Hostage For A Hood (11 page)

For the first time Goldman took his eyes off the road and turned to glance at the little man next to him.

"Brother," he said, "you
are
crazy. I should get you a car yet! And suppose you get picked up on suspicion. The car gets traced right smack back to me. That would be just great, wouldn't it?"

He hesitated for a minute and then continued. "I guess I got to do your thinking for you. The best thing is to lay low for at least another day. Then if you don't want to rent a car, or steal one, you'll have to borrow one. Borrow it from some friend or a cousin or something. You got a cousin or something, haven't you?"

Santino didn't answer.

"Where's Luder now, by the way."

"What's it matter?"

"It doesn't," the lawyer said. He drove on for several minutes in silence and then once more spoke.

"Look," he said, "don't get me wrong. It's just that I'm annoyed the way things turned out. This isn't my caper, you know. I told Harry that I'd handle the stuff after you got it, and that I'd represent you boys if there was any trouble. It isn't that I don't want to help you, but I have to watch my step. I'm a lawyer and a respectable businessman and I don't take chances."

"I'm not asking you to," Santino said.

"Then don't. As far as a car is concerned, I can let you have some dough if you're short. You'll have to work out the details yourself."

"I'm not short," Santino said crisply. "And I can get a car all right. I'll borrow one. You can drop me off anywhere. I'll grab a cab."

"I'll take you back to the bar where I picked you up. And you and Luder take it easy. I talked with Harry last night after I heard from you. He knows about Mitty, and there's nothing to worry about there. Just you and the old man take it easy and don't rush up to the country. Harry'll wait."

"Sure—sure," Santino said. "Why shouldn't he? He's got plenty of company. Two good-lookin' broads. Why shouldn't he wait?"

For a moment the lawyer looked startled and he slowed down for a traffic light and waited until it had changed before he again spoke. "What the hell do you mean, two broads?" he asked. "I thought that that girl of yours was up there alone."  

Santino laughed without humor. "Yeah—two," he said. "My Paula, and the other one. The one he snatched when we pulled the job."

Goldman for the first time reached up and took the cigar out of his mouth. He pulled over to the curb and stopped and turned toward the other man.

"The girl he snatched?" he said in a hollow voice. "What in the name of Christ do you mean, the girl he snatched? What girl?"

Santino took his time telling about it, and enjoyed watching the blood leave the lawyer's sallow face and watching as his hands began to shake imperceptibly as he tried to get the cigar butt back between his lips.

For several minutes after the little man finished speaking, Goldman said absolutely nothing. Then at last he reached down and again started the car. He spoke once again when they were under way.

"That does it," he said. "That does it up just fine! A kidnapping—that's all we needed."

"It will have to be a little more than just a kidnapping," Santino said. "The girl was there when I used the chopper. She was there when it happened."

* * * *

Bart Sherwood needed a shave. He also needed something a lot more substantial than the dozen cups of black coffee he had existed on during the last thirty-two hours. He'd finally managed a little rest early on Tuesday morning with the help of several sleeping tablets, but by seven o'clock he was up and nervously pacing the floor.

He put the coffee on, started to open the refrigerator and get out the bowl which held the eggs. But there was something about the kitchen, with the dirty dishes still there from the previous morning, which brought a lump to his throat. This was Joyce's job, making the breakfast. Something she always did. Suddenly he had no desire for food. He'd just have coffee and let it go at that.

He walked into the bathroom, and there, at the edge of the black-tiled sink, was the twisted tube of toothpaste, with the cap off, where she had left it in her hurry to prepare his breakfast and get ready to take him to the station. It was one of those little things which they had fought over a hundred times, but somehow this morning, instead of the sense of irritation he had always experienced, he felt a constriction in the region of his heart.

Carefully he picked up the tube, found the cap and screwed it back on. He forgot about brushing his own teeth. The bathroom was like the kitchen. It reminded him of Joyce. She was everywhere in the house; in the empty bed, in the living room, everywhere.

God, what
could
have happened to her?

He took a wet washcloth and wiped his face and went back to the kitchen and downed two cups of black coffee. At nine o'clock he called his office and said he wouldn't be in. He didn't explain; he couldn't. How do you go about telling your secretary that your wife is missing?

God knows the news would be around soon enough. He knew that the papers would pick up the story, especially if foul play were suspected. Normally the thought of the publicity would have bothered him, but by now he was long past the stage of being bothered by anything so trivial. He didn't care what happened, just so Joyce was found and Joyce was all right.

The newspaper was outside the door and the idea of possible publicity made him go out and get it. It was a New York morning paper and he looked through it carefully. There was plenty about the robbery of the Rumplemyer armored car out in Brookside and about the murder of the driver, but there was nothing about a missing girl named Joyce Sherwood.

Maybe missing wives weren't news, after all.

Thank God, there were things to be done. To him they seemed futile, rather ridiculous things, but the detective who'd accompanied him home the previous evening had suggested he do them. Although they didn't seem to make much sense, he'd follow the man's instructions to help fill in the time. Anything was better than just pacing the floor and waiting.

He looked into the file of old bills and found the receipt for repairs on Joyce's watch. He called the jeweler, and the jeweler gave him the serial number of the watch. Bart wrote it down and then telephoned it in to the police station, giving it to the desk clerk with a request that he give Sims the information.

Next he looked up the slip of paper which had the number of Flick's dog license. He telephoned the pound and reported the dog missing and gave them a description and the license number.

He notified the insurance company that the car was missing. For a moment, when they asked if it was stolen, he hesitated. He didn't know what to say. How can you say your wife has stolen your car? But Sims had said to report it. He ended up by saying he thought so.

He was about to telephone the bank and was looking the number up when the first call came from a man whose voice he didn't recognize. The man asked for Mrs. Sherwood and for a second he fought to catch his breath.

"She's out," he said at last, in almost a whisper. "This is Mr. Sherwood."

The click of a receiver being replaced on its hook struck his eardrum.

He was still wondering about the call when he finally telephoned the bank. That's when he learned about the certified check. For a moment or so he just sat there, wordless with shock.

"Are you sure?" he asked at last.

The bank was sure. He wasn't satisfied and insisted on speaking to the teller who had waited on her. He had to believe him. There couldn't be any doubt at all about it. The man even remembered the conversation; how he had warned Mrs. Sherwood that carrying a certified check was just like carrying cash.

Detective Sims had stopped by at noon, just casually, saying he was in the neighborhood. Bart told him what he had learned. It embarrassed him somehow, but he'd also I told Sims about the man who'd called and asked for his wife and then hung up; and about the second call, from the same man, a few minutes before noon, when the same thing had happened.

It was after this telephone call that Bart walked into the living room and over to the liquor chest and portable bar which Joyce had given him for Christmas. Neither of them drank much, but now and then Bart would bring home people from the office and she knew that he took a particular pride in his mixed drinks. He'd been pleased with the liquor chest; it was the sort of extravagance neither of them would ever have indulged in on normal occasions, but Christmas was in no way a normal occasion and they went out of their way to get each other the sort of things which they considered "extravagances."

Joyce had insisted that Bart take the key to the liquor chest and keep it on his chain with his other keys, and this had pleased him immeasurably for some odd reason.

He found the key now and opened the chest. A moment later he took out an unopened bottle of Scotch, one which had also been given to him by someone at the office at Christmas. He opened the bottle, having trouble with the metal cap, and found a shot glass and filled it. Then he took the drink and walked over to the big armchair in which he always sat in the evenings. He left the bottle uncapped, sitting on top of the liquor chest, the doors swinging open.

For a while he just sat there, holding the glass. At last he sighed and lifted it and drank it, making a wry face as the liquid hit his all but empty stomach.

God, it seemed utterly impossible that you could live with a person, know them and love them and share your every thought and feeling with them, for a year—and still not know them at all. His mind was in a turmoil and he knew that he wasn't really thinking very clearly, but the fact remained that certain things were inescapable.

Joyce was gone. 'Joyce had been at the bank, she'd taken twenty-six hundred dollars out of their account in the form of a certified check, and then she had vanished. After she had last been seen, in the bank, anything might have happened to her. She could have been in an accident, she could have been kidnapped—although this seemed utterly fantastic—or she might have been stricken with amnesia. But one single, clear fact stood out above all others: she had been perfectly normal when she had dropped him off at the railway station; she had apparently been completely normal when she had appeared at the bank to make the withdrawal.

And the man who had called twice on the telephone and hung up each time when Bart had answered.

For the first time since she had disappeared, Bart Sherwood had a momentary doubt about his wife. Was it conceivable that there was another man? Was it possible that she had taken the money and run away?

He stood up suddenly, shaking his head angrily at his own thoughts. It wasn't possible. He knew full well that no person ever completely understands any other person; knew that no one really knows another's heart. But he couldn't so completely have misjudged and misunderstood her.

There was a reason somewhere. The money could be explained, and so could the telephone calls. It was possible that she had withdrawn the money, possible that by the most fantastic stretch of the imagination she might have some other man in her life. It was even possible that she could have taken the money and run off with this other man.

But it was utterly and completely impossible that she could have done it in this way, without first telling him about it. On that he would stake his life.

There had to be some explanation, some plan in back of the whole thing.

At two o'clock the doorbell rang and he crossed the living room, throwing the door open quickly, hoping ...

His face fell when he saw Sims standing there, leaning against the side of the door jamb.

"Have you ..." he began.

Sims shook his head and stepped inside.

"Nothing yet," he said. "I'm sorry, but nothing ... "

They sat down and Sims again began the questions, the thousand and one questions.