Send Superintendent West iw-7

by John Creasey

  “Must get a doctor, quick.”

  The other man was speaking to Lissa.

  “Just stay where you are, you’ll be okay. But don’t move, honey, don’t move.”

  Lissa didn’t move.

  She was looking towards Roger, recognized him, smiled as he drew near. She looked pale, but didn’t seem to be in pain. Blood stained her beige shirt-blouse, near the waist, and seemed to be spreading, and the men by her side stared down helplessly. If the blood came from one side it didn’t matter, if it sprang from a wound in the middle of her body, it might be deadly.

  “I’m all right, Roger,” she said. “See, I’m learning the correct thing to say.”

  “Now you keep quiet.” He smiled at her as he might at Janet, brusquely affectionate. “Tony nearly pushed Pullinger’s nose to the back of his head.” He stripped off his coat, knelt down and laid it on the ground, then gently tucked one side beneath her. The back of his hand came away red from the patch of blood. “Does it hurt much?”

  “It hardly hurts at all. It’s beginning to ache a little.”

  He unzipped her skirt at the side near the wound, his movements quick yet gentle. She wore a pair of white nylon panties and a narrow suspender belt; skin and belt were soaked with blood, and he still couldn’t tell where the wound was.

  “It fastens on the other side,” Lissa said.

  “You’ll have to buy yourself a new belt.” Roger felt for his knife; of course, Gissing’s men must have taken it. “Have you a knife?” He held out his hand, and the man fumbled in his pockets and produced a big one, opened the blade and thrust the handle towards Roger. “Thanks.” Roger cut the belt carefully, and it sagged away. Blood pumped out of the wound and ran over his hand. The man gasped in horror. Roger glanced up at Lissa’s eyes, seeing the anxiety which lurked in their honey-coloured depths.

  “It won’t kill you,” he said, steadily, “it’s too far to one side.” But it could. He took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and swabbed the wound, until he could see the actual hole in the flesh. “Handkerchief,” he snapped to the other man, who began to fumble helplessly in his pocket. Slipping off his jacket, Roger unbuttoned his shirt, took it off, flung it at the man and said: “Tear it, fold it into a wad.” He pressed his fingers against Lissa’s flesh, found the bone nearest the artery, pressed tightly. He had to staunch the flow, or she would bleed to death.

  “A doctor, too,” Lissa mocked.

  “You don’t need a doctor,” he said. “You need a keeper. Lissa, one day I will — we all will tell you what we think about you. Just now, relax.”

  The man gave him a wadded piece of shirt, but he didn’t use it at once. The bleeding had stopped, but would start again as soon as he released the pressure.

  The wail of a siren came clearly through the air.

  “Police or an ambulance,” Roger said to Lissa. “The ambulance will be here any minute, anyhow. You’re going to have a long rest, but you’ll be fine. There won’t be a scar where it matters.” The sun was warm on his arms and back, his fingers began to ache. “If you’d seen Tony,” he went on, “you would have thought his world had come to an end. When he thought you —”

  The wailing was much nearer now, a mournful herald of rescue or of doom.

  Lissa said: “I know just how Tony feels. Is he hurt?”

  “If anyone’s hurt him,” said Roger, “you have. Not that I blame you.”

  She didn’t answer.

  The wailing pierced his ears and stopped, and more wailing sounded from farther away. The first was a police siren, the second the ambulance. A young doctor took over quickly, and there was nothing more for Roger to do. The doctor grunted as if satisfied with what had been done so far.

  Roger smiled down, and said easily:

  “I’ll see you soon, we’ll get the other job finished now. Don’t worry, Lissa.”

  He turned away and walked quickly back to the Lincoln and the crowd around it A traffic cop was talking to Marino, aggressively at first, then with a swift somersault into deference. Marino had conquered emotion, there was a pale copy of his smile for Roger — and a question shouting from his eyes.

  “A month in hospital, I should think,” said Roger.

  Marino drew in his breath, and relief glowed in his eyes.

  “That’s wonderful,” he said. “Wonderful. Do you know how to get these folk away from here?” He waved to the pressing crowd, and cops started bellowing. Pullinger had already been taken out of the car and was lying, unconscious, by the roadside. He would probably never recognize his face again. “Get in behind me,” Marino said. Roger obeyed, and the driver started the engine, one of the traffic cops clearing a path. They drove slowly through the crowd. Marino looked out of the window at Lissa and the doctor bending over her, the ambulance men waiting for instructions. He waved. Lissa’s head was turned towards him, and she smiled. Marino dropped his hand, stared straight ahead for a minute, then drew a great breath and spoke in a clear voice. “Listen, Roger. Pullinger wasn’t as good as he thought, our men were suspicious. No one was drawn away from the farmhouse, but the house Pullinger named was cordoned off as well. Now we’ll raid —”

  “Not your way nor my way,” Roger said sharply. “Stop, driver.” The man braked, and Marino half-turned his head, ready to lay down the law. “I’m going up to that farmhouse with as many men as you like,” said Roger. “We’ll take Pullinger’s car. Gissing will recognize it, and it will fool him. I can wear Pullinger’s coat and hat, too.”

  Marino ran thumb and fingers over his chin.

  “Go and get that Chevy,” he said. “My God, you British are stubborn! I’ll go on. We’ll meet at the restaurant, a mile along the road.

  • • •

  Pullinger had said that Gissing would wait twenty minutes, but that could have been bluff. It could have been in earnest, too. The tumult of the hold-up was stilled, but a new storm blew, and Roger’s mind’s-eye picture of Ricky Shawn’s face hid everything else. The bright, frightened eyes and the plastered lips, the frail arms with the cruel steel bracelets round them, were all vivid. There was nothing Gissing would not do. It had been a mistake to say that he would take Marino’s men in the car, he ought to go alone. Alone, he might be able to bargain; with others, Gissing would know that the end was inevitable and might kill for the sake of killing. These thoughts pressed sharp against Roger’s mind as he stood outside the restaurant by the side of the Lincoln, with several clean-limbed men standing nearby, waiting for Marino’s orders. Marino was talking to the man in charge.

  Roger went to him.

  “You all ready, Roger?”

  Roger said: “Whenever you like.” He hesitated, looking straight into Marino’s eyes. Then he said very carefully: “Tony, I know I’ve a wife and two sons waiting for me in England. I know the risks. I still want to go alone. Give me the chance. In half an hour you can come and get me.”

  Did Marino know exactly what he meant? Did Marino know that he was saying that whatever Lissa felt about him, there was a call from England that he would never be able to resist? He wished he could guess what was passing through the maimed man’s mind. Whatever it was took a long time.

  Then Marino said abruptly: “Half an hour. All right. But listen, Roger. In half an hour, a light bomber will fly over that farmhouse and drop a bomb in the garden. It will shake them so badly they won’t have any fight left, and my men will be in the house before the echoes have died away. Do you understand?”

  “Nice work,” Roger said.

  Tell him how to get there, Stan,” Marino said to his driver.

  The directions were easy — he must continue along this road from Trenton for a mile and a quarter, then take the first turning to the left on to a dirt road which dropped down towards a creek, swinging left again before the creek, uphill, with bush on either side, then down again to the farm-house and the outbuildings. Roger followed the route carefully, and soon the Chevrolet was swaying along the rough road towards the ripplin
g stream. At the brow of a hill he looked down over the farm, a big white weatherboard building, emerging from fruit trees and bushes.

  Nothing, no one moved.

  Approaching the house, he passed a cow-byre. Beyond it, pigs were rooting and Roger wrinkled his nose at the stench. A few hens scratched, one of them close to the front door, which had once been painted white but was now dirty, the paint peeling. Mud had splashed up in the rain, more than two feet from the ground. Roger sat in the car for a few seconds, to give anyone inside time to know that he was there and to make sure that he was alone. Then he got out and stood upright, looking round. He knew that eyes were turned towards him, that each window threatened, but nothing happened. He walked stiffly down two cement steps to the door, and banged on it

  Still nothing happened.

  He clenched his fist and banged again, and when no one answered, he turned the handle and pushed the door. It opened. Would Gissing leave it unfastened? Would he let him walk in, like this? Were the watching eyes and the menacing demons all in his imagination? Was the house empty, and the Shawn child gone?

  He stepped straight into a low-ceilinged room. The windows were small, and the light poor. The room was crowded with old furniture, and a spinning-wheel stood in one window with a chair drawn up beside it, as if some old woman had been working there only a few minutes ago.

  Doors led to the right and left. He went towards that on the left, with his hands in sight, and his face clear of expression, all his fears held on a tight leash. He was prepared for anything — even for the voice which came from behind him.

  “Don’t move,” a man said.

  24

  TERMS

  He heard footsteps behind him, and he steeled himself for whatever would come next. For a moment he heard heavy breathing, as hands touched his sides and ran over his body, feeling for guns in pockets or in a shoulder-holster. He carried none. The breathing was hot on the back of his neck, and then coolness followed as the man backed away.

  “Okay, just move forward, up them two steps.”

  These steps led into a dining-room, a room almost as crowded with furniture as the first He had been here for five minutes, and Marino wouldn’t give him a second beyond his half hour.

  “Turn right, and up the stairs,” the unseen man ordered. It sounded like McMahon.

  The stairs led off a small hall, a flight of narrow, steep steps covered with carpet. He steadied himself by the handrail. The stairs creaked, and one tread sagged badly.

  “Room on the right.”

  He turned right

  He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. Ricky lay on a bed in a corner of a narrow room, exactly as he had been at Webster’s house — only more frightened, much more frightened. But at least he was alive.

  Roger paused, steadied, then went into the room. He forced himself to smile without strain, raised a hand to the boy, and spoke in a voice that surprised him by its calmness.

  “Hallo, Ricky. Glad to see you again.”

  The child lay staring, without moving a muscle, but his eyes, his father’s eyes, seemed to burn as savagely as his father’s, with an animal fear.

  “We’ll soon have you free,” Roger said.

  “That’s right,” Gissing said. “You will.”

  He was behind Roger, but the voice was unmistakable, he was here in person.

  “You will soon have him free,” Gissing said. “It will cost you something, that’s all. It will cost Uncle Sam half a million dollars. It’s cheap at the price. They’ll have the kid’s father back as well as the kid. Half a million dollars, West, I’ll settle for that. Turn round.”

  • • •

  Roger turned slowly.

  Half a million dollars. It was only a set of figures, and it meant just one thing: that Gissing was prepared to come to terms. There was a chance to fight for Ricky’s life.

  Gissing stood in the doorway. Jaybird leaned against the wall, his mouth working as he chewed, a gun held casually in his big right hand. He seemed to look at Roger through his lashes.

  Gissing wore exactly the same clothes and the same cotton gloves. A bruise on his right cheek showed red and swollen, even in the poor light. He held his head up, the narrow, pointed chin thrust forward, and he looked as full of confidence as he had been at Webster’s house.

  “You heard me,” he said.

  “Only half a million,” Roger said dryly. “You’ve had a hundred thousand from Shawn. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Half a million,” Gissing repeated, “or I kill the kid and hang his body out of the window. I know Marino’s got his men round the house, Pullinger didn’t fool him. I know what happened on the road, I’ve had a telephone message. I know Marino has given you a chance to save the kid, and you think you’re so smart that you can do it, but only one thing can do it, West. Half a million dollars.” He opened his thin mouth and laughed in the back of his throat. “I’m holding up Uncle Sam now, Shawn hasn’t got enough for me. Can’t you see the joke?”

  Roger didn’t speak.

  Gissing changed his tone. “We won’t waste time.” He looked past Roger to the child, could see the terrified eyes, and seemed to wring sadistic satisfaction out of repeating: “If Marino doesn’t persuade Uncle Sam to pay, I’ll hang the kid out of the window, by the neck. Once that happens Marino can say goodbye to Shawn. It depends how badly he needs the man. Go and tell him, West. You can be useful that way. You ought to be dead!”

  “Why did you leave me alive?”

  “Jaybird thought I’d finished you off. I thought he had. But it was too late at Webster’s place.” How clearly that betrayed the panic they had been in. Even now, Roger sweated at the hair’s breadth between life and death. “Tell Marino something else,” Gissing went on. “If he moves his men in, he can write the kid and Shawn off. The only chance he’s got is to withdraw the guard and come to terms. There isn’t any other way.”

  Roger said: “And I’m to tell him that?”

  “You can go back as free as you came, and tell him just that.” Gissing laughed at the back of his throat again. “You came to find out the terms, didn’t you, West? Now you know. Marino will play because he can’t afford to lose Shawn. We needn’t waste any more time.”

  After a pause, Roger said slowly: “I’ll tell him, but he’ll want more than Ricky. He’ll want to know if you’re working for anyone, he’ll want to know how you got your information — how you learned I was coming here, how you knew about the gold identity tag. Was it Fischer?”

  “After I’ve got the money I’ll tell him everything he wants to know,” said Gissing. The full story of how one decadent Englishman held up the great Uncle Sam.” He laughed, and raised his hands. “Don’t waste any more time.”

  Roger moved back, sat on the foot of the boy’s bed and smiled up into Gissing’s face. There was no window near the bed, and little danger, so Roger hoped, of broken glass hurting the child. As Roger had guessed, this move wasn’t at all what Gissing expected, and his show of confidence began to wear thin. At heart, Roger knew, Gissing must realize that the odds were all against him, that his best hope was to get away alive.

  “Decadent’s right for you,” Roger said. “And dumb. You haven’t got even any commonsense left. You want Marino to play, but you ought to know that Marino’s big worry is whether there’s a power behind this kidnapping, a power which wants Shawn put out of action. Who’s the money for? If it’s for yourself, then he might play. I don’t say he will, but he might If you can convince him that it’s just a ransom racket, it will take a big load off his mind, but if he thinks that there’s a hostile power in the offing, he’ll worry about breaking up this spy-ring first and worry about Shawn afterwards. Who are you working for, Gissing? Don’t waste any time, because Marino gave me an hour.”

  Would Gissing believe that?

  Fifteen minutes had passed; at least fifteen.

  Gissing said roughly: “So he gave you a time limit.” He tried to laugh, but it didn�
�t come off. He looked at his wrist-watch swiftly, then moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. “I’ll tell you the size of it,” he went on. “No one’s behind it except me. Just me. The kid was easy. We doped him, and when he came round on the way to the airport, he was helpless with tiredness. McMahon doped him again on the aircraft, he was half asleep when they got off at Ganda. I knew Shawn would pay for him. Then I found out what Washington thought of Shawn. They can pay, too. I was over here on business when I discovered it. I had a spy in Shawn’s household.”

  “Who?”

  Gissing moistened his lips again, then shrugged the question away. There was no reason why that should jolt Roger’s mind into an idea which grew big, crowding a lot of other things out, but it did. It was an idea he’d had before but not so clearly.

  “Who paid you that hundred thousand, Gissing?”

  “You’d like to know. I’ll tell you this: Ed Pullinger located me and sold me the idea of holding up Uncle Sam. I did the deal because a spy in the FBI would always be useful, but for this job I raised the ante.

  “I had used Americans to work for me because I wanted Marino to believe that he was dealing with renegade Americans. In London, you caught on to the car and on to me quicker than I thought you would. Things took a bad turn. Ed cracked and had to go. But I had the boy, so I could make Shawn do what I wanted. That way I held all the aces, and I’ve still got them in my hand. There isn’t any spy-ring. Ed Pullinger simply needed money, and I’m going to get plenty. I’m still sitting pretty.” He flashed his watch again. “Go and tell Marino what will happen to that kid, West.”

  There couldn’t be more than five minutes to go, but even when believing there was thirty-five, Gissing was nervous.

  “So you were that clever,” Roger said heavily. “You snatched the son of a man whom Washington would fight like hell for, which would bring out the FBI in force. Brilliant reasoning. Why bring Ricky here? Why take that chance in getting him out of England? Why did you want him in the United States so badly?”

  Gissing said harshly: “Haven’t you got a mind? I wanted dollars. Shawn couldn’t pay in dollars in England. I wanted to come over here, things were hotting up for me in Europe. There was a chance to get myself a dollar fortune. I didn’t know how important Shawn was when I started, only that he was rich.”