Then she told me about the other people I’d asked about: Walker, Dundree, Merom, and Seafield. She didn’t tell me anything I’d been wanting to know.
“Should I keep on?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But don’t tell me how much it’s costing me.”
“Is it you that it’s costing?” she asked. Not out of sympathy but because she was worrying about getting paid.
“Yeah,” I said. “My client died last night.”
She didn’t know whether I was joking.
I said, “Do you get any whiff of Rush or the others doing nasty things? Criminal things?”
“Not yet,” she said. “Should I?”
“Certainly possible.”
“Can you tell me about it?”
“Not really, no.”
“I’ll keep a nose out. But you know, Albert, the more you tell me, the more useful I can be.”
“When they survive, I tell my clients the same thing every day,” I said.
“Do you have clients every day?” She was hopeful, not sarcastic.
I called my office. Again Dorrie intercepted the call. After finding there were no messages, I told her I’d be calling the number again and to let it ring. In case Sam was . . . well, in case Sam was there and just slow on her feet. I called again. I let it ring twenty times, but nobody answered.
I didn’t know what to think.
I called Clinton Grille, my lawyer. He said that Sam had called him in the morning and told him to be ready to defend my rights. He wanted to know what it was all about. I couldn’t tell him. I was worried about Sam.
I’d got myself into a melodramatic frame of mind. I was afraid that Seafield had her.
I called Seafield’s home number. No answer. I called Loftus Pharmaceuticals. He wasn’t at the lab. I called Merom’s number. No answer. I called the police.
“Miller.”
“Jerry, has Lee Seafield been in there today to back up his story that I abducted Marcia Merom?”
“No,” he said. “Neither of them turned up. Where are you, Albert?”
“I’m in Muncie following up a lead.”
“And I have three balls,” he said.
“Look,” I said. “My daughter is missing. I’m afraid that Seafield might have her.”
He was just silent.
“Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m afraid he might have kidnapped her, because he wants to get at me.”
Quietly, but not sympathetically, Miller said, “How long has she been missing?”
“I’m not quite sure. But two or three hours, probably. She’s not at my office.”
“So you don’t even know that she hasn’t gone shopping or something. Do you have any positive reason to believe that this Seafield fellow has her?”
“Not directly. But I’ve been making trouble for him, and he’s impetuous and violent and he’s not at work or home.”
“Are you at your office or home? You’re impetuous.”
He didn’t seem to be taking me seriously.
“And Linn Pighee died in the hospital last night.” He didn’t respond at once. “Died . . . or was killed . . .”
“You sound like you’ve lost control of the game, Albert. Why don’t you come on in, relax a bit, and we’ll talk about what’s going on and what we can do about it.”
I didn’t sound that terrific to myself. However, “With Seafield and Merom not coming in to back up their story, does that mean you don’t have your people looking out for me any more?”
“I’d have called them off, but Captain Gartland wants to see you, too, pretty urgently.”
I hung up. I tried to relax. For all I knew, they were tracing phone calls now.
I wasn’t particularly rational. But how can you be when you’ve set your own daughter up for kidnapping?
I called my mother.
“Albert?”
“Sam isn’t there by any chance, is she, Mom?”
“No. You sound upset, Albert. What’s the matter? Are you in trouble?”
“No, no,” I said. “No more than usual. I’m just trying to find out where Sam’s got herself off to. I . . . I’ve got a job I want her to do. She’s probably gone shopping or something. Look, can you call my office every now and then, and ask her to call me?” I gave Rush’s number. “That’s if it’s in the next hour or so. Otherwise I’ll call you or her.”
“Where is she, Albert?” Urgently.
“I don’t know offhand,” I said, trying to reassure her by being offhand.
“What kind of trouble have you got her into?”
“I have to go, Mom. One thing, if anybody answers the phone here but me, tell her to hang up, O.K.?”
I hung up.
I walked to the kitchen. I rinsed my face with cold water. Trying to shock myself back into reasonability. The water wasn’t cold enough to do the job, because it was not nearly as cold as I felt.
I took two cookies from the Fancy Assortment. Then I went back into the office bedroom. I’d come looking for physical evidence; I needed it.
The house was a conventional design, probably not built to order for Rush. I didn’t believe that it was likely he’d had hidden safes put in.
The alternate theory is that a good hiding place is better than a strongly defended hiding place.
And there was the question of what it was that needed to be hidden.
The operation was conducted with the minimum of paperwork. But Rush had shown Merom authorizing letters. He had to have those somewhere.
It took me more than an hour. I went through the desk first, then the filing cabinets. Nothing was what I wanted. Particularly the third drawer of the filing cabinet. It was packed tight with folders of newspaper clippings. The clippings didn’t seem to have much to do with anything. Random sports cuttings, comic strips, letters to the editors. The rest of his work was involved with complicated financial matters and history of the Second World War. The third filing cabinet drawer just didn’t fit.
Until I thought about it.
I took the fat clipping folders out. On the bottom of the drawer was a heavy blue envelope in a plastic bag. The clippings had been there just to sit upon and hide what was underneath.
In the blue envelope were three letters. All addressed to P. Henry Rush. All on headed F.B.I. notepaper. All attached to envelopes mailed in Washington, D.C. All signed by J. Edgar Hoover.
The earliest was dated May 7, 1969. It said:
Agent Walker has reported to me your hesitation to participate in the anti-drug operation he has discussed with you. Be assured that this project has my fullest enthusiasm and that with your security background and present position you are uniquely qualified to participate in it. To apply your considerable skills to it will assure the likelihood of its success. It is a longterm operation and will require your full commitment. Success means not only reduction in drug availability, nationwide, but augmented fortification for our Country and the Bureau against their enemies and detractors.
The second was dated nine days later.
In response to your further question, it will not be desirable to work with local police personnel. Police security is simply not adequate for protection of a project of this scope and duration. Lives are at stake. Security is paramount. However, if it is necessary to secure your cooperation, you may inform the police official you mention of the establishment of the project. Your work with him in W.W.II has been confirmed and he has been cleared. But his briefing must be a short and general one, in the form of a courtesy, and Agent Walker must be present. Agent Walker is your sole link and he will have complete operational responsibility, and is responsible only to me.
The third was dated twelve days later.
It is with deep gratification that I learned from Agent Walker of your agreement to head the production end of Project Bagtag. The Bureau’s success in this operation will usher in a new era of crime fighting as well as renewed Bureau prestige.
The letters didn’t make me feel goo
d. I couldn’t fault them or the signatures. But I wasn’t working in an area where I had any expertise.
I folded up the letters and put them in my jacket pocket. The blue envelope and its plastic bag I put back on the bottom of the filing cabinet drawer. I put the fat files back on top of it.
I went to the living room and sat in one of the deep upholstered chairs. I wasn’t ecstatic but I wasn’t depressed. I had physical objects that would sort things out once and for all. I was feeling fatalistic. And began to acknowledge the prospect of being wrong.
From outside the house I heard a sound.
I stood up.
I went to the door and listened.
Nothing.
While I stood, someone on the other side of the door rang the bell.
I moved. Quietly as I could.
Bell again.
Roland Road was altogether too populated all of a sudden. I eased myself to the kitchen. Hesitated a minute, and instead of going through the window, I unlocked the back door from the inside and slipped out.
“Mr. Rush?”
“What!” Into the verbal arms of a close-cropped young man in a dark suit.
“F.B.I., Mr. Rush,” he said. He showed an indentification card. “My associate and I would like to have a word with you.”
“Your associate?”
“He’s out front. He rang your doorbell.”
One and one together. “Speak up,” I said loudly. “I don’t hear very well.”
* * * * *
I assembled them in the cluster of chairs at the end of the living room. They were both impressed by the American flag in the hall.
The associate began: “We’ve had a complaint that you’ve been impersonating an F.B.I. agent.”
“Me?” I said, surprised.
“Yes, sir.”
“Ridiculous,” I said scornfully.
My back-door agent looked at me carefully. “It does seem an unlikely accusation,” he said. “But you can appreciate that we have to make sure. If you wouldn’t mind, I’ll take a few details and we’ll be on our way.”
“I’m not even going to ask who made such a ridiculous accusation. I wouldn’t want to sully my ears with his name.”
My back-door agent said, “Sir, for the record, would you tell me whether you’ve ever told anybody that you worked for the F.B.I. or that you were working on some project organized by them?”
“I certainly have not ever said I had anything to do with the F.B.I.”
I think they believed me. After all, I was telling the truth.
“May we look around, sir?”
I looked puzzled.
The associate said, “It’s just routine. With an accusation having been made, if it later came out that you had a machine in the bedroom which printed phony F.B.I. credentials and we’d been here and hadn’t found it, we’d look pretty stupid. We’d just like to have a look around.”
I walked around with them. They asked only two questions.
In the kitchen: “Where do you eat, sir?”
“At the factory. The government subsidizes meals there, so it’s wasteful to eat anywhere else.”
And in the third bedroom: “What is in those boxes?” The cardboard boxes in the corner.
I didn’t know. “Money,” I said.
They left my boxes untouched. They’d only spent five minutes looking around the house. I watched them get in their car, turn it around, and head down the driveway.
I felt like following them, but had to give them a minute to get clear. I was tired of Rush’s house. I didn’t feel easy there. I wanted to find Sam. I wanted to give the letters in my pocket to Miller. I wanted to sleep.
I spent the minute by going back to the third bedroom before I left. Just for a look to see what was in the boxes in the corner.
I’d lied to the F.B.I. There were four cardboard boxes. Three of them had dusty books and magazines in them.
Only one box was full of money.
Mostly it was fifty-dollar bills, but there were some hundreds and twenties for variety. All nice used cash. My first impulse was to count it.
Then I thought I might take some. Much as I try to ignore money as a fact of life, there are times when it helps. I grabbed a big handful.
But then I remembered where the money had come from. It wasn’t the F.B.I. I dropped it.
I was overtaken by the impulse to get the hell out of Rush’s house. To go find Sam. To go talk, at last, to the police.
I replied the boxes in the corner, walked back through the living room, and decided to leave by the front door, the shortest way home.
I stepped onto the front porch.
A hairy forearm crushed my arms to my sides and a flame-hot hand pulled what hair I have on my head backward and down.
“Hot damn!” a voice said beside me. “We don’t even set the snare and the goddamn rabbit jumps into it.”
Somewhere above, a far more hostile voice said, “I told you that car on the road looked suspicious.”
Another voice, sounding tired, said, “You were right, Lee. Bring him on in.”
Chapter Thirty Nine
Two men entered the house before I did. Lee Seafield held me, and after the others had passed from my limited range of vision he cursed at me. “By God, Samson,” he said, “you’re going to get it.”
I had the feeling I didn’t want it.
The grip tightened on me, when a voice came back through the doorway. “Bring him in, Lee. Don’t hurt him.”
“Just give me the excuse,” Seafield whispered in my ear, into my very being. He dragged me into the living room.
Henry Rush was sitting in one of the heavy easy chairs. The other man stood at the light switch. “What a day,” Rush said plaintively. “Nothing but trouble.”
“This one is no more trouble,” Seafield said aggressively.
Rush studied me as the other man sat down. Rush said, “I think you’re right there. The police want him. They can have him. He won’t see daylight again until things are all wrapped up.”
The third man said, “Search him, Lee.”
Seafield hooked a foot around my ankles and pushed me. My nose hit the floor with a resounding bang, closely followed by a hundred and ninety pounds of too solid flesh. Being searched by Seafield was not a gentle process. But he was looking for a gun, so he passed over the letters I had in my pocket from Rush’s files.
Seafield seemed surprised to report that I didn’t have a gun. The third man snorted. “These fellas always carry guns. It’s what makes them feel like tough guys.”
Seafield pulled me up and pushed me against a wall. “He’s probably got one of those little ones.”
The third man snorted. “A sissy gun, huh? Behind his belt buckle or something.”
“Yeah,” Seafield said. He turned back to me. “Undo your belt.”
I undid my belt.
Seafield pulled my trousers down to my ankles.
“Is all this necessary?” Rush asked tiredly.
“You don’t want him shooting the place up, do you, Henry?” the third man asked casually.
Reluctantly, Seafield said, “I don’t think he has a gun, Tommy. I really don’t think he does.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t.”
They weren’t listening.
“What was he doing here, Henry?” The third man, who had to be Thomas Jefferson Walker, Jr., frowned at Rush.
Rush shook his head. “What did you want in my house, Samson?”
I bent to pull my trousers up, but Seafield hit my arms and said, “No!” He clearly had a partiality for patched boxer shorts.
“What were you doing here, Samson?” Rush asked again.
“Holding a garage sale,” I said.
Seafield turned me slightly with his right hand and knocked me flat on my patch with his left. I think that’s what he did. I don’t quite remember what happened between the point at which the big fist came hurtling toward me and waking up after a count of ei
ghty-seven.
It’s not all that unpleasant being K.O.’d; better than a lot of things I can remember.
I woke up saying, “Where’s my daughter?”
“What?”
“Where have you bastards put my daughter?”
There was a period of silence. During it, I sat up against a wall and refocused on them.
“What daughter?” Rush asked me then.
“My daughter is missing. One of you . . . criminals kidnapped her.”
They were all about to speak when the phone rang. They all hesitated.
“Better get it, Henry,” Tommy Walker said. He was a heavyset man with a very thick neck.
Rush walked to a nearby extension. “Hello,” he said. Then, “No, Ma’am.” Then he held the receiver away from his ear and looked puzzled. “Hung up,” he said.
Walker’s cheeks glowed. “Now, you shouldn’t never tell a lady no, Henry. It just ain’t polite.”
“Wrong number,” Rush said. “It was some girl wanted to know if I was her daddy.” Walker and Seafield laughed.
I just choked.
“Lee,” Rush said, “you know anything about this man’s daughter?”
“No, I don’t,” Seafield said a trifle petulantly. Then he brightened. “I bet he hasn’t got one. Any more than he had an envelope from Pighee.”
“Well,” Rush said, “whatever your problems with your daughter, Samson, they have nothing to do with us. I don’t know what in the world you think we would want with her anyway.”
“To keep me quiet,” I said quietly.
“You have a powerful strange idea of the sorts of things we do,” Rush said self-righteously. “Kidnapping—dear, oh, dear.”
“People who murder people seem fair bets if there’s a kidnapping going,” I said.
All three of them stiffened slightly. But after a moment Rush said, “Murder people, now, is it?”
“Simon Rackey was the first,” I said. I was past holding things back.
“Simon?” Rush said. “What are we supposed to have had to do with Simon’s death?”
By immediately remembering the name, more than four years later, it seemed to me Rush was saying that I was right.
“Then John Pighee’s death,” I said.
Rush began, “We have every hope—”
I interrupted, “Pighee is dead in every way but having the certificate signed, you know that. Marcia Merom told me herself.”
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