Death Is My Comrade (6 page)

I walked into the room and gently touched her shoulder. I had this lump in my throat. I couldn't talk right away.

Her shoulder stiffened under my touch. “After Wally,” she said quickly, almost chanting it, “I told myself—do you know what I told myself?—I wouldn't allow myself to get close to anyone again, not that close, not anyone. After Wally I said.…” Her voice rose shrilly and she started to shake. Emotion, when it came, engulfed her like a heavy surf.

I started to turn her. She was trembling all over. For some reason she tried to smile. “After Wally I promised myself.…”

” Be quiet, Marianne.“

She came against my chest and cried there. I stroked her blond hair that was so fine it lifted electrically under my touch. And then she said:

“Find them, Chet. Find them. If you don't find them, I'll die. I'll die. I know it.”

Marianne's terrible grief snapped me out of my own funk. Outside on the Georgetown cobblestones, a car rumbled by. A small boy's voice shouted something. There was laughter. Behind me I heard Jack Morley and Dr. Nickerson talking softly, earnestly. Holding Marianne's shoulders, I took a step back from her. I tilted her chin up and looked at her eyes.

“We'll get them,” I said. “We'll get them back.”

“Those are words. Just words.”

“No,” I said, echoing Jack's words and not believing them. “The twins are just infants. They're too young to identify their kidnapers. We'll get them back.” Then I told her, slowly: “But you've got to be brave. You've got to be ready to do your part.”

“Me? What can I do?”

“They want Ilya's letter. Jack Morley's here. He's got it. When they make contact, we'll give it to them. We'll do whatever they say.”

“When? What are they waiting for?”

I found myself staring at one of the empty cribs, as Marianne had done. “It ought to be soon,” I said. “It ought to be very soon.”

Marianne looked at me. “Are you sure? How could you possibly know?”

“Look,” I said, “I was in the FBI, remember? They know a thing or two about kidnaping.”

Just the mention of the word made Marianne cry again. “Cut it out,” I said, a little harshly. “Cut it out and listen.”

“I—I'm sorry.”

“There are two things they can do. Wait and make elaborate plans and then contact us—or contact us as soon as they bring the twins wherever they're taking them. But if they wait and make elaborate plans, that gives us time to do some planning too, gives us time to call the cops and—”

“Don't notify the police!” Marianne cried, her eyes getting big. “I know what will happen if you notify the police. Don't do it, I'm begging you.”

I didn't say anything right away. At the FBI Academy, they have tabulated all the possible courses of action when dealing with kidnapers. First, the victim could wait for contact, follow the kidnapers' instructions right down the line, and hope for the best. The FBI frowned on this procedure; it left you at the mercy of the kidnapers without the considerable talents of the local law enforcement agencies working in your behalf.

Or the victim could call in the local police and again follow the kidnapers' instructions right down the line and hope for the best. Then it was up to the police to play the waiting game along with the victim, if that was what the victim wanted. This would include the delivery of the ransom to the designated drop. But here the victim had an option, for he could give the police a green light to stake out the drop. That was perilous. If anything went wrong, if the kidnapers suspected the drop had been staked out, you were dead. But in the cold light of logic and statistics, the Bureau recommended that course of action.

I was not concerned, at the moment, with the cold light of logic and statistics; and of course I was no longer with the Bureau. Their special agents are skillful and trained to a fine, admirable edge of perfection, and under the new kidnaping laws they can go into action, officially on a kidnaping after twenty-four hours, and unofficially at once. But one of their most admirable qualities, in a kidnaping case, can work against you.

We are not a police state, and the Bureau will bend over backward to make that point. When questioning a suspect, they leave the door open and tell him so. He is free to leave at any time. He is free to use the phone as often as he wishes. But the agents are relentless too, and astonishingly patient and skillful at questioning. More often than not they will get the information, they're after, and if it adds up to an arrest either by themselves on the Federal government's behalf or by the local authorities on a state's, they will first summon a physician to examine their man and put in writing that he was not beaten or maltreated. Then, and only then, will they act.

I thought of all this before answering Marianne, and then I told myself there is another way to deal with kidnapers. What I told myself was this: I am a private eye who lives too often on the thin edge of violence, and because that was what I was, and because I had worked two years for the Bureau and remembered enough of their skills and techniques, Marianne and the twins were no ordinary victims of kidnaping. I did not tell myself this cockily, but it was fact.

“We're not going to call the cops,” I growled finally. “But here's the thing, Marianne. I don't think they'll wait, because waiting gives us time to make plans. Besides, you don't need time to collect ransom money: you just have to deliver Ilya's letter.”

“Did you ever see him?” Marianne cut in. “Ilya?”

Tell her Ilya had been murdered, in cold blood, in my office? That was all she'd need to hear, I said: “I saw him. It's not important now. We'll get to that when we have the twins back.” I repeated, “Here's the thing. They're going to move, and move fast. And when they do they're going to want you to deliver Ilya's letter. You, Marianne.”

“Me? Oh God, Chet, I couldn't. I couldn't.”

“If I'm right, you've got to. You're a woman, and you're upset, so they won't have to worry about you. That's the way they'll want to work it.”

As if to drive my point home, the telephone rang. Marianne didn't quite jump a foot. She took a deep breath and shuddered. She looked at the crib near which we were standing. On the second ring Dr. Nickerson called: “I'll take it.”

“No,” Marianne said. “Let me take it.”

I followed her into the hall. Mrs. Gower hovered near the phone table, staring at the phone. If looks could have killed, whoever was calling would have rolled over and died.

“Them?” Mrs. Gower asked in a furious whisper. “You think it's them already?”

I looked at Jack Morley over her shoulder. His face was tense and white.

Marianne picked up the phone on the third ring.

“Hello?”

I saw her shoulders slump.

“I … I know, Suzanne,” she said. “I'm sorry. I just forgot. The twins … one of them isn't feeling well. Yes, the heat, I guess.”

She hung up. “A beach party,” she said, her voice empty and flat. “I was supposed to go to a beach party.”

I glanced at my watch. It was twenty to six. Time enough for the kidnapers to go wherever they were going? I thought so, and I still thought they'd contact us any minute now. But I could have been wrong six ways from Sunday.

I squeezed Marianne's hand. We waited.

Chapter Seven

T
he call came at ten after six.

This time Marianne grabbed it on the first ring. She'd been standing there, chain-smoking.

“Yes?”

Her back was to us. Her free hand rose to the blond hair brushed back over her ear, and the fingers clutched there.

“Yes. I understand. Are they all right? You haven't.… Yes. I know.”

She turned to me, cupping the phone's mouthpiece with her hand. Her eyes were wild and desperate. “Chet. Oh God, Chet. They want to know who owns the Chrysler outside. Your car. They … they're watching the house.”

Maybe that explained the delay, I thought. Now that it had come I felt cool, detached. I wanted to get it over with. I said: “Tell them the truth. You sent for me. I'm the twins' godfather.”

Marianne spoke into the phone again. “I'm a widow. I sent for the childrens' godfather. I—yes, all right. It's a blue-and-white Ford. In the garage. You haven't—right away. Yes, I understand. I have it. I can—hello? Hello!”

She let the receiver fall. I picked it up. The line was dead.

“They set up the delivery?”

“I asked them. They wouldn't say. I asked them how the twins were.”

“That figures. They want to keep you scared.” I prompted: “The delivery. What's the setup?”

“They wouldn't discuss the return of the twins till after I delivered Ilya's letter.” Marianne sobbed. “Maybe they're dead already. Maybe they.… They're so helpless, Chet.” She began to cry.

I slapped her face. Not hard, but hard enough. Dr. Nickerson took an angry step toward me. Jack held his arm.

“How soon?” I urged.

“Right away. They want me out of the house right away. The letter. I'm to address it to a Mr. Allen, care of General Delivery at the Main Post Office. I'm to deliver it there, alone. In the Ford. But it's closed. Isn't the post office closed? If they don't pick it up till tomorrow; the twins.…”

“The Main Post Office is open till nine every night,” I cut her off. “Let's have the letter, Jack.”

Giving Marianne the letter and a ballpoint pen, Jack said: “Pappy Piersall's in town, Chet. We could—”

I shook my head. Pappy Piersall, a fellow classmate of mine and Jack's at the FBI Academy, was still with the Bureau. “Marianne's going,” I told Jack. “I'm going with her. That's all.”

“They said alone,” Marianne protested. She had finished addressing an envelope.

“Where's the Ford?”

“In the garage.”

“I'll get in back, on the floor. Did they give you a route back from the post office?”

Marianne nodded. “Along Pennsylvania Avenue to M Street. M clear into Georgetown.”

“They have a man watching the house. They have someone with the kids, someone who just called. There can't be an army of them. I'll get out a couple of blocks from the post office. I want to be there when Mr. Allen makes his pickup.”

Jack said, angrily: “What's the matter with you? That's exactly what you shouldn't do. The man making the pickup will probably have to call in to—”

“You're a nice guy, Jack,” I said. “But let me handle this, will you? And we've got a job for you.”

“What's that?” Jack brightened.

“Stay here. They're probably going to call back to check on the twins' godfather. That's you. And the name, if they ask, is Drum.”

“Sure, but what difference could the name possibly make? They don't know you.”

I remembered Laschenko outside Lucienne Duhamel's summer place last night. Remembered how scared Ilya had been. Suppose Laschenko was the man behind the kidnaping? He wouldn't be about to dirty his own hands with it, but he could be pulling the strings. The kidnapers might know my name, and my line of work. If they did, their believing I was on ice might help us.

I told Jack that, then asked Marianne: “Ready?”

“I'm so scared I can hardly breathe. But I'm—ready.”

Dr. Nickerson said: “See here, I don't approve of my patient—”

“Got any better ideas?” Tension had tightened the muscles of my calves. The hardest thing was just standing still, just waiting.

Dr. Nickerson had no better ideas. He glared at me. Then he stuck his hand out and I shook it. “She is a very brave woman, Mr. Drum,” he said. “Don't let her down.”

Less than a minute later Marianne and I entered the garage through the hall door. After I got in back on the floor of the Ford, Marianne opened the garage door. Thirty seconds after that we had backed out and were on our way.

Chapter Eight

A
s she drove, Marianne told me she hadn't seen anyone loitering outside the house. Several cars had been parked on the street, though, and she hadn't been able to identify all of them as belonging to her neighbors. So far as she knew, we weren't being followed. But that was the part that worried me; a good tail would be hard to spot, and Marianne was no pro.

“Do I just drive home after delivering the letter?” she asked me.

“Right home, exactly the way they told you.”

“Then what?”

Then, I thought, she waits while the heavy-footed seconds drag by, while the leaden minutes build. But I said: “I'll call you as soon as I can.”

We drove for ten minutes. It was still light out, and hot.

“Lafayette Park,” Marianne said. “We're almost there.”

We turned right, then left a moment later. East Executive Avenue, I thought, and Treasury Place. I wished I could see. We were close.

The car stopped.

“What's the matter?” I asked.

“Nothing. Red light.”

I asked quickly: “Where are we?”

“14th Street corner. Near the Willard Hotel.”

Two blocks from the post office, which was on 12th and Pennsylvania. It might be my best chance.

“Inside lane?”

“Yes.”

“What's ahead of you?”

“A cab.”

“With a fare?”

“Empty.”

“Behind you?”

“A bus. Chartered, it says.”

I sat up on the floor. The rear door would open on a space between two parked cars.

Marianne knew then what I had in mind. Her breath caught on three words: “The light's changing.”

“I'm going. Do what they told you to. All the way.”

I opened the door, jumped out in a crouch, shut the door and was on the sidewalk less than a minute after I'd first touched the handle. It had all been too quick for Marianne. She stalled the car putting it into first. The starter ground and ground, then the engine caught and the Ford lurched away. When it crossed 14th Street I started walking in the same direction.