by Charles Fox
Apparently, it was quite believable, because Chace asked Old Paul if I could stay at Ladispoli. When I arrived there, I was really out of it from the drugs. Mario’s wife sent me to bed. I stayed in bed for a few days, because people would visit me and I had to maintain the act.
Chace then asked me to get out of Italy altogether. I was suspicious of why they wanted me away. I had lost control. It’s in the hands of Chace and Old Paul and Fraser McKno, and who knows who else. My idea was to go to London for a few days and come right back.
The kidnappers were clearly rattled. How could a family hesitate to pay for one of its own? Such a thing would never happen in Italy. These Americans were barbarians. Their response to the delay was to move Paul to a hole-in-the-wall hideout higher up the mountains, sealed at one end. There was only one way in and only one way out of this hole in the wall. The gang was digging in, preparing for a siege.
Paul:
We moved at dawn. Left the bunker. We walked on the road, up the hill three-quarters of a mile, and then turned off onto a path that went down into a valley so steep it took three or four hours to get down to the bottom of the gorge. They carried the radio. They had cut a path with machetes. It must have been cut the day before, because it was still fresh. They didn’t say anything.
The area, Aspromonte, if you see it on a map, is all mountains, very few inhabitants, like, one person per square mile—just goats and sheep. The bottom of the gorge under the trees is swampy, unbelievably quiet. The soil is lightly packed, rich, and dark, with lots of wood in it, covered with leaves, great for planting—blackberries, chestnuts, pines. At the bottom of the gorge there was a stream. It was crazy; I don’t think a man had ever been to that spot before.
That afternoon, Fifty called Iacovoni’s office in Rome. His cousin answered and told him to call back in half an hour. Fifty did so and Iacovoni’s secretary answered the phone and asked whom she was talking to. He threatened her and told her to call him Fifty. She fetched Iacovoni:
Fifty: Avvocato, listen, has the family come to some decision?
I: The family has already told you. They cannot pay that sum.
Fifty: Tell me how much they can pay.
I: Tell me what you want. Why don’t we meet one day?
Fifty: No. You tell me if the family has intentions of paying.
I: The family has intentions of paying. The mother is obviously worried for the life of her son. But the economic possibilities of the mother are extremely limited. You know that better than I do because Paul has already told you.
Fifty: Well, at least tell me what they want to pay.
I: Around two hundred to three hundred million lire [$360,000 to $540,000].
Fifty: What?
I: Three hundred million.
Fifty: Rubbish.
I: What?
Fifty: Rubbish.
I: Why can’t we meet? You could be safe. We could meet in Rome.
Fifty: No. Tell them that two hundred to three hundred million have already been spent. Did you understand?
I: I understand, but tell me how much you want. Make a request.
Fifty: It’s you who has to say—I don’t know. I can’t tell you.
I: I have to consult the family now and then you will have to call me back.
Fifty: I will call you.
I: You talk with your friends and then give me an answer and above all, tell me this, is the boy well?
Fifty: Yes, well.
I: Are you sure?
Fifty: He’s well. He’s being well treated but he suffers at the same time.
I: Hello?
As Iacovoni was reassuring the kidnappers that a ransom would be paid, Old Paul was issuing the opposite directions. Chace noted:
Old Paul says there’s 400 million lire to work with [approx. $730,000]. Settle it quietly. Pay it off. Get Paul out of the country. Pay expenses, not ransom. Kidnap ransom is deductible under U.S. law, but that’s not the grandfather’s concern. He’s told them he won’t pay a penny ransom so now he doesn’t want to pay ransom but he will pay expenses. Strategy at this point is to try and get the kidnappers to see me and talk to me. Try and splinter them. Offer them $600 because they can accept $600 under Italian law and it doesn’t constitute grand extortion. Try to break them apart, separate one of them from the game.
Chace didn’t speak of his plans with Iacovoni. Iacovoni was Gail’s lawyer, and if Gail was involved, then Chace figured the lawyer might be too. Chace firmly believed in keeping his powder dry. Gail and Iacovoni, struggling to cover the delay, decided to demand proof that Paul was alive.
Iacovoni had been juggling calls from a number of parties claiming to have the boy. On August 8, Iacovoni recorded the following conversation:
Man: Avvocato Iacovoni, did you receive the telephone call yesterday?
I: I had left a few minutes before that. Listen, from now on, call me between ten and noon.
Man: I’m only a spokesman. If there’s another sum, I can’t tell you anything.
I: How is the boy?
Man: Well.
I: Be careful. The grandfather will not pay a penny for the boy, but if something happens to the boy, he is capable of spending more money than you can imagine to take revenge.
Man: You be careful or I’ll hang up and we’ll lose another week of time like last time.
I: Listen, we need to know if the boy is alive.
Man: The boy is well.
I: Yes, but we want proof.
Man: We can give you proof. If you want we can bring him there.
I: No, no, don’t bring him here.
Man: We are immigrants.
I: I see. You could send us a photograph of him holding a newspaper.
Man: We can’t send it. How can we develop a photograph? We don’t have a photographic laboratory.
I: Yes, but don’t you have a Polaroid?
Man: No, we don’t have anything.
I: Well, at least you could send us a letter.
Man: Let me finish talking. Prepare one million marks—that’s around three hundred million [lire].
I: Yes.
Man: One million marks and tomorrow morning I will be able to tell—
I: Wait a minute. Before fixing the sum we want proof that the boy is alive.
Man: The proof is this, my dear avvocato.
I: What is that?
Man: The proof is this. Once you are here with one million marks in notes of a hundred that have not been marked, once we have counted the money, after half an hour the boy will be free.
I: Yes, but before I give you three hundred million lire [approx. $550,000], which I believe is a million marks, Mrs. Harris must have the authorization of her husband in London because I’ve already told you how much money is available in Italy. Anyway, I will make your proposal. Send me a letter written in Paul’s handwriting in which he should tell us the name that he had at school and the name of his Yugoslav friend of about three years ago. So, if you send me this letter by express, written in Paul’s handwriting, with these two details and the surname of the dog—can you hear me?
Man: Yes.
I: When we have this proof and we are sure that Paul is alive, then we can face the problem of the money and the way of delivering it. When will you call me back?
Man: I must meet with the others.
The caller never identified himself and suddenly began demanding marks. Iacovoni didn’t indicate surprise at the demand for marks.
The following day, Chace received a letter from Düsseldorf that read: “Bring the money in a couple of red suitcases to the train station and we’ll give you Paul.”
Chace (notes):
Because of the accuracy of the information they had, I figured out that [Marcello] Crisi’s ex-wife is in Germany. Either Crisi’s German wife or two girls Paul shacked up with. I don’t mean the twins. One of the girls had a Spanish name, moved to Cologne, Frankfurt or Düsseldorf. There are similarities between this letter we received from Düsseldorf
and the other letters. In my own mind, I believe that those people up there are trying their hand at getting some money too. Whether or not they are in it with Paul or trying their hand at a little extortion, I don’t know.
11.
Paul waited beside the stream at the bottom of the gorge. His constant and mostly sole guard was the man he called the Chipmunk.
Paul:
I built a hut from four trees, a plastic roof with branches on it so that helicopters couldn’t see it. I had this whole trip, I really dug it; each time I’d see an airplane I’d run in and duck inside.
I was chained near the stream. It was an incredibly long chain. For a while I didn’t mind the stream, getting out of the city, all the stress and everything. I mean, it was totally different, just being in nature and quiet. There was a little beach of sand where I drew pictures with sticks. They gave me a knife and I carved these wood things shaped like little knives and I would throw them at a target I drew on the other side of the stream. There was a shallow place where you could cross. I made friends with this little bird. I left crumbs and it came every day. I thought it was dependent on me, and I liked that. I liked that I could do something for someone. I had to play these games with myself to keep from thinking about the same thing over and over. I watched my fingers. I put them in the water, played with the water, and I would watch the water for hours. I studied my toes, really looked at them, or at a rock. I thought about how I should be with the kidnappers at certain times, what I should say to them at certain times.
They started to give me freedom. In many ways this was the saddest and the best time. At least I was allowed to be in nature and I had some freedom. I could walk two hundred meters, but they told me there were people all around. I wouldn’t run away, because where would I go? If I went to the police station, I’m sure they’d just bring me back.
The kidnappers gave me paints and paper. I painted rocks and wrote a diary. A log, what I did, what I ate, what was on the radio, what I thought was happening. It was their idea; they thought I was intelligent, they thought I could work it out. It was difficult; I was not allowed to write in English. I wrote a whole pad.
The Chipmunk was always with me. Because I wasn’t allowed to look at them, I had to keep my eyes down. Sometimes I thought he was Piccolo. I was confused.
I hid some things, painted stones and pages. I have a lot of things hidden there, because I was there for the longest time, the whole summer. Some of my things I’ve left behind in various places. I have a whole collection of painted rocks. They’d be worth a fortune. I have their fingerprints. I had them touch a glass and then I hid the glass. They were smoking some really weird Swiss cigarettes. I buried them, with their fingerprints on them. I think I could make the perfect crime, ’cause I would never do something like that. Can you imagine giving a cigarette pack with your prints on it?
It’s right next to the stream. I have a Louis V belt, which I was wearing, which I hid there. I had Martine’s house keys. I just wanted them to be buried.
I didn’t have anything else to do, so I made these incredible escape plans. By the stream, I had this whole thing with diagrams in a book, with an elastic band, a pencil and a match and a matchbox, and a cigar tube. I’d built a space where I put this cigar tube and I had thrown hay right outside this. And on the cigar tube I had two little nails and an elastic band, and a pencil sharp like an arrow. And inside the cigar tube, matches, and there was a match on top of the pencil. I tried it out, too, and it worked; if I had released the elastic band, it would have—whoosh. If I’d lit the match, it would have landed in the hay, but I didn’t want to do it. It was so hot and dry there it would have started a giant fire, and there was no way out of the canyon. And I wasn’t going to try to escape unless I was ninety-nine percent sure I wasn’t going to be shot.
When Gail left Old Paul’s Italian villa, she flew to London.
Gail:
My idea was to go to London for a few days, talk to the children’s father, and come right back. I didn’t really have the time to talk to him on the phone. Undoubtedly he was upset and probably going more and more into his scene, which meant I wouldn’t be able to reason with him. Whatever was going on was very heavy.
I met with Chace in a park, all very secretive, everybody looking twice. Chace felt I should stay out of Italy. Chace, Old Paul, and whoever else was deciding all of this, felt that Iacovoni, my lawyer, the man I had asked to handle the kidnappers’ phone calls, was no longer necessary; he had performed his services. If I wished to carry on with him, he would be my responsibility and I would have to pay him. Chace wanted to pay him off, thank you very much, and that was that. I wrote to Iacovoni, thanking him. It seems to me they paid him and sent him off. They continued using his secretary and his office while he was gone, so they would “have a connection, a phone contact with the kidnappers while Gail’s not here.” I felt, and I could be absolutely wrong, this could be a terrible judgment on my part, that they really believed I was involved. I finally got terribly irritated and got on the plane with a pair of jeans, a bag.
I stopped giving the press the chance to print anything. No news. The press got really unpleasant, like I had just run away and could not care less; that I had gone on a holiday.
In Rome, Chace was also taking control from Gail’s lawyer.
Chace (notes):
I told Iacovoni to go to Greece and take a vacation. He wanted all eleven million lire [approx. $20,000] for payment. I said no. He’s very upset and wants a letter of thanks for all he has done and all the money he has asked for. On the evening of August 10, Gail went to London alone. She met Lou and they went out that night. She was in London with Lou on August 11th.
When Gail arrived in London, the first thing she did was telephone Old Paul.
Gail:
He was sweet. He said, “I hope you’re all right. I just can’t see you. I hope you understand.” I did understand. He was terrified. He’s just an old man and no old man’s capable of contending with this kind of thing. If he saw me, it would create a storm of emotion, tears. He’s just not capable. I didn’t want to test his emotions. I didn’t see him during the whole kidnapping.
I got to the house to talk to Big Paul. We had a very difficult time. We couldn’t sit down, the minute I walked in and talked about what I’d come to talk about. We talked about eight thousand other things. I hadn’t been there long, and Victoria arrived. Ping, “You poor dear”—all that crap. From the second she arrived, she was nasty to me.
She and I went upstairs and talked.
My sister-in-law was there, Donna, Paul’s sister. At some point Victoria said, “We’re expecting some guests. Would you mind going out for the evening?” I remember opening the door for the guests and then I guess I left. I don’t know where I went. I didn’t know anyone. I was alone, walking, in my own head. I didn’t know where I was or who I was. I don’t think I came back to the house that night. I was really wild. I’m sure if you went to Paul and asked, “Did this actually happen?” He would say, “You poor dear. No.” I don’t think he really knows. This is what’s so awful—that other world he’s dealing with. It was as though he didn’t even know who I was or what was going on. I blamed it on Victoria.
While I was in London I received a call from Chace. He said in a very cynical voice, “Your son is just fine.” I said to him, “I know my son is not just fine, so don’t tell me that he is.” He went on to say, “Someone very close to the family, someone who’s known him for many years, told me.”
Whenever I did go back to Big Paul’s, I was there two or three days before we finally got ’round to it. Paul said, “Bring the children.” I was concerned about them. They should be with me. They were really upset. So they came, the two girls, with Lou. Mark was in San Francisco with my parents.
I rented a little flat in Kingston. We were there two or three weeks, just sort of staying there in limbo, stalling for time.
Chace came to London and we had meetings.
Finally, Lou drove us over to the house. I told him, “This is a touchy situation. Wait in the drawing room. I’ll take the children in to see their father.” I walked in Big Paul’s study with the two girls and he flipped out: “You didn’t make an appointment.” I said, “I didn’t know your children had to have an appointment.”
“How dare you bring uninvited people?”
There was a horrible scene, really an awful scene. I was really wild. I could have taken him and hung him upside down. I couldn’t have cared less. Who turned him, what happened, I don’t know. Why he became so bitter, what had I done, I don’t know. Whether it was years of resentment and he finally exploded, I just don’t know. I knew there was no way I was going to have any sort of relationship with him as far as the kidnapping was concerned. I knew then—forget him; it’s out of the question. I said to the children, “Come on, here we go.” We walked out of the study, out of the house.
We went to a movie, went to dinner, and then went back to Kingston.
Chace was uncharacteristically patient in getting to the bottom of this business. His dilemma was that his lack of Italian meant that he needed Iacovoni, whichever side the lawyer was on. He therefore did what he could.
Chace:
I put Iacovoni on my payroll to control him. He was very unhappy and left town with his wife. I heard that Gail was planning a visit to Malta. I had that house under surveillance for months because I thought Paul was part of the deal and Cherchio was in on it. I always suspected him, so I had the Malta place under surveillance for a long time. Cherchio has an apartment in Malta and I thought Paul might pop up there. And then when Gail said she was going to Malta, I really increased the surveillance. I was beginning to get the feel of the situation at this point.