Ransom

by Jon Cleary

  with the Mayor. She saw the strain in his face, the dark exhaustion in his eyes; but he was smiling and reaching out with both hands to those around him, going through the motions of a wound-up political doll. He reached towards her and, suddenly laughing, she took his hand and pressed it.

  “Good luck!”

  “Thanks - thanks for working for me - ” He smiled at her, but she knew he could not see her; the faces in the crowd were not registering on the dark, worried eyes. “We’ll win tomorrow - thanks a lot - “

  He passed on, the crowd closing behind him, claiming him, and she moved in the opposite direction through the rapidly thinning wake. She found herself opposite a doorway, looking into a room in which a man, weary-faced and dishevelled, sat with his feet up on a paper-strewn table. He looked up at her and grinned tiredly.

  “Thirty years I been a volunteer for this sorta thing. My old lady asks me what’s in it for me and I can never give her an answer. Every time it’s been like it’ll be tomorrow night - the same old debris - ” He waved a hand at the posters, already torn and crinkled, hanging from the walls like the papering of a room waiting to be demolished. “The faces and the names change, but every time I finish up in here with just a mess of paper. Maybe I’m working for pollution, you think?”

  She smiled, humouring him. If he had been in politics for thirty years, even just as a campaign volunteer, he should know who Frank Padua was. “I’m looking for Mr Padua -Frank Padua.”

  “Frank Padua?” He looked at her curiously, the weariness abruptly gone from his face; and she felt suddenly afraid. “You a friend of his, miss?”

  She shook her head almost too vigorously. “Someone must be playing a trick on me - they told me to report to him here-”

  He relaxed, smiled again. “They are, they are indeed. People do it to relieve the strain - like sending a kid out for

  a can of striped paint. I haven’t seen Mr Padua around these headquarters in, oh, maybe two or three campaigns. He used to be known as Stabber Frank. He’d stab you in the back - figuratively speaking, of course - if he could make a political point for himself. But I understand he’s retired from politics now. He’s either rich and respectable or he ran out of knives.”

  “Well,” she said, smiling at him, the poor bastard who had been coming here for thirty years, working for a system that he only half-believed in, the volunteer slave for what was euphemistically called democracy, “I guess my friends were putting me on.”

  “Yeah,” he said, ignorant of the tricks being played on him: won’t they ever open their eyes? she wondered. “I’d go back and give ‘em hell, miss.”

  “I’ll do that. Good luck.”

  “It’s not me needs the luck. It’s our candidate.” He looked up and around at the posters; a dozen Michael Fortes smiled at him from the walls. “In more ways than one, eh? Terrible business about his missus.”

  Carole found some back stairs, made her way down and out a side entrance to the street. The wind and the rain hit her at once, pushing her back against the hotel wall; a policeman went by, head bent into the storm, walking like an oil-skinned robot. Then he stopped and came back, stood threateningly in front of her.

  “You want a cab, miss? Over at Grand Central is your best bet.”

  Rain ran off her face, streaking it beyond recognition: she looked directly at him, daring herself as much as him. “Thanks, officer, but I have my car.”

  “Driving on a night like this? Be careful.”

  “Oh, I will be.”

  He went on, leaning into the storm, all law and order and helpfulness, and she hated him for being so solicitous of her. But she followed him, heading for Grand Central and a phone booth. It was going to take her hours to drive back

  to Sunday Harbor and she knew Abel would never forgive her for letting him worry for so long.

  Abel angrily hung up the phone, cursing Carole for her stupidity. But what had gone wrong, what had taken her all the way into Manhattan? “I’ll explain when I get back. It may be nothing, but I had to check. Don’t worry - I’ll make it back okay.”

  Don’t worry! Sweet Jesus, what did she think he was made of? He turned off the small lamp in the living-room where he had been sitting, went out through the dark kitchen to the back door. There was a porch outside the door and he was able to step out on to it without the rain reaching him. But the wind hit him like an invisible wave, and at once he retreated into the house, slamming the door shut against the battering wind. In the darkness of the kitchen he leaned against the door, sick at the thought of Carole driving all the way out along the Island in that bitch of a storm. Hurricane Myrtle had not been included in their plans, simply because when they had made their plans and committed themselves to the timing of them, the hurricane had not been born. Part of their plan was to leave here tomorrow by ferry and cross the Sound to Bridgeport; Carole’s car, stripped of its plates, was to be dumped and they were to buy another in Bridgeport. But now they might have to take the risk of driving back to Manhattan if the storm kept up.

  He cursed again, went into the living-room and turned on the light. All the shutters were up outside and all the windows had been blanketed. Even though this outer section of Sunday Harbor was made up entirely of summer cottages closed for the fall and winter, they had done everything they could to ensure that nothing would expose their presence to any casual passer-by in a car. The only risk they had taken

  “5

  had been their arriving here in daylight and then his taking off to dump the delivery truck; but that had been unavoidable in view of the timing of the kidnapping forced on them by the Forte woman’s dental appointment. He was sure no one had seen them during the day and he was even more certain that no one was likely to be out tonight and catch a glimpse of Carole driving back this way. But what had gone wrong, had taken her into Manhattan of all places ? Jesus, she must be out of her head to take such a risk!

  There was a knock on the door of the bedroom across the narrow hall. “We want to go to the bathroom.”

  He crossed the hall, stood outside the door. “You both went a coupla hours ago.”

  “It’s damned cold in here,” said Lisa. “If this heater was stronger, perhaps we shouldn’t trouble you so much.”

  He was about to unlock the door when he remembered his dark glasses and wig were on the table in the living-room. He went back and put them on, took the gun out of his belt and returned to the bedroom door. He had had very little to do with guns, but each time he held one he got the same thrill, a sexual one. It was a thrill he had never described to Carole and he didn’t think he ever would. In lots of ways she was as much of a square as the two women in the bedroom.

  “One at a time. And like I told you - no tricks.”

  When both women had been to the bathroom he followed them into the bedroom, sat down in one of the chairs, the gun held loosely in his lap.

  “I’m real sorry there isn’t enough heat,” he said affably. “Maybe I’m used to the cold more than you. But this’d be a nice place in the summer. I didn’t know any places like this where I come from.”

  The old Polish neighbourhood near the Loop in Chicago had had no citizens who could afford a summer cottage; as a kid you spent your time looking for fire hydrants to turn on as your only relief against the heat. In the winter the family apartment never had enough warmth, but his old man had

  never spent any money to improve the heating system. Always and forever talking about how much worse things had been in the goddam Old Country.

  “Carole - ” said Sylvia.

  He stiffened, his hand tightening on the gun. “How’d you know her name?”

  “You haven’t been too careful about your names, either of you.” Sylvia was watching the gun carefully. “When we first got into the truck, she called you Abel.”

  “You’re too fucking smart - “

  “All right, watch your language!” said Lisa; then she looked at the gun in his hand. “Sorry. That sounded ridiculous
, considering.”

  He looked down at the gun, then back at them. He smiled and relaxed. “Yeah - ridiculous. But if that’s the way you want it - okay, no language. Carole doesn’t like it either, you know? She says they degrade the language, there’s no eu-eu - “

  “Euphony?”

  “Yeah - no euphony in four-letter words. I tell her where I come from euphony would’ve dropped dead before it was born.”

  “Carole has obviously had a better life than you,” said Sylvia. “Do you resent the luck she’s had?”

  “Luck? You’re right there - I mean for guys like me. But how much have you had to depend on luck? The day you were born everything was mapped out for you. We did a lot of research on you, you know? Maybe we know more about you than you do yourself.”

  “Perhaps,” said Sylvia, and wondered how many pages she had left unopened on herself.

  “The day I was born,” said Lisa, “the Germans came into the house next door and shot dead a man and his three sons. They were going to shoot my father too, but my mother got out of bed and told them to shoot her and me as well, that she wouldn’t want to live without my father. I was lucky that the officer in charge of the Germans was a family man.”

  “Why were they gonna shoot your father?” Abel knew very little of that war: it was ancient history to him, fought and done with five years before he was born.

  “Reprisal. The Resistance had killed a German soldier. The local commander always operated on a ratio of five to one as a punishment.”

  “You were lucky, then.” Sylvia had barely been touched by that war: her father had been too old to go to it, she had had no brothers who had fought in it. She realized how lucky she had been and she looked at Lisa with new interest.

  “I believe in it,” said Lisa. “I believe it affects everyone. It was pure luck that I met my husband.”

  She lapsed into silence when she mentioned Scobie; Sylvia, and even Abel, caught the sudden sadness in her. Abel, to divert himself, stared at Sylvia, the woman for whom he would never have any sympathy.

  “Nothing like that ever happened to you, eh?”

  “When did it ever happen to you ?” Sylvia demanded with some spirit.

  Abel smiled, unruffled. “Nothing like a war, I’ll admit -I run away from them. They were looking for me for Vietnam, but they never caught up with me. But I’ve met plenty of pigs who believe in punishment like the Nazis -someone causes some trouble, they pinch five guys just to make sure. They call it keeping law and order.”

  Sylvia had a sudden moment of insight. “Is that part of the reason we’ve been kidnapped? You don’t like my husband’s ideas on law and order?”

  You’d never understand even if I told you, he thought. All his life authority had been a stifling weight pressing down on him from above: his old man, the nuns, the priests, the cops. His old man had believed in an ordered system: authority had to be obeyed or everything collapsed. He had exercised his own authority in his family with a leather belt and occasionally his fist; Abel had run away from home the day he had finally flattened his old man in a fight. The authority of the nuns and priests had just been something to

  jerk his thumb at, but that of the pigs had been another matter. You didn’t jerk your thumb at cops in Chicago and get away with it.

  “They’re all the same.” The affability of a few minutes ago had gone; the thin face behind the dark glasses had the same cold, bony look it had had this morning. “Nobody’s got any say but them. That’s the way they see it.”

  “You’re wrong - “

  “No. You’re wrong. Because we got the say now and if they don’t listen to us - “

  Abruptly he stood up and went out, locking the door behind him. The two women, sitting on their beds, each wrapped in a blanket, looked at each other. The temperature was not as low as they believed, but fear and hopelessness had reduced their resistance; no matter what the temperature was, they felt cold and would remain sleepless because of it. The lash of the rain against the shutters outside only added to their feeling that this room was an ice-box. That and the hate-filled man who had just left the room.

  “I don’t understand why we’re still here,” said Lisa, and tried not to sound petulant. She looked up at the boards covering the window, suddenly feeling as claustrophobic as Sylvia must have felt in the hood when they were in the truck. It occurred to her that she had never spent any length of time in a room with no view; even to look out of a window across a narrow street gave one some sort of perspective. She was a long way from becoming completely unnerved, but she was beginning to understand how some people could go insane when faced with nothing but four walls. One needed an occasional glance at the world outside: even strangers seen at a distance had their uses. She looked back at Sylvia, still half a stranger to her. “Surely they’ve released those men by now.”

  “I’m sure my husband is doing all he can.” Sylvia, in her turn, tried to sound patient. “But it isn’t just up to him. He has to go to the District Attorney and the Court.”

  “You sound as if you know the whole procedure.”

  “I’ve been working it out while we’ve been here. I know City Hall backwards. My whole married life has been political, one way or another. My husband was a junior Congressman when we married. He was only twenty-six. Perhaps we should have stayed in Washington,” she mused. “Life would have been much simpler.”

  “I don’t understand the American political system - why would your husband leave Washington to come back here to New York ? I’ve read what a terrible job it is. Isn’t it supposed to be the worst job in America, worse even than being President?”

  “I think so.” Then she said half-jokingly, “I’ll tell you if my husband ever gets to be President.”

  “Would you like to be in the White House?”

  Sylvia was too shrewd to let her ambition show in her face. “Why do you ask?”

  “I read that some Presidents’ wives never wanted to be there. Mrs Truman, for instance.”

  But what of the dozens of wives who loved every minute of their husbands’ Presidency? And I’d be one of them. She closed her eyes, was warm for the moment with the dream. “I think it would depend on the times and the circumstances. If it could be a trouble-free time, no foreign war to worry about, no economic recession, no law and order crisis - ” She opened her eyes, realizing she was taking the dream too far: Paradise already had its Chief Executive. “But no President for the next ten years is going to be that lucky.”

  “Would your husband like to be President?”

  No: how often had the accusation been there on the tip of her tongue to fling at him. Ambition and love had several times almost torn her apart; Michael and she had fought and he had never really understood what had spurred on her fury. She did not answer Lisa’s question but asked one of her own: “Do you and your husband have any secrets from each other?”

  “I - I don’t know.” The question had exposed something

  of the Fortes: they had secrets. “I suppose in a way we don’t really know each other yet, so there are bound to be secrets. Perhaps there always will be. Are there?”

  “You mean after you’ve been married for years? Yes, I think so. They’re not always deliberate - ” She lay back on her pillow. She felt suddenly penitent for everything she had not told Michael: love should have no secrets. And she did love him, had never even thought of another man after she had met him.

  “What are you thinking about?” Lisa was massaging her jaw as her tooth, forgotten for most of the day, began to ache again. If only I’d listened to Scobie, got the hotel desk to recommend a dentist, I’d not be here …

  “Myself. Doing a little self-examination.”

  “That’s what prisoners are supposed to do, aren’t they? But if they do, why don’t they all come out better men?” Lisa was silent for a while, absent-mindedly stroking her jaw. “I’ve been thinking too. Wondering if we’ll come out of this alive.”

  “Don’t!”

>   They faced each other across the space between their beds. “It’s possible, though, isn’t it? That boy Abel hates us.”

  “My husband will give them what they want - “

  “You said he would have to go to the Court? What if they refuse to release those men? What if they say the system of law is more important than us - our lives?”

  “No - ” But she knew the maze through which Michael would have to fight his way.

  Lisa said slowly, “I think we should try to escape from here. I don’t want to trust to the luck of what’s happening back at City Hall.”

  Chapter Six

  “It’s only your wife’s photo,” said Jefferson, handing the photograph to Malone. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told the butler to tell you I had something for you. You were expecting some news, weren’t you?”

  Malone nodded, looked at the photo of Lisa, then put it carefully away in his wallet. “Did you run off the copies?”

  “They’ve gone out to all the newspapers and wire services and TV stations. Trouble is - “

  “Yes?”

  “By the time they appear, your wife and Mrs Forte should be safe.”

  “Should be?”

  “Will be.” Jefferson looked at the Forte children standing in the doorway of the study. “We’ll have your mother back here first thing in the morning. We’re making progress - “

  “I’d like to talk to the Captain,” said Malone, and led Jefferson towards the living-room. He glanced back and saw Roger and Pier still standing in the doorway of the study, their young faces aged with suspicion, the faces in every cop’s gallery. Christ, don’t they trust me? Have they forgotten I have as much to lose as they have? He closed the door of the living-room. “Did Denning tell you about the phone call just then?”