was a ransom payment, through another negotiator?”

  I nodded.

  “Means claims the gang was arguing about whether to turn the baby over to Lindbergh, through this other negotiator, or to me, through Means. Making matters worse, they were squabbling over how exactly to divide the spoils.”

  “Whe
re was the baby supposed to be, at this point? Aiken?”

  “Not specifically. The boy could have been brought there, easily enough, Means said. He said the child was now being kept on a boat, at sea.”

  “A boat? At sea?”

  “Yes. Means claimed a fast launch was keeping the kidnappers informed as to what was going on, on land. He felt the boat was in the vicinity of Norfolk. Nate—what’s wrong? You’re white as a ghost.”

  I was shaking my head. “Means knows too much. He knows about things he should have no way of knowing.”

  Was there really a “boad Nelly”? Was Commodore Curtis, of Norfolk, really in touch with the kidnap gang, via the rumrunner “Sam”?

  “All I know,” she said, “is that Means told me that the Aiken delivery was off—that the child was being taken by water and land to a point near Juarez, Mexico.”

  “Mexico?” My head was reeling.

  “He said the gang felt safer out of the country. They felt if they were ever caught, that they’d be torn limb from limb.”

  “That much is the truth, anyway.” I gulped down the rest of the Bacardi. I could’ve used another, but I didn’t get myself one; Evalyn’s words were making me woozy enough. “And that’s what you meant by, ‘to hell and Texas’?”

  She nodded. “Means said if I went to El Paso, just across the border from Juarez, he could arrange that the gang would bring the baby to me.”

  “And you went.”

  “Inga and I, yes. To the Paso Del Norte Hotel in El Paso, where Means met us, at four in the afternoon. He assured us the ‘book’ was ‘across the river,’ as he always referred to Mexico. He went across the border and returned that night with bad news: the gang was still quarreling over the division of the spoils. This went on for another day, with Means going ‘across the river,’ and returning, with nothing developing; he even brought the Fox back around—who seemed nervous, kept saying he had to protect his gang, couldn’t take a chance on turning the baby over unless they were ‘protected on every angle.’ I blew up at them both, stormed out, took the next train home.”

  “Did Means try to stop you from going?”

  “He did, until I told him that any prolonged, unexplained absence on my part would make my lawyers and friends suspicious, and that the first thing they’d think of would be to go straight to J. Edgar Hoover.”

  “And you returned home.”

  “Yes. Arrived late the night before last.”

  “Have you heard from Means, since?”

  “Oh yes. He called this afternoon. Claimed he’d flown from El Paso to Chicago, with the Fox, shortly after I’d taken my leave from them. That he had just returned to his home, at Chevy Chase, from the airport, and would call on me soon.”

  I got up and began to pace. “Do you expect him this evening?”

  “Possibly. At this point, do we care? I’m convinced Means is perpetrating the biggest hoax of his career. You were right all along, Nate. I was a fool.”

  Suddenly I wasn’t so sure who the fool was. If I’d stayed with Evalyn, and not gone back to reenter the Jafsie sweepstakes, maybe I’d be on top of things, instead of underneath the weight of it all.

  “What is it, Nate? What’s wrong?”

  “Call Means. Get him over here. Now.”

  I was perched out of sight in the balcony, from which that reporter friend of Evalyn’s had supervised her first meeting with the notorious Gaston Bullock Means. And like Evalyn’s reporter friend, I was armed. The nine millimeter was snugly beneath my left shoulder.

  Below me, in a room lit only by the fireplace, Evalyn—still wearing the dowdy robe, smoking yet another cigarette—paced. Before long, Garboni announced, and ushered in, her awaited guest.

  Massive Gaston Means, who had rushed here to see Mrs. McLean, eager to be of help, stood before her like a shaved bear in a suit. That suit was dark blue and vested with a blue-and-red tie; he looked like a Southern senator, the kind a lobbyist could buy for a cigar, a drink and a whore.

  “I was afraid, Eleven,” Means said in his mellow manner, “that you had lost faith in me.”

  “Please sit down, Means.”

  “‘Hogan,’ my dear. I must insist.”

  Their voices rose to me, echoey but distinct.

  She sat; arms folded, head erect. “Let’s dispense with the melodrama for once. Tell me the truth, Means. Tell me how much more money you want.”

  “I don’t want anything,” he said, sitting on the nearest couch, homburg in hand. “The four thousand expenses you gave me is sufficient.”

  Evalyn hadn’t mentioned that, though later she confirmed it: Means had asked for, and gotten, four grand from her as an expense account, above and beyond her hundred grand he was “holding.”

  “You look tired, Eleven. Are you well?”

  She was lighting up a fresh cigarette. “Is the ‘book’ well, is more to the point. What news do you have?”

  He gestured broadly. “As you know, I’ve just been in Chicago. A member of the gang was sent there, a few days ago, by the Fox, to unload the fifty grand Lindbergh paid that other negotiator. But the Fox’s man hasn’t had any luck—no buyers. The banks have the serial numbers, you know.”

  “So I’ve read in the papers.”

  “The gang is pretty sore at Lindy for marking that money. I’m trying to convince them that your one hundred thousand isn’t marked.”

  “Thank you. So what’s our next move?”

  Means leaned forward conspiratorially, clutching his homburg like a tiny shield. “The gang wants clean money to replace the marked stuff they got from Lindbergh. They’re willing to sell that marked fifty thousand back for thirty-five thousand, unmarked.”

  “And I suppose that thirty-five thousand is to be taken out of my hundred thousand?”

  He leaned back, surprised, almost insulted. “Oh no—that hundred thousand is not to be touched under any circumstances. The moment a deal for the marked money goes through, the hundred thousand might be needed on a moment’s notice, for the return of the ‘book.’”

  Evalyn blew out smoke. “Means, have you still got that money of mine?”

  “Your money? Why, of course!”

  “Where is it?”

  “In a safe down at my family home in Concord…and has been since right after you saw it in my home that day. Surely, Eleven, you can’t imagine I would’ve taken that money with me to Aiken or especially to Texas—and run the chance of having it hijacked!” Smilingly, he patted his chest. “You don’t know Gaston Means.”

  “Sometimes I wish I didn’t. This thirty-five thousand—who’s going to put that up? I haven’t got that much in cash.”

  “I tried to raise it myself, my dear, from a bookmaker friend of mine. But, alas…”

  That was it; that was all I could take.

  I came down the stairs. My footsteps were like gunshots. Means looked around, startled. He rose from the couch, turning, his moon face intense, his hand drifting toward his coat pocket.

  But I already had the nine millimeter in hand.

  “Don’t,” I said without enthusiasm.

  He didn’t. His face was slack, the dimples lost in fleshiness; his tiny eyes were wide.

  Evalyn’s eyes glittered; she seemed a little afraid, and a little excited by my entrance. She liked melodrama, too.

  “I’ll need a few moments alone with Mr. Means,” I told her. She’d been warned I might do this. She nodded and went quickly out.

  “Eleven!” he called after her, pawing the air. She didn’t answer. A door closed, heavily.

  I walked over to him. “Hands up, Means. You know the procedure.”

  “What’s the meaning of this, Sixteen?”

  “You remembered my code number. I’m flattered.” Patting him down, I found a small automatic, a .25. In his fat hand it would have looked like a party favor. I tossed it gently on the couch.

  “Who are you?” he asked indignantly.

  “Not the chauffeur. What do you really k
now, Means?”

  He gave me his innocence-personified expression; he looked like a dissipated cherub. “Know?”

  With measured sarcasm, I replied, “About the Lindbergh case.”

  He shook his head, dignified, stubborn, idealistic. “I’m sworn to secrecy.”

  “I want names. I want to know who engineered this thing.”

  “What thing?”

  “The kidnapping, you fat bastard. The kidnapping.”

  He held his chin up; it was shaped like the end of a small garden shovel. “I don’t know anything more than I’ve told Mrs. McLean.”

  “Would you be willing to take a lie-detector test, Means?”

  He snorted. “I don’t believe in those things. Wires and electrodes and needles. Poppycock.”

  “I didn’t mean that kind of lie detector.”

  He snorted again, skeptically. “What kind did you mean?”

  “The Chicago kind.”

  “And what, pray tell, is the Chi—”

  He didn’t finish the question, because I’d stuck the barrel of the nine millimeter in his mouth.

  “We use this kind of lie detector in Chicago,” I explained.

  His eyes were as wide as Mickey Mouse’s, and just as animated. His dimples had returned but, with his mouth full like that, he wasn’t smiling.

  I was. “Get down on your knees, Means, and do it smooth. This has a hair trigger, and so do I.”

  Carefully, he got down on his knees, a kneeling Buddha on an Oriental carpet, unwillingly suckling the Browning all the way.

  Once he was settled in his prayerlike posture, he made some sounds; he seemed to want to know what I wanted.

  “Names, Means. I want the names of the people that did the job.”

  He made more sounds around the gun, apparent protestations of innocence, of ignorance. I pushed upward, so the gun-sight would cut the roof of his mouth. He began to cough, which was dangerous. His spittle turned reddish. He began to cry. I had never seen a man that big cry, before. I would have felt sorry for him if he weren’t the scum of creation.

  “Nod,” I said, “if you’re ready to tell the truth.”

  Choking a little, he nodded.

  “Okay,” I said, and slid the gun out of his mouth. It dripped with his reddish saliva, and I wiped it off on his suitcoat, disgustedly.