The Wrong Kind of Money

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  “Of course. Now, you said that your son’s plans for this evening were to pick up a friend, drive to Manhattan, and then attend a performance of My Fair Lady.”

  “I think he said he was going to drive to Manhattan first, and pick up the friend there, and then go to the theater. I’m not sure.”

  “It doesn’t matter. He and the friend were to meet somewhere between here and the theater. Was dinner mentioned?”

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “What time did he leave the house?”

  “I didn’t make a note of it. Around six, I think.”

  “Six would get him to Manhattan at around six-thirty. That would give them time for dinner before an eight o’clock curtain. That’s the usual thing. Now, do you have any idea who this friend of his was?”

  “No. He didn’t say.”

  “And you didn’t ask him?”

  “No. It didn’t seem important.”

  “It’s become important now. Does your son have any special girlfriend?”

  “No.”

  “Any male friend that he’d be likely to go to the theater with?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “So the friend could have been male or female.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you see, Mr. Liebling, the odd thing is, if he left the house around six, and the alleged kidnapping took place in the vicinity of the front gates at around seven-thirty, what was he doing in the intervening hour and a half?”

  “Don’t use the word ‘alleged’!” Hannah said. “Perhaps he forgot the tickets, drove back to the house to get them. That would explain the way the car was headed, and—”

  “And the two opened front doors. If the friend was with him when it happened. But that’s not the way he said it happened, Mrs. Liebling. He said he was on his way to New York. He said he was alone.”

  “When he called, he was obviously frightened and confused.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Liebling, there is another small problem here.”

  “What’s that?”

  “My Fair Lady is playing at the Mark Hellinger Theater. Today is Sunday. On Sunday nights there are no performances at the Mark Hellinger. On Sundays the theater is dark. So are nearly all New York theaters.”

  There was a long silence, and then Hannah said, “Perhaps he didn’t realize this. Perhaps he was just hoping to pick up two tickets at the box office.”

  “For the hottest new show on Broadway? For a show that has people lined up around the block for tickets that have to be bought weeks—even months—in advance? Is your son that naive? I shouldn’t think so.”

  When there was no immediate reply, he added, “Mr. and Mrs. Liebling, I can only conclude that your son was not being entirely truthful when he told you about his plans for this evening.”

  It was nearly midnight. Hannah leaned forward in her chair. “Mr. Shaughnessy, will you spend the night with us tonight?” she said. “There are plenty of spare bedrooms.”

  “Yes, please do!” Bathy said.

  “I’d very much like to do so,” he said. “In fact, it would be helpful if I could use your son’s bedroom. I’d like to go through his things, if you don’t mind. And I may ask to spend several nights with you while we try to get to the bottom of this. These things take time, I’m sorry to say.”

  The ransom note arrived in the next morning’s mail, bearing the postmark of a Manhattan substation. It was carefully printed, in pencil, on lined yellow paper. It read:

  Mr. Liebling:

  We have your son. He is safe with us, and will remain safe until such time as our demands are met, at which point in time he will be safely returned to you. It is not our desire to have to dispatch your son, but we are fully prepared to do so if our demands are not met. Our demands are unconditional. We demand $2.5 million, which must be paid in bills of small denominations, no bill to be larger than $20. Their serial numbers must not be sequential. We realize that it may take you some time to aggrandize this much cash, so we suggest you begin doing this immediately. We will telephone you tonight at 6 p.m. for a report on your progress in this direction, and to deliver you the issuance of further instructions.

  “The postmark tells us nothing,” Kevin Shaughnessy said. “The letter could have been dropped in any one of over a hundred different mailboxes in lower Manhattan. But, again, notice the odd formality of the language. The word ‘dispatch’ again. ‘Aggrandize,’ and ‘issuance of further instructions.’ I get the impression that we’re dealing with someone who’s learned English rather recently, and who’s trying to use it very carefully and precisely. At least tonight’s call, if it comes, will be traceable.”

  “Please don’t say ‘if it comes,’” Hannah said. “It’s bound to come.”

  “Did you find anything in my son’s room?” Jules asked.

  “Nothing I wouldn’t expect to find. I found a small black address book, with names and telephone numbers. Every young man keeps a little black book. The names meant nothing to me, but I’m running a check on all of them to see if anything turns up. Until the phone call comes, there’s nothing much more we can do except wait.”

  Throughout the day, on Mr. Shaughnessy’s instructions, Jules and Hannah and Bathy did their best to act as though nothing at all had happened. To the household servants, who asked where Mr. Cyril was, the answer was that he was out of town for a few days. Kevin Shaughnessy’s presence in the house was explained by saying that he was “an old family friend,” nothing more.

  Then, at precisely six o’clock, the telephone rang. Jules immediately picked it up, and Mr. Shaughnessy moved into the next room to pick up an extension.

  “Mr. Liebling, did you receive our letter?”

  “I did,” Jules said.

  “Are our demands quite clear?” This was, Jules thought, a different man’s voice from the one he had spoken to the night before—younger-sounding somehow, but with the same trace of an accent.

  “Your demands are very clear,” he said. “Raising that amount of money will be no problem. But I don’t think you fellows have thought this through very carefully. Two and a half million dollars, in small bills, is quite a lot of paper. I’ve figured that it will take at least eighteen large suitcases to hold that much cash. We’ll need a truck to deliver that much cash to you, and you’ll need another truck to pick it up.”

  “Excuse me? How many suitcases?”

  “Eighteen,” he said, and then, on a sudden inspiration, he said, “Diez-y-ocho. Diez-y-ocho maletas muy grandes.”

  “Claro.” Then, in the background, Jules thought he heard the sounds of a whispered conversation.

  “How do you expect me to handle that?” he asked.

  “A few moments, please. I will call you back.”

  “May I speak to my son, please?”

  “He is not with me at this moment.”

  “Where is he? I thought you were guarding him.”

  “There are two of us, as I believe you know. We take turns doing the guarding duty. I will call you back shortly.”

  “Spanish,” Jules said when Shaughnessy returned to the music room. “Probably Puerto Rican.”

  “Yes. That was clever of you, Mr. Liebling. The call was placed from a pay telephone in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. I have the exact location of the booth, but you weren’t on the phone long enough for me to get one of my operatives over there. But I think it’s safe to say he’s being held somewhere in Brooklyn.”

  “Brooklyn! The largest borough in the city!”

  “Yes, but the scope of our search is narrowed considerably. He said he felt their car crossing two bridges—that would be one into Manhattan and the second into Brooklyn. Let’s wait for their next call.”

  But then there was no next call. Monday evening passed, then Tuesday, and then Wednesday, and there was no further word from the kidnappers.

  “If we don’t hear something soon, I’m afraid we may have to turn this over to the FBI,” Kevin Shaughnessy said.

&
nbsp; “Oh, please—let’s wait as long as we can,” Hannah said. “If the media get hold of this, it could frighten them, and—”

  “I know what you mean,” he said. “Meanwhile, I’ve run a check on all the names in your son’s address book. They all seem to be legitimate. Most of them are young males, incidentally. And none of them were planning to see My Fair Lady with your son.”

  Then, on Thursday morning, there was a call. This time it was the older of the two men’s voices on the other end of the line. “Mr. Liebling, we have modified our demands somewhat,” he said. “The figure remains the same—two-point-five million dollars. But the money can be in hundred-dollar notes, wrapped in packets of one thousand dollars each. The serial numbers, however, must not be in sequence. We appreciate that it will take some time to prepare the money in this fashion. We are giving you twenty-four hours to do so. We estimate that this amount of money will fill two, or at the most three, large plastic garbage bags. This is how we want the money delivered, in large green plastic garbage bags. In exactly twenty-four hours you will receive a final telephone call with full instructions as to how and where these bags are to be delivered. Is all this clear to you, Mr. Liebling?”

  “Quite clear,” Jules said, and the line went dead.

  “Another pay phone in Brooklyn,” Kevin Shaughnessy said. “But we’re narrowing down the neighborhood—Flatbush and Brooklyn Heights.”

  The next few hours were something of a mystery to the household staff at Grandmont. Why had a large bale of what appeared to be old newspapers been delivered to the house, along with an industrial-size paper-cutting machine? Why were Mr. and Mrs. Liebling, Miss Bathy, and their house guest Mr. Shaughnessy locked in the music room with all this material? Well, it had always been a strange household, and it was not the servants’ duty to ask questions. The answer was that the four of them were busily cutting, stacking, and banding twenty-five hundred little piles of paper and stuffing them into large green plastic garbage bags.

  “I wonder if our perpetrators know that any deposit larger than ten thousand dollars must be reported to the IRS,” Kevin Shaughnessy said at one point. “The IRS and the FBI are all T-men. These guys are taking a big risk. Or else they’re damn fools.”

  Later he said, “When their call comes tomorrow morning, I want you to tell them one thing. I want you to tell them that you absolutely cannot deliver the money until you have talked to your son, and have been given his assurance that he’s alive and well.”

  Jules nodded.

  “In return, promise them that the police will not be called.”

  “No police. No publicity.”

  “Unless—”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless it’s publicity they actually want,” Kevin Shaughnessy said. “I’m beginning to wonder.”

  “Why would they want publicity?”

  “Why did Booth murder Lincoln?”

  “Oh, please don’t talk about murder!” Hannah cried.

  Nevertheless, they were all up at dawn the following morning and waiting in the music room, which had become their operations center.

  At eight o’clock the telephone rang.

  “Mr. Liebling?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have the money ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Then follow these instructions carefully. Cyril tells us you own a dark green Chrysler station wagon, New York license plate LZT-897.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Very well. You will be driving that tonight. You will be alone.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” Jules said. “I’ve never driven a car. I don’t know how to drive. My son will confirm that. I’ll need a driver.”

  A pause. Then, “Very well. You may be accompanied by your driver. But no one else.”

  “Fine,” Jules said.

  “There is a restaurant called Billy’s Grill at one-two-four Fulton Street in Brooklyn. The proprietor closes his restaurant promptly at midnight, and just before locking up, he places his garbage, in big green bags, on the sidewalk outside the front door. At exactly ten minutes past twelve, you will drive your station wagon past this restaurant. The street must be empty. There must be no pedestrians on the street. There must be no other vehicles moving on the street. If there are, you will go around the block until the street is empty. Someone will be watching to make sure that this is the case. If there is any possibility of a witness to your delivery, it will be necessary to dispatch your son. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “If the street is clear, you will deposit your garbage bags on the sidewalk alongside the restaurant’s garbage. Then you will drive away as quickly as possible and not attempt to return. Once the money has been satisfactorily delivered to us, your son will be released, and you will hear from him.”

  “There’s just one thing,” Jules said.

  “Yes?”

  “Before I deliver this money, I must talk to my son. I need to hear him say he’s alive and well.”

  “I’m sorry, but your son is not with me now.”

  “I didn’t figure he was. But I’m not leaving this house with your money until I’ve talked to Cyril.”

  There was another, longer pause. Then, “What time do you plan to leave your house, Mr. Liebling?”

  “To be in Brooklyn by ten after twelve—no later than eleven-fifteen.”

  “Very well. You will hear from your son shortly in advance of your departure.” And once again the line went dead.

  “Another pay phone in Brooklyn,” Kevin Shaughnessy said when he returned to the room. “Different number, but within the same fifteen-block radius as the others. I think we’re close to getting your son back, Mr. Liebling.”

  But the rest of the hours of the day dragged on with painful slowness.

  Then, shortly before eleven, the phone rang again. “Pop!” Cyril’s voice cried. “Pop—are you going to pay them their money? Are you going to get me out of here?”

  “Are you all right, son?”

  “All right? I’ve been sitting tied to a kitchen chair for almost a week, Pop! With one or the other of them sitting here pointing a gun at me! I’ve hardly slept for nearly a week, Pop! They only untie me to go to the bathroom! They—”

  “Have they treated you well?”

  “Well? Well, they feed me, if that’s what you mean. Not that their food’s that great. Oh, Pop, please—please do what they say, Pop! Just pay them their money and get me out of here! It’s been just hell, Pop! It’s been like living in hell! I want to go home, Pop, please!” Then he heard his son’s voice, suddenly calm again, as though turning to speak to someone else in the room, ask, “How’m I doing?” Then Cyril said, “Oh, please, Pop, help me. Just do what they say!”

  “Tell them I’m on my way with the money,” Jules said. “Tell them I have their instructions, and I’m on my way now.”

  “Be careful, Pop! They’re dangerous! Be sure to do exactly what they told you, Pop, or they’ll kill me!”

  “Be patient, son. Just stay where you are, and be patient.”

  “Stay where I am? How can I go anywhere, tied to a chair?”

  “You’ll be home soon, son,” his father said.

  “Wahoo!” shouted Kevin Shaughnessy, bursting into the room. “We know where he is! Thirty-four Joralemon Street, Brooklyn Heights, apartment 3-C. Let’s go!”

  Quickly they loaded the three heavy garbage bags into the back of the station wagon. Kevin Shaughnessy took the wheel, and Jules slid into the passenger seat beside him. “Two brothers named Fernandez,” Kevin said as they headed down the gravel drive toward the gate. “Both bachelors. Older brother, Miguel, is twenty-five. Younger one, Jose, is fifteen. Older one works as a security guard on Seventh Avenue. Younger one is still in high school. No P.C.R. for either one—prior criminal record. Moved into this apartment six weeks ago. It’s a one-bedroom efficiency, third floor walk-up. Your son said he’d been carried up two flights of stairs, so this must be wh
ere they’ve got him. Don’t know much about them yet. Quick check of neighbors reveals zip. Neighbors say they keep to themselves. No suspicious noises from the apartment, no suspicious comings or goings. Very quiet. Typical perps. Homebodies. Still, it’s a little odd.…”

  “What’s a little odd?”

  “The name. Fernandez. Didn’t your daughter just elope with a man named Fernandez?”

  “Antonio Fernandez-Just. A Brazilian.”

  “Yeah. Would any of his relatives have wanted to kidnap your son?”

  “Antonio Fernandez-Just is supposed to be very rich. Why would he want to extort money from me?”

  “I dunno. That’s why I asked you.”

  Jules shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

  “Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Fernandez is a pretty common Hispanic name. Like Smith or Jones. New York phone books have dozens of pages of Fernandezes. Still, it’s kind of funny. All the people causing your family trouble seem to be named Fernandez.”

  Jules said nothing.

  “I wonder what your son meant when he suddenly turned away from the phone, and said, ‘How’m I doing?’”

  “Perhaps they told him to sound desperate. After all, they’re desperate for my money.”

  “Yeah, maybe that’s it,” he said.

  They were nearly a half hour early when they located Billy’s Grill in Fulton Street and drove quickly past it. They spent the rest of the time figuring the shortest distance to the building at 34 Joralemon Street, some ten blocks away. At ten minutes past twelve they returned to the restaurant, which was now dark and shuttered, with garbage bags stacked outside it. The street was quiet and empty. Quickly, Jules and Kevin tossed their bags from the car against the others and sped on. They did not wait to see a slight figure emerge from the shadows between two buildings and load the big bags, one by one, onto a Safeway Stores shopping cart. After all, except for a few hundred-dollar bills placed on the outside of the wrapped packets as decoys, the rest of the “cash” consisted of cut-up newspaper.

  “We don’t have much time,” Kevin said as they pulled up in front of the apartment building on Joralemon Street and got out, leaving the engine running. Kevin pressed the doorbell for 3-C. “I’m counting on him thinking it’s his brother returning with the cash,” he said.