The Frumious Bandersnatch (11 page)

“Oh, sure. Nice young feller. I've got his name inside.”

“Can you let us know who he was?” Kling asked.

“Oh, sure. Just let me finish here a minute, okay?”

He was washing down one of the boats. Soaping it, hosing it. Meyer watched him with interest. Kling looked upriver where early morning traffic was already moving steadily across the bridge to the next state.

“When you say she came back in…” Meyer said.

“She was tied up at the dock when I got in this morning.”

“When did she go out?”

“Evengloam last night. Nice time of day.”

“You rented her out last night at sundown…”

“Just before sundown. Twilight. Evengloam.”

“When was she due back in?”

“Well, she was a twenty-four-hour rental. Actually, she wasn't due back till this evening sometime. I was surprised to find her here this morning.”

“We'd like that name, if you can get it for us,” Kling said.

“Oh, sure,” Popeye said, and turned off the hose. “Come on in.”

They followed him inside. The office was hung with lobster pots and fishing nets. Through the windows facing the river, Meyer and Kling could see racks and racks of stacked boats. Popeye went behind the counter, vanished from sight for a moment as he knelt beneath it. He emerged again, plunked a long narrow black book onto the counter top, and began riffling through its pages.

“Name was Andy Hardy,” he told them.

“Andy Hardy, huh?” Meyer said.

“There it is, right there,” Popeye said, and turned the registry log so they could see the name.

“That's Mickey Rooney,” Meyer said. “A character he played in the movies. Andy Hardy.”

“You know, you're right,” Popeye said, opening his one good eye wide in surprise.

“Never occurred to you, huh?” Kling said. “While this guy was renting the boat?”

“Well, the name did sound familiar, but we get a lot of people in here, you know. Sometimes too
many
damn people, you ask me.”

“How'd he pay for the rental?”

“Credit card.”

“Showed you a credit card with the name Andy Hardy on it?”

“Andy Hardy was what it said. Same as on his driver's license. Picture matched his face, too. You rent a boat, it's the same as when you rent a car, you know. You're responsible for it. There's more boating accidents, ratio of boats to cars, than there are automobile accidents, you know. Anything happens to the boat—theft, fire, accident—I've got the man's credit card.”

“And you got Andy Hardy's credit card for the little
Hurley Girl
out there, is that it?”

“You betcha,” Popeye said.

“Think we can get a line on Mr. Hardy?” Kling asked Meyer.

“Fat Chance Department,” Meyer said.

“I saw his driver's license, too, I just told you,” Popeye said. “He seemed legit to me.”

“Maybe he is,” Kling said. “We'll hit the computers when we get back to the office.”

“We'll want our people to look over that boat, too,” Meyer said.

He was already on his cell phone.

“Why?” Popeye asked.

“It may have been used in a crime,” Kling said.

Meyer was dialing a number he knew by heart.

“How'd this Andy Hardy get here?” Kling asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Did he walk up? Drive up in his own car? Arrive in a taxi? How'd he get here?”

“In a black Ford Explorer. Two other people with him. They waited in the van while he filled out the rental papers.”

“Can I take a look at those papers?” Kling asked.

“Sure,” Popeye said, and went digging under the counter again. Meyer was just telling the Mobile Crime Unit where to find them.

“Man and a woman, right?” Kling said. “These two other people with him?”

“How'd you know that?” Popeye asked.

“Happen to see the license plate number?”

“Didn't look. Here you go,” Popeye said, and put the rental folder for the Rinker on the counter top. Kling leafed through it. Andy Hardy, sure enough. Gave an address in Connecticut.

“Was the driver's license issued in Connecticut?” Kling asked.

“Yep.”

“This address match the one on the license?”

“Yep. That's why I asked to see it.”

Meyer pressed the END button on his cell phone, looked over at the papers Kling had spread on the counter top.

“They're on the way,” he said.

“Did they leave the van here when they went out on the boat?” Kling asked.

“Unloaded it and left it, yes.”

“Unloaded it?”

“Took a carton from it.”

“What kind of carton?” Meyer asked.

“This cardboard carton. Not very big.” He showed the size with his hands.

“Think the masks might've been in it?” Meyer asked.

“You talking to me?” Popeye said.

“My partner.”

“Could be,” Kling said. “Any writing on the carton?”

“Didn't see any.”

“And you say they left the van here?”

“In the parking lot, yes.”

“Was it gone this morning?”

“Didn't notice.”

“When you came in, I mean.”

“Didn't notice,” Popeye said again.

They were trying to pinpoint the exact time the suspects might have dropped off the boat and departed in the van.

“Do renters usually return boats in the middle of the night?” Kling asked.

“No, when their time's up, usually. The rental period.”

“Are all your rentals for twenty-four hours?”

“No, we sometimes rent for a week. Sometimes longer.”

“But this one was for twenty-four hours.”

“Yes.”

“Evengloam to evengloam,” Meyer said.

“Supposed to be.”

“But Hardy brought it back early.”

“Yes.”

“Anybody here to receive a boat in the middle of the night?”

“We've got a night watchman, but he doesn't check boats in, nothing like that.”

“So they just leave them at the dock, is that it?” Kling said.

“With nobody here to check them in,” Meyer said.

“We don't have too many people bringing boats back before they're due,” Popeye said.

“But Andy Hardy did.”

“What'd this guy
do,
anyway?” Popeye asked.

“Maybe nothing,” Kling said. “Is your watchman here now?”

“Left when I opened up this morning.”

“How do we find him?”

“Let me get you his address,” Popeye said, and went over to a desk under a calendar of a girl wearing a sailor hat and hardly anything else.

“Phone number, too, please,” Meyer said.

 

THREE DETECTIVES
from the MCU arrived at Capshaw Boats at twenty to eleven that morning. Meyer and Kling were waiting dockside for them. They hadn't yet boarded the
Hurley Girl
because they didn't know how many, if any, rampant prints the perps may have left aboard her, and they didn't want to mess up anything for the technicians. The chief tech, a Detective/First named Carlie…

“For Charles,” he explained.

…Epworth listened attentively while Kling told him that a Harbor Patrol Unit vessel had stopped two males and a female on the boat right here an hour or so before the abduction last…

“
What's
her name again?” Epworth asked. “The vic?”

“Tamar Valparaiso.”

“Never heard of her,” he said. “Is she supposed to be famous or something?”

“Supposed to be,” Meyer said.

“Never heard of her,” Epworth said again.

“Anyway, it was only the two males who boarded the
River Princess,
is the name of the launch she was taken from. So we figure the female stayed behind on the boat here, at the wheel. And maybe she left some latents. On the wheel, is what I'm saying. The two males were wearing gloves, but they were up to no good. So maybe the female was more relaxed and got careless.”

“Okay,” Epworth said.

“Is just a suggestion,” Kling said.

“Wearing gloves when they boarded the launch, you mean, right?”

“Yeah, right, when they did the deed.”

“But maybe they took them off when they were on their way home, is another possibility,” Epworth said.

“Opportunities are running rife,” Meyer said.

“Might turn out to be my lucky day,” Epworth said, grinning. “What'd you say that launch was called?”

“The
River Princess.
”

“I think I saw a file on her back at the office.”

“Anybody get anything yet?”

“I don't know. It was on another desk.”

“Cause this case is getting a lot of play, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“The papers, the media.”

“You gonna need us here?” Kling said.

“Leave me your card. I'll get back one way or another.”

“We won't be back in the office for a few hours,” Kling said. “Possible witness we've got to see.”

“To what? The snatch?”

“We've got a hundred and twelve of them.”

“Bold mother-fuckers, weren't they?”

“Depends how you define it.”

“I didn't say ‘brave,' I said ‘bold.' ”

“That they were. So when do you think you'll be done here?”

Epworth looked at his watch.

“One, two o'clock, in there,” he said. “Depends on how clean she is.”

“We should be back home by then.”

“I'll find you, don't worry,” Epworth said. “Are the Feds in this yet?”

“Not yet,” Kling said.

“But you said it's getting a lot of play, right?”

“Right.”

“They'll come sniffing, you can bet on it,” Epworth said, and opened the gate on the
Hurley Girl
's transom entry, and signaled to his crew. “Anybody been aboard her yet?” he asked.

“Just the possible perps,” Meyer said.

“Makes it easy then, don't it?” Epworth said, and grinned.

 

CARELLA
was sound asleep when Lieutenant Byrnes called him at twelve-thirty that Sunday. He waited a respectable four rings before remembering that this was Fanny's day off and Teddy was taking the twins to the park, and then hastily yanked the receiver from its cradle.

“Carella,” he said.

“Steve, it's Pete.”

“Yes, Pete.”

“I spoke to the Commish. First off, you'd better get that tape back to Honey Blaine…”

“Blair.”

“Whoever, before the city lands a very big law suit. Channel Four has already contacted the Mayor, who is not particularly known for courageous stands, anyway, and he got on his lawyerly high horse and lectured the Commish about illegal search and seizure and all that bullshit…”

“Yeah,” Carella said wearily.

“So you'd better…where is it, anyway, that tape?”

“In my bottom desk drawer.”

“I'll call in, have a uniform run it over to the…”

“No, the drawer's locked. I've got the key here.”

“This Blaine woman…”

“Blair.”

“…is sitting down there in the Channel Four offices with a battery of network lawyers, waiting for us to deliver that tape. We've got till three o'clock. Otherwise, they file. Can you get the tape over there by then?”

“Yes. But I still think it's evidence.”

“The network thinks it's a scoop worth forty million dollars…”

“More than I make in a week,” Carella said.

“…which is what they'll sue for if they don't get that tape by three o'clock. Can you run down to the squadroom? Messenger the tape over?”

“Sure,” Carella said, and yawned. “What time is it?”