Ransom
Page 24
Mrs Birmingham choked on a sob and her husband put his free arm around her. “We believe that, Julie - we know you didn’t mean to harm us. But we’re in it now and all we want to do is help you. You and Mark - “
“I did it for him, you understand that, don’t you?” Julie was weeping, unable to hold back the banked-up years of lost love. Her father and mother were wrong, would never change, but they had loved her and she had loved them and that was something she knew now would never change. But she had come to know it too late. “I don’t want to harm Mrs Forte and Mrs Malone. All I want is for Mark to go free - get them to agree to that, put Mark and the other men on the plane to Cuba - “
Abel grabbed the phone from her. “We gotta be with them now, you understand? Tell ‘em that, Pop - tell ‘em we gotta be on that plane for Cuba too! And the dames go with us - we’re gonna give ‘em back to you when we’re safe in Cuba!”
Lewton cut in on the extension. “This is Captain Lewton, of the New York Police Department. We’ll have to get back to you - we’ll have to check out with the District Attorney that you can go on that plane with those men - “
“You better see we do, man - “
“I’m not arguing with you,” said Lewton, trying to keep himself cool as well as the man listening to him. “It’s not my decision. I’m sure they’ll agree to what you ask, but I have to contact them first. We’ll be back to you. If you want to contact us, we’re right across the street from you, in Dr Royce’s house. The number is - “
“We got nothing more to say to you, man. You call us when you got the word.”
Lewton hung up, went back out to the kitchen. As he did so, Cartwright followed him. “I was listening on the bedroom extension, Ken. They don’t know anything about the Cubans and the Algerians refusing to let those guys in. They can’t have a TV set or a radio.”
“There’s a TV in our house,” said Birmingham. “Or there was when we closed it up.”
“The point is they don’t seem to have got the Mayor’s message,” said Special Agent Butlin, leaning forward with the impatience of a man who thought too much discussion
had gone on. “I suggest we get on to the TV and radio stations, tell them to cancel the running of those tapes at once - “
“That was the intention,” said Cartwright. He pulled his belt in another notch; he felt hungry, empty and lean. “We better do it through your Department, Ken.”
Lewton recognized the conflict; some day it would happen to him, he guessed. There was always a touch of the jackal in the young lions; Butlin, he was sure, would have a bit more than the usual. “I’ll talk to Headquarters now. How’s the weather?”
“The rain’s stopped,” said Sheriff Narvo and cocked his head. “Look, we got more than enough men outside to handle ‘em. It looks like there’s no more than two of them, the girl and the guy we saw out by the car. Let’s smoke ‘em out - we got plenty of gas - “
Lewton looked at Malone. “It’s still your call, Inspector. The safety of your wife and Mrs Forte is still our main consideration.”
“Let’s get ‘em out in the open first,” said Malone. “For one thing, I’d like to know my wife and Mrs Forte are still alive.”
“Of course they are!” Elizabeth Birmingham’s voice shook with emotion. “Our daughter is over there - she’s not a murderess!”
“It’s not your daughter who worries us,” said Lewton, the snarl of the man on the phone still echoing in his ear. “It’s the guy she’s’with.”
Malone and Jefferson stood in the Royce driveway behind some bushes, their backs pressed against the fieldstone of the house as they gazed across the street at the Birmingham cottage. The rain had stopped, the clouds were clearing and daylight crept tentatively up the eastern sky.
“We call this the piccaninny dawn back home,” said Malone. “When I was on the beat, it was the time of day when I always felt anything but a piccaninny, more like a bloody old man. Like I feel now.”
“It’s gonna be a fine day.” Then Jefferson realized what he had said. “The weather, anyway.”
Malone stared across the street at the white cottage slowly appearing out of the disappearing darkness. “Christ, I know Lisa is over there, but I have to keep telling myself it’s a fact. How many times have you been in this sort of situation?”
“You mean staking out a house? I’ve lost count.”
“I suppose I could add up the number of times it’s happened to me - I’m just beginning to realize that life’s much gentler for cops back home. Funny thing is, I can’t remember how I felt when it happened before.”
“Then, you would have been on the outside looking in. Now - ” He glanced at Malone, at the man who had aged so much in so few hours. “One thing’s for sure, you wouldn’t have been as worried as you are now.”
“No, I’m not thinking about the worrying. I’m thinking about the law and order bit. If I could get at them, I think I’d kill that bloke and that girl. I can’t see any reason why the world wouldn’t be better off without them. A cop’s not supposed to think like that.”
Jefferson looked across the street. Most of the houses could be seen clearly now, a varied lot that ranged from neat Gape God cottages to the large ranch house beside which they stood; this was where the fortunate few came for a few months of the year and an occasional weekend to forget the pressures that ran their lives the rest of the time. He did not blame them for their desire to escape; he, even more than they, knew how interminable was the fight that faced them. Then he remembered the three-room, cold-water flat in which he and his three brothers and sisters had been born and raised, from which the only escape for his mother and father had been death. Some people, including the Birming-
ham girl across the street, didn’t know when they were well off.
Then Lewton came down the drive, keeping close to the side of the house. “The Mayor and the Commissioner are on their way out here by helicopter. We’ve been told to offer them the deal they want - free passage for all of them to Cuba. I’m afraid we’ll have to let your wife and Mrs Forte go with them, Scobie.”
Malone looked at him sharply. “Have the Cubans changed their minds?”
“No. The idea is to get those people out of that house. An aircraft is standing by at Kennedy and we’ll escort them in there. Once they’re out in the open, we can see who we’re dealing with and maybe do something - don’t ask me what, but something. If we come up with nothing, then we’ll let them board the plane and it can head for Cuba and we’ll just have to plead with the Cubans to play ball for the women’s sake.”
“In the meantime what happens to my wife and Mrs Forte?”
There was enough daylight for Malone to see the blank look on Lewton’s face. “What else can you suggest? Your wife and Mrs Forte are the aces in this hand - and the kidnappers are holding them. Right now our only hope is to go along with them and hope - wait for them to make a mistake.”
Malone looked across the street, cursed worriedly, then looked back at Lewton. “If those buggers take my wife on to the plane at the airport, you’re going to have to tie me down. Christ, do you think I’m just going to stand there and do nothing while they take my wife off into the wild blue yonder? If the Cubans still won’t play ball, what happens then?”
Lewton looked as worried and as pained as Malone. “Scobie, I wish to Christ I knew. But I’m asking you - what else can we do unless those kidnappers make a mistake and we can take advantage of it?”
“What about police marksmen?” asked Jefferson. “Could they pick them off when they come out?”
“There’ll be everything waiting for us at Kennedy-police and FBI marksmen, the Emergency Service squad, the lot. But you can’t pick a guy off if he has a gun stuck in the side of Mrs Malone or Mrs Forte.” He stared across at the cottage. “Our best bet, I thought, was gonna be the girl -I thought with her folks out here, we might have got through to her. But the young punk seems to be running things now - and no amount of talking is ev
er gonna get through to him.”
Then a uniformed patrolman came round the back corner of the house. “They’re calling from across the street, Captain.”
In the kitchen Cartwright was on the phone. Lewton went past him into the hallway and picked up the phone there. Malone stood irresolute for a moment, then went into the living-room and picked up the phone he saw on a side table. Abel, still nameless to the men listening to him, was doing the talking: “We’re gonna get started now, pig. No delays, you unnerstand? You have those guys from The Tombs out at the airport by the time we get there. And no tricks, you unnerstand? We’re gonna have a gun in the guts of the women all the way. You give us a nice friendly escort and the women are gonna be all right.”
“Can I speak to my wife?” said Malone.
“Who’s that?” Abel’s voice was sharp, nervously suspicious.
“Malone. I’d like to speak to my wife.” Malone could hear Lewton and Cartwright listening in on the other extensions; they said nothing but he could feel their presence in the other rooms; he was butting in on their jurisdiction, but he sensed their understanding. “Let me speak to her, just to assure me she’s all right, then we’ll agree to everything you ask.”
“You ain’t in any position not to agree, man.” There was a pause, then Malone heard him say faintly, as if his head were turned away from the phone, “Stay outa this, baby.
You leave everything to me from now on. Look, man - ” The voice came back to the phone. “You’re gonna see your wife in about two minutes - you’re gonna see she’s okay. That all the concession you gonna get. Now let’s get moving - “
“You bastard!” But the phone had gone dead in Malone’s ear. He stared at it, then slammed it down as Lewton and Cartwright came into the living-room. He said nothing for a moment, pressing down the fury that shook him, then he looked at the two men. “You’re right. The girl hasn’t got a say in it. He’s running the show. If she’s everything her parents say she is, how the hell did she ever pick up with a bastard like that?”
“We’ll ask her that when we take them,” said Cartwright, and tried to sound hopeful. “Well, we better get going. I don’t think he’s the sort who’s going to be too patient.”
Jefferson stood in the living-room archway and Lewton turned to him. “John, radio the Commissioner and the Mayor, tell ‘em to turn back and meet us at Kennedy. We’ll go in along Sunrise, then on to the Southern State, across on Laurelton, then on to the Belt Parkway. I’ve looked up the map and that should give us the clearest route - at this time of morning there shouldn’t be too much traffic around. We’ll drop Sheriff Narvo and his men off at the county line -ask the Nassau County fellers to pick us up there and take over the escort. Our own men can meet us at the Queens line and take us on to the airport. Tell ‘em to get a bull team out on bikes, clear the traffic ahead as much as they can. Give strict orders no smart-ass is to try anything on his own -we’ll play the game strictly according to their rules across the street until we get to the airport. Unless - “
“Unless what?”
Lewton shrugged. “I dunno. Just unless.”
Then Sheriff Narvo came into the hallway, flung open the front door. “He’s come out of the house to the car - he’s got one of the women with him!”
The men in the living-room went out of the house in a
rush, unconcerned now with remaining hidden. They stood outside the front door, at the top of the sloping, water-gullied lawn. Across the street Abel had come out of the front door of the cottage, pushing Lisa ahead of him and keeping himself screened by her from the police cars that had now come down the street. The cars were parked in the middle of the roadway, their two-man crews standing behind them, their guns out of their holsters but held out of sight of the armed man they were all watching. Four motor cycle cops were standing behind the line of cars, their motor cycles resting on their stands.
Lewton took a bullhorn from one of the patrolmen standing nearby and handed it to Malone. “It may encourage your wife to know you’re here.”
Malone gratefully took the bullhorn, aimed it across the street. “Lisa! This is Scobie!”
Lisa missed her step, pulled up and looked wildly around, then over towards Malone. Abel moved in closer behind her, putting his arm around her and shoving the gun hard into her back. But Lisa, eyes straining to see the familiar figure standing in front of the house across the street, felt neither Abel’s arm nor his gun.
“Scobie!”
“Are you all right?”
She nodded, her throat closing up; then she managed to shout, “Yes!”
“Mrs Forte - how’s she?”
“She’s all right!”
It was an inane conversation, Malone’s bullhorned bellow booming across the quiet street, and Lisa’s thin, exhausted voice shrieking her replies. It was like the conversations that go on between travellers on a ship and their friends waiting to greet them on the wharf. Malone, years ago when he had been attached to the Pillaging Squad on the Sydney wharves, had listened to exchanges just like this. No one had been in danger in those days and he had often laughed at the vacuous dialogues. But no one in the street this morning laughed;
every simple word between the husband and wife had a poignancy for those who were listening. All but Abel.
He shoved Lisa into the front seat of the car, got in beside her. For a moment he was facing away from the street, a good part of his range of view blocked by the cottage. Dave Butlin, down behind one of the police cars, suddenly made a move, his gun held ready. Gartwright grabbed the bullhorn from Malone.
“Stay where you are, Dave! Let them come out!” Gartwright lowered the bullhorn. “I’ll have that young smart-ass moved to Nome, Alaska, so help me!”
Butlin looked back at Cartwright, grimaced, then nodded and moved back behind the police car. Cartwright looked at Lewton, who was focusing a pair of binoculars on the cottage across the street.
“Looks like he can’t get it to start. If it’s been out there all night, it could have water in the plugs.”
Abel got out of the car, pushing Lisa ahead of him again. He looked across at the Royce house and shouted, “We want one of the squad cars!”
“He can have mine,” said Jefferson, took out his keys and made to move down the path.
“Stay where you are, pig!”
Abel pushed Lisa ahead of him around to the front of the house. The front door opened again and Julie, holding a gun, came out with Sylvia Forte. Elizabeth Birmingham, standing on the sodden lawn beside Malone, waved a weak arm; but Julie, if she saw the greeting, took no notice of it. The four people on the other side of the street, the hostages in front and the kidnappers behind, moved like a small deputation down the driveway and out into the road. As they did so Malone and the others moved down the path of the Royce house.
“Okay, that’s far enough.” Abel, one hand holding tightly to the collar of Lisa’s suit, brought his gun up menacingly. “We want your car, Captain - Lewton, you say your name was? No tricks - which is your car?”
Malone, now only forty feet away, stared at Lisa, unable to believe the nightmare of what was happening: the actual fact of seeing her held by the kidnappers was less credible than all the hours he had spent since she had been reported prisoner. The surrounding scene did not help to make anything more real; policeman though he was, this was not the sort of police scene he was used to. This looked much more militaristic: the helmeted men, the sub-machine-guns held by some of them: cops had become warriors. The line of cars suggested armoured vehicles; one of the cars at the end, a late arrival, still had its red light spinning, like the modern equivalent of a battle banner. But this was war, so why should he find it hard to believe ?
Lisa stared back at him; then he heard her say hoarsely, “Darling
And at that moment Willard Birmingham said, “Julie - “
Malone looked at the other three who had emerged from the house for the first time. Sylvia Forte was even more wan and exhausted
-looking than Lisa; he noticed she carried one arm in the front of her jacket, as if she had broken or sprained her wrist. The young man with his long blond hair looked like a thousand other kids he had seen all over the world; it was somehow galling that this bastard, who had caused him so much pain and worry, should look so anonymous. But he would have picked the girl out in any company and he would remember her for ever. She looked as strained and exhausted as the other two women in front of her and she was as beautiful as either of them. There was no look of defiance about her: she looked what she was, an ordinary girl who had suddenly found herself in a situation she could no longer control.
Lewton nodded. “That’s my car over there. You’re sure you want to go through with this? You let Mrs Forte and Mrs Malone go now and I’ll do what I can for you with the D.A.”
Julie looked at Abel, but he shook his head fiercely. She was not wearing her wig and neither of them wore their dark
glasses; no expression on their faces was hidden from each other or from the watchers.
Abel looked back at Lewton. “Nothing doing, pig. You better be sure that plane is waiting for us at Kennedy. Malone, don’t you let ‘em forget one minute that we got your wife - ” He dug Lisa in the back with the gun and she flinched.
“Just don’t knock her around or by Christ - “
“Nobody’s gonna knock her around, man - but don’t you go handing me no threats. You just see those other bastards don’t try no tricks. You want your missus back, you see they all behave. Okay, let’s go.”
“Just a minute,” said Lewton. Some civilian cars had come to the end of the streets and a few people stood in a tight, curious group. It was still early and he wondered how they had got here. But sensation, he guessed, had its own smell. He hated to think what the flies would be like when they got to Kennedy. “To see we get a clear run right through to the airport, we’ll precede you with two cars and those four motor cycle men - I’ll be in one of the cars. The other cars will tail you. At the county lines they’ll be changed each time - no tricks,” he assured Abel as the latter stiffened with suspicion. “We just want to get you to that plane as quickly and with as little fuss as possible. Your husband will meet us at the airport, Mrs Forte.”