The Kidnappers

by Willo Davis Roberts

  There was a small silence before the man’s voice came back on, brisk and cool. “Look, son. This is an emergency line. We have no time for practical jokers. In fact, it’s a crime to make false reports. You could wind up before a judge for this kind of thing.”

  “No, wait! This isn’t a joke, it really happened! You’ve got to listen to me! The kid’s name is Willie Groves, his dad’s the head of—”

  The man had hung up. I stared in disbelief at the phone. The police were supposed to help you, not write you off as some kind of kook.

  The door opened and my mother stood there looking at me. And not as if she were pleased with me. “What are you doing in here, Joel?”

  “Using the phone. I was trying to call the police, but the guy wouldn’t listen to me—”

  “The police? What for?”

  “Mom, nobody believes me, but it’s true, I swear it! I was sort of hiding from Willie Groves. He was chasing me. There was this car that drove up beside him and a guy pulled Willie into the backseat and they drove away! Willie dropped his books on the sidewalk, and they kidnapped him! Honest!”

  She stared at me for another few seconds, then sighed. “Joey, don’t get into another one of your dramatic presentations. We have a major event planned for tomorrow evening, and there are still dozens of things to see to. I don’t have time for this. And you know you’re not supposed to be in your father’s study. He hates to have anyone touch his things.”

  I got up from Father’s chair, feeling like screaming. How could I get someone to listen to me?

  “Call Willie’s folks, then! They’ll tell you he didn’t come home from school! They’ll tell you he’s missing!”

  For a few seconds I thought she was halfway convinced that I was on the level. Then she turned away. “Come out of here before anyone else sees you. Your father would be most unhappy if he knew you’d been in here.”

  “Please, Mom! It would only take a minute to call and find out for sure!”

  She wavered, and I pulled open drawers, looking for the phone book. “I’ll find it, the number. Call them!”

  So she did. My heart was tearing my chest apart, making a thundering in my ears where the blood was racing out of control.

  “Hello, Mrs. Groves? Oh, this is Joel Bishop’s mother. Is Mrs. Groves available?”

  I held my breath.

  “I see. Well, can you tell me if Willie is home from school yet?”

  Whoever was on the other end of the line said something, and my mother’s expression changed. There was no belief there now as she fixed her gaze on me. “I see. Thank you.” She dropped the phone into its cradle. “Mrs. Groves has gone to Boston for a few days because of her mother’s illness. And Willie isn’t home because the chauffeur called half an hour ago to say he’d been delayed because of a minor accident. But the maid didn’t think there was anything wrong at all.”

  “But the chauffeur didn’t pick him up! He hadn’t come by the time somebody kidnapped Willie.”

  She walked across the room, herding me ahead of her into the hallway. “Did you tell this story to anyone at St. Bart’s?”

  “No. Ernie came, and I told him, but he didn’t believe me and wouldn’t let me stop to telephone the police—”

  “I shouldn’t wonder. Joey, an imagination is a wonderful thing, very entertaining, but there are limits. Nothing truly catastrophic has happened because of your tall stories, so far, but this one might result in our having to get a lawyer to keep you out of juvenile hall! Do you realize that? Have you thought what your father’s reaction would be if the police actually came here to question you?”

  I was thinking of it now. I remember he turned purple the time I set the trap to get even with Mark—after he’d destroyed some of my history papers so I had to redo them—and Father was the one who got drenched with the bucket of water when he went into Mark’s room. And that had been relatively harmless.

  For a moment I wondered wildly if maybe I had imagined the whole thing. Had I had so much practice trying to put things over on other people for the fun of it (mine) that I’d finally slipped over the edge and was believing one of my own stories?

  But no.

  I had seen Willie. I had seen the black New Yorker with the royal-looking emblem. I had seen a muscular dark-haired man grab Willie from behind and drag him into the car against his will. But everyone thought I was lying.

  So what did I do now?

  Chapter Four

  “Sooner or later,” Sophie said, “his family will know he’s been kidnapped, Joey. They probably know by now.”

  It was after dinner. We were sitting cross-legged on her frilly pink and white bedspread in her ruffled pink and white bedroom, decorated the way Mom thought was appropriate for a preteen.

  “How are we going to find out?” I asked earnestly. “I’m going crazy wondering if they’ve killed him by this time.”

  “Why would they kill Willie? Kidnapping is usually for ransom, isn’t it? So they’d probably send a note demanding money,” Sophie pointed out. “Or they could take him as a threat to his father—to blackmail him into doing what they want, or something like that. But most likely it’s for ransom.”

  “So what do I do now?” I demanded. “Nobody will listen to me! Only you, and Pink, when I call him.”

  Sophie hesitated. “We could call again and see if Willie ever came home from school. It’s been a long time since Mom tried.”

  I knew Willie hadn’t gone home, but I didn’t know what else to do. We had to look the number up again, at the kitchen phone. Sophie was less upset than I was, so she was the one who asked for Willie.

  It was obviously a maid who answered. They must have someone who lived in, not a twice-a-week cleaning woman like Junie. Willie was not available to answer the phone, Sophie was told. So she asked for Mr. Groves.

  She listened a moment, then replaced the receiver. Her eyes were very big. “She said Mr. Groves isn’t taking any calls.”

  “So what does that mean? Is Willie missing and they’re dealing with the kidnappers? Have they already reported to the police?”

  “Maybe,” Sophie said. “By this time they have to know there’s something wrong if Willie’s not there.”

  We didn’t know what else to do. On TV the family of someone who’s been kidnapped negotiates directly with the kidnappers, without going to the police for fear the person who’s been kidnapped will be harmed. Other times the police are in the home monitoring the phone, directing the delivery of ransom money in hopes of catching the criminals.

  There was no way the cops would tell me anything even if they knew what was going on. But they didn’t know what I had seen.

  I was practically shaking, but there was only one thing I could think of to try. “The police would listen to an adult. I’m going to have to tell Father and hope he’ll call them for me.”

  That turned out to be a total bust, too.

  My father was working in his study. He was irritated because my mother kept asking for his opinion on things to do with the party, and he was definitely unhappy when I showed up.

  Sophie had gone with me, but he ignored her and glared at me.

  “Joel, how many times have I asked you not to bother me when I’m busy? I have to fax these papers off yet tonight, and I don’t have time to talk to you.”

  Sophie spoke while I was still working my throat, trying to make some convincing words come out.

  “It’s important, Daddy. Joey saw something important, and the police need to know about it. But because he’s a kid, they think he’s playing practical jokes or something. Please listen to him.”

  “The police?” Father’s voice was sharp. “What have you gotten mixed up in this time? When are you going to grow up enough to stop all this foolishness? You can’t expect me to go on forever talking you out of trouble. If this is school business, talk to Mr. Giacomo. I’ve already told him you’re old enough to take responsibility for your own actions.”

  “It’s no
t about school,” I said desperately, ashamed that my voice had a tremor in it. “Not directly, anyway. I was . . . trying to keep out of Willie Groves’s way, and he followed me. But he hadn’t found me, and a car came up and somebody grabbed him and pulled him into the backseat. I didn’t see the license number, but I did see the car, and maybe that would help the police to find him. He dropped his books and stuff on the sidewalk. Maybe somebody found them. And his folks must know he’s missing by this time, only the maid says Mr. Groves isn’t taking any calls—”

  Father made a rude sound. “I shouldn’t wonder he doesn’t want to talk to smart-alecky kids.”

  “But if Willie’s been kidnapped, he surely wants to know about any clues that were left behind, doesn’t he? And I was the only one who saw it happen!” I was pleading with him to believe me. “Maybe he’d talk to you, and you could tell him about the black New Yorker with the fancy emblem on the door. That’s not the greatest clue, not without a license number, but it’s something, isn’t it? It might help?”

  I braced for his refusal to get involved. For another lecture.

  “If this is another one of your pranks, Joel—”

  “It’s not! It really happened!” I said quickly.

  At the same time Sophie chimed in, “Please try, Daddy. Joey’s not making it up this time—”

  His gaze rested on my sister. “Did you see it? This kidnapping?”

  “No,” she had to admit. “But I know he’s telling the truth. Please, Daddy. See if you can get Mr. Groves to talk to you. Even if he won’t admit Willie’s gone, if you tell him about the car and the man—”

  For the first time he eyed me without total rejection of what I was saying. “You could identify the man who took him?”

  “Yes, I think so. If I saw him again.”

  He hesitated for only a few seconds. “What’s the Groveses’ number?”

  Relief swept over me in a wave that made me almost sick.

  But the relief was premature. Father, too, was told that Mr. Groves was not taking any phone calls this evening. “All right,” he said into the receiver. “When he’s available, please have him call Parnell Bishop.” He recited his phone number. “And tell him it’s urgent, if you would. Tell him it has to do with his son, Willie.”

  I slumped into a chair. “So we’re right back where we started.”

  “Not quite,” Father said. For him, he sounded reasonable. “I’ve left a message, and eventually he’ll return the call. If Willie is missing, Mr. Groves is undoubtedly very busy and very worried.”

  “Shouldn’t we call the police, then?” Sophie asked, twisting her hands together.

  Father considered. It was one of the few times I could recall that he hadn’t made an instantaneous decision. “No. I think not. If there was a kidnapping and he’s not yet called in the police, for whatever reason, I don’t want to cause further complications. A kidnapper might have threatened to harm Willie unless a ransom is paid without notifying the authorities. That’s not a decision I would like to make, if it were one of my children.”

  “Wouldn’t you call the police?” I demanded, surprised to be talking to him this way.

  “I think now that I would. But each case is different, and I can’t know the circumstances in this one. Perhaps not. Perhaps if your lives were at risk, or Mark’s, I would have to reconsider.”

  “So we can’t do any more?” I asked in despair.

  “Not for the moment. If I haven’t heard from Bill Groves by tomorrow morning, I’ll try again to reach him. And this had darned well better be on the level, Joel. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself grounded for the rest of your life. Understand?”

  “I’m telling the truth,” I muttered.

  “Now let me finish this paperwork,” Father said. So we left his study.

  Sophie went back to practicing on the piano, and Mom was watching some soapy movie in the living room. I tried to watch TV in my room. I couldn’t get into a program, though. I flipped all around the channels and nothing caught my attention.

  Where was Willie? Who had taken him, and why? For money? How long would it be before a ransom could be paid, if it could be? What if it was a million dollars? Could Mr. Groves come up with that much? Was Willie hurt? Was he scared?

  He had to be scared. I could imagine myself in such a predicament, and I’d be terrified. I remembered a true story I heard about what had happened a long time ago, where kidnappers or terrorists had taken the grandson of a famous millionaire. To prove they had him, and to coerce the payment to them of a tremendous amount of money, they had cut off the boy’s ear and sent it to the grandfather through the mail.

  I imagined opening up the box and seeing that ear. For a few seconds I thought I was going to throw up.

  Usually I could entertain myself by making up stories. Some of them had me as the starring player, and I would have great adventures, perform incredible rescues, be the hero I’d probably never be in real life. I could lose myself in fantasy.

  Tonight it didn’t work.

  My imagination was still working, all right. But it wasn’t a distraction, it drove me crazy.

  I pictured Willie in a cellar, lying on gunnysacks in a coal bin, his hands tied behind him, a strip of duct tape across his mouth so he couldn’t scream.

  I saw Willie in the back of a car, on the floor with a blanket over him so nobody could tell he was a captive, choking on a gag they’d put in his mouth.

  I pictured him tied to a chair while somebody tortured him, trying to make him talk. I couldn’t think what Willie would know that anyone would try to force out of him, but the image wouldn’t go away.

  I’d made up stories about people before. I’d enjoyed thinking about my brother lying mangled in the middle of the street, after he’d tattled on me for having tried one of our grandpa’s cigars. Father grounded me for a week. Once I imagined staking Father out on a bed of fire ants for being so unfair when Mark started a fight and he blamed me. It wasn’t even me who broke the lamp, but I ended up paying for it.

  I’d had thoughts about Willie before, too. I’d have been too chicken to bloody his nose on purpose, but I would have taken a lot of satisfaction in seeing it happen if I hadn’t known he’d retaliate.

  If I knew for sure that Willie would be rescued, I wouldn’t care if he suffered a little bit. But I didn’t want it on my conscience that bad things happened to him because I didn’t do what my grandma would call my Christian duty in reporting the kidnapping.

  I fell asleep with the light on. Once I woke up when a telephone rang, but I knew at once it was the one in Mark’s room, not in Father’s study. I heard him answer it, then laugh. I wondered how long it would take me to feel amused again, if they didn’t rescue Willie before it was too late.

  I almost forgot that I’d been hiding from Willie because he wanted to beat me up. I almost forgot what a jerk he usually was. I couldn’t forget that this time it wasn’t one of my stories, his predicament was real.

  I reached out and turned off the light before I fell asleep again.

  And in my dreams the saga continued. Willie, bloody nose spouting all over his hand. Willie, spluttering through the wad of paper towels the coach had handed him. Willie, cussing me out once the coach walked away. Threatening me. Lying in wait for me in front of the school.

  It was as real as when it actually happened. And then I saw his bewildered face when he was looking for me. And the black car with the classy emblem, and the back door being thrown open, and the man getting an arm around Willie’s neck from behind, then dragging him into the car.

  A youngish man, with dark hair, and an ordinary white T-shirt, and there was the glint of a gold watch on one wrist, and a matching glimmer, hardly more than a speck, of gold in one ear.

  An earring. A tiny thin gold hoop.

  The kidnapper had worn a watch and an earring.

  I came wide awake, remembering.

  Did I really see the watch and the earring? Or had I only dreamed it?r />
  I was sweating and gasping for breath.

  I lay there in the dark, trying not for the dream, but for the reality of what I’d seen from behind that smudged glass of the apartment house foyer.

  I’d remembered two more clues: a gold watch and an earring.

  Not much, maybe, when so many men wore watches and earrings.

  I wanted to tell my father, so when Mr. Groves called back he would get all the clues that might save Willie.

  Only when I got up and crept through the darkened apartment to stand outside my parents’ bedroom door, there was no sound or light behind it. My father was asleep.

  After I stood there for a few seconds, I even heard his soft snoring.

  I hesitated. There was a strong urge to knock and wake him up, to tell him what I’d remembered.

  And then I remembered even more clearly how he’d reacted to previous things I’d related, before I learned that there were better people to try them on than Father. Some of them had been tall tales, but some of them had been true, like the time I saw a guy get bitten by a dog and have to be taken away in an ambulance, or the time a street person built a fire in the Dumpster in the alley.

  I was reminded of the fact that this was one of the few times that my father had even partially believed me. If what I’d said didn’t pan out when he finally talked to Willie’s dad, I was dead meat.

  After a minute or so I turned and went back to my own room. I’d tell him first thing in the morning.

  Chapter Five

  I woke up feeling uneasy without knowing why. Only when I came fully awake did it come back to me.

  I bounded out of bed. In daylight, now, I was sure I had really seen the watch and the earring. Without even bothering to get dressed, I dashed out of my room.

  And dashed right back into it and slammed the door.

  The place was full of strangers. I stood for a moment, digesting what I’d seen. Men carrying things I hadn’t recognized. Women carrying flowers. Some guy lugging a cello case.

  The party! Of course, tonight my parents were having a big important party for a lot of big shots, important people. Bankers and college presidents and I thought maybe some musicians and an actor or two.