Ransom

by Jon Cleary

  “What’s happening then? What are you doing?”

  “I can’t tell you till I go back down to Headquarters.

  You’re welcome to come down there with me - it’ll be better than sitting here on your butt doing nothing - “

  Malone was already on his feet. They went out of the hotel, the desk clerk looking inquisitively after them as they went through the lobby, and got into the police car drawn up at the kerb. Malone noticed that the car was badly dented and scratched, and when he got into the back seat with Jefferson he felt the cracked and torn vinyl beneath him. The New York City Police Department did not pamper its captains of detectives with luxury transport; but then he’d noticed that all the police cars he’d seen here were shabbier than those back home. And we think we are hard done by with our Holdens and Falcons. Jaguars and Rovers in Britain, Porsches and Mercedes in Germany, Fiats and Alfa-Romeos in Italy: maybe a country needed to be ruined by war to get the best of everything, even for its police.

  “Crummy, eh?” said Jefferson, seeing Malone moving away from a split in the upholstery.

  But Malone had already forgotten what he had noticed: the cop in him had reacted, but it was quickly being forced out of him by the husband. “Eh?”

  “The Department’s appropriation was cut this year - the last year of the Mayor’s term. If he gets back in tomorrow maybe we’ll get some new transport.”

  “We’ll need it, Captain,” said the driver, a white patrolman as old and stout as Jefferson. “We couldn’t catch a kid on a pushbike in this one.”

  “That’s fast enough for me, Stan. I’m no speed bug.” He looked at Malone. “When I first started on the beat we never got a ride anywhere unless some punk had broken your leg while you were trying to bring him in. Maybe we should all still be on the beat, I dunno. We’re all getting too fat, riding around. No offence, Stan.”

  “None taken, Captain. Maybe you’re right. But I wouldn’t wanna - Excuse me.” The radio began to crackle. “It’s for you, Captain.”

  The message was for Jefferson to proceed straight to City

  Hall, to the Mayor’s office. Jefferson acknowledged the directive, gave the microphone back to the driver and sat back beside Malone. “Let’s hope they got some good news.” Malone said nothing, turned away and looked out at the street. They were pulled up at a red light; a bus wheezed in alongside them. Passengers stared down at him, their faces flattened into impassivity behind the window-glass; but there was no mistaking their antagonism. He was a cop, the enemy in occupied territory: none of them recognized him as a man who might have greater trouble than any of themselves. Suddenly he hated America and Americans: if they had killed his wife he would declare war on the country.

  “Declaring war is not going to help Sylvia and this other woman, this - Mrs Malone or whatever her name is,” said Michael Forte. “If we deploy every cop we have, call in every FBI agent in the country, all we are going to do is panic these sonsofbitches and they’ll - ” He stopped, unable to voice the thought in his mind. He looked appealingly at Police Commissioner Desmond Hungerford. “Des, I appreciate your efforts, but I think it would be wrong. I want Sylvia - and this other woman - back alive.”

  “And you’re willing to pay the ransom price?” Hunger-ford said. “I don’t mean that as a cruel question, Mr Mayor. I’m just asking.”

  Michael Forte leaned back in his chair, put his hand over his eyes, a habit he had developed years ago when trying to evade his father’s questions. The other three men in the room, his father, Hungerford and Gartwright, from the FBI, watched him closely and sympathetically: each of them was privately glad he was not in the Mayor’s shoes, either as the city’s chief official or as a husband. Suddenly each of them was, for the moment, content with his own lot.

  At last Forte said, “It’s not just my decision, is it? Those

  men are held on charges - that means the law is responsible for them. I’m not the law, Des. The law is an instrument of the State.”

  “Forgive me saying so, Mr Mayor, but I don’t think the Governor will like the decision being thrown in his lap.”

  “I didn’t mean it would be.” Forte dropped his hands on to the big desk in front of him. His programme for the rest of the day lay there: it was another life, one that he was suddenly no longer interested in. “Sorry, Des. I was only trying to evade the issue.”

  Samuel Forte sat quietly, alert but unobtrusive; he had never made the mistake of emphasizing in public that he was his son’s mentor. Too many other men had done that and had ruined both their protege’s chances and their own ambitions. Even in this personal crisis of Michael’s there were political implications just as critical and he waited, though deeply worried for the safety of Sylvia, with all the patience of a man who valued the long view above all others. Aristotle, his favourite philosopher, had called man a political animal, and Sam Forte took pride in being one of the best of the species. He knew he could do nothing personally to effect the safe return of Sylvia, so he sat and watched the two men whose responsibility it would be.

  Des Hungerford had been his own suggestion to Michael as Police Commissioner; he had come to appreciate that it had been one of the few poor recommendations he had ever made. Hungerford was a tall bony man whose handsome face was spoiled by too much hair on it: a thick grey moustache and the thickest eyebrows Sam could ever remember seeing, dark furry grubs that continually twitched up and down the creased forehead. He seemed never to be without a cigarette in his mouth, always smoked in a yellowed ivory holder, and it bobbed up and down like an impatient finger waiting to make a point. He had a habit of not appearing to listen to what anyone was saying to him, only waiting for the other person to shut up, but Sam Forte knew from experience that Hungerford never missed a word

  of what was addressed to him. He had been an excellent cop and probably the best Chief Inspector the Department had ever known; but he had been a failure as Commissioner, and everyone, including himself, knew it. He was the sort of man, and Sam Forte had seen others, whose absolute pinnacle of potential was to be second from the top, the man who would always need another man above him to take the ultimate responsibility. Sam sometimes wondered, in the darkness of an old man’s sleepless nights, if Michael would prove to be another Des Hungerford when he got to the White House. But it was something he would never admit to anyone, not even fully to himself. All he knew was that Michael was a man of higher principles than Des Hungerford, that he would never compromise when the big decisions had to be made.

  “Mr Mayor, I think circumstances will decide for us what we can and cannot do.” Cartwright was the Special Agent in charge of the FBI’s New York office. He was a heavily-built man who continually had to watch his weight, forever conscious of the tightness of the belt round his middle; he was surrendering to age, hole by hole in a strip of crocodile leather. His present mood was not helped by the knowledge that today’s kidnapping had taken place right across the street from his own office; so far, Commissioner Hungerford, no friend of his, had not mentioned the embarrassing fact. “We have very little to go on. We know there is a young guy involved - blond, Caucasian, thin, maybe in his early twenties. And there’s a woman - the one who phoned you. What sort of voice did she have - I mean, did she have an accent or anything?”

  “Not that I remember.” Michael Forte gestured helplessly. “I don’t think so. I was too shocked to take any notice - “

  Cartwright nodded sympathetically. “Why had your wife no protection, nobody riding with her?”

  “She usually does when she goes in one of our own or a City car. A detective from Headquarters rides with her or trails her in an unmarked car. This morning she rode with

  my father.” Michael Forte carefully avoided looking at his father; this was no time to be scoring points off him. “We haven’t had any threats for over three months, not even from the usual cranks. I’d begun to think maybe the cranks and criminals wanted me re-elected.” He tried to smile, but it was just a pain arou
nd his mouth.

  “We know a grey delivery truck was probably used to transport your wife and Mrs Malone,” said Hungerford. “The man who drove down into the garage as they drove out gave us a rough description - but it was rough. We have the garage attendant over at Headquarters going through our mug shots, but he already says he will only be guessing. The guy who hit him had the collar of his coveralls turned up around his ears and jaw, and the dark glasses just about obliterated the rest of his face. He says he could have been a young guy who came in looking for a job two weeks ago, but he’s not sure.”

  “I take it your men are working with the FBI?”

  “Naturally, sir,” said Cartwright, and looked at Hunger-ford, who nodded. “That’s only newspaper talk, that the Police Department and the Bureau don’t get on together. Des called me as soon as you gave him the news. Normally we aren’t called in for at least twenty-four hours, not unless a State line has been crossed. We have no evidence that the kidnappers are even out of Manhattan, but Des thought we should pool our resources at once.”

  Sam Forte had never met Cartwright before, though he had seen him once or twice at official functions here at City Hall. The FBI had almost nothing to do with city politics, wisely staying well away from them, and Sam Forte, not wishing to crowd a muddy pool, had not encouraged Cartwright. The FBI, he had always thought, was something for the future, when Michael was in the White House. But he was glad to see Cartwright here now: they would need all the help they could get to get Sylvia back. Oh, and the other woman, whatever her name was.

  There was a knock on the door and Michael Forte’ secretary put her head in. “Mr Mayor, Captain Jefferson is here with Inspector Malone.”

  As soon as Malone walked into the big room he knew that he and Jefferson were very much the low men on this totem pole. The handshake Mayor Forte gave him and the nods from the other three men were friendly and sympathetic enough; but he recognized at once that he - and Lisa - were never going to be anything more than supporting players in this drama. Nothing was said, but Malone, badly infected twice before by the virus, already sensed politics.

  “Inspector Malone, I can’t say how sorry I am - ” Then Michael Forte shook his head in mild disgust at himself; and Malone recognized that this man at least was an honest one. “No, that’s not what you want to hear, is it?”

  “No, sir,” said Malone, equally honest. “All I want to hear is what is being done to get my wife back.”

  “Nothing right now - nothing constructive, that is. We are groping, Inspector - as a policeman you will probably know what I mean by that.”

  “I don’t think that’s entirely fair, Mr Mayor - ” Hunger-ford’s cigarette holder stuck up like a challenging tusk.

  “It’s fair enough, Des. But you give him your version.”

  Hungerford took the cigarette holder out of his mouth, told Malone all they knew. “The woman who made the call said they would call back at three o’clock to see if we agreed to their demands.”

  “You are groping then,” said Malone, and looked back at Michael Forte. “What are their demands, sir?”

  “They don’t want money, Inspector - I wish it were as simple as that.” Forte had got up and come round his desk to meet Malone; since then he had been walking restlessly about the room. Now he stopped by the seated, unmoving figure of his father; Malone had a sudden clear impression of the contrast between the two of them: patience somehow had begat impatience. “We have five anarchists held in The Tombs, our detention jail, on conspiring to set off a bomb -

  actually, it went off two months ago and killed two policemen - “

  “I know about them. Captain Jefferson told me this morning. What have they got to do with this?”

  “They are the ransom fee - their release and a plane to take them to Cuba. The deadline is noon tomorrow.”

  Malone felt the sick weakness come back on him. He looked at Jefferson, the only face in the room familiar enough for him to read, and saw the sudden pessimism in the dark weary eyes. Puzzled, but not sure why, he looked round the other faces, then back at Michael Forte.

  “Go on, sir.”

  Forte looked at the Australian shrewdly, for the first time really appreciating that this man had as much at stake in the kidnapping as himself. “What do you mean, Inspector?”

  “You hadn’t finished. You’ve implied that you’re not prepared to agree to the kidnappers’ demands.”

  “The Mayor didn’t say that!” snapped Hungerford, snatching his cigarette holder from his mouth.

  “I know he didn’t. But I’m a policeman, like you, Commissioner - I don’t have to have things spelled out for me. I don’t care a bugger about your anarchists - all I want is to get my wife back!”

  “If you are a policeman, you’ll realize the consequences.” Then Hungerford stopped and looked towards the door as there was a knock and a small dark-haired man looked in.

  “Joe Burgmann is here, Mr Mayor.”

  “Bring him in, Manny.” Michael Forte was still standing by his father; he suddenly put a hand on the old man’s shoulder and squeezed it; but Sam Forte’s expression did not change. Michael then went back behind his desk as the small dark-haired man, dapper as a head-waiter, brought in a burly man with thinning grey hair and hard bright eyes. They were introduced to Malone as Manny Pearl and Joe Burgmann.

  Burgmann looked Malone over cursorily, decided he was no voter, and turned back to Michael Forte. “Manny’s put

  me in the picture, Mr Mayor. Jesus, I can’t say how sorry I am - ” Malone caught the swift glance from Michael Forte, but there was no nicker of expression otherwise on the Mayor’s face. “It’s a real dilemma, a real dilemma. Anyone come up with any suggestions?”

  “None so far, Joe.”

  “I have,” said Malone. “I’ve suggested you give in to them. My wife - and yours too, Mr Mayor - are more valuable than a bunch of anarchists, no matter what they’ve done.”

  Burgmann had not turned round, just looked over his shoulder at Malone as if not interested in any comment from that ward: Malone was to learn in a moment who the burly man was and how he thought. “That’s easy for you to say - “

  “Nothing is easy for me to say,” snapped Malone, “not when my wife’s life is in danger.”

  “Okay, Joe - ” Michael Forte motioned to Burgmann, then looked at Malone. “Mr Burgmann is my campaign manager - you know we have an election coming up tomorrow. I’ve always been a strong proponent - perhaps too strong - of law and order, but in tomorrow’s election my principal opponent has chosen to make an issue of it. If I agree to the ransom demand - as you say, Inspector, you’re a cop, you don’t have to have things spelled out for you.”

  “Maybe I do,” Malone said slowly. He knew now why he had sensed the atmosphere of politics as soon as he had entered the room; he had just not identified the correct strain of the virus. “What’s more important to you - your political reputation or getting your wife back?”

  At once there was an angry murmur from several of the men. Michael Forte stiffened, his face flushed and one hand balled into a fist. Malone poised himself, wondering if he had gone too far but determined not to back down. Then Sam Forte, a veteran of such moments, spoke for the first time.

  “Inspector Malone has asked the proper question, I think. There will be a lot of people, Michael, asking where you

  stand on law and order when you’re confronted with this -this dilemma. All you’ve said in the past will look pretty hollow if-”

  Malone looked gratefully at the old man; but Sam Forte ignored him. Christ, Malone suddenly realized, I don’t mean a thing to him: he’s only intent on protecting the bloody image of his son! He had an abrupt urge to spin round and stride right out of the building, but he knew that would achieve nothing. If he was to get Lisa back safely, he needed these men in this room. All at once he felt more ragingly helpless than he had ever felt in his life before.

  Then Manny Pearl said, “The reporters have guessed th
ere’s something wrong, Mr Mayor. I think you’ll have to make a statement.”

  Michael Forte looked at Hungerford and Cartwright. “Will that endanger the lives of my wife and Mrs Malone, do you think?”

  “Did the woman who called you say anything about not telling the papers?” asked Cartwright.

  “No. Come to think of it, she didn’t even say anything about not telling the police. That’s one of their usual demands, isn’t it?”

  “Most kidnappers hope we’ll be kept out of it. Telling the newspapers may result in these people thinking the pressure is being increased on them, but that is a risk we have to take, Mr Mayor.” Cartwright then looked at Malone. He felt sorry for the Australian, who looked angry and bewildered by what must sound to him like a lot of empty, delaying talk. But maybe things were simpler in Australia: Cartwright already sensed the complications ahead, coming up like the hurricane from the South. “Do you agree, Inspector?”

  Malone, his emotion under control again, thought, Here’s one bloke who’s on my side. “If we have no real clues of our own, then we may have to rely on the public, hope there’s an outside chance that someone saw something that will help us.”