1978 - Consider Yourself Dead (19 page)

Frost, staring at the ruthless, vicious face, knew Grandi wasn’t bluffing.

‘Even with Vessi out of the way,’ he said, ‘that still doesn’t keep you out of jail.’

‘Little man!’ Grandi laughed. ‘There is only one man in Italy who could make trouble for me, and he is my close friend: the Minister of Finance. Suppose your associates are stupid enough to send copies of these Swiss transactions to the tax authorities. They would pass them to the Minister of Finance who would sweep them under the carpet. He is as much involved as I am. In fact, little man, I will tell you for the past three years I have allowed him to syphon off some of his money to my account. Your associates are so ill-informed of the Italian scene that they don’t realise that any deal can be arranged in Italy as long as you have enough power.’ He leaned forward, stabbing his finger at Frost. ‘And I have all the power in the world!’

‘If you want your daughter back, you’ll sign that document!’ Frost snapped. ‘I’m not interested in your machinations. Just sign it!’

Grandi studied him, then drew the document to him and signed with a flourish.

‘If that’s all you want. When do I get my daughter back?’

‘As soon as the money has been transferred to Zurich,’ Frost said. This was a moment of triumph. He snatched up the document.

Grandi shook his head.

‘That won’t do. She will be dead of old age by then.’

With a feeling that he was being tricked, Frost glared at Grandi.

‘What the hell do you mean?’

‘Your associates didn’t do their homework,’ Grandi said. ‘The Lugano numbered account belongs to myself and three friends, and one of them is the Minister of Finance who I have just mentioned. None of us can draw out money without the the other three adding their signatures. I can tell you their names, but I can assure you they wouldn’t sign.’ He lifted his heavy shoulders in an Italian shrug. ‘Unfortunately, they have no interest in my daughter.’

Frost flung the document back on the desk.

‘If you want Gina back alive, you’d better persuade your friends to sign!’

‘That would be a waste of time to try. They certainly don’t value my daughter at twenty million dollars.’ Grandi leaned forward and gave his wolf smile. ‘Let us approach this business from another angle.’

‘How much will you pay to get your daughter back?’ Frost demanded, aware now his hands had turned moist.

‘Ah! That is a good question.’ Grandi drew on his cigar and released a rich-smelling smoke. ‘So we are agreed the ransom isn’t to be twenty million dollars?’

Frost hesitated.

‘This is something I must discuss with my associates, he said. ‘Give me a proposal, and then we will consider it.’

‘Now you are growing up, little man,’ Grandi said.

‘Here is my proposal. You will return Gina here within four hours. In return, I will take no legal proceedings against you or your associates. That is my proposal.’

‘How much money?’ Frost demanded.

Grandi shook his head.

‘No money. Send her back unharmed, and I’ll forget you and your stupid associates exist.’

Frost forced a laugh. Even to him it sounded hollow.

‘No way. We’re in this for money. Suppose we say five million? She’s worth five million to you. How about it?’

‘No money and I will tell you why.’ He opened a drawer in his desk and took out two reels of tape. ‘Take these. I have the originals, but I want you to have them so that you and your stupid associates can understand how badly you have planned this operation.’ Grandi pulled on his cigar, then went on, ‘When I rented Orchid Villa, I took precautions. Now I will tell you about Suka. He was a security and an electronic expert working for the Tokyo police. I bought him. I gave him the problem of making the villa safe. Apart from all the security gimmicks, he also installed a telephone tap with a continuous tape recording.

Every call in and out of the villa has been recorded. The copies of these tapes which I am giving you tell a story. I know about Marcia Goolden, a whore, who lives at this hotel. I know you have been in contact with her and Amando visits her. Obviously, she drugged Amando when he was with her as you drugged Marvin. I know you told your associates to murder Suka. A voice print will identify you, and if I give the tapes to the police, they will have no problem indicting you. I know too you have been screwing my daughter. Her room has always been bugged. My daughter is mentally sick, but she is still my daughter and I’m going to have her back! Return her to me in four hours and I won’t take proceedings.’ Grandi stubbed out his cigar. ‘Take the tapes, talk to your associates, but remember . . . if she isn’t here by ten o’clock tonight, you will spend twenty years in jail.’

Frost tried to say something but the words wouldn’t come. He got unsteadily to his feet.

‘One more thing, little man,’ Grandi said. ‘It might occur to you that the way out for you would be to kill me.’

He smiled wolfishly. ‘Don’t try it. I am very well protected.’ He leaned forward, his face a snarling mask of rage, and he screamed at Frost, ‘Get out of my sight!’

* * *

The four men sat around the table, a tape player before them and they listened to Frost saying: ‘Did you get Suka?’

Silk’s voice.

‘No sign of the sonofabitch. No sign of Grandi either.’

Frost snapped off the player.

‘We’ve got to find her and return her, Silk!’

Silk rubbed the side of his jaw, thought for a moment, then shrugged.

‘It looked good.’ He stared with his one glittering eye at Umney who looked pale and he kept his hand to his aching head. ‘You sure fell down on this one, Ross. You should have dug deeper.’

‘You shouldn’t have touched it at all,’ Umney snarled. ‘We told you no way, but you wouldn’t listen!’

‘Wrap up!’ Frost exclaimed. ‘How do we find her?’

‘She left my car at the waterfront,’ Goble said. ‘I’ve got men down there.’ He got up, went to the telephone and put a call through. He talked quietly for two or three minutes, then hung up.

The others looked at him expectantly.

‘She hasn’t taken a boat,’ he said. ‘There are around fifteen small hotels down there. She’s probably holed up in one of them, waiting until it gets dark.’

‘Or she left the car there as a stall and walked to the bus stop and is in Miami by now,’ Silk said Frost got to his feet.

‘We have less than three hours to find her! You get down to the waterfront,’ he was speaking to Goble. ‘You,’ turning to Silk, ‘cover the bus station. You’ve got her description. I’m going back to the villa to search her room. I might come up with something.’ He paused at the door. To Umney he said, ‘Stay by the telephone. I’ll be dialling in for progress reports,’ then he left the room at a run.

Driving just within the speed limit, he arrived back at the villa as the car’s dashboard clock showed 19.20. Aware time was rapidly running out, he dashed up the stairs and into Gina’s room. He feverishly searched through every drawer and cupboard, went through the contents of the little desk by the window, but came up with nothing. By now the time was 20.00. Two hours more to find her!

He snatched up the telephone receiver and called Umney.

‘Any news?’

‘Lu’s just checked out the bus station. No one’s seen her, and we have good contacts there. Our best bet is the waterfront. Lu’s on his way down there.’

An idea dropped into Frost’s mind. He remembered what Gina had said to him: I don’t give a shit about money. I just want to take off and do my thing.

‘Is there a way out, hippy colony around here?’

‘Where isn’t there? Sure, the freaks get together at Paddler’s Creek. Do you think she could be there?’

‘I don’t know. Where’s this place?’

‘Around ten miles out of the city towards Key West,’ Umney told him. ‘They have these swing festivals there.’

‘Where do I find it?’

‘Go along the highway south. There’s a motel on the right hand side. Twin Oakes. Take the first turning past the motel on your right and that takes you down to the beach. You think she’s there?’

‘How the hell do I know, but I’m going to look,’ and Frost hung up.

He got into the Lamborghini and sat for a long moment, thinking, then he drove fast to the Spanish Bay hotel.

Five minutes later he was once again facing Grandi.

Frost now was all cop. He sat down, his face as hard and as expressionless as Grandi’s.

‘You have her?’ Grandi snapped.

‘No. I’m going to level with you,’ Frost said. ‘She wanted to be kidnapped. Okay, I helped her, but it was she who neutralised the fence. She went to the harbour with a suitcase where my associates picked her up. They took her to the Ace of Spades.’

‘I know all that,’ Grandi snarled. ‘It’s on tape!’

‘But what you don’t know, she got one of my associates into bed and while they were copulating she bashed him with a gun and took off. We’re trying to find her. Now listen carefully, Grandi, she wants you dead, and she has a gun. I don’t want any more of this crap about finding her in four hours. We’ll find her, but it will take more than four hours. This is up to you.’

‘So she’s got away?’ Grandi seemed to shrink a little.

‘That’s it. She took a car. We found it on the waterfront. We’ve checked. She hasn’t tried to hire a boat. We are checking the hotels.’ Frost paused, then went on, ‘How sick is she?’

Grandi clenched his fists.

‘So sick she should have been committed,’ he said as if the words were being dragged from him, ‘but I couldn’t do that to her. Instead, I put her behind an electrified fence. Amando is a mental specialist in charge of her. His weekly reports show she is deteriorating. In Rome, she took a massive dose of L.S.D. It shocked her brain out of balance. Amando describes her as a sexual lunatic. That’s how sick she is . . . but I don’t give a damn what she has become. She is my daughter, and I want her back!’ He glared at Frost. ‘It was through you, she escaped, so bring her back or I’ll fix you as I have fixed Vessi! Make no mistake about that!’

‘She hates you, Grandi. She wants you dead. She has a gun. She told me you want to screw her,’ Frost said.

‘I’ve listened to all her sick talk on the tape,’ Grandi said. ‘She didn’t know what she was saying. Even if I dropped dead tomorrow, she wouldn’t be able to touch a dollar. It is all in trust.’ He paused, then pointed his finger at Frost, ‘Find her, and bring her to me. Do that, and I will pay you five million dollars.’

Frost became alert. He leaned forward, ‘You mean that? How will you pay me?’

Grandi shrugged.

‘As you like. Any bank anywhere . . . cash. I want her back!’

‘Are you really making a deal with me or are you just conning me?’ Frost said.

‘It’s a deal. I am too big a man to go back on my word. Bring her to me, and I will give you my word I will pay you five million dollars, but if you don’t find her, I again give you my word: consider yourself dead!’

Frost got to his feet.

‘I’ll find her. It could take time, but for five million, I will find her!’

Leaving the hotel, he stood for a long time by the Lamborghini. Around him was the murmur of voices. A swing band played on the hotel terrace. The big, yellow moon floated in a cloudless sky. The time was 21.05.

Five million dollars!

I am too big a man to go back on my word.

Frost accepted that.

The wheel had turned full circle. Now he had to find her.

* * *

Frost left the Lamborghini under a clump of mango trees, and walked the rest of the way.

He could hear the sound of guitars and singing voices, and as he drew nearer, he picked up the smell of unwashed bodies and reefer smoke, so he knew he was approaching the hippy colony.

There was plenty of cover and he moved cautiously. He could now see campfires burning and figures moving around. He paused behind a sea shrub and watched.

There were some hundred or so young people milling around, talking, singing, some dancing by themselves: aimless, shiftless movements, and he guessed they were high.

Somehow, he told himself, Gina just might be there.

This scene would be what she called her thing, but how to find her?

He moved to another clump of shrubs which brought him nearer to the camp fires. He waited, searching, watching, but he couldn’t see any girl milling around who resembled Gina.

Should he walk into that mob and start asking questions? He decided it wouldn’t be safe. They all seemed pretty high, and he didn’t fancy the idea of walking into the midst of them.

He squatted down on his haunches. Maybe, if he waited long enough . . .

He watched and waited for longer than an hour, but still he saw no sign of Gina. Then just when he was deciding to give up, he heard a faint rustle behind him. A snake? He remained motionless, his muscles tense, ready to spring aside, but waiting.

‘Stay right where you are, man,’ a voice said behind him, ‘or you’ll lose a kidney.’

He felt the prick of a knife in his back, and he relaxed.

Snakes bothered him, but not a man with a knife.

‘I’m all still,’ he said.

‘We don’t like peepers around here, man,’ the voice said.

Frost judged the speaker was young, but sure of himself.

‘Sorry,’ Frost made his voice sound humble. ‘You kids seem to be having a ball,’ then he acted. His right hand swept behind him, smashing against a wrist. He heard a yelp of pain as he spun around. He dropped on the crouching figure, flattening the man into the sand. His hands fastened on the lean, sweating neck.

In the strong moonlight, he saw the Afro hairdo, the black glistening skin.

‘Going to be good, sonny?’ he said, his knee hard into the small of the negro’s back.

‘Sure . . . sure . . .’ the black gasped. ‘You’re killing me!’

Frost looked quickly around. He saw the switchblade knife glittering in the moonlight some ten feet away. He was on his feet and had gathered up the knife before the black struggled to a sitting position.

‘Jesus, man!’ the black gasped. ‘I didn’t know you were fuzz. Honestly, I thought you were a peeper!’

Frost threw the knife far into the dark shrubs.