Ransom (9 page)

“McBean has said he’ll listen to you.” The grey-haired man was introduced to Malone as Warden Canby. “I told him, Inspector, that you might be coming here. That was when he said he’d come down.”

“Just to show you your side doesn’t have a monopoly on compassion,” said McBean.

Ganby looked over his shoulder at McBean, casually as he might have looked at a man he had known all his life. “Our side doesn’t have a monopoly on anything. Don’t get sanctimonious on us - we got enough do-gooders on our own side.”

McBean suddenly smiled; evidently there was some rapport between him and the Warden. “Stick around, Warden. We’ll find a place for you in our system when we take over.”

Ganby, dark lines gullying his grey face like the tribal marks of experience, turned back to Malone and the others. “He’s all yours. Officer Robinson will stay with you. Good luck.”

“That’s what you gonna need - luck,” said McBean, and sat down at the table, arranging his dashiki. “You like my outfit, Captain ? A marriage of two cultures - Africa and Seventh Avenue.”

The Warden shook his head and went out of the room, and Lewton said, “What do you mean, Eddie? Why are we gonna need luck?”

“Because there’s nothing I can tell you about this kidnapping - nothing.”

Malone found himself at the opposite end of the table from McBean; the two men looked at each other down its length and Malone saw nothing in the broad blue-black face that afforded him any hope. But they had to start somewhere if Lisa was to be found before it was too late. If it was not already too late (the rat gnawing away in the dark, the plague spreading through his mind).

“I don’t know what the other guys have told you,” said McBean. “I haven’t seen ‘em since I come in here - they don’t let conspirators fraternize, you know that? Afraid of conspiracy, I guess.”

“Do you mind if we cut out the jokes?” said Lewton patiently. “I don’t think Inspector Malone is in the mood for laughing.”

McBean looked down the table again at Malone. He had not yet been convicted, but if he were he would still be defiant: he was a man whose pride lay in doing, as if he had

already conceded that victory for his cause was doomed. But, as he had said, he was not without compassion. “You’re one of the pigs, man, and internationally speaking you’re all the same. But this isn’t your scene and I guess you deserve some sympathy.”

“Thanks,” said Malone, not attempting to keep the irony out of his voice: he knew this man would not be offended by it. But McBean sounded like an echo of the kidnapper who had spoken to him on the phone less than an hour ago.

“Like I said, I dunno anything about your wife or the Mayor’s wife. I dunno, if I did know anything, that I’d be co-operative about the Mayor’s wife. She’s part of what we don’t believe in and we don’t owe him anything.” He glanced around at the other men. “But you know that, don’t you?”

“That’s why you’re here,” said Lewton.

McBean shook his head, smiled. “Let’s be specific, Gap-tain. I’m here on a bomb conspiracy charge and you have to prove I had anything to do with it.” He looked back at Malone. “Man, believe me, I know nothing about your wife and I’m sorry you got to suffer.”

“Thanks,” said Malone again, and this time there was no irony in his voice.

Then Butlin leaned forward. “Mr McBean, we are not suggesting you had any hand in this kidnapping. But you must have some idea who amongst your supporters would dream up such a bizarre scheme.”

“Not bizarre, man. It looks to me like a stroke of genius.”

“So if we agree to the demands of the kidnappers, release you and send you to Cuba, you’ll go along with it?”

“You crazy? Wouldn’t you?”

“I’m not in your position, Mr McBean.”

McBean’s laugh was one of genuine amusement. “I got imagination, man, but not that much - you in my position!”

Butlin sat back, flushing slightly under his sun-lamp tan. Malone, watching everyone at the table carefully, well aware that they were the ones on whom he had to depend to get

Lisa back, had remarked the deep, healthy colour of the FBI man and wondered if he had just come back from an assignment somewhere in the sun. Then he had seen Butlin’s pale hands and knew the tan on the man’s face had come from a lamp; like so many lamp-users, Butlin had forgotten his hands.

So far Lieutenant Markowitz had said nothing. He was a burly, balding man of middle height, with intense dark eyes and a nervous impatience that seemed to exhaust him as he tried to control it. He did not lean forward now as he spoke, but his body was strained as if he were bound by invisible cords to the back of his chair. “McBean, we’ll be candid with you. We got nothing, no record, on any of you but old Fred Parker

“Oh, Fred,” grinned McBean. “The daddy of us all.”

“We know him - he’s been around for years. But the rest of you - you’re all strangers. None of you have even had any visitors while you been in here - “

“You think that’s strange? They come here, right away you pigs gonna be leaning on ‘em. No, man, they know enough to stay outa this scene.”

“Would you blame us for leaning on them? You killed two of our men - “

McBean shook his head. “Not guilty. You heard our plea.”

Mankowitz took a deep breath, looked at Lewton. The latter looked at Jefferson and Malone, then nodded at the guard standing by the door. “You can take him back. Thanks, McBean.”

“For what?” McBean stood up, the bright dashiki catching the light, adding a note of frivolity that seemed indecent in the sour atmosphere of the room. “I’m sorry, Malone. I hope your wife is okay. But like I said - you’re gonna need all the luck you can get.”

When McBean and the guard had gone Jefferson said, “What do you reckon?”

“He knows nothing,” said Lewton. “I’m sure of it.”

“Where do we go from here?” All four men looked at

Malone, and Lewton’s eyes narrowed at the grating harshness in the Australian’s voice. International boundaries were being drawn, but Malone was too worried for Lisa to be concerned with diplomacy. At the best of times, even on cases dealing with strangers, he had never been noted for it. “What about the other four bastards? If they won’t come down here, let someone go up and see them.”

“Inspector-” Lewton began; but Jefferson, rising from his chair, interrupted him.

“I’ll explain it to him, Ken. Inspector, let’s go back to Headquarters. Maybe something’s been happening while we been away.”

Malone stood up, all at once feeling stiff, exhausted and depressed to the point of sickness. He was at the door when he paused and looked back. “Sorry, Captain. It’s just the frustration of doing bugger-all - “

The three men still at the table nodded, their faces for a moment softening with sympathy. When he and Jefferson were outside in the street Malone said, “Maybe I shouldn’t have come down, Captain - “

“Call me John. I think you and I might be spending a lot of time together.” He went across to the car, checked with the driver that there were no messages, then came back. “Let’s walk- Scobie, isn’t it? I always like to get the stink of that place out of my nose. It’s not really a smell, it’s - well, you know what I mean?”

“I know,” said Malone, all at once glad of the black detective’s company. “I once picked up a vagrant back home, a Pole who’d been in a concentration camp in Europe. He said that freedom had a smell all its own and he’d become an addict of it. I thought he was having me on, then I realized he was fair dinkum.”

“Fair dinkum?”

Malone grinned. “On the level. I’ll stick to English.”

“Looks like Hurricane Myrtle is gonna drop in on us after all.”

Jefferson looked up at the darkening sky. A wind had

sprung up, ambushing people as they came to corners. Papers blew along the gutters like derelict birds; a wino sat on the kerb surrounded by a whirling aviary; he clutched at the flying papers and giggled like a child. Other citizens narrowed their eyes against the grit in the air, looked more bad-tempered than usual, bumped into each other and snarled like sworn enemies. A fire engine went by, charging through the traffic like a red rhino, the firemen riding it with faces turned back away from the wind, looking like reluctant heroes. The city had abruptly begun to show its nerve-ends.

“Someone will stay there with those anarchists,” said Jefferson, “just in case one of them decides he knows something. But I think in the end the Mayor’s gonna have to agree to the ransom demand. We could be beating our heads against a wall for the next twenty-four hours.”

“Do you think he will - agree to the demand, I mean?”

A headline flew by in the air: 2 DEAD. Jefferson caught the newspaper, screwed it up, dropped it into a bin they were passing. “He’d agree, I think. I dunno - sometimes I think he’s not as ambitious as the people around him. His old man, for instance - and his missus, come to think of it. She’s in the news as much as he is. Look there.” The wind had flattened the front page of the Post against a wall: Sylvia Forte smiled at them as from an election poster; then her face wrinkled, the wind played another trick, and the sheet was whipped away. “That’d be the early edition. She’ll be on the front page of every paper in the country by tomorrow morning.”

“The reporters asked me if I had a photo of my wife. I’ve got one in my wallet, but I didn’t want to part with it.”

“I don’t blame you. But I might have to ask you for it, run off some copies. Our men don’t know what she looks like, other than your description. Tall, blonde and good-looking. Could be a million women. Can I see it?”

They stopped on the corner of a street and Malone took

Lisa’s photo out of his wallet. Jefferson, turning away from the wind, looked at it carefully. “You downgraded her. She’s beautiful.”

“I think so, too. But I couldn’t say that.”

“I know. I used to think my wife was beautiful - she’s dead now-” He was silent for a moment: he could have been waiting for the traffic light above them to turn green. When it did he stepped off the kerb, going on, “Maybe other people thought she was no more than pretty. She was black, darker than me, and that don’t appeal to everyone. Can I keep this a while?”

“Be careful of it.”

“I will, Scobie. I’ll have some extra copies run off for you, if you like.”

“No, the original will do.” It would be too much like tempting fate to ask for extra copies, as if he were storing up mementoes of Lisa against an empty future. The Gelt in him was rising, as gritty and depressing as the wind swirling about him.

Police Commissioner Hungerford looked up as Sam Forte came into the Mayor’s office. The old man took off his velvet-collared coat and laid it carefully on a chair, sat down, arranged the creases of his trousers, then at last gave his attention to Hungerford.

“Michael still upstairs at the reception?” Hungerford nodded. “So in the meantime, what have you got for us, Des?”

“Nothing.” Hungerford jammed a cigarette into his holder, lit it and blew out a cloud of smoke. “We’re up against it, Sam. In every wav.”

“Which ways do you mean ?” But Sam Forte did not sound curious or ignorant, only as if he wanted confirmation of what he already knew.

“First, getting Sylvia and this other woman back. That’s the main thing, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But there’s the other aspect - ” Hungerford chewed on his holder. “If we release Parker and those others, it could mean losing the election. It’ll certainly make a laugh of what Mike and I are supposed to stand for - law and order.”

“We’ll forget the election for the moment,” said Sam Forte, taking the long view. “The law and order principle is the one we have to sustain.”

He wiped his lips with the silk handkerchief from his breast pocket. He had been a fastidious dresser from the very first day he had escaped from work on the construction gangs. He still remembered driving over to Manhattan in the Packard, parking it outside Sulka and Company in the days when one could still park on Fifth Avenue, going in and ordering a dozen silk shirts and a wardrobe of other clothing that had at once established the image of him for the years ahead. From that day on he had never again been dirtied by grit and dust and mud; and he had built a corporation that, at book value, was worth several hundred million dollars. In a land that, he had come to learn, placed such a high value on appearances, he had achieved the appearance of the chairman of such a corporation. And, if he should last long enough, and he hoped God would be willing, no one would be able to say that he did not look like the father of a President.

“We still have time on our side, Des.”

“Not much.” Hungerford looked up at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece: like all cops, he hated a deadline.

“But some. And I think we must use it. My own first impulse was to do anything they asked, so long as it got us back Sylvia and this - this Mrs Malone.” Sam Forte had an infallible memory for the names of voters and political workers and business contacts; but this unknown Australian woman was beyond his ken and he had difficulty in giving

a name to a faceless stranger. “But I think I can persuade Michael that we should ask for some proof from the kidnappers that the two women are still alive. Pat Brendan is certainly going to ask for that sort of guarantee.”

Brendan was the District Attorney. “Have you suggested it to Mike?”

“Yes. He wouldn’t give me an answer. I think he has to hang on to the belief that Sylvia is still alive.”

“What about the other man - Malone?”

“He has no cards at all to play. I’m afraid he will have to go along with us.”

- You callous old bastard. “They said they won’t be calling back till - God knows when. What if they don’t call back till five minutes of nine? It could be too late then.”

“Michael can go on television, make an appeal to the kidnappers to give some proof that Sylvia is still alive, and hope that they are watching.”

“They will be. Or listening to a radio. But what happens if they don’t give us any evidence?”

“Then we don’t release Parker and the others.”

“But what happens if the women are alive and the kidnappers just ignore Mike’s appeal ? When we don’t release Parker and the others, what happens then?”