“Okay. Here it comes.”
I listened to the playback myself that time. And I began to see what Tom meant. I was hearing a quality Southern accent in Tom’s voice. On the tape there were hits and misses in the attempt to sound Southern. Still, I wouldn’t have been able to identify it myself.
“Anything else, Tom?” I asked when the taped conversation ended for the second time.
“It’s a kid,” Tom said positively. “But he mought not be a punk like I thought at first. He’s been eddicated some. Where you callin’ me from?”
“The West Coast.”
“He’s not West Coast. He’s tryin’ to fake you out all the way. I’d say he b’longs clear cross country. Up around New England. Massachusetts, coastal Rhode Island, maybe northern Connecticut. If it wasn’t for the phony accent I could git it closer.”
“You may have it close enough,” I said. “Thanks, Tom. I’ll send you a Christmas card.”
He knew what I meant. I had another picture of Tom Walker, that of him holding paper money up to his ear and slowly crackling it. “I checks the quality fust,” he had told me dryly. “I worries ‘bout the dee-nomination later.”
“No need, no need,” Tom protested. “Any friend of Cordelia’s is a friend of mine.”
I had to smile. “Then tell her I’ll send her a box of cigars.” Cordelia had a bad nicotine habit. She made it her custom to snipe all available cigarette butts.
“She’ll ‘preciate that, Drake. She really will.”
“So long, Tom.”
“So long.”
I hung up the phone.
New England.
Melissa went to school in New England.
Was I back to square one with Melissa having had a hand in directing her own kidnapping?
I carried the recorder back to Val Cooper’s room and again made the telephone-tap connection. During the process, I wrestled mentally with Blind Tom Walker’s information. I’ve managed my whole life by my judgments of human nature, and Melissa just didn’t seem to me to be the sort of girl who would participate in such a fraud.
But I’d seen Tom Walker do some remarkable things in the way of placing voices in certain parts of the country. If he said the transcribed voice I’d played for him over the telephone originated in New England, I was ready to wager a few dollars it hadn’t been very far from there.
I went out to the pay telephone in the lobby again. I wanted to make another phone call I didn’t wish to have traced. I called the Viking Motel. “Good afternoon,” I said to the switchboard operator when she came on the line. “I’m a representative of Mrs. Hazel Andrews who had an accident this afternoon. I’d like to know—”
“Oh, sir!” the operator interrupted me excitedly. “Are you the gentleman who was—who was staying here with Mrs. Andrews?” I knew she didn’t need a confirmation; she had recognized my voice. “The police are trying to contact you, sir!”
I’ll bet they are, I thought.
“I’m with the police now, and I’m making this call for them, operator. What they’d like to have is a list of all the long-distance calls made from the suite since we were there.”
“But someone called from the police and had me make up that list and read it to them!” the operator protested.
Great minds run in the same channels.
“That must have been from headquarters,” I said. “Right now I’m with Lieutenant Daley. Since you’ve already made up the list, why don’t you read it off to me? It will save me making another call.”
“Yes, sir. Do you have a pencil?”
“I do.”
I poised ballpen above notebook as the operator began to read the list. There had been quite a few calls. I recognized a few area code 813 calls as Hazel’s to Jed Raymond. One call I’d made myself to a fishing tackle manufacturer in Minnesota. They had discontinued the manufacture of the sweetest-feeling fly rod I’d ever held in my hand. The salesman who spoke to me glibly represented the sacrilege as progress.
There were a number of calls I couldn’t place. “Where did those area code 617 calls go to?” I interrupted the operator. I wanted the information and I also wanted to give my writing hand a rest.
“Area code 617 is in Massachusetts, sir.”
“Oh, yes. Now I remember.”
The girl completed reading the list. The area code 617 calls had become much more numerous in the past couple of days. “Thank you very much,” I said to the operator. “You’ve been very helpful.” I remembered her as a plump little thing. I hoped she didn’t get her fat little tail in the grease if the police found out just how helpful she’d been, and to whom.
I went into the bar and had a drink while I thought it over. A cocktail waitress in hot pants served me at the table I selected. The brief costume clung snugly to her broad hips. Her mammaries weren’t nearly as confined under the thin stuff of her blouse. I jerked my eyes away impatiently. Hazel was in the hospital just a few hours, and already I was getting horny?
I contemplated my Jim Beam on the rocks for a couple of minutes before I took a swallow. Did I really have anything now that I knew Melissa had made quite a few phone calls to Massachusetts? Almost certainly, they were to her school. And almost as certainly, they were to her boyfriend at the school. She would have wanted to report her lack of success on her mission. Also, she would have wanted to let him know when she was returning. It was difficult to make a capital offense out of either.
But I had no other place to start, even if the start led to a dead end. If Melissa had acquiesced in her own kidnapping, almost surely her unknown boyfriend had been a part of it. If she hadn’t, the boyfriend might be able to give me a clue, wittingly or unwittingly, as to which way to go.
I finished my drink in a gulp, then had the cocktail waitress change another five-dollar bill into quarters for me. I went out to the lobby phone. I took out my list of phone numbers and circled one of the repeated area code 617 calls. I gave it to the long-distance operator after retrieving my dime.
“Northeastern University,” the phone said in my ear after a long series of rings.
“Yes. You’re in Boston, right?”
“That’s correct, sir.”
The voice was bright and cheerful. Moreover, it sounded intelligent. “Do you have a moment to talk? I have a little problem you might be able to help with, operator.”
“We’re not too busy right now, sir. This is the semester break, and most of the students are away. What did you think I might help with?”
“I’m trying to locate the boyfriend of one of your students, Melissa Andrews. Do you happen to know her?”
“No, sir, but it’s a large school.”
“She’s made a number of long-distance calls to the school during her vacation.”
“That really doesn’t help much, sir. Most of us on the switchboard during the semester break are part-time student help. One of the regular girls would probably be much more helpful to you.”
“When will they be back?”
“The end of next week.”
“Maybe you can still help me,” I persisted. “How many part-time operators do you have?”
“Ten or twelve, counting all the shifts.”
“Would you ask them all for me if they recall receiving any calls from Melissa Andrews to someone in the school during the past few days?”
“I could do that, I suppose,” the operator said doubtfully. “Although it doesn’t seem likely that—”
“It’s very important,” I insisted. “If you connect with anyone, have them call me here at this number.” I gave her the regular motel number, not the pay phone number. “My name is Dewey Elliott, and I’d call it a real favor.”
I went back to the motel room wondering if the girl would make any effort to follow through on my request or if she’d forget the whole thing as soon as she made the disconnect on my call.
FOUR
I SAT DOWN TO DO SOME THINKING ABOUT MELISSA Andrews.
I shook a
cigarette free from the pack I withdrew from my shirt pocket, lighted it, then considered the first lungful of expelled smoke. I’ve quit smoking a couple of times, but I go back to it. There are times when nothing else is a proper substitute.
Melissa.
Had she had a hand in her own kidnapping?
Or was she solely a victim?
The more I thought about it the more it seemed to me the girl was in damn bad shape no matter which was the case.
The crime committed by the kidnappers was the same in either case. The only difference was that if Melissa had willingly allowed herself to be “kidnapped,” it would legally be a hoax and not a kidnapping. But the risk she was running in that case was far more severe than the possibility of eventually standing before a judge. If the kidnappers were threatened with capture, their first move would be to get rid of Melissa, the prime witness against them even though she would also be against herself.
The risk was no less great if the kidnapping were legitimate. Whether the ransom was paid or not, how could the kidnappers leave the girl to tell what she knew about them? It would make far more sense to them to kill her to prevent her from giving information that would make their eventual capture more likely.
Either way, the girl was a damn poor risk.
Could she really have been stupid enough to set herself up in such a position in an effort to force Hazel to change her mind about releasing funds from Melissa’s endowment account?
From what I’d seen of her she wasn’t a stupid girl. But if she was being influenced, if she was being manipulated—
Across the room from me the telephone rang.
I sat and looked at it.
I had done so much telephoning recently from so many different phones I had to sift the possibilities of who might be calling me at the Miramar number.
It could be Cottonmouth, except that he needed to leave me alone long enough for me to raise the ransom money.
It could be the switchboard operator at Melissa’s school, except that it seemed a little quick.
That left Valerie Cooper, the only other person to whom I’d given the number.
I crossed the room and picked up the telephone on the fourth ring. “Hello?” I said.
“Hello,” Val Cooper’s voice replied.
“How is she?”
“Better. She’s back in her room, and she’s regained consciousness. But they think she may have a concussion, and they’re limiting callers. I only got to speak to her for a second. She wanted to know how you were. You arranged for her room, didn’t you?”
I had been thinking of Hazel flat on her back in a hospital bed, wanting to know how I was. It took me a second to catch up with the implication of Val’s question. “Arrange?” I said.
“When she was brought out of X-ray, she was going to be put into a ward. Then a clerk came along from the administrative office and said a private room had been assigned to her.”
“That must have been a disappointment to the cop on duty, not getting to watch a wardful of women patients.”
She made no reply to my nonsequitur to her query. Evidently she was in no mood for levity. “Are you ready to leave?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Is there a building near the hospital that has more than one entrance?”
“More than one entrance? Well …” She hesitated. “There’s the old Palace Hotel, I guess. Its entrance is on Madison, but the lobby goes right through to the next street. I don’t know its name.”
“Go to the Madison Street side of the hotel and walk straight through. I’ll be parked in an Olds Cutlass across the street from the other entrance.”
She hesitated again as though on the verge of asking the necessity for this procedure. “What color is the Cutlass?” she asked finally.
“Maroon.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“So will I.”
I was sure I knew where the Palace Hotel was, but I stopped at the front desk to pick up a street map to doublecheck myself. I drew up to the curb across the street from the poorly marked rear entrance of the old building. I had three minutes to spare. I didn’t feel, as Val Cooper seemed to, that what I was engaged in was an exercise in futility. With the police unable to contact me in any way, they’d check on Val Cooper’s movements, since she was the only tangible link between Hazel and me. Having her followed might seem redundant, but it would make sense from the police standpoint.
I almost didn’t recognize Val when she emerged from the hotel’s unwashed glass doors. She was wearing a nurse’s uniform plus a wrap-around coat a couple of sizes too large. I had forgotten that she was in a housecoat when she rode to the hospital with Hazel.
I had the passenger’s-side door open by the time she reached it. All the time she was climbing in and settling herself, I never took my gaze off the doors through which she had exited to the street. A minute went by, then another. No one else came through the doors. I couldn’t understand it, but my patience finally convinced me that no one was following Valerie Cooper.
She was looking at me when I turned in her direction. “You’re a devious-minded man, aren’t you?” she said. “Why do you expect someone to be following me?”
“Because you’re the only link between Hazel and me that the police can get their teeth in,” I said bluntly. “They should never have let you walk away like this.” I thought of something. “Or haven’t they asked you anything yet? Not even my name?”
“No. Perhaps they would have if I hadn’t spoken to Larry Dunbar when he stopped to talk to the policeman they left at Hazel’s door.”
“Larry Dunbar?”
“Police Lieutenant Dunbar. My ex-husband was on the prosecutor’s staff here for two years before he opened his own practice, so—”
“So you know all the wheels,” I finished for her. “Dunbar must be saving questioning you for himself. Is he trying to get into your pants?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
“I can make it plainer.”
“Don’t bother,” she said frostily.
“Dunbar asked you nothing?”
“He did ask me how well I knew Hazel. I said she was just a temporary acquaintance I’d made during my stay at the motel. Then he asked about you, and I said I didn’t know your name.”
“That’s more like it.”
“More like it?”
“That’s the way police are supposed to act. When they don’t, I want to know why. What else?”
“Larry asked for a description of you.” She was examining me as I sat there. “I must say the one I gave him won’t do him much good. I’d never have recognized you if you hadn’t described the car.”
“That’s all he asked?”
“That’s all.”
“He’ll be back,” I predicted.
“I’ve had time to think about your—your request that I go to the other motel with you,” she said. “I can’t do it.”
She was telling me that if I wanted to play mystery man she was under no compulsion to abet my nefarious scheme.
“Why can’t you do it, Val?”
“I’ve already told you. Essentially. I know a lot of people in this town. Suppose someone saw me in the—in the circumstances you propose? What would they think?”
“That you’re a big girl now.” She shook her head stubbornly. “You met Melissa?”
“Melissa?” The change of subject disconcerted her momentarily. “Oh, the niece who went back to school. Yes.”
“She didn’t go back to school.” Valerie Cooper’s dark eyes examined me with a questioning wariness. “She was kidnapped from the airport parking lot this afternoon.”
“Kid—” She didn’t finish it. I could see her mentally fitting the pieces together. “And the car bomb?”
“Was aimed at me.”
She wasn’t swallowing it whole. “There’s been nothing in the news about the kidnapping. Why didn’t Larry ask me about that?”
“The pol
ice don’t know about it.”
“The police don’t know about a kidnapping?” Her tone was outraged. “You’re making it very difficult for me to believe that you’re telling me the—”
“I didn’t report the kidnapping, Val. I didn’t tell anyone except Hazel. And now you. Hazel and I were going to handle it together.”
She was silent for a moment. “What kind of a man attempts to handle a kidnapping by himself?” she said finally.
“My kind.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know why I believe you,” she said slowly.
“Are you afraid what I’m telling you is some kind of a con game?”
She started to answer, then stopped. “The car explosion was no con game,” she said at last. “What do you mean when you say you and Hazel were going to handle the kidnapping? Do you know who did it?”
“No. Basically, we were going to pay the ransom, and then I’d have recovered her money.”
“You’d have recovered her money,” she repeated. “Who are you? Or should I ask what are you?”
“A good friend of Hazel’s.” Val Cooper blinked at the jab that I couldn’t resist. “I’ve heard from the kidnappers. They want four hundred thousand dollars.”
“Four hun—!”
“I’ll get it. But I’m afraid it might not do much good.”
“You mean—”
“If Melissa has seen the kidnappers, there’s only a very slim chance they’d ever release her even upon payment of the ransom. But you can help me give the girl that chance. The bomb blast in the car tells us these clowns are playing for keeps. I’m concerned about Hazel even where she is now. It’s not hard to decoy a bored cop who has no reason to believe he should be especially on guard.”
“Should I ask why you haven’t told the police?” Her voice was quiet. “Why you don’t tell them?”
“I can’t.” She nodded as though she had expected the answer. “I’m asking you to spend some time with Hazel, right in her room, especially at night when hospital personnel have thinned out, and to give me a hand at the motel when I might need a pair of ears.”
“The new motel?”
Operation Deathmaker Page 5