Ransom (6 page)

actually, it went off two months ago and killed two policemen - “

“I know about them. Captain Jefferson told me this morning. What have they got to do with this?”

“They are the ransom fee - their release and a plane to take them to Cuba. The deadline is noon tomorrow.”

Malone felt the sick weakness come back on him. He looked at Jefferson, the only face in the room familiar enough for him to read, and saw the sudden pessimism in the dark weary eyes. Puzzled, but not sure why, he looked round the other faces, then back at Michael Forte.

“Go on, sir.”

Forte looked at the Australian shrewdly, for the first time really appreciating that this man had as much at stake in the kidnapping as himself. “What do you mean, Inspector?”

“You hadn’t finished. You’ve implied that you’re not prepared to agree to the kidnappers’ demands.”

“The Mayor didn’t say that!” snapped Hungerford, snatching his cigarette holder from his mouth.

“I know he didn’t. But I’m a policeman, like you, Commissioner - I don’t have to have things spelled out for me. I don’t care a bugger about your anarchists - all I want is to get my wife back!”

“If you are a policeman, you’ll realize the consequences.” Then Hungerford stopped and looked towards the door as there was a knock and a small dark-haired man looked in.

“Joe Burgmann is here, Mr Mayor.”

“Bring him in, Manny.” Michael Forte was still standing by his father; he suddenly put a hand on the old man’s shoulder and squeezed it; but Sam Forte’s expression did not change. Michael then went back behind his desk as the small dark-haired man, dapper as a head-waiter, brought in a burly man with thinning grey hair and hard bright eyes. They were introduced to Malone as Manny Pearl and Joe Burgmann.

Burgmann looked Malone over cursorily, decided he was no voter, and turned back to Michael Forte. “Manny’s put

me in the picture, Mr Mayor. Jesus, I can’t say how sorry I am - ” Malone caught the swift glance from Michael Forte, but there was no nicker of expression otherwise on the Mayor’s face. “It’s a real dilemma, a real dilemma. Anyone come up with any suggestions?”

“None so far, Joe.”

“I have,” said Malone. “I’ve suggested you give in to them. My wife - and yours too, Mr Mayor - are more valuable than a bunch of anarchists, no matter what they’ve done.”

Burgmann had not turned round, just looked over his shoulder at Malone as if not interested in any comment from that ward: Malone was to learn in a moment who the burly man was and how he thought. “That’s easy for you to say - “

“Nothing is easy for me to say,” snapped Malone, “not when my wife’s life is in danger.”

“Okay, Joe - ” Michael Forte motioned to Burgmann, then looked at Malone. “Mr Burgmann is my campaign manager - you know we have an election coming up tomorrow. I’ve always been a strong proponent - perhaps too strong - of law and order, but in tomorrow’s election my principal opponent has chosen to make an issue of it. If I agree to the ransom demand - as you say, Inspector, you’re a cop, you don’t have to have things spelled out for you.”

“Maybe I do,” Malone said slowly. He knew now why he had sensed the atmosphere of politics as soon as he had entered the room; he had just not identified the correct strain of the virus. “What’s more important to you - your political reputation or getting your wife back?”

At once there was an angry murmur from several of the men. Michael Forte stiffened, his face flushed and one hand balled into a fist. Malone poised himself, wondering if he had gone too far but determined not to back down. Then Sam Forte, a veteran of such moments, spoke for the first time.

“Inspector Malone has asked the proper question, I think. There will be a lot of people, Michael, asking where you

stand on law and order when you’re confronted with this -this dilemma. All you’ve said in the past will look pretty hollow if-”

Malone looked gratefully at the old man; but Sam Forte ignored him. Christ, Malone suddenly realized, I don’t mean a thing to him: he’s only intent on protecting the bloody image of his son! He had an abrupt urge to spin round and stride right out of the building, but he knew that would achieve nothing. If he was to get Lisa back safely, he needed these men in this room. All at once he felt more ragingly helpless than he had ever felt in his life before.

Then Manny Pearl said, “The reporters have guessed there’s something wrong, Mr Mayor. I think you’ll have to make a statement.”

Michael Forte looked at Hungerford and Cartwright. “Will that endanger the lives of my wife and Mrs Malone, do you think?”

“Did the woman who called you say anything about not telling the papers?” asked Cartwright.

“No. Come to think of it, she didn’t even say anything about not telling the police. That’s one of their usual demands, isn’t it?”

“Most kidnappers hope we’ll be kept out of it. Telling the newspapers may result in these people thinking the pressure is being increased on them, but that is a risk we have to take, Mr Mayor.” Cartwright then looked at Malone. He felt sorry for the Australian, who looked angry and bewildered by what must sound to him like a lot of empty, delaying talk. But maybe things were simpler in Australia: Cartwright already sensed the complications ahead, coming up like the hurricane from the South. “Do you agree, Inspector?”

Malone, his emotion under control again, thought, Here’s one bloke who’s on my side. “If we have no real clues of our own, then we may have to rely on the public, hope there’s an outside chance that someone saw something that will help us.”

He’s a worried husband but he hasn’t forgotten how to be

a cop, Cartwright thought. He turned again to Michael Forte, who looked just as worried but less decisive than the Australian. Is he the sort of man who’d panic when the chips were down? He’d make a hell of a President if he is. But then how many Presidents have been faced with a personal dilemma like this? A real dilemma, as the voting machine that went by the name of Burgmann had said.

“I think we may need the newspapers, sir. If Commissioner Hungerford agrees, I think you should make a statement.”

“What do I do? Just issue a statement or call the reporters in here?”

“If I can make a suggestion, Mr Mayor, I think you should have ‘em in here, right in here.” Burgmann, Malone was beginning to realize, was an important man in this room; he showed some deference to Michael Forte himself, but none at all to the other men, least of all to Malone. “Some of these guys have been very much against us the past coupla months - they oughta be given the chance to see how you’re suffering in this dilemma.”

“Joe, I don’t want to have to answer a lot of questions - ” “Okay, no questions. Just a statement. Where’s some paper?”

Malone felt his anger rising again; he wanted to smash his fist into the face of the campaign manager. But Burgmann was a man whose job didn’t allow him to consider what other people thought of him: his sole concern was to promote his candidate. He scribbled in a large hand on two sheets of paper, never stopping to grope for a word, then handed the statement to Michael Forte. “Okay?”

But without waiting for any assent from the Mayor, he had already moved to the door, opened it and told the secretary outside to bring in the newspapermen. They came trooping in, five reporters and two photographers, all of them with that mixture of boredom and alertness that Malone had seen on the faces of newspapermen back home who had to cover

the same beat day after day. They seemed to suggest that news was no more than a necessary evil, that they felt the world would be better off if its ignorance was not reduced by anything they might write.

“Gentlemen, I have some bad news - bad, that is, for Inspector Malone and myself- ” Michael Forte introduced Malone, then baldly and without emotion read out the statement.

Shock replaced the boredom on the newspapermen’s faces; but they were all veterans and they soon recovered. Shock was grist to their mill and they reacted as Malone had expected them to. As they moved in on the Mayor, Malone wanted to turn away, get out of this room before his disgust, anger and frustration made him erupt.

“Where’d it happen, Mr Mayor? What time?”

“That ransom, Mr Mayor - how does that tie in with your concept of law and order?”

Michael Forte’s jaw tightened, but all he said was, “No questions. Not at this stage.”

“It’s been a terrible shock to the Mayor,” said Burgmann. “Come on, boys. We’ll fill you in later - “

“How do you feel about the ransom demand, Inspector?” Everyone in the room looked at Malone as one of the reporters put the question. “As a cop, you must be concerned for law and order.”

Malone felt the floor suddenly rumble beneath him. He looked down in puzzlement, then Michael Forte said, “It’s just a subway train, Inspector. City Hall isn’t going to fall down.”

Malone looked up, staring hard at the Mayor. He didn’t know whether any of the newspapermen read the message in the words, but he quite clearly understood what Michael Forte meant. Tell the truth if you like, Malone, we don’t need you. But you sure as hell need us.

“I’m a stranger in this city,” said Malone. “I have to take the advice of Mayor Forte.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the relief on the faces

of Burgmann and Manny Pearl; but he was still looking at Michael Forte. For a moment the Mayor all at once seemed another man; the dark eyes softened and Malone suddenly realized that Forte was not solely and unalterably a political animal. For the first time the two men looked at each other with the recognition that no one else here could feel the pain and worry that was common to them both.

“Commissioner Hungerford has every available man in the Police Department already at work,” Burgmann was saying to the reporters, “aided, of course, by the FBI - “

But not aided by me, the one law and order officer in this room who has the most to lose. Again the explosive anger brought on by frustration simmered in Malone. He could not be expected to sit on his arse while other cops worked on this -his case. He had to do something to get Lisa back - but what?

“That’s Alexander Hamilton up there,” said Michael Forte, nodding up at the portrait hanging above the mantelpiece. “Have you heard of him?”

“Vaguely.” Malone munched on his roast beef sandwich, looking up without interest at the painting. Hamilton stood with one hand on hip, the other held out in front of him, palm upwards. Was he putting a point or asking for a payoff? But Malone kept his cynicism to himself; his sudden sourness with America wasn’t going to be any help in the situation in which he found himself. “He was something to do with the American Revolution, wasn’t he?”

Forte put down his half-eaten sandwich and pushed it away from him: he had no taste and no hunger, like a man who had gone beyond the recovery point in starvation. His only sustenance was words, to keep him from thinking of the worst. “We Americans assume that everyone knows our national heroes.”

“Australians don’t go in for national heroes, not political ones. Bushrangers and jockeys stand the best chance.”

“Bushrangers?”

“Old-time outlaws. Ned Kelly was the best known. I’ve had crims I’ve arrested bless themselves and say prayers to him.”

Forte wasn’t sure if the Australian was putting him on; he had a laconic dryness to him that could have been poker-faced humour or morose hostility. Forte nodded back at the painting. “That was painted posthumously - Old Alex finished up the loser in a duel with another of our heroes, Aaron Burr. Or maybe neither of them was a hero, except to their campaign managers. You have no time for Joe Burgmann, have you?”

The abruptness of the question caught Malone off guard; he took delaying refuge behind his coffee cup. Unexpectedly Forte, when the meeting had been breaking up, had invited him to stay behind and share a sandwiches-and-coffee lunch; and Malone, intrigued now by this man with whom he had to share a common anguish, had accepted. He had not expected to be called upon to answer leading questions such as this one.

“In these circumstances, no,” he said at last.

Forte stared down at the red carpet beneath his feet. He and Malone were sitting on chairs at one side of the room, a low table between them and a television set against the wall opposite them. On the table, beside the tray of sandwiches and coffee, were copies of the morning papers and the first edition of the afternoon Post. He smiled up at himself from each of the front pages: yesterday’s man. The photograph that would be in the later editions of the Post and in the Times and News tomorrow morning would be of a worried, more honest man.

“You have to try to understand him, Inspector. I don’t think Joe is without feelings - he has a wife and kids and I’m sure he loves them. But all his life he’s been in politics - he

began when he was still in high school, running messages for a ward boss. He sees everything in terms of votes.”

“I wouldn’t want to understand him,” said Malone stubbornly, “if that’s the way he is.”

Forte sighed, then looked up. “What’s your wife like? You didn’t tell the reporters much. How long have you been married?”

“Eight weeks.”

“Then you’re still getting to know her, aren’t you? I’ve been married eighteen years - I have two kids, a boy sixteen and a girl fourteen. I don’t know which is worse - to lose someone you’ve become accustomed to or someone you’re still finding out about.”

“You think we’re going to lose them?” Malone had put down his own sandwich and now put down his coffee.

“Jesus, I don’t know!” Forte put his hand over his eyes and for a moment Malone thought the other man was going to weep.

Then there was a tap on the door and Manny Pearl came in. He was a sad-eyed little man who seemed to wear his smile as a badge of rank: it was his job to keep his boss happy. Malone was not quite sure what Pearl’s official title was, but it was obvious that he had Forte’s trust. He waited patiently and without embarrassment till the Mayor had recovered his composure, then he said, “The news is already on TV and radio. Just flashes, nothing more. All the networks have been on to me asking if you’d do a spot for their main news shows tonight, but I took it upon myself to say No. Okay?”