by Ed McBain
“Whoooo!” he said. “The North Pole!”
“Cold out there?”
“Whoooo!” Parker said again. “How’s it going in here? Nice and warm in here, Stevie? You should be outside with the mad scientist.”
“What’s Kronig doing?”
“Trying to make a cast from a tire track. After that, he’ll probably dust the whole damn driveway for fingerprints. These lab boys give me a fat pain in the keester. Goddamn mad scientists. The kid’s probably dead already, anyway.”
Carella gave him a sharp poke in the ribs. “What’s the matter?” Parker asked.
Carella glanced hastily toward Reynolds, who had apparently not heard Parker’s remark. “Any sign of the lieutenant yet?” he asked.
“No, I ain’t seen him. He’s probably curled up home with his wife.” He studied Cassidy, who was trailing his lengths of colored wires across the room. “What the hell is he doing?”
“Putting in a trunk line to the phone company’s main office.”
“And what’s that?” Parker asked, pointing to the instrument set up near the telephone.
“You know damn well what that is. It’s a wiretap.”
“All baloney,” Parker said. “Wiretap, trunk line, all baloney! I never seen such a commotion in my life. I won’t be surprised we get the Chief of Detectives in here.”
“I imagine the lieutenant will call him,” Carella said.
“Sure, and for what? The lab’s outside crawling around on their hands and knees sniffing tire tracks, and the whole damn force is out checking rooming houses and hotels and motels and every fleabag in the city and the suburbs. We got dicks at both airports and covering every train station, bus terminal and trolley car stop. And I ask you, for what? Those cheap thieves got only two choices open to them.”
“Have they, Andy?”
“Damn right. They either turn the kid loose or they kill him out of spite.”
“They ought to take all kidnapers and burn them at the stake,” Cassidy said. “Man sweats his head off raising a nice family, and some guy steps in and swipes a kid. There ought to be a law.”
“You… you don’t think they’ll… harm Jeff, do you, Detective Carella?” Reynolds asked. “When they find out he isn’t the one they wanted?”
“There ain’t nobody safe nowadays, nobody,” Cassidy said. “That’s because the cops are all a bunch of—” He stopped suddenly, seemingly realizing that he was in the presence of policemen. Casually, he cleared his throat. “Maybe I better test this phone, huh?” he said. He picked up the receiver of the new phone. Impatiently, he jiggled the bar. “Hello? Hello?”
“I’m going to the kitchen for a cup of coffee,” Parker said. “You want some, Stevie?”
“No. Thanks.”
“Wiretaps, trunk lines,” Parker said disgustedly, and he walked out of the room.
“Hello,” Cassidy said into the telephone, “this is Cassidy…What?… Never mind the Hopalong wisecracks. I’m testing this Smoke Rise installation.” He listened. “Yeah… Okay. Fine. I’m finished, then. What else you got for me?” He listened, jotting an address onto a pad. “Right. So long.” He hung up. “Well, that does it.”
“All finished?”
“Just pick it up, and you’ve got our main office. You going to try tracing a call, huh?”
“If we get another call to trace.”
“I’ll let you in on something, Officer. But don’t spread it around. If your man uses a dial phone, you ain’t got a chance in hell of tracing the call. You know?”
“I know,” Carella said.
“Oh. You know. Well, you better pray he uses a manual instrument. That sounds like a dirty joke, hey, don’t it?” He chuckled to himself, took some papers from his pocket and then glanced at his watch. “Are them three gonna be eating dinner all night? I gotta get somebody to sign for this installation.”
“They should be finished soon,” Carella said.
“You never seen an outfit like this one for getting things signed,” Cassidy said. “You want to go to the toilet, you got to get somebody to sign for it, it figures, don’t it?” He shook his head. “I swear to God, one of these days, the telephone company is gonna declare war on the United States.”
“Have you heard anything yet, Detective Carella?” King said, and he came through the dining-room arch and into the living room, carrying a coffee cup in his right hand. Diane and Cameron were directly behind him.
“Not yet, Mr. King,” Carella said.
“Mr. King, I wonder if you would si—” Cassidy started.
“Well, what’s the holdup?” King said. “Are you sure your men are really looking? Do they have a description of the boy?”
“Yes, sir, they have a description.”
“Would you sign this…”
“Do they know he’ll be wandering the streets? They can’t expect the kidnapers to deliver him to our front…”
“Yes, sir, they know that.”
“Could you sign this form we…”
“Well, then, why hasn’t someone seen him? Have you got men at headquarters to take care of calls from the public? It seems likely that some citizen might…”
“That’s all taken care of, sir.”
“Mr. King, would you please sign for this installation?”
King turned to Cassidy as if just discovering a Martian in his living room. “What installation?” he asked.
“The trunk line,” Cassidy said. “To the main office.”
“What trunk line?”
“I told you about it before we had it installed, Mr. King,” Carella said.
“Oh. Oh, yes. That.”
“I have to get a few things from you first, Mr. King,” Cassidy said.
“What is it?”
“Is that the only phone in the house there? I mean, the one you had before I put in the trunk line?”
“No. We’ve got two numbers. That one, and my private line upstairs.”
“Could I have those numbers, please?”
“Smoke Rise 8-7214 and 7215,” King said.
“And that’s it, right?”
“I’ve got a phone in the car, too,” King said. “Do you want that number?”
“No, just the ones in the house. Car phone’s a separate thing. We just need a record of the lines going in, so we don’t get all fouled up with—Well, it don’t make no difference. Would you sign this slip, please?” He handed it to King.
“This seems like a waste of time to me,” King said, writing. “Once they turn the boy loose…”
“We’re taking every precaution, Mr. King,” Carella said.
“Is that why there’s a policeman outside my son’s bedroom?”
“That’s right. We have no idea what the kidnapers will do next, you see.”
“It doesn’t seem to me they have much choice.” King handed the signed slip back to Cassidy.
“Thank you,” Cassidy said. “Don’t worry about this, Mr. Reynolds. You’ll have him back in a couple of hours. So long, now.” He went to the door and waved, opened it, stepped into the cold, and closed it quickly behind him.
“Reynolds, you’d better eat something now,” King said. “Inge’s ready for you in the kitchen.”
“I’m not very hungry, Mr. King.”
“Damnit, man, you’ve got to eat! Now go ahead. Jeffry will be back before you know it.”
“All right, sir, thank you.” Reynolds started out of the room.
“Would you send Detective Parker in, Mr. Reynolds?” Carella said. “He should be in the kitchen.”
“Yes, I will,” Reynolds said.
Diane King waited until he was gone. Then she said, “Mr. Carella, the kidnapers have heard by now, haven’t they?”
“They should have, Mrs. King. It’s been on all the radio and TV stations, and the afternoon papers have all put out extras on it.”
“Then it’s just a waste of time, isn’t it?”
“Well…”
“Isn’t it?
”
“I don’t like to second-guess kidnapers,” Carella said. “That’s like second-guessing murderers.”
“But… you don’t think they’ll harm him, do you?”
“Of course they won’t!” King put in. “As far as they’re concerned, this is a business deal that went sour, that’s all.”
“They might harm him, Mrs. King,” Carella said calmly. “The same way a mugger will beat up a man when he finds out that the man isn’t carrying any money.”
“But that would be senseless,” King said. “I’m sure they’ll simply turn him loose the moment they hear the news.”
“Well, that’s a possibility, of course,” Carella said.
“But the other is a possibility too, isn’t it?” Diane said. “That they might first hurt him? Before they release him?”
“It’s a possibility,” Carella said.
“A stupid possibility. I can’t believe these men are stupid.”
“Kidnapers don’t have to be smart, Mr. King. Only ruthless.”
“We hadn’t thought of that, Doug. That they might hurt him before they turn him loose,” Cameron said. “It’s a definite possibility.”
“Yes,” Carella said. “And there’s also a third possibility.”
* * * *
“My name is Jeffry Reynolds,” the boy said.
Sy grabbed the front of his sweater and said, “You’re lying.”
“I’m not lying. My name is Jeff Reynolds. Hey, let go of that sweater, will you? It doesn’t belong to me. I’m supposed to—”
“You’re a lying little bastard!” Sy said, and he shoved out at Jeff, sending him sprawling across the room.
“Sy!” Kathy screamed, and she took a step toward the boy.
“Get away from him,” Sy said, moving between them.
I’m… I’m not lying,” Jeff said. Why should I lie?” He was beginning to get a little frightened now. He kept staring at Sy, not wanting to be shoved again, yet not knowing how to prevent it. Telling the truth seemed to be the wrong course of action. And yet he did not know which lie the man wanted.
“What’s your father’s name?” Sy asked.
“Ch-Charles.”
“What’s your mother’s name?”
“My mother is dead.”
“Where do you live?”
“On Mr. King’s estate.”
“Don’t call him Mr. King!” Sy shouted. “You know he’s your father.”
“My father? No. No, he’s Bobby’s father.”
Sy seized the front of the sweater again. “You little son of a bitch,” he said, “don’t get smart with me.”
“But I’m telling you the—”
“Shut up! I know you’re Bobby King, and I don’t have to—What’s that?”
“What?” Jeff said, truly frightened now. “What? What?”
“In the sweater. There. Take off that sweater.” He pulled it over Jeffs head roughly, and then turned it in his hands. A slow smile crossed his face. “So you’re Jeff Whatever-the-hell, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Sure. And the name tape in your sweater says Robert King! You lying little…”
“That’s Bobby’s sweater!” Jeff said. “Mrs. King lent it to me.”
“Tell the truth!”
“I am telling the truth.”
“What does your father do?”
“He’s a chauffeur.”
“What were you doing in the woods?”
“I was playing with Bobby.”
“And your name is Jeff, huh?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“Why didn’t you mention all this before? How come you waited for the police call?”
“I didn’t know. I thought—You said you had a gun for me.”
Sy nodded. He stood with his hands on his hips, a small dapper man badly in need of a shave, watching Jeff calmly, nodding, nodding. And then, suddenly, viciously, his hand lashed out, the palm catching Jeff across the cheek.
“You’re full of crap!” he yelled.
“Eddie, stop him!” Kathy shouted.
Sy advanced on the boy. “No snotnose is gonna try pulling the wool over my eyes!”
Jeff rushed into Kathy’s arms, and at last the tears came, tears of fear and frustration. “I am Jeff Reynolds,” he sobbed. “I am, I am…”
“Shut up!” Sy said. “Another word out of you, and you won’t be nobody!”
“Lay off, Sy,” Eddie said. “The kid’s scared.”
“What the hell do I care if he’s scared? You think he’s gonna make a fool outa—”
“I said lay off.” Sy glared at him but stopped his advance. “Let me see the sweater, Sy.” Sy tossed the sweater to Eddie. Eddie looked at the name tape. “It does say Robert King, Kathy.”
“And the boy says he borrowed it. Is that so hard to accept?”
“Yeah,” Sy said. “With five hundred grand at stake, yeah, it’s goddamn hard to accept.”
“Let’s take the boy back,” Kathy said softly.
“Now hold it a minute. Let’s just hold it one goddamn minute. We’re not—”
“He’s the wrong boy, Eddie,” Kathy said plaintively. “Why stick your neck out? What can you gain?”
“Now, look,” Sy said, “we’re in this together, right, Eddie boy? Fifty-fifty, right? So let’s calm down, okay. We can’t turn this kid loose.” He paused, looking first at Kathy and then to her husband. “He knows us, for Pete’s sake. He can lead the bulls right to us!”
“Who said we were turning him loose?” Eddie asked.
“Nobody said so,” Sy said quickly, “but don’t even let the idea get in your head. This is a sweet setup. Let’s not ruin it because a dame gets hysterical.”
“I’m just trying to figure, that’s all,” Eddie said.
“Okay, nothing wrong with that,” Sy said. “But figure right! Our plan calls for two guys.”
“I know. I know.”
“Okay. And we’ve got five hundred grand invested in this kid, remember that!”
“You’ve got nothing invested but a little time,” Kathy said. “What have his parents got invested in him? What have—”
“Time is right, baby. You know how much time we’d do on a kidnaping rap?
Provided we don’t get the chair? This ain’t busting into a goddamn cash register!”
“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Kathy, he’s right. We got to hold the kid. At least until…”
“We don’t have to! We could turn him loose right this minute!”
“Sure, and go straight to jail!” Sy said. He turned to Eddie. Seductively, he said, “Your share of this is two hundred and fifty thousand bucks, Eddie. You know how much money that is?”
“Who wants it?” Kathy shouted. “We don’t need it!”
“Sure, she don’t need it. Lady Rockefeller. Wearing a sweater with torn elbows. She don’t need it!”
“I don’t!”
“Well, I do,” Eddie said softly. “That’s all the money in the world. Why shouldn’t I have it?” His voice rose. “Am I supposed to be a two-bit punk for the rest of my life? What’s wrong with making a grab for that kind of loot? I want it! I want that money.”
“Then don’t get talked out of it,” Sy said quickly.
“What the hell, was I born with a Smoke Rise estate like this kid? What did I get, Kathy? South Nineteenth Street and David Avenue. An old man who played the numbers, and an old lady who was a rummy!”
“You can’t blame this boy for—”
“I’m not blaming nobody. I’m saying I had nothing, and I still got nothing—even after all the lousy cheap stickups. Don’t I ever get nothing? Ever? When the hell do I get my chance?”
“This is your chance, Eddie. Turn the boy loose. Then we’ll…”
“Then we’ll what? Get to Mexico? On what? Hope? Love? And do what when we get there? The same thing I’m doing here?”
“A quarter of a million bucks, boy,” Sy said. “It’ll buy all the radio equipment you nee
d, all the schooling. Man, you can own a whole damn radio station!”