Ransom

by Jon Cleary

  Lisa and Sylvia took the hoods, hesitated, then slipped them over their heads. There were no eyeholes, but a hole had been cut in the material at mouth level and Lisa found she was able to breathe quite easily. The young man moved close to her, tightening the slip-cord round her neck. She could feel the heat of his body, from excitement or anger,

  and when his hand touched the skin of her neck she felt the sweat on it. She tried to pull away, but he tightened the cord round her throat.

  “I’m not gonna hurt you,” Abel said gently. Carole had taught him how to be gentle with a woman and there were odd moments when a sort of rough charm, that he himself had never suspected he had, came out of him. “You just behave and we’ll get along fine.”

  He moved away from her to Sylvia Forte. The latter was standing quite still, but as soon as Abel touched her her hands flew up to push him off.

  “Keep still!” There was no gentle charm in him now; his voice was a hard snarl. “It wouldn’t take much to make me pull this cord real tight!”

  Lisa put out a hand, groping blindly, found Sylvia’s hand and held it. They clung to each other, strangers who suddenly needed each other.

  They were bundled into the back of the black truck, then they heard the girl come back into the garage, closing the side door after her.

  “I spoke to him,” Lisa heard her say. “The next call to him is three o’clock this afternoon. You can make that.”

  “It’ll be a pleasure. Let’s go.”

  The girl got into the back of the truck and the doors were closed. A minute later they were back on the road, moving more quickly now as if there was less traffic to hold up the truck. Lisa, sitting close to Sylvia Forte, felt the other woman reach for her hand again, felt the fingers digging into her palm.

  “Don’t worry, Mrs Forte.” Carole sat watching the women with cold amusement. For the past hour she had felt uneasy; she had never done anything like this before, never even broken the law in a minor way, and it was not in her nature to get a thrill out of what they were doing. She had planned the whole project right down to the smallest detail, but because she could remember every detail she knew how many things could go wrong if there was the slightest accident. The

  only accident so far had been Mrs Malone, but she might prove to be a bonus. The climax of the operation had been reached when she had spoken to Mayor Forte himself and told him her terms. From now on the show was to be enjoyed, for she had no doubt that the Mayor would agree to her demands. He had no alternative.

  “I’m suffocating in this thing - “

  “No, you’re not. Just relax and you can breathe quite easily through that hole. I tried it myself.”

  “It’s not the breathing. I suffer from claustrophobia - ” Lisa could feel the nails digging into her, knew Sylvia’s growing panic was not faked.

  “You’ll just have to put up with it,” said Carole. “I’d have thought a woman in your position would be accustomed to claustrophobia. All those hangers-on you find in politics -don’t they crush the life out of you?”

  Sylvia made a strenuous effort to relax; Lisa could feel the paradoxical tension in the hand in hers as the Mayor’s wife tried to regain control of herself. “They don’t try to blind one-”

  “That’s a debatable point,” said Carole. “But in our case it’s necessary. When we get out of this truck you’re going to be out in the open for a moment or two - I don’t want you to recognize where you are.”

  “Ami likely to?”

  Carole smiled to herself; though they could not see her, both Lisa and Sylvia heard the smile in her reply: “Probably not. It isn’t your territory, Mrs Forte. But I can’t take any chances.”

  Sylvia was silent; Lisa could feel the tension slowly draining out of the other woman’s hand. Then: “I heard you say you had spoken to him. Was that my husband?”

  “Yes. I told him our terms and if he agrees to them you will be back with him by tomorrow afternoon. Maybe before.”

  “What are your terms ? How much are you asking for us ?”

  “Money, you mean? None at all. All we want are five

  other people in exchange for you, that’s all. Two for five, that’s a bargain in these inflationary days.”

  “Who are the five people?”

  “Five men held in The Tombs. Parker, McBean, Fishman, Ratelli and Latrobe - ” Carole knew the names as well as she knew her own, even the one name among them that she knew was an alias.

  Lisa felt Sylvia’s hand stiffen again, but she made no reply. The truck sped along; faintly through the partition that backed the driving compartment there came the sound of a radio. It was the housewives’ hour, a time for romance and nostalgia: Perry Gomo, a voice from the past, sang of the past: housewives dreamed with him over their kitchen sinks and their unmade beds. All one had to do, an everyday feat, was catch a falling star.

  Then at last the truck had arrived at its destination. As they had got out of the truck Lisa had felt a rising wind, smelled salt on the air. They had been hustled out of the garage into which the truck had been driven and quickly across a small yard into the cottage; Lisa had felt sand and short spiky grass beneath her shoes. But she had heard no sound of traffic, no cries of children, no radios playing. Wherever they were, their surroundings seemed to be deserted.

  When they had been pushed into this room where they were now, they had been enclosed in the hoods for almost two hours; when the hoods had been removed it had taken them almost half a minute to accustom themselves to even the dim, shaded light hanging from the ceiling. Lisa had felt giddy for a moment and had sat down on one of the beds.

  “You all right?” She had been surprised at the sudden solicitude in the girl’s voice.

  She nodded. “I’d like a glass of water.”

  The girl went out, locking the door behind her, and Lisa, all at once weak and frightened, lay back on the bed. Sylvia walked once round the room, almost like a woman trying to make up her mind whether to stay or to leave; then suddenly

  she stopped by the other bed and fell on it, face down. Lisa turned her head, but said nothing. For the moment the two women were separated by a greater gap than the distance between the two beds; each was concerned only with herself, afraid and selfish for her own safety. Pity was suddenly one’s own mirror.

  Then Carole came back with two glasses of water. “I’ll make you some lunch soon. It won’t be much, but then this isn’t Gracie Mansion.”

  Sylvia did not move, continued to lie face down on the bed. Lisa got up, took both glasses of water and put them on the dressing-table. Carole stared down at Sylvia, then abruptly she went out of the room, slamming the door hard and locking it again. As soon as she was gone Sylvia rolled over and sat up.

  Lisa handed her one of the glasses of water. “Do you think we are going to gain anything by ignoring her?”

  “I’m trying to get myself straightened out. I’m afraid just now that I’ll try to hit her if she speaks to me again. And that might be dangerous for us - for you as well as me.”

  Lisa looked at her with interest. “Despite the red hair, vou don’t strike me as the sort of woman who’d have a temper.”

  “Oh, I have,” said Sylvia. She sipped the water, seemed to be much more relaxed now. “Or had. I’ve been controlling it for years - though there have been times when I’ve been tempted to let fly. At some of those hangers-on that girl mentioned.” For the first time Lisa saw her smile; it was an attractive smile that took some of the cool severity out of the beautiful face. “I was a brat as a child. My daughter has the same temper - though I hope she is not a brat.” The smile died and her eyes appeared to cloud over. “I hope she and Roger, that’s my son, don’t worry too much.”

  “They will,” said Lisa. “So will our husbands. Poor Scobie, he will - ” Then she turned away, almost on the point of tears: she felt the pain of love as tangibly as if she had just been hit a solid blow.

  The door opened again and Carole came in with the two women’s
handbags. “I had to check you had nothing lethal in them. I’ve taken out your nail files, but everything else except your cigarettes and lighters is there. I’m afraid there’ll be no smoking while you’re here, just in case you get some ideas about burning the house down.”

  “A cigarette would help steady my nerves,” said Sylvia.

  “I didn’t think you had any,” said Carole. “Try a little yoga or something. Aren’t you president of the Make America Healthy movement?”

  Lisa turned round, recovered again. “I’d like a wash. I feel sweaty and dirty after being in that hood.”

  “Later. But don’t start asking for too much, Mrs Malone. I’m not your servant.”

  “I didn’t suggest you were.” Lisa felt more composed, though still apprehensive; it was not going to help her own or her captors’ nerves to be at loggerheads with them all the time. “Mrs Forte and I will be more satisfied -guests, if you like to call us that - if we can feel clean and comfortable.”

  Carole twisted her lips beneath the dark glasses, then smiled ruefully. “You have your nerve, Mrs Malone. Do Australians always demand such service when they’re -guests?”

  “I’m only Australian by adoption. It’s the Dutch in me that you’re talking to now.”

  “The Dutch were imperialists, just like the British. Those days are over, Mrs Malone.” Carole turned quickly and went out of the room.

  “I’ve been accused of a lot of things,” said Lisa, “but never before of being an imperialist.”

  “I’m of Dutch extraction. My family came here in 1660.”

  Lisa made no comment, but she thought that the extraction by now must be pretty tenuous; she wondered if the American Pretoriouses, if there were any, looked back that far to Marken, the island village where the name was still heard and respected.

  “Where do you think we are?”

  “I think we’re on Long Island somewhere, probably a long way out. I smelled the salt air as we came in.”

  “Are they likely to find us here? The police, I mean.”

  “I doubt it. Unless we try to attract attention somehow - ” She looked inquiringly at Lisa.

  Lisa shook her head. “I don’t want to be a heroine - not yet.”

  “Neither do I,” said Sylvia, and sounded relieved. “But I’m worried for my husband. I hope he believes I’m still all right.”

  Lisa suddenly sat down on the bed. Did Scobie know by now that she had been kidnapped? She looked at her watch; he would be back at the hotel, waiting for her, wondering what had happened to her because she was always so punctual. She lay back on the bed, sick for him and afraid, as if he were in more danger than herself. The two women lapsed into silence and it was another half-hour before they spoke to each other again. It was then that Lisa, still lying on the bed, had made a comment about their prison cell.

  “Do you think this might be that girl’s home?”

  “Her summer home, perhaps.”

  “What about the boy?”

  “He has me puzzled. He’s not her - class, if you like. Would you think so?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve always been taught that America is a classless society, though I don’t believe that.”

  “It isn’t,” said Sylvia with an almost arrogant lack of apology; she had never seen any virtue in egalitarianism. “That girl has had the advantage of some money - and she’s obviously educated. But the boy-” She shook her head. “I’ve been trying to put my finger on his accent. It’s not New York. Though perhaps it is - ” She looked at Lisa, said, with still no attempt at apology or false democracy, “I don’t meet too many like him, not even as the Mayor’s wife.”

  “I don’t like him,” said Lisa, and shuddered. “I wonder what she sees in him?”

  “Politics make strange bedfellows,” said Sylvia, and

  thought of the dormitory of disparate characters and egos in City Hall. “An old but very true cliche.”

  Carole sat in the living-room of the cottage fighting hard against the memories that pressed in on her like the revived symptoms of a long dormant disease. She had made a mistake in choosing this place as their hide-out, but nowhere else had seemed better. And perhaps subconsciously, she thought, there had been the desire for the sense of security afforded by the familiar. She had lived for too long in limbo.

  She had taken off the dark glasses and the wig, and the removal of the disguise, simple though it was, only served to identify her more with this room. She rubbed her eyes, wondering if she should put the glasses back on. Here, away from the curious gaze of the two women in the bedroom, she did not need the camouflage. But they did help to cloud the past, to dim the memories that distracted her.

  She looked at her watch, wondering how much longer Abel would be. Perhaps she had made a mistake in letting him go to make the second call to Mayor Forte; but she knew his temperament, or thought she did, and knew he thought of himself as her equal partner in this job. Job: it sounded a mundane word for an act of revenge. But she had been determined all along that she would not allow her approach to the … the job … to become overheated. Coolness had always been her forte (she giggled like a schoolgirl; how would Michael Forte like that?) and she knew the value of it. One didn’t wait four years to avenge your husband’s death and then blow it all by letting anger and rhetoric, the faults that Roy himself had never been able to contain, spoil the execution of it.

  Abel should be arriving back within the next ten minutes. They had timed the trip three times; she had been surprised

  how much pleasure she had got out of planning the details of the operation. (Operation: that was a better word. She would use it in future, even if it might make her sound like a female general.) She could recite every detail even in reverse order; she had overlooked nothing. She just hoped that Mayor Forte would overlook nothing in the part of the operation that she had assigned to him. She was not going to enjoy killing the two women in the next room, even though their deaths might be forced on her. A memory shook her, Roy lying lifeless in her arms, and she got up quickly, desperate for something that would distract her.

  Then she heard the car drive up beside the cottage, heard Abel get out, open the garage doors and drive the car in. Then he was letting himself in the back door and she went out into the kitchen to greet him, clutching at him with an eagerness that surprised and delighted him.

  “It’s all right, baby.” He held her to him, kissed her brow. He took off his dark glasses, was once again amazed at how beautiful she was and that she had chosen him from among a dozen guys who would have let her trample over them. “No trouble at all. It’s gonna rain, though.”

  “Just the edge of the storm.” She could hear the wind blowing through the stunted trees that surrounded the house, the trees that her father had kept because he valued privacy and which she was now thankful for. “We’ll be all right.”

  She kissed him, ashamed of herself. He would never know what a poor substitute he was for Roy, that when this was over she was going to disappear from his life; but he had been the only man she had met in four years whom she felt she could trust. But she wondered if in their love-making he sometimes became aware of her remoteness, if he realized that the fierceness of her passion at times was no more than a disguise like the dark glasses and the wig.

  “Did you talk to Forte himself?”

  Abel nodded, still enjoying having her in his arms; he would hold her forever like this if she would let him, not even wanting to screw her, just hold her. “And the other

  guy - Malone. Forte was hedging, playing for time, but I let him know we’re not gonna be fu - ” She shook her head and he grinned. “Messed up.”

  “You kept it cool?”

  He leaned away from her, hurt. “Baby, trust me. I’m not gonna spoil it for us, you know that.”

  “I’m sorry.” She kissed him again, gently disengaged herself from his arms. “You dumped the truck okay?”

  “In Flushing. It could stand there in the street for a week before
anyone looks at it. Nobody’s gonna trace it to us. You’re not starting to worry, are you?”

  Carole smiled, shook her head. They had been extremely careful about the vehicles they had used in the operation. A week ago, on successive nights, Abel had stolen the two trucks and brought them to the house with the two-car garage she had rented in Jamaica. Her own car, with its Missouri plates, had been left in a garage in Flushing; Abel had picked it up from there this afternoon when he had dumped the black truck. The grey truck, minus plates, was still in the garage at the house in Jamaica, but she had rented the house under a false name and she would never be going back there. In less than twenty-four hours everything would be over, one way or another, and they would be on their way, leaving not a clue behind. Leaving the last remnant of her life behind too.

  “How’re they?” Abel nodded towards the bedroom door.

  “I think we better feed them now.”

  “Why bother?” But he saw the sudden stiffening in her face and he grinned quickly. He had taken off his blond wig and under his own dark hair his thin face looked older, the blue eyes warily sensitive to changes in feeling towards himself. The grin revived the boyish look and he was relieved when she smiled back at him. He kissed her cheek. “I was just joking. What’ll we give ‘em?”

  Carole busied herself with cans, making a noise with them as if trying to exorcise the ghosts that had been troubling her over the past hour.

  “Lobster soup - why the hell did I buy that?”

  Abel showed a glimpse of the shrewdness that had attracted her in the first place, that had made her think of him as a possible accomplice; but sometimes he could be embarrassingly shrewd: “Looks like you’re trying to prove to Mrs Forte that you’re as good as she is. You don’t have to, baby. You’re better.”

  She looked at him curiously, catching a reflection of herself in his words that was another reminder of her parents: their influence was still with her. “You really think so? Why should I want to do that?”