Ransom

by Jon Cleary

  RANSOM

  to Nick Scoppetta

  for his considerable help

  Chapter One

  “Law and order,” said Scobie Malone. “There’s something wrong with the system when that becomes an election issue.”

  The newscaster on the television screen paused and looked straight at Malone as if he had heard him. He seemed to sigh, then he said, “More election news right after this message.” He disappeared from the screen and a girl in a four hundred-dollar peignoir floated on to take his place. She stood in the middle of a bathroom that could have been a set left over from a Busby Berkeley film, just an ordinary American working girl, looked straight at Malone and asked him if, as a woman, he would like to smell like roses where it counted. Malone, untroubled by vaginal odours, a short back-and-sides holdout against long-haired unisex, stood up and switched off the television set.

  “I’m here in America and I just don’t believe a word of what I see or hear. I think I’ll ask for our money back on this part of the trip - “

  “East 69th Street,” said Lisa. “Would that be far uptown?”

  We’ve arrived at it, thought Malone with amused resignation. We have reached the stage of being an old married couple. Eight weeks, and already we’re not listening to each other, just like my mum and dad after thirty-eight years.

  “Why don’t you go down to the desk and ask them to recommend a dentist? They’d know one around here.”

  “I make it a point never to ask hotel desks to recommend anything. Everyone who works in the front of a hotel has a vested interest - himself. If he recommends anything, it’s because he’s getting a kickback.”

  “I don’t know that I’ll ever learn to live with your mean Dutch suspicion.”

  “That’s good, coming from a mug copper.”

  “You’re starting to sound like a real Aussie,” he said with approval. “I wondered how long it would take. Now if I can just get you off wine and French cooking on to beer and sausage rolls - “

  He kissed the back of her neck as she leaned over the yellow pages of the Manhattan telephone directory. Lisa had lost a filling last night and this morning at breakfast she had discovered that a nerve in the tooth had been exposed; she was now trying to find a dentist who could give her a temporary filling without delay. So far she had tried four dentists, all of whom had told her they could fit her in for an appointment next Monday week. New York was either short of dentists or there was an epidemic of tooth decay in the city.

  “East 69th Street would be a long way uptown from here.”

  “I’ll go to Boston or Philadelphia if a dentist there says he can see me this morning. Anyhow, I have to go to the Holland Society and that’s on 58th Street, so it won’t be much farther. Dr Willey. I’ll try him.”

  She picked up the phone and Malone walked to the window and looked out. He and Lisa had been travelling for eight weeks and each time he looked out of a hotel window he was still surprised not to be looking out on the familiar. None of the world’s cities was really unfamiliar any more: the television screen was everyone’s window. But pictures, whether from television or films or magazines, never gave you the feel of a city; and he was a man very conscious of the feel of his environment, a policeman who felt the grit in the air, the tension in a crowd, the sad or sometimes menacing loneliness in a deserted street. The world rubbed against him like a constant nagging wind, and sometimes he marvelled that he had not succumbed to the erosion of it, that he could occasionally smile at what he saw and felt. His humour had become dry but he was not drought-stricken.

  He had not yet got the feel of New York, but it was work-

  ing on him. The sky had a peculiarly grey colour to it, the blue-grey of bruising; that, he guessed, might be the forerunner of the hurricane that was coming up the East Coast; the weather forecast was that the storm would swing east and miss the city. From the window he looked over towards the East River, saw the tall red, white and blue smokestacks of Con Edison, like patriotic phallic symbols: the Americans dressed up everything. Leaning forward and craning his neck, he saw a gull planing down past the windowed cliffs of the New York University Medical Center; on the ground white-coated interns moved from building to building, their coats flapping open like the clipped wings of larger birds. An ambulance, its siren the magnified cry of pain of the patient inside it, came up First Avenue and swung into the Center. Even the wail of the siren sounded unfamiliar to him, a cry in another language; yet he understood pain well enough, knew he would recognize it anywhere in the whole suffering world. But Christ, he thought, as he had thought each time he had looked out of every window that had presented itself since they had left Sydney, what a tight blind little world I lived in. It had been just that realization that had prompted him to blow five thousand dollars on this honeymoon trip round the world, and every step of the way had proved to himself that he had been right.

  “You’ve gone mental,” Lisa had said when he had suggested it. “I’ve heard of this happening when people unexpectedly come into money - “

  “Look, that twelve thousand dollars was a windfall. I’ve been buying lottery tickets for twenty years and I’ve never even won a fiver before. It was just a weekly habit - like washing my car or having a beer with the boys. I never even thought about what I’d do if I won a major prize - “

  “I’m learning about you. I’ve been telling myself there was something of a dreamer buried in you - “

  “There is,” he had admitted, pleased she had discovered it. The girls he had known in the past had never credited him with much imagination, never having bothered to

  search for it; perhaps they had too easily accepted the Australian male at his own face value of professing not to be interested in anything that could not be backed, imbibed or bedded. “But I never dreamed about lottery prizes - “

  “What did you dream about?” She had a woman’s habit of not allowing a discussion to go in a straight line: I’ll walk out on her, he thought, after twenty years or so of this.

  “Meeting someone like you. Now shut up. Look, I’ve made the down payment on our house and I’ve got enough money to furnish it - I had all that when I proposed to you.”

  “I remember. You had your bank statement in one hand while you had the other up my skirt.”

  “I was just seeing what your credit was - “

  She had hit him at that, then kissed him. “You want to check my credit again?”

  He pushed her away. “Lay off- and please shut up. Well, now I’ve been made Inspector - “

  That, like the lottery win, had been totally unexpected. The promotion had come several years ahead of schedule and over the heads of a dozen more senior men, all of whom had, like true Public Service believers in the dogma of seniority, promptly but unsuccessfully protested. It had been a month of windfalls and with his inborn Celtic pessimism, with which he fought a continual battle, he had wondered if his luck was proving too good, if sooner or later he would be expected to pay for it all in some dreadful way. Like losing Lisa. When he had gone home to tell his mother of both pieces of good fortune she had rushed at him and half-drowned him in holy water, warding off the Devil before the latter could demand payment.

  “All right,” Lisa said patiently, seeing now that this was something he had thought through fully before mentioning it to her, “so we have security. But we could invest that twelve thousand dollars and who knows what it would be worth in, say, another ten or fifteen years. Especially if we put it in land or property. Then we could take a trip and still have quite a bit left over to educate our children - “

  “Do me a favour. Don’t start our marriage by being a thrifty wife - “

  “I thought that was what you wanted me to be. You’re the man who counts out the fare right down to five cen
ts when you’re paying a taxi-driver.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Yes, there is a difference between five cents and five thousand dollars. I’ve heard of husbands like you - they drive their wives crazy, then ask for a divorce on the grounds of the wife being mentally unbalanced. You add up the household bills every week, complain if the wife has bought fillet steak instead of hamburger, then go out and buy a new car to replace one that’s only two years old. But go on, don’t let me interrupt you.”

  “What have you been doing?” But Malone kissed her, raised his hand and gently brushed back the lock of blonde hair that had fallen down over her forehead. She was much too beautiful for him and he would never fail to marvel at his luck in having won her: she was the biggest, most incredible windfall that would ever happen to him. “Look. You and I have nothing in common except that we love each other. Right?”

  She kissed him in return. “Right. Isn’t that enough?”

  “No, it isn’t. And once you’re over your starry-eyed condition about me you’ll realize it. Look at my background. Born and raised in Erskineville, a slum that even the rest of Sydney seems to have forgotten. I left school at sixteen and the only time I’ve been to university was to arrest a lecturer for exposing himself- “

  “I thought students were broad-minded about that sort of thing.”

  “These were economic students - I gather they don’t like being distracted by the humanities. Shut up. I’ve been a cop for seventeen years and the only time I’ve been out of Australia was when I came to London on police business and met you.”

  “Darling, I’m not marrying your background - “

  “You are, that’s just it. And I’m marrying yours. What other cop in Sydney, even a Detective-Inspector, has got a wife who was born in Holland, educated in Switzerland - “

  “That was only for a year at finishing school - “

  Malone wearily raised his eyebrows. “Only. Even the Police Commissioner’s wife didn’t go to finishing school -some of us reckon he found her in a reform school. But that’s not all - you know Europe better than you know Australia. You worked for our High Commissioner in London, you have forgotten more about the diplomatic life than I’ll ever know - “

  “Darling, I don’t know what you’re worrying about. You’re intelligent, you know what’s going on in the world -there’ll always be something for us to talk about - “

  Malone shook his head. “Sooner or later you’ll be looking for someone to talk to about the things you know - ” He shook his head again. “We’ll invest five thousand dollars in that. I think the dividends when we’re old and fed up with each other will be worth it. I’m a great believer in shared memories.”

  “Whom else have you shared memories with?”

  “No one. That’s how I know.””

  Lisa’s arguments against the suggestion had been more a matter of form than anything else; she was excited by the prospect of the trip, but already she knew that in their life together she would often have to play the role of devil’s advocate to tone down Malone’s Irish fecklessness. He knew his weakness and he kept a tight hold on it, but she knew there would be times when she would have to take over the reins. The argument now had been good practice, though she felt a hypocrite going against the grain of her own overwhelming desire to take off that minute for the other side of the world, for the Europe that she would not have left had not her parents been sent out to Australia in the course of her father’s job. In her view there were only two good things about Australia: sunshine and Scobie.

  But Malone knew nothing of what had gone on in Lisa’s

  mind during their discussion and all through the trip he had been complimenting himself on his good sense in suggesting it. They had visited Bangkok, Hong Kong, Athens, Rome; they had wandered back and forth across Europe, visited Lisa’s relatives in Holland, seen summer fade in France and watched autumn come in in Britain; now it was early November, they were in New York on their way home, and in another two weeks he would be back at work. He had had three months’ leave due him and he had been glad of it, but now he was becoming bored with travelling and filling in his days with sightseeing. He had crossed the Atlantic in a chockablock-full jumbo jet and wondered why he had not been labelled as livestock instead of a passenger. He had grown tired of hotel and restaurant food and longed for one of his mother’s steak-and-kidney pies, a bottle of Cawarra claret and pawpaw and ice-cream to follow. He had seen enough museums and art galleries to last him for several years, and he was looking forward to getting back to flipping over the Wanted posters and looking through the artefacts gathered from criminals who were going on their own extended leaves, five to ten at Bathurst Jail.

  Once a copper, always a copper. Con Malone, his old man, had been right. Con, who chewed his prejudices as if they were his cud, had no time for policemen and in his own mind he had never lived down the disgrace of his son, his only child, having become one. Malone wondered how his father would have voted on the law and order issue in this New York mayoral election.

  He glanced down at the copy of The New York Times lying on the chair beside the window. The Mayor’s face smiled up at him: Michael Forte, all teeth and sparkling eyes, looking ready to burst into 0 Sole Mio; yesterday Malone had bought the Sunday edition of The Daily News, which supported the Mayor’s opponent, and seen that it called Forte the Harvard Gondolier. Politics in America seemed more interesting, if only because the newspapers could be more libellous. But he had had enough of politics in his own woric

  ■3

  back in Sydney and he knew he would never be comfortable as a cop here in New York, where, he had heard, politics was an essential part of the system, to be defended as much as law and order.

  He looked at the other headlines: the late-season hurricane was working its way up from the Carolinas, a family of four had been murdered in Spanish Harlem, people were dying by the thousands from a famine in Bengal, war was imminent on a dozen fronts. He turned over the newspaper, feeling callous and selfish: he wanted nothing of the world’s troubles while he was still on his honeymoon.

  Lisa hung up the phone. “His nurse says he’s fully booked, but if I can get up there by nine-forty-five she thinks he might be able to fit me in.” She looked at her watch. “I’ll have to hurry.”

  “What are you going to the Holland Society for?” They still had not yet got into the habit of confiding fully in each other. That would come in time, he mused without resentment. Then, of course, there would be the completion of the circle when they would return to keeping their confidences to themselves. Being a policeman made you cynical about the long-term prospects of a marriage. Then he cursed himself for his treasonable thought and, as compensation, moved towards Lisa and kissed her again.

  “You’re love-sick this morning, aren’t you? But don’t stop. I can give you two minutes.”

  “Not long enough. I’d feel like the bloke who was double-parked outside the brothel and didn’t want to get ticketed.”

  She kissed him back; they were like a couple of teenagers in love for the first time. “I’m going to the Holland Society because Mother wants me to find out how far the Pretorious family has spread throughout the world. She’s a snob, you know that, and I think she’d like to discover that it was actually a Pretorious who founded New Amsterdam. After I’ve been there I’ll do some shopping for presents to take home. I’ll meet you back here for an early lunch, then we’ll do that boat trip round Manhattan.”

  “Don’t go mad. This city is only for millionaires.”

  “I didn’t tell you, but I brought some of my own money with me.”

  Again the tiny secret. How long would it take before they had no secrets from each other? Probably never: he knew only too well that no one, not even the simple-minded saint, ever fully told the truth about himself. “I’m supposed to be the bread-winner.”

  “Don’t let’s go into that again.” In Sydney she worked for a public relations firm and till he h
ad been promoted had earned more than he did. “I’m going back to work as soon as we arrive home.”

  “I’ll get you pregnant and put an end to your working.”

  “What makes you think being pregnant isn’t work?” She kissed him again. “You men have it so easy. A couple of minutes’ exercise for you and nine months’ hard labour for us.”

  A few minutes later Malone, still at the window, watched Lisa as she crossed the street and hailed a cab on the corner of First Avenue. This hotel in the East Thirties had been highly recommended by the travel agent in Sydney, but Malone now suspected the travel agent was another of those who had a vested interest. The hotel was clean and comfortable and comparatively inexpensive, once Malone had raised his sights from what Lisa called his Salvation Army hostel complex; she had pointed out, with what he called her heavy Dutch sarcasm, that just because jails provided free accommodation, hotels did not have to operate on the same principle. Still, he thought the rooms in this hotel had been designed for skinny dwarfs, the windows could not be opened and the central heating was at an unchangeable level that was better for breeding orchids than for warming guests. Added to that it was in an area through which Malone, even had he been here in New York by himself, would not have liked to walk at night. Down below, on the other side of the street, he could see two men, drunks or junkies, lolling on the steps of a shabby tenement; farther up the street a

  gang of long-haired youths were blocking the sidewalk, making passers-by step into the gutter to walk round them. The cop in him bristled; then he relaxed. Stay out of it, Malone. Your business is ten thousand miles away and you’ll be back there soon enough.

  He went into the tiled closet that was called a bathroom, took off his robe and began to shave. The man in the mirror, twisting and turning his face under the electric shaver, was no stranger, but sometimes he wondered how much he knew of himself. The face was not handsome, but the features had enough symmetry about them to stop it short of being plain or ugly; the chin was strong and the eyes had enough humour left in them to persuade even the meanest villain that maybe this wasn’t the worst pig in the world. The body was long and broad-shouldered and the legs also were long; so far none of the six feet and one hundred and eighty-five pounds of Malone had begun to turn to fat; there was still a resemblance to the fast bowler he had been ten years ago when he had played for his State at cricket. But lately he had begun to look at other, slightly older men as he had never looked at them before, searching for warning signs: the slowing walk, the thickening gut, the solidifying prejudices. The stranger round the corner of next year and the next and the next, the man you never met till they finally closed your eyes and you saw him there on the inside of your lids.