“Supervisor …”
Reardon took a deep breath, trying to moderate his tone of voice.
“Supervisor, this is urgent! My name is Lieutenant Reardon of the Police Department. We want a call traced. It was made”—he consulted his watch—“at 10:02. Terminated, that is. The call was made to the number 664-0398. The party disconnected a few minutes ago.” Or maybe more, he thought bitterly, considering the time it takes any of you clowns down at the phone company to lift a receiver!
“Was it a toll call or a local call?”
Good God! “I haven’t the slightest idea. There weren’t any coins dropped, if that’s what you mean.” The situation came back to him. “And you’re wasting time, damn it!”
“If it was a toll call,” the woman said, not at all perturbed by the thought of wasting time, nor at all prodded by the note of urgency in the other’s voice, “then we can check it. Unless, of course, it was made from a public booth, in which case I’m afraid it would be very difficult—”
“Look, miss, damn it! Will you …?”
“But you said you heard no coins drop, didn’t you? Well, we’ll do what we can. What number did you say the call was made to?”
Reardon gritted his teeth. “664-0398! Look, miss—”
“And that’s in the city proper?”
“Yes, damn it! It’s in the city! It’s a restaurant, Marty’s Oyster House! Look—”
“And to whom am I speaking?”
Reardon started to close his eyes and count to ten, or possibly a hundred, but then he realized he would only be aiding and abetting the imbecile in wasting time.
“My name is Reardon,” he said, amazed at his calmness and wondering how long it could last, “Lieutenant James Reardon. Of the Homicide Division,” he added significantly, hoping this fact might startle the woman into some form of useful activity. “And now, would you please get started on—”
“And what number are you calling from?”
“Goddamn it! I told you a dozen times! 664-0398!”
“You didn’t say that was the number you were using. You said that was the number where the call was received,” the woman said primly, overlooking his language since she was a lady. Reardon bit his lip. So he hadn’t told her exactly, but if she had enough brains to come out from under a falling safe, she could have figured it out. “In any event,” the woman went on calmly, “I’m afraid we can only trace calls when the authority to have the trace placed comes through the Police Department. Directly, that is,” she added, forestalling any argument, “from the Communications Center at the Hall of Justice.”
“What do you mean, directly? I’m a police officer! My shield number—”
“I mean, we have no means of identifying you as a police officer over the telephone, I’m afraid.”
“Miss,” Reardon said with a patience he was far from feeling, “who else would want a call traced, except the police?”
“Many people,” the supervisor said, and sniffed loudly at the memory of irate husbands and cheating wives, not to mention cheating husbands and irate wives. It was one of the major reasons she had never married, and nobody was ever going to convince her there were any other reasons. “I’m sorry, but if you’ll relay your request through proper police channels, we’ll be glad to see what we can do—”
Her tone clearly indicated that in her opinion if he was a policeman, she was Greta Garbo. Reardon stared at the wall. Well, the chances of tracing the call after this delay were undoubtedly zero in any event.
“Miss,” he said wearily. “What’s your name?”
“I’m afraid we’re not permitted to give out that information.”
“Now, look!” he began furiously, and then gave up. “Forget it,” he said, and dropped the receiver with a bang just as Dondero came back into the room in a rush, panting.
“Damn nearest phone’s a block away and the damn thing doesn’t work. Was going to cut in on you from the cashier’s desk, but I figured it would just screw things up. Just once I’d like to see a street phone that hasn’t been ripped off! Or a patrol car when you need one! Anyway, I figured you’d be off the line by this time …”
Reardon was still trying to bring himself under control. The day he bought stock in A.T.&T. would be a cold one in Panama, although it would be wonderful to be on the board of directors just long enough to fire about two million operators and supervisors.
“Never mind,” he said, and picked up the receiver again. “It’s probably about a week too late now, in any case.” He clicked the button several times. “And now where in hell’s the dial tone?”
“What gives?” Dondero asked, and picked up his waiting drink, marveling that it was still there after his absence. And not only his, but Reardon’s as well. Amazing! “What was all that mishagas about tracing the call? And all that about Pop?”
Reardon suddenly realized he also had a drink waiting. He picked it up, drank it down in one healthy gulp, shuddered a bit, and set the glass down. He also suddenly realized that Dondero didn’t know what the whole thing was all about.
“Pop Holland’s been kidnapped,” he said somberly, holding the receiver to his ear, wondering if he might have broken the idiot apparatus when he had smashed the receiver down. “Snatched.” Where the hell was the bloody dial tone?
“What?”
“That’s what the man said. He wasn’t fooling. He had Pop on tape.” The dial tone was suddenly in his ear and for a moment Reardon wondered if it had been there all along. Wake up, he advised himself sternly, and dialed a number.
Dondero was staring at him unbelievingly.
“Who the devil would want to kidnap Pop? Why, for Christ’s sake? He doesn’t have an enemy in the world—”
“I doubt it was a friend.”
Dondero hadn’t even heard. “… and as far as dough is concerned, he’s got no family, and outside his pension and the house, I doubt he’s got five bills in the bank! So, why …?”
A sexy, feminine voice answered the telephone. Reardon stared, and then barked into the telphone:
“Who’s this?”
There was a giggle. “It’s your nickel. You tell me first,” the sexy voice said, wheedlingly. “Who are you?”
“Damn!” Reardon said, and hung up, warning himself not to allow the phone company to get him down. Your nickel! He had to get octogenarian sex pots on his wrong numbers, yet! He clicked for the dial tone for what seemed to be the hundredth time, feeling as if he had spent the last three years of his life on the phone.
Dondero looked at him. “Who you calling?”
“The Hall, of course. Like I should have right off the bat.” He stared at Dondero sourly. “And don’t ask me if the kidnapper didn’t tell me not to contact the police …”
“Who, me?” Dondero was shocked. “Joke at a time like this?”
“You,” Reardon said. The dial tone came on and he finally managed to dial the proper number. “Go out and tell the guys the news. Let them eat and go home, or just go home. And then come back.” It was going to be a long, long night, he knew, and it would undoubtedly be made a lot longer by the fact that a large part of it would probably be spent in using the blaggedy blanged blumpery blithery instrument in his hand.
CHAPTER 3
Saturday—1:10 A.M.
Frank Paul Oliver—Porky Frank or Porky Oliver to his friends, depending upon the closeness of the relationship—was a businessman with various interests, and one of his interests, in a minor fashion, was the collecting of information. It was not his principal business; his major interest was in running a small but honest handbook, but when in the course of his daily endeavors he ran into facts that could have a monetary value, Porky quite properly collected those facts and eventually sold them. To have done otherwise would have been unbusinesslike, and contrary to the “Waste Not, Want Not” philosophy instilled in him as a youth by an equally businesslike mother.
The standard word for a person who indulges in the sale of informatio
n for money is “stool pigeon,” but the word carries the wrong connotation. Years of conditioning by television, the movies, and cheap novels have left the public with the mental picture of a stool pigeon as a small, cringing man, usually with a terminal cough, dressed in a crumpled suit with frayed cuffs and upturned jacket collar, who whispers hoarsely from the corner of his mouth, normally past a stained cigarette plastered to his lower lip. Frank Paul Oliver would have smiled gently at the description. A large, well-built young man with a fine sense of humor and flair for the finer things in life, Porky had gained his nickname because of his ebullient self-confidence. To be honest, Porky was quite content with the propaganda of the movies and television. It obviously made it much easier to gather information when the people speaking in his presence were constantly looking over their shoulders for small cringing men with frayed cuffs and terminal coughs, and not paying the slightest attention to the well-dressed, self-confident people in the area.
At the moment, Porky was not working. Or, one might better say, he was engaged in one of his lesser income-producing pursuits. He stood, thoughtfully chalking a pool cue, at the nine-foot, professional table in Sawicki’s Pool Hall, carefully considering the plethora of goodies left him by an inadvertent miscue on the part of his opponent, none other than Sawicki himself. The proprietor of the pool emporium, his face twisted in understandable pain as he foresaw the inevitable result of his error, leaned back against the nearby cigar counter, his head and shoulders shadowed in the darkness that lay beyond the cones of light cast by the twin shades, and waited for total disaster. Porky, satisfied that the campaign he had planned would result in clearing the table, leaving himself a proper break shot, and reducing Sawicki’s profit for the week considerably, put aside the chalk and bent down, prepared to begin the mayhem. But before he could begin his stroke, the telephone rang. Porky straightened up again politely as Sawicki put down his cue and went to answer the phone. It was not that Sawicki had the slightest doubt, Porky knew, of what was going to happen, but it was simply safer, in that milieu, to have witnesses to the feat—particularly the man who was going to have to pay.
At the telephone behind the counter, Sawicki spat carefully into a spittoon by way of preparation, raised the receiver, and growled into it in his normal foggy voice, “Sawicki’s Pool Hall.”
“Is Porky Frank there?”
Sawicki covered the mouthpiece with a hand the size of a pool rack and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper that carried the length of the room, disturbing players at several distant tables. “Hey, Porky—you in?”
“Who is it?”
“Same guy calls you here every now and then. Calls you Frank. Quiet voice. Usually sounds tired.”
“Ah!” Porky said. He laid aside his cue and moved toward the telephone. “Well, these people who keep silly hours—like nine to five—come the wee hours of the morning and they’re all through. No stamina,” Porky said sadly, and took the telephone from Sawicki’s hand. “Hello?”
“Porky?”
“I suspected it was you, Mr. R,” Porky said, pleased with his deductive powers. “Tell me, in confidence, why would a recently married man climb out of a warm bed at this hour of the morning—or any other hour, as far as that goes—”
“I’m not married,” Reardon said shortly. “Look, Porky, I have to—”
“Not married?” Porky was properly shocked. “I sat right next to you in Marty’s Oyster House less than three weeks ago and heard you propose to a lovely young lady. And I heard her accept. Tahoe was mentioned, object matrimony. And now you tell me you’re not married? I shall be a witness. In fact, I’ll offer the services of my lawyer—”
“I don’t need any lawyers. Porky, I have to—”
“Not for you! You, sir, are a cad! I meant the lawyer for the young lady. I shall suggest she sue for breach of promise, malfeasance in office, contributing to the delinquency of a major—unless the young lady had made colonel by this time, of course—”
“Porky, shut up! Can you talk?”
Porky was far from intimidated by the other’s tone; still, he glanced about. Sawicki had tactfully retreated to the pool table, where he gazed upon the spread with anguish, but other ears were in evidence in the smoke-filled room.
“I can speak of ships and shoes, and pool cues, and dollar bills with wings,” Porky said cautiously, “but nothing of greater delicacy, I fear. Why?”
“Because if you can’t talk, I want to see you someplace else, right away. What places are open at this hour?”
“Now? You want to see me now?” Porky stared in horror back toward the pool table, with the balls laid out there for the easy seduction of his cue. “Right now?”
“Right now. Where can we meet? What’s open at this hour?”
“Other than Sawicki’s Pool Hall, I gather you mean,” Porky said sadly, and sighed at the vicissitudes of an unkindly fate. “You sure you couldn’t wait half an hour …?” He sighed. “No, I suppose not. Well, the Mouse Trap’s open and relatively safe, if you don’t try their drinks; and there’s always Tommy’s Joynt—”
Reardon suddenly remembered he hadn’t eaten for hours. “Tommy’s Joynt in fifteen minutes,” he said abruptly, and hung up.
Porky put the receiver back on its hook, stared at the instrument a moment, and then walked dispiritedly back to the table. Sawicki was watching him curiously.
“Sawicki,” Porky said, reaching over to retrieve his stick and beginning to dismantle it, “if anybody drives up in a dog sled and asks you, you have my permission to reveal that you’re luckier than a guy with two straight cues.”
“Hey!” Sawicki said in his gravel voice, unable to believe his good fortune. “Hey, hey! You quittin’?”
“A call from my dying mother’s bedside,” Porky said dolorously, “and the only thing in this world that could prevent me from putting you into instant bankruptcy.” He slid the two halves of his stick into their case and placed the case in his locker. He twisted the combination lock, and moved toward the door. “Remember me in your will,” he said, pausing with his hand on the knob. “It’s the least you can do.”
“Yeah,” Sawicki said. He paused and then figured he might as well try it. “But what about the charge for the table?”
Porky stopped and looked the big man in the eye.
“I was only askin’,” Sawicki said defensively, and started to rack the balls again to avoid that baleful look. Porky shook his head unbelievingly at the ingratitude of man to man, sighed, and walked out.
Saturday—1:55 A.M.
Lieutenant Reardon was in the act of biting into a large hot roast beef sandwich, a stein of foaming ale at his elbow, when Porky Frank arrived at Tommy’s Joynt. Porky waited until the counterman had provided him with a tuna-salad sandwich, carried it to the bar, where he received a flagon of ale, and brought his booty to the last table under the small deserted balcony, where he joined the stocky detective. The table had been well chosen; at that hour especially it assured as much privacy as could ever be assured at Tommy’s. Porky placed his burden on the table, sat, drew a bowl of pickles over more from habit than from need, neatly tucked a paper napkin into his collar, and picked up his sandwich.
“Tuna salad is getting hard to come by,” he advised Reardon, apropos of nothing at all. “According to Consumer Reports, they’re running out of bat wings and mice hair so essential to the manufacturing process.” He bit into the sandwich, chewing slowly, his eyes calmly studying the lieutenant across the table.
Reardon took another bite of his sandwich, chewed a moment, swallowed, and edged his beer closer. “There’s been a kidnapping,” he said quietly.
Porky’s face froze slightly, but other than that he betrayed little emotion. There was a slight stiffening of his fingers as he lowered the sandwich. It was not that Porky was without emotion; it was simply that the expression of emotion was a habit he had spent years learning to avoid. It did not fit in with his various businesses.
“That’s a
nasty word,” he said, equally quietly.
“Pop Holland. Mike Holland,” Reardon added, and watched the other man’s face.
Porky frowned. “Pop Holland? Mike Holland? Am I supposed to know him?”
“Maybe not,” Reardon said. “Probably not. He’s a cop. Retired today—yesterday, to be exact. A sergeant on Communications these past twelve, fifteen years, I guess. Used to be in Homicide, before I was on the force. A widower. A nice guy. A real nice guy. Sixty-five years old last week. No kids. No family, I gather.”
Porky’s frown deepened. Anything bad happening to cops often meant a general tightening up of the town, from the hustlers in North Beach to the innocent bookies, wherever they might be. But that, of course, had nothing to do with the case, and certainly nothing to do with the reason Reardon had wanted to meet with him. He drew his ale to him and took a large draught as he thought. He set the flagon down, wiped his lips, and gave his full attention to the problem.
“A retired cop? Any money?”
“None that anyone knows of.”
“Any that somebody maybe thinks they know of?”
“I doubt it.”
“Any enemies?”
“You don’t kidnap enemies; you shoot them, or stab them, or run them over with a milk wagon,” Reardon said shortly. “Kidnapping is to punish someone else—financially, usually—but not the victim. It’s true the victim often gets killed, but that’s generally secondary to the kidnapping itself.”
“Then why was he snatched?”
“Now, that’s a real good question,” Reardon said sarcastically. He shoved his beer glass around the table, staring at the damp trails the glass left. He looked up. “The man said there would be a tape in the mail tomorrow with their demands, addressed to me. Maybe we’ll know more, then.” He looked at his glass again, avoiding Porky’s eyes. “In the meantime, have you heard anything?”
“About a snatch? Or even a potential snatch?” Porky’s eyes suddenly narrowed. When he continued there was an edge to his normally pleasant voice. “Mr. R, I hope I am misunderstanding you. True, I usually sell my wares after-the-fact, so to speak, but I sincerely hope you aren’t sitting there and suggesting that I would hear anything about a kidnapping—any kidnapping, not just the kidnapping of a policeman—and fail to inform you.”
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