by Helen Spring
James laughed. 'And we can write, while I'm studying?' he said.
'I should think so,' Paolo said. 'I will ask your father for permission. When I explain to him what I'm doing I think he will agree. Now,' he said seriously, 'How do you feel?'
James thought for a while.
'I'll tell father I'll go to University,' he decided.
'It is a good decision. Once you are there you will realise you have done the right thing.' Paolo said. He started the engine. 'Now let's collect this moonshine. It isn't far.'
Five minutes later they pulled up at a run down farmhouse. Paolo reached behind his seat. 'Here,' he said, 'Put this on, I don't want you recognised, or me either for that matter.'
It was a bag shaped head cover made of dark material, with two slits for the eyes and a hole at the mouth. Paolo pulled one over his head, and laughed as James did the same. He got down from the van.
'Stay here until I've arranged things,' he said, 'And then you can help me load up.'
James sat in the van and watched Paolo walk up the drive and enter the farmhouse. He felt a little silly with the bag over his head, but rather important all the same. Suddenly he heard the sound of an engine, and there was a swirl of dust and the screech of brakes as a large car pulled alongside.
It was all over in seconds. James hardly had time to realise what was happening, as he was bundled unceremoniously out of the van and into the back of the car. He was pushed down onto the floor, and through the slits in his head cover he saw the gun pointed at his head.
'Make a sound,' a voice hissed, 'And you're dead.'
KIDNAPPED
1923
'But don't you understand? They took him instead of me,' Paolo cried.
Vittorio Vetti regarded his nephew solemnly. 'Of course I understand, and there is no problem, they know they have the wrong person.'
'They know?' Paolo was frantic. 'How do you know that for sure?'
'Because Cavellini has been in touch.'
'Already?'
'Yes. I admit that at first I thought they had taken you. But Cavellini said right away they had a young boy with fair hair.' Vittorio gave a short laugh 'He was furious. Perhaps we have overestimated the threat. His team can't be so sharp to have made such a mess of a simple lift.'
'We were wearing masks,' Paolo said. 'What are they going to do with James?'
Vittorio smiled. 'Oh, you know, the usual threats. I told them to go ahead and do what they liked, the boy is nothing to do with us.'
'You told them what?' Paolo sprang around the desk and caught hold of Vittorio by his lapels. His dark eyes glittered savagely and his tone was venomous. '1f they harm one hair of James Sullivan's head I'll hold you responsible, you old goat.'
'Paolo!' Vittorio struggled to release himself from Paolo's grip. 'Don't get so excited! They won't harm him, why should they? They'll probably drop him off on some street corner when they realise I won't play ball.'
'And what if they don't? What if they kill him before they drop him off?' Paolo pulled the lapels across as if he would throttle Vittorio. 'And if it had been me uncle? Would you have played ball then?' he demanded viciously.
'Calm down, my boy. Don't take it out on me, I am not responsible for the boy's problem. In fact, if anyone is to blame it is yourself. You had no business having him in the van with you.'
Paolo released his uncle with a shake. Vittorio smoothed his lapels and adjusted his diamond tie pin. 'As for what I would do if you were taken, how can I say?' he said. 'I do what I must, dependent upon the circumstances.'
'And what are you going to do now? In these circumstances?'
'Why nothing! I regret this has happened, but the boy is not our responsibility.'
Paolo grabbed the telephone and held it out to Vittorio. His face was white with anger and his breathing was fast. 'Here,' he commanded, 'Phone Tony Cavellini now.'
'And tell him what?' Vittorio asked calmly.
'Make a deal. Whatever he wants you give him. Now!'
'I don't respond to threats Paolo,' Vittorio said coldly. 'Not from Tony Cavellini and not from you.'
'Is that your final word?' Paolo asked intently.
'You know it is.'
Paolo leaned across the desk, his voice choked with anger. 'Then let me tell you something uncle. I was going to tell you next month, after the baby is born. I was going to choose the right time, and the right words, so it would not upset you too much. I realise now there is only one right time and that is this moment...'
'What is all this? Are you practising your part in a melodrama?' Vittorio sneered.
'No melodrama uncle, just a statement of fact. I'm getting out. I'm going to take my wife and child as far away from you as I can.'
'All this just because of that stupid boy.' Vittorio grumbled. 'Paolo come back here! Where are you going?'
At the door Paolo turned. 'Someone has to tell his parents,' he muttered. He went out, slamming the door behind him.
~
Anna tried to make her tone light. 'There's a letter from Will,' she said. 'He's bought himself a car, an Austin seven. He says, "when the sun is hot you can fold the roof down," I think he means it's a convertible.'
Clancy nodded. Realising some effort was need on his part he said, 'A car will be useful, so it will, living where they do now.'
'Yes, indeed... although apparently the trams are much more frequent now,' Anna said. 'Things have changed so much since we left, it's a pity Dad did not live to see it. He would have been amazed, our Will with a car.'
Clancy nodded again, and silence fell. Heavens, Anna thought, how long can this dreadful atmosphere last? The doorbell rang. 'I expect James left his key behind again,' Anna said. 'He's awfully late. '
The door opened and Lottie came in. 'There's someone to see you,' she said, and Paolo entered the room behind her.
As soon as she looked at him Anna knew something was wrong. Paolo's face was white and he looked distraught.
'What are you doing here?' Clancy's voice was icy.
'I've come to tell you... there is bad news.'
Paolo spoke quietly and precisely. He gave them all the facts, told them everything he knew, except that his uncle had refused to intervene.
Anna sat, white and horrified, taking no part as Clancy, sick with fear, questioned Paolo intensely. 'What can we do? Do you know where he is? Shall we get the police?'
'No. That might be worse for James.'
'You mean to say I have to rely on the likes of you to get my son away from these... these...'
'I know you don't like me Mr. Sullivan, but you can rest assured I will get him out. I'm on your side, you know.'
'I'm not on the same side as any hoodlum.' Clancy said fiercely. 'What was he doing in your van anyway? Only yesterday I told him he was not to see you, so I did.'
'I know, he came to tell me. If it helps at all he came to talk about it... about going to University.'
'It does not help and I do not need your assistance to bring up my son,' Clancy said bitterly. 'This is all your fault, can't you see that?'
Paolo flinched. 'Yes... yes I do see that.'
He crossed the room to Anna. She looked up at him with eyes that were uncomprehending, beseeching. 'Paolo...?'
'Don't worry Anna, I will get him out. I promise you.' His beautiful face was tragic as he whispered, 'Best friends Anna, remember?'
She nodded. Clancy barked, 'What can I do?'
'Nothing Mr Sullivan, I will telephone you shortly, as soon as I know anything.'
At the door Paolo turned, hesitant. 'Please forgive me,' he whispered, and went out.
There was silence. Anna sat, shocked, unable to take it in. She turned to her husband. 'Clancy...'
The face he turned to her was terrible to see. 'You have sowed Anna,' he said grimly. 'You have sowed, so you have, and now you see what you have reaped.'
~
Paolo stopped his car at the first bar he could find. He went in and ordered a coffee
, and asked if he could use the telephone. He dialled a number. ‘Put me through to Tony Cavellini please, tell him it’s Paolo Vetti.’
~
Anna sat in front of her dressing mirror and stared vacantly at her image. She was still a good looking woman, with hardly a hint of grey in the thick tawny hair, which she wore dressed into a chignon. Despite the recent years of good living, or perhaps because of them, her skin had a healthy glow, and her figure, although still slender, had a womanly maturity.
The eyes which stared back at her in the mirror were wooden, lifeless. She was suspended in time, in a limbo where not even her fevered imaginings could impinge upon the impression of unreality...
The telephone rang downstairs. In an instant she was alert, straining, intense, and yet she seemed unable to move. She could hear Clancy's voice, low and quick, and then his footsteps on the stairs. He opened the door.
'That was Paolo. I'm going out.'
'Where?' Her voice was a mere whisper.
'I don't know. I'm meeting Paolo on the corner with our car. He says I'm to drive him to pick up James.'
'Oh Clancy!' Anna got to her feet, and hurried across to him. 'Has he got him out? Is James safe?'
'I don't know, he wouldn't say any more. I must go.'
They stared at each other for a moment and still the words would not come. As Clancy left the room and made his way downstairs he thought he heard Anna whisper, 'Take care,' but then told himself he had imagined it.
~
James started. He had been wallowing in the depths of introspection, and the sharp knock at the door startled him. Terrified, he tried to remember his instructions. He grabbed the bag shaped hood which he had been wearing when they took him and put it over his head, twisting it back to front so that he could see nothing. 'If you see us, and can tell about it, we'll have to kill you,' the voice with the heavy New York accent had said.
The same voice came now from outside the door. 'Ready?'
'Yes,' James said, turning to sit with his back to the door as instructed.
The door opened. The voice said, 'Hands behind your back.' James obeyed and felt someone tie his hands together. The cord was tight and bit into his flesh. The same person began to bind his feet but the voice said, 'Leave that, unless you want to carry him to the car.'
'Where am I going?' James ventured.
'A drive into the country,' the voice said, not unkindly. 'Don't worry kid, somebody loves ya' after all. In a coupla hours this'll be over.'
James was yanked to his feet and marched towards the door. The voice asked, 'Will ya' be quiet are do I gag ya'?'
'I'll be quiet,' James assured him, his voice high pitched with fear.
'Right. One peep and there's a bullet in ya' head.' They pushed him through the door, and began to give him directions, as he attempted blindly to negotiate the stairs.
~
'Repeat the instructions back to me.' Paolo's voice was sharp, uncompromising.
'I don't see...' Clancy began.
'You don't need to see. Repeat the instructions,' Paolo snapped. As if to emphasise the point he added, 'You are not the boss here Mr. Sullivan. Not this time. Do as you are told if you want James to be safe.'
Clancy swallowed the retort which sprang to his lips. He huddled down into the seat of the car and shivered. It was a filthy night, cold and wet, and they had been parked on waste land in the middle of nowhere for almost an hour.
'When you get out of the car I open the passenger door and then slide across into the driver's seat,' Clancy began. 'I wind down the driver's window and push this damned thing,' he gesticulated with the shotgun he held on his lap, 'out of the window to cover James until he gets here.'
'Yes. Then?'
'As soon as James is in the car I tell him to get on the floor and I drive away. I take him straight home and we talk to no-one about what has happened.'
'Yes, it is important they know James is no threat to them. Whatever you do don't go to the police.'
'How will you get home? Why aren't you coming with us?' Clancy asked.
Paolo smiled. 'That wasn't a note of concern I heard was it Mr Sullivan? Don't worry about me, as I told you I have traded James for information, they know better than to trifle with me.' His fingers drummed on the steering wheel impatiently. 'How much longer? They are late...'
As if in answer car lights appeared in the distance. The car made its way slowly towards them and stopped about a hundred yards away. The lights turned on and off twice, and Paolo turned his on and off in return.
Paolo opened the car door. 'This is it. Follow the instructions to the letter and everything will be all right.'
Clancy suddenly realised what was happening. 'Paolo, are you exchanging yourself for James?'
'The instructions, Mr. Sullivan...'
Then Paolo was walking slowly towards the distant car, and Clancy watched, torn between admiration for Paolo's courage and fear for James's safety. Suddenly aware, he opened the passenger door and moved across into the driver's seat, pushing the shotgun through the window so it was clearly visible.'God only knows what I'll do if I have to fire the thing,' he muttered to himself. It was the first time in his life he had had a gun in his hands.
When Paolo had covered about thirty yards Clancy could discern the slight figure of James making his way towards him. The glow from the distant car headlight caught his fair hair, and Clancy felt his stomach tighten with tension. As James and Paolo drew closer together, and passed each other with barely a change of stride, Clancy let out his breath at last, and a minute later James was in the car.
'Lock your door and get down on the floor,' Clancy commanded, as the engine roared into life. He could not resist a glance at the other car, and was just in time to see Paolo knocked to the ground. Cursing under his breath, Clancy let out the clutch and the car moved away at high speed.
~
Vittorio Vetti was angry. Not only with Tony Cavellini but with Paolo too. He could hardly believe that his nephew had willingly engineered this situation, but most of all he was angry with himself. He had handled it badly, he reflected, ever since he had known of James Sullivan's abduction.
It was not as if there had been no pointers to Paolo's feelings for the boy. For years Vittorio had known of the friendship between his nephew and James Sullivan, and had marvelled at it. He recalled what Paolo had told him of his early days in New York, and how Mrs. Sullivan had given him food and work. Vittorio realised for the first time that perhaps Paolo had not told him everything about that time. The bonds were stronger than he had realised, and of course Jennie was almost part of the Sullivan family.
Vittorio clenched his fists in despair. That was the worst thing, the child due within weeks and his father held by that thug Cavellini. He could not think of telling Jennie the truth, and yet how could he explain his nephew's absence? Jennie knew Paolo was anxious to spend as much time as possible with her in the coming weeks, it was no use trying to pretend he was on a business trip. Vittorio felt his gorge rise when he thought of Jennie, after all he was almost the child's grandfather, particularly as Jennie had no parents of her own.
Vittorio sighed, there was no point in prolonging the agony. He had much experience of fighting off predators, and he knew when he was beaten, when it was time to deal.
He picked up the telephone and rang Tony Cavellini.
~
They met in a quiet suburb, each driving his own car. Around the corner in both directions their henchmen waited, armed and nervous. Cavellini got out of his car first, and Vittorio joined him on the sidewalk.
'You look older than when I last saw you in Rome, Tony,' Vittorio remarked, 'You are almost grey.'
Cavellini shrugged his big shoulders. 'At least I have not put on weight like you, Vittorio. You know,' he said, looking around him at the peaceful avenue of bungalows and green lawns, 'This is nice. Quiet. I like that. I could just shoot you here and now and have done with it.'
Vittorio gave him a
basilisk stare. 'Not if you are unarmed, as we agreed, you couldn't.'
Tony Cavellini smiled, showing gold fillings which glinted oddly against his swarthy face. 'I expect I'm just as much unarmed as you are. Shall we walk?'
'Yes, but not in the direction of your back up.' Vittorio said.
'And not yours either,' Cavellini responded.
There was a small side street at right angles to the road and by tacit agreement they turned into it.
'I've said I'm prepared to deal,' Vittorio said, 'But only if my nephew is returned to me unharmed. Damage one hair of his head and I'll fry your balls for breakfast, and have the rest of your carcass made into dog food.' This was said in a conversational tone, and appeared to have no effect on Cavellini.
'I want the lot. Numbers, protection and brothels, and the four gambling houses.' The gold teeth glinted. 'Yes, I said four Vittorio, we know about the one across the river.' The teeth showed again. 'And of course the booze...'
'I have some legitimate businesses also. You're sure you wouldn't like them too?' Vittorio said sarcastically, and Cavellini laughed. 'I'll let you keep those, after all, questions might be asked.'
'You can have the protection and the brothels,' Vittorio said. 'Paolo wants me to be rid of them anyway. That's the deal.'
Cavellini gave a snort of impatience. 'Look Vetti, I didn't have to come here. You want your nephew back alive or not?'
A young woman was walking towards them wearing a soft pink wool coat and pushing a perambulator. The two men moved aside to let her pass, and both raised their hats.
'Paolo tells me he and his wife are expecting a happy event,' Cavellini observed. 'He should be around to take care of them. If he isn't, who knows what could happen to them?'