King's Ransom

by Ed McBain

  He shook his head.

  “I know none of this makes any sense. For the first six months of my married life, we lived in an apartment that had cockroaches the size of flying bats. I never want that again, Mr. Carella. I want my house in Smoke Rise, and I want my servants, and I want a Cadillac with a telephone hanging from the dashboard, and I want…”

  And in that instant, the telephone hanging from the dashboard rang.

  It had been a simple matter to learn the frequency band within which all automobile telephones in the vicinity operated. Once this had been learned, it was equally simple to steal the necessary equipment: the 600-volt oscillator and the 1600-volt oscillator, the transmitter and the various relays and switches, and lastly the batteries. It was a little more difficult to come across the dial which Kathy had thought seemed alien to a radio set—and only because it was alien. The dial was a telephone dial hooked to the battery and the relay, so that it could key the telephone in King’s car and cause it to ring. Once King picked up the telephone, Eddie could speak to him over the microphone attached to his transmitter. King’s automobile telephone number, quite naturally, had been obtained from the telephone company. Eddie Folsom’s preliminary sketches from the setup had looked like this:

  The setup was now a reality before him. He had dialed King’s number nervously. He waited now, one hand trembling around the microphone, the receiver tuned to pick up King’s voice, the transmitter ready to relay Eddie’s instructions.

  Pick up the phone, he thought.

  Pick it up!

  “Wh—?” King said.

  “What’s—?” Carella said from the back seat.

  “The telephone! The telephone’s ringing.”

  “Holy God, that’s how—Answer it! Go ahead, answer it!”

  King lifted the receiver from where it hung on the dash. “Hello?” he said.

  “All right, Mr. King, this is it,” Eddie said. “You listen carefully, because you’ll be receiving your instructions over this telephone for however long it takes you to get where we want you to go. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m listening.”

  “Nobody’s going to help you now, Mr. King, because this conversation can’t possibly be traced. I’m using a radio transmitter and not a telephone. So get that out of your mind in case you had any idea of stopping and telling anyone about this. We know exactly how long it should take you to get where you’re going, so no tricks, please. Now. Where are you?”

  “I’m… I don’t know.”

  “All right, keep that phone in your hand. You are not to hang up until this trip is over. Keep it in your hand, and as you pass the next cross street, tell me where you are.”

  “All right.”

  “What is it?” Carella whispered. He was kneeling close to the back of his seat, his mouth alongside King’s ear. King shook his head and pointed to the telephone.

  “You think he’ll hear us?” Carella whispered.

  King nodded.

  “I’m coming up front. I’ll talk to him from now on. The reception on these damn things isn’t hi-fi, that’s for sure. We’ll have to hope he doesn’t recognize the change of voice. What does he want?”

  “Cross street,” King whispered as Carella climbed over the seat and took the phone from King’s hand. He looked through the windshield and then brought the receiver to his mouth.

  “I’m approaching North Thirty-ninth and Culver,” he said into the phone.

  Apparently, Eddie did not detect the difference in the voices. His own voice level and calm, he said, “Turn left on North Fortieth. Continue in a southerly direction until you reach Grover Avenue, then turn left again. Go uptown until Forty-eighth, where you will see a crosstown entrance into the park. Take that entrance and continue driving. When you reach Hall Avenue, let me know. Have you got that?”

  “Left on North Fortieth,” Carella repeated. “South until Grover, then left again. Uptown to forty-eighth, and then into the park. Right.”

  He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “Have you got that, King?”

  “Yes,” King said.

  “He’s giving it to us piecemeal so we can’t alert the nearest traffic cop as to just where we’re heading. These are shrewd bastards, Mr. King.” Carella’s brow furrowed. “I wish I knew how to stop them. I just wish I knew.”

  * * * *

  Sitting in the parked car, Sy Barnard smoked his tenth cigarette in the past half hour. Anxiously, he looked at his watch. Then he glanced again at the road. The car was parked in the woods, completely shielded from the road by an old electric-company repair shack. The screening, in all truth, was unnecessary.

  Only one car had driven by in the past half hour, and on the day he and Eddie had chosen the site they had clocked only three cars in two and a half hours. The chances of being spotted by a curious motorist were negligible, almost nonexistent. Nor was there much possibility of a police car cruising by. Studying the list of road blocks, Sy knew that the nearest police barricade was at a big intersection some fifteen miles to the west. He had easily avoided it in getting here, and he knew he could easily go around it when driving back to the farmhouse.

  Even if King refused to obey orders, even if, for example, a squad car were following the black Cadillac at this moment, the plan was foolproof. And the part of it that made it so beautiful was the fact that no one but King knew where he was going, and even he was getting it in small bits and pieces so that he couldn’t possibly give any meaningful information to a third party. The electric-company shack was just around a curve in the road. If a police car were following King, it would have to maintain a respectable distance or risk being detected. Detection would endanger the boy, and so Sy knew that any following police would stay pretty far behind the lead car. Communicating with King via the telephone, Eddie would know when King was about five miles away from the site. He would tell him to pull over to the side of the road and lower his right-hand window. Then he would tell King to begin driving again. At a point a half mile from the shack, Eddie would tell King that he was approaching a curve in the road. As soon as he rounded that bend, he wanted King to slow down, pull over, stop, and drop the carton of money out the window and into the bushes on the right-hand side of the road. He was to drive away from the spot as quickly as possible then, following the instructions that came to him over the telephone.

  And therein lay the beauty of the plan. A following squad car would be nowhere in sight when the drop was made. By the time they approached the electric-company shack, King would have driven off. They would continue to follow, not having witnessed the drop, not even knowing it had taken place. Eddie would continue talking to King. He would lead him out to the very tip of Sands Spit, turn him around at the end of the peninsula, and then lead him back to the city via another route. The following police car, if there was one, would continue tailing the lead car. Eddie would continue talking to King until Sy had picked up the money and driven back to the farmhouse. The moment Sy stepped through the door, Eddie would stop transmitting. King—and the police, if there were any—would then be on their own. They would be free to drive wherever the hell they wanted to. They could even drive back to the electric-company shack if they so chose; Sy would have left there long ago.

  The plan, then, was beautiful.

  And yet he was nervous.

  He could not quell the persistent feeling that something would go wrong.

  And yet he couldn’t figure what.

  He was not, you see, a Bible-reading man.

  He did not know that the meek shall inherit the earth.

  * * * *

  Studying the street map, Eddie Folsom said, “All right, you’re now approaching the Black Rock Span. There’s a toll booth there, and the toll is a quarter, Mr. King, twenty-five cents. Get the change out of your pocket now, and have it ready. Don’t hand the attendant a hundred-dollar bill or anything like that to attract attention. And don’t say anything to him. It won’t do you any good at all to
have police following you. If there are any cops when it comes time to make the drop, we’ll call the whole thing off and kill the boy. Do you hear me, Mr. King?”

  “Yes, I hear you,” Carella answered.

  “Good,” Eddie said. “Go through the toll booth and onto the bridge. Let me know as you’re driving off the bridge, and I’ll tell you what you do next. It won’t help to say anything to the cop collecting the toll because you still don’t know where you’re going. Any tricks, and we will kill the boy.”

  Listening to her husband, Kathy winced at the words.

  Kill the boy.

  Kill the boy.

  My husband, she thought.

  My fault.

  * * * *

  In the automobile, Steve Carella reached into his back pocket and took out his wallet. He hastily opened it to where his shield was pinned to the leather. He unpinned the shield, took out his notebook, rapidly scribbled:

  Call police headquarters. Tell them King contacted by radio transmission to car telephone. Try to get a fix. Hurry!

  Detective Steve Carella

  He pinned his shield to the note, took a quarter from his pocket, and motioned King to pull over to the booth accepting quarters from the window opposite the driver’s seat.

  “You at the booth yet, King?” Eddie asked.

  “Just approaching it,” Carella said.

  “Have you got the change?”

  “Yes, I’ve got a quarter.”

  “Good. No funny stuff.”

  The car slowed and pulled up alongside the toll booth. Carella handed the uniformed cop on duty a quarter, the note and his police shield. He nodded tersely at the cop as King pulled away and joined the steady stream of traffic moving across the bridge.

  “You’re coming off the bridge now, is that right?” Eddie asked.

  “That’s right,” Carella answered.

  “Okay, bear to your left. I don’t want you going out to Calm’s Point. There’s a big sign reading Mid-Sands Highway. That’s the road I want you to take.”

  Standing behind her husband, Kathy began to piece together a clear picture of what the markings on the street maps meant. The spot outlined with the red circle was obviously the Douglas King house, and the route marked in red was the route over which Eddie was leading him. The place marked “Farm” was, of course, the farmhouse, situated on Fairlane Road, about a half mile from Stanberry Road. And the spot marked with the blue star… ?

  “Keep driving until you reach Exit Seventeen,” Eddie said. “Have you got that, King?”

  “I’ve got it,” Carella said.

  The blue star confused Kathy because the red line went directly past it and then continued on out to the end of the peninsula, where it once again turned and headed back for the city. If the drop…

  But of course.

  The blue star indicated Sy’s hiding place. They would ask King to drop the money and then keep him driving, simply to get him away from the spot or to confuse any followers. Of course. Sy Barnard, then, was lying in wait at…

  She studied the map more closely.

  … Tantamount Road, just around the curve in Route 127.

  “Eddie,” she said.

  “Not now, for God’s sake!” he yelled, one hand cupped over the microphone.

  “Eddie, let’s get out of this. Please. Please.”

  “No!” he said. “Where are you now, King?” he asked into the microphone.

  “Approaching Exit Fifteen,” Carella answered.

  “Let me know when you pass Sixteen,” Eddie said.

  “All right.” Carella covered the mouthpiece of the telephone.

  “Where do you suppose he’s leading us?” King asked.

  “I don’t know. Somewhere out on the peninsula.” He shook his head. “If we knew that, Mr. King…”

  * * * *

  Sy Barnard looked at his watch again.

  It shouldn’t be long now. Come on, Eddie, he thought. Hurry them up. Get them over here with the gold. Let them make the drop, and let me pick it up, and let me get back to that farmhouse safely.

  Come on. Please. Hurry up.

  Sy didn’t realize it, but he was praying.

  * * * *

  What do you make of this, Harry?” the uniformed cop asked.

  The cop in the adjoining toll booth handed a motorist his change and said, “What?”

  “Lower that radio a minute, will you?”

  “Sure.” He turned down the volume. “What is it?”

  “Guy just handed me this. What do you make of it?”

  Harry studied the shield and the note. “What do I make of it? You damn fool, this guy’s a bull! Get on the phone right away!”

  “How do you know he’s legit?”

  “Mister, you can’t buy shields like that in the five and ten!”

  “Headquarters, Detective Snyder.”

  “Listen, this is Patrolman Umberson, shield number 63-457, I’m in a toll booth on the Black Rock Span.”

  “Yeah, what is it, Umberson?”

  “A black Caddy just went through the toll stop. Guy handed me a badge and a note asking me to call Headquarters.”

  “What kind of a badge?”

  “Detective.”

  “What’s the number on it?”

  “Just a second.” There was a pause on the line. “Number 8712,” Umberson said.

  “So what about it?”

  “The note said to tell Headquarters that King was contacted by radio transmission to the car telephone. It said to try to get a fix. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “King contacted by…” Detective Snyder shrugged. “I just came on duty.” he said. “It don’t mean nothing to me. I’ll check on that badge number, see if it’s legitimate tin. What was the guy’s name again?”

  “King.”

  “King, huh? Like the guy in that kidnaping over in Smoke—” Snyder started and then suddenly said, “Oh, my God!”

  * * * *

  “Call it off, Eddie,” Kathy said. “End it. We’ll take the boy and…”

  “I’m not calling anything off!” Eddie snapped. “I have to do this, Kathy! I have to!”

  “Please. If you love me, I’m asking you to…”

  “All right, we just passed Exit Sixteen,” Carella said.

  “Fine. Turn off at Seventeen and drive four blocks north. Then double back until you hit the parkway entrance below this one. You’ll be heading in the opposite direction,” Eddie said. “Drive down one exit to Exit Fifteen. Let me know when you—”

  “The boy is in a farmhouse on Fairlane Road, a half mile from Stanberry!” Kathy suddenly shouted into the open microphone.

  “What the hell—” Eddie started, and he turned to face her, but he was too late, the lid had blown, the words were spouting from her mouth.

  * * * *

  “Sy Barnard is waiting in a car…”

  “Kathy, stop it, are you crazy?”

  “…on Tantamount Road, around the curve in 127.”

  “Did you hear that?” Carella shouted.

  “I heard it,” King said.

  Carella slammed the receiver down onto the hook. “Head for Tantamount Road Route 127,” he said to King. “Straight ahead, turn off at Exit Twenty-two. Step on it. Never mind the speed limit.” He lifted the receiver from the hook again and waited for the operator.

  “Your call, please?”

  “This is a police officer,” Carella said “Get me Headquarters immediately.”

  “Yes, sir!” the operator said.

  Sy Barnard was sitting in the automobile smoking his fifteenth cigarette when the black Cadillac rounded the bend in the road.

  This is it , he thought. This is it .

  The car slowed to a stop. The window on the right-hand side of the car was open. Sy watched, expecting to see a pair of hands appear at the window, expecting to see a carton of money drop into the bushes. Instead, the door opened and a man with a gun in his hand leaped out.