Ransom (26 page)

She slowed down as the police car up front began to slow. Abel swung round, then relaxed. “Must be a county line. Mustn’t forget - what you call it, Teach?”

“Protocol,” she said mechanically: they had completed the circle to their first relationship, teacher and student: then she had been as unresponsive to him as she was now.

“She used to teach me English,” Abel told the women in the back seat. He turned round, peering out through the rear window as the Suffolk County cars and motor cycle men peeled off and the Nassau County squad took over. “She used to read us poetry. There was one line some of us really dug - or me, anyway. That one by that Limey faggot Oscar Wilde-you remember, baby? We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”’

He struck a chord in her and she looked at him in surprise: he had never told her anything like this before. “You liked the poetry?”

“I thought I did. But it’s like everything else - a load of crap!”

“You must have liked it once,” said Lisa, as surprised as Julie at the unexpected chink in the boy.

“Maybe. But that was before she turned out to be a bitch like all the rest of you.”

The convoy sped on. They were on the Southern State Parkway now and the traffic was thickening. The sirens were wailing and the early morning drivers, pulling their cars over to the slow lanes as the bull team waved them aside, were staring out in puzzlement as the long cavalcade, sirens going, red lights spinning, and the cameraman, crouched perilously on the roof platform of the station wagon at the end of the line, swept by. By the time the convoy had picked up the New York Police Department’s escort, had swung over to the Belt Parkway and was approaching the airport, traffic on the parkway had slowed to a crawl. The drivers on the parkway were listening to their radios: the convoy swept by to the sound-track of the commentary on its own progress. Some drivers up ahead, warned of the coming of the convoy, looked out and waved as it went past: as Michael Forte had said, it could have been a Presidential motorcade.

At the airport several mobile control trucks were waiting, the producers telling their cameramen parked around the area what they wanted. “Joe, you concentrate on the Mayor and the other dame’s husband, what’s his name, Mahoney, Moroney- “

“Malone,” said an assistant, eye on the higher job.

“Okay, Malone, Balone. Jesus, what’s it matter? Who’ll remember tomorrow? Pete, you stick with the kidnappers. Angelo, you stay around the terminal buildings - I’ll cut away to you for reaction shots from the crowd when things get slow out on the field - “

“Ah Christ, Merv, don’t I ever get to see any action? That riot last week, where was I - ?”

“Angie boy, I’m saving you up for Armageddon. You’ll be right up front for that. Walter - where the hell’s Walter?”

“He’s gone for a crap, Merv. Just in case it’s a long day, he said - “

In her apartment in the Bronx, slopping around in slippers and dressing-gown, Polly Nussbaum kept glancing at the television set as she prepared her breakfast. God, the Mayor, do him a favour. Give him back his wife safe and sound. And that Mrs Malone, too. What a world you let us make for ourselves, God. You should be disgusted, I wouldn’t blame you.

In his town house in Manhattan Frank Padua had switched on the television set in his bedroom, watched it as his manservant brought in his breakfast tray. He made no comment, vocal or mental, as he looked at the pictures on the screen. Whatever happened out at Kennedy Airport would make little, if any, difference to his life.

“Tell them to have the car out front in an hour,” he told the manservant. “I’m going down to vote. You should vote too, Tony.”

“Who would I vote for, Mr Padua? Anyone in particular? Mr Forte, maybe?”

Padua spread his hands. “Anyone you like, Tony. It’s a free country.”

In Brooklyn Auguste Giuffre came out of early Mass and went into the presbytery next door to the church for his usual morning cup of coffee with Father Lupi. He looked at the television set in the priest’s study and shook his head in disapproval. “It’s a terrible world, Padre. Too much violence.”

“I said Mass this morning for the safe return of those poor women.”

“I noticed, Padre. You’re a thoughtful man.”

“Are you going to vote for the Mayor today?”

“Who else? He’s a nice Italian boy.”

He looked back at the screen. The long convoy had reached the airport, was moving down the perimeter of the field to the far end on the edge of Jamaica Bay. A big jet stood there and parked some distance from it was a semicircle of police cars, trucks, buses, three ambulances, two fire engines and a helicopter. He had to admire the efficiency

of the City of New York. It was just a pity it was in the wrong hands.

“You look flushed, Don Auguste.”

“Just a little fall chill, Padre.”

The radio in the police car crackled and Lewton said, “Yes? Any trouble?”

“Pig,” said Abel, “what’re you trying to pull? That goddam army down there - you think we’re gonna drive into the middle of that?”

“I had nothing to do with that.”

“Okay, you tell ‘em they all gotta get the hell outa there -and remember, I can hear every word you say. But first, you pull your car outa this line - you and us are gonna stay right here till every one of them bastards is moved right outa there.”

Lewton, riding in the front seat with the driver, switched off for a moment and looked back at Gartwright, in the back seat beside Malone. “This son-of-a-bitch is too smart. Do we agree to what he wants?”

“What else can we do?” Gartwright said.

Lewton spoke into the microphone again. “All cars? Turn round and head back to the other end of the runway.”

Then a gruff angry voice came on the air as Lewton flicked the switch over. “This is the Commissioner, Captain. Who gave that order?”

Lewton motioned to the driver to slow down, watched the other cars swing away and go back the way they had come. “With all due respect, Commissioner, I’m afraid our friends are giving the orders. They also want everyone moved away from the plane. We have to stay here till you are all at the other end of the runway. Special Agent Cartwright and I agree that we have no argument, sir.” Put that in your cigarette holder and smoke it, Commissioner sir.

Lewton had never been a lover of the FBI but now he was glad Cartwright was here. “Our friend is getting impatient. Will you give the order for the area to be cleared, sir?”

The two cars were stationary now and Malone, looking across at the other car, could see Lisa. He waved to her and she waved back. Christ, he thought, so near and yet so far: cliches were often so brutally truthful. Every minute or so there was a deafening roar, cored with a shrill whine, as a plane came in low above them and touched down on the runway. Over on the parallel runway planes were taking off, climbing steeply and banking sharply, spreading their dark peacock tails of smoke against the now bright sun. The airport might be closed for a hurricane: it did not stop for the affairs of men. Life and death could not be fitted into a traffic schedule.

Three hundred yards down the perimeter the helicopter lifted off from beside the parked 707. Then the police cars and trucks, the green buses, the fire engines and the ambulances pulled away and the long convoy came up the edge of the field. It went past, faces in all the vehicles turned towards the two stationary police cars, and the big aircraft was left alone right out at the far end of the field. Behind it stretched the bay, lit by copper glints as the sun struck on its muddied waters. A ragged arrowhead of birds came in against the sun, splintered into fragments and settled down into the marshes surrounding one of the low islands out in the bay. But for the planes coming in every minute above them, the two police cars and the big jet could have been a thousand miles from civilization.

The radio in front of Lewton crackled on again. “Okay, pig. Let’s go.”

As the two cars approached the plane Abel suddenly snapped, “Who’s that? I said everybody, everybody, outa there!”

“It’s the Mayor,” said Lewton.

Michael Forte had been standing by the foot of the steps

leading up to the aircraft. As the two cars rolled to a stop twenty yards away, he stepped forward, his hands up.

“That’s far enough!” Abel yelled, and his gun came out of the window of the car. “What you doing here, man?”

“I came to see that my wife is all right. I’m not armed.”

Another plane screamed overhead and Abel waited till it had gone. “Who’s in the plane? You know?”

“The five men you asked for and a crew of four to fly the plane.”

Abel picked up the microphone. “Okay, Commissioner, you hear me ? You in touch with the crew of that plane ? Tell ‘em I want ‘em all outa there, tell ‘em to come down to the bottom of the steps. And make it quick, pig!”

In the other car Cartwright looked at Malone and Lewton. “You’re right, he is smart. But what’s with the girl? Out at Sunday Harbor she told her folks she did it for her brother -I got the feeling the whole idea was hers.”

“Me too,” said Malone, and looked across again at the other car. He could see Julie Birmingham, her arms resting on the wheel, staring straight ahead of her as if she had no interest at all in what was going on, a chauffeuse who only wanted her passengers to get out so that she could drive away from here. “If only we could get to her - “

“How?” said Cartwright. “Let’s see what she does now.”

The four members of the plane’s crew had come down out of the aircraft and stood at the foot of the steps. Julie, holding a gun, got out of the car and leaned for a moment against its door, as if trying to ease the cramp of the long drive from her legs. Then unhurriedly, almost stiff-legged, she walked across to the crew. She passed Michael Forte without a glance and he looked at her with a mixture of pleading and puzzlement. She gestured to each of the crew to come forward in turn, moved round behind him and ran her free hand down over his coveralls.

“Recognize any of those men?” Malone asked.

“Three of them are FBI men,” said Cartwright. “The

other guy must be the pilot. Poor bastard - I hope he’s being paid a good rate for the job.”

“I thought they would have used an Air Force plane,” said Malone.

“That would be one aircraft the Cubans would never let land. They’d probably shoot it down.”

“She’s going up into the plane,” said Malone, eyes again on Julie Birmingham. “I wonder if she’ll pull anything on that bugger while she’s up in there?”

“What makes you think she might?” Lewton asked.

Another plane went overhead and Malone had to wait to reply. “I don’t know that she will. But she’s our only hope. If that plane takes off, Christ knows if we’ll ever see any of them alive again.”

“If it comes to the crunch, the Cubans will let them land. They’ll have to.”

“I’m not going to bet my wife’s life on it,” said Malone, and looked across at Michael Forte. “And I think the Mayor feels the same way.”

Julie Birmingham appeared again at the door of the plane, stood for just a moment looking out and about her, like some traveller getting her first sight of New York, uncertain now whether she should have made the journey; then she came down the steps, still with the same unhurried, stiff-legged walk and crossed to the other car. A moment later both offside doors swung open and Abel, gun in hand, and Lisa and Sylvia got out. Sylvia looked across at her husband, opened her mouth, but whatever she said was lost in the screaming roar of another plane as it came in to land.

Then abruptly Malone opened his door and got out. Abel swung round, the gun coming up, and Malone, knees buckling after his having been in the car so long, gut tensing for the impact of the bullet, flung up his hands.

” shoot!” Only his last word came out of the shriek

of the receding plane.

“Stay where you are! Captain - you and the other pigs

get outa the car! Come on, move! Take your guns out and throw ‘em over here! Come on!” For the first time there was a note of panic in Abel’s voice; his head was ready to burst now and suddenly he remembered the attacks he used to have as a kid. Jesus, he mustn’t let himself slip out of himself like he used to in those attacks! Nobody had ever told him why they happened to him; maybe they had something to do with the way he was born, when his grandmother, a clumsy old bitch, had been the midwife. But they always finished up the same way, with him out like a light on the ground. “Move, move!”

Lewton, Cartwright and the driver got out of the car, the driver moving round to join the others. The three of them took their guns from their holsters and tossed them towards Abel.

“Pick ‘em up, baby.”

Julie, face expressionless, picked up the guns, put one in her handbag and handed the other two to Abel. He slid one into each pocket of his jacket, suddenly grinned. His headache was easing, he wasn’t going to have one of those goddam attacks. Freedom lay just three or four steps behind him.

Then Malone said, “I’m going with you.”

A plane went over and Abel, in the storm of sound, looked in silent amazement at him. The noise faded and he said, “You what?”

“I’m going with you. I’m not armed, so you’ve got nothing to worry about. But if anything happens to my wife, I want to be with her.”

“And I want to be with mine,” said Michael Forte. “I’m coming too.”

“Like shit you are! You must think I’m crazy - “

“Let them come,” said Julie.

“Nothing doing! Jesus, what do we want them for?”

“We’ll be two more hostages,” said Malone, speaking quietly but arguing with more force than he had ever done before. “If you land in Havana with the Mayor of New York,

a political figure like Mr Forte, as your hostage, Fidel Castro is going to give you the freedom of Cuba.”

“Still nothing doing,” snapped Abel. But then another plane roared overhead and in the few seconds of ear-splitting noise the expression on his face changed. All his life he had been a nobody. Jesus Christ, wouldn’t it be something to be a somebody !

Then in the sudden return of quiet Julie said, “If you don’t let them come, Abel, then I don’t go.”