The Kidnapper (12 page)

He listened and repeated after I told him.

“Got it? Then get this. I don’t want any funny business, or there’ll be trouble. Real trouble. My partner’s an old hand at this business, and he’s got a record a mile long, so one more dead doesn’t matter to him. And that’s just what will happen if you try to cross us. Understand?”

“Yes. I don’t know how I’ll manage it, but I’ll have the money there. And you’ll bring Shirley Mae—?”

“Tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll call you tomorrow, after we get the dough. I’m going to count it and see if anybody’s marked the bills or played tricks with the serial numbers. Now one thing more.”

“Yes.” He was really listening, had been ever since I made that crack about one more dead doesn’t matter.

“I know you got the cops and the FBI in on this. And I know what they’ll tell you. To arrange an ambush out there and try to catch us.

“Well, you better not try it. Because I’m picking up the money, see, but my partner’s gonna be moving around. He and Shirley Mae. And if I’m not back half an hour after I go for the dough—something’ll happen to your kid. That’s all.”

“You’re sure she’s all right?”

“I’m sure. But she wants to go home. And if you want to see her there, you better come through. You can tell the cops I called if you want to, but it’s up to you to talk them out of any funny stuff. Maybe you can say you’re supposed to come out and make a trial run, or something. Just to show good faith. Let them plan their ambush for tomorrow or Wednesday. I don’t care what you tell them, that’s up to you, like I said.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be there.”

“You and the money, that’s all I want to see. And if it’s okay, I’ll call you same time tomorrow and tell you where to pick up the kid. Now get busy. If I’m gone too long, my partner gets itchy with his knife.”

I hung up and dived out of the booth. I hopped in the car and drove off, fast. When I was about a block away, I heard something behind me. It was a siren. And it was coming this way.

I pulled over to the nearest parking-space, dropped a nickel into the slot, and started walking back. Sure enough, two squad cars pulled up in front of the post office.

About eight guys climbed out, carrying enough hardware to stop an army. Riot-guns and everything. They ran up the steps.

I’d been right. The girl at the switchboard probably had orders to trace every call coming in. And the police were standing by.

There was a crowd outside the post office now, and I elbowed my way in, so I could see. The cops were talking to the guys behind the windows, and looking around at the phone booth. Some of them collared people who were in there buying stamps and stuff.

I don’t know what they expected to find—maybe they thought I’d sit there after I finished my call and eat a box lunch. Maybe they figured the post office clerks and the people coming in were all detectives on the lookout to spot everyone who passed by.

It felt good to be part of the crowd there, but I wasn’t really frightened or anything. I knew enough about cops to be sure of one thing—they’re the dumbest bunch of characters in the world. They can’t catch anyone unless they’re tipped off by some squealer, nine times out of ten. Sure, they watch the railroad stations and the bus depots and the hotels, but everybody knows that’s how they work, and if you pull something you aren’t going to show up at those places.

Now I heard more sirens down the street. Probably going after guys in cars uptown, stopping them and asking questions. That was bright, too. How would they able to tell which car, or which guy? Just a lot of crap, trying to show the public they were really doing something. It didn’t mean a thing.

I wasn’t afraid of the cops. But the FBI was different. They got these scientific methods—checking blood stains and fingerprints and dirt under the nails, all kinds of stuff like that. I read up on them, and I didn’t want to tangle with the federals. Not if I could help it.

I wondered if they had a lot of plain clothes operators around. Maybe there was a couple in this crowd. I couldn’t tell. All around me, guys were saying, “What happened? Did they catch somebody?” And one old biddy said, “Somebody tried to hold up the post office” and a younger dame said, “No, I’ll bet it’s that kidnapper.”

A fat man came up alongside me and said, “What’s it all about, buddy?” I looked at him and shrugged. “Damned if I know. Guess the cops are after someone in there.”

He was a big, heavy-set, middle-aged sort of guy, and he didn’t look like FBI to me. He had a kind of mean look to him, like he’d been drinking alone all morning.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “They’re after the kidnapper all right. I hope they get him soon. My old lady won’t let the kids out of the house—she kep’ them in all weekend long.”

“Tough,” I said. “My wife’s the same way.”

“You got any kids?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Then you know what I mean. What the hell’s the world coming to with these bastards sneaking around, pulling stuff like that? Christ, I’d like to get my hands on that son of a bitch. Hanging’s too good for him.”

“Yeah, sure,” I told him. And I turned around and walked back, to a smoke shop. I picked up a carton of cigarettes and came out again.

The squad cars were pulling away. I watched them go, watched the crowd break up. Then I went into a cafeteria in the next block and had lunch.

I would have liked to have stayed in town all afternoon, maybe see a show or something and take my mind off things. But there wasn’t time.

Besides, I had to get back out to the cottage. Every minute away from those two was risky. They’d been fine this morning, but I knew that waiting for me to come back would wear them down. That, and the radio.

I got the car and headed out.

When I got to the crossroads, there was trouble.

Four or five cars ahead of me had slowed down, and I could see a roadblock, and a couple of state police cars parked next to it. They had troopers out checking on traffic, both ways.

There was nothing to do now but stay in line and wait. I sweated it out.

Finally the car ahead of me took its turn—old man and old lady in the front seat, and the trooper just sort of gave them a nod, so they went on.

Then I pulled up.

“What’s your name?”

“Ste—Stanley Kolischek.”

“You got a driver’s license?”

“Here it is.” I’d remembered just in time, about my real name being on the license. He looked it over.

“You’re the owner of this car?”

“Yes.”

“And where you headed for?”

“Waukegan.”

“Waukegan, Illinois?”

“That’s right. I got a brother down there, in Great Lakes Naval Training.”

“All right. Get going.”

I turned down the side road, and it was all I could do to keep from laughing.

Squad cars, roadblocks—what a jerkie deal that was! How could they expect to find anyone, pulling kid stuff like this?

No, I had nothing to get excited about as far as the cops were concerned—unless they kept that road blocked off tonight, too. but I doubted it like hell. It was all a gag.

Come to think of it, the FBI was a gag. Now I remembered what the paper had said. The FBI were called in and were standing by. Standing by meant they weren’t operating yet—and I suddenly remembered why.

Because the federals aren’t supposed to work on a case like this unless somebody crosses a state line. That’s the way the law was set up. So they were on hand, yes, but they wouldn’t make a move until after the money was claimed. Then perhaps they’d go into action, if they figured out I was leaving.

“I.” Where did I get this “I” stuff? They didn’t know about me. I reminded myself to calm down. Two o’clock, not much time to go.

Driving in, I saw them both sitting in the front room. I waved and they waved back.

“What’re you sitting inside for?” I asked. “Nice day out—why don’t you go down to the lake?”

Then I realized why. They’d been listening to the radio again.

“We just heard it,” Specs said. “About your phone call.”

“What’d they say?”

“How they traced it to the post office, only they didn’t find anybody. I’ll bet you got out of there in a hurry.”

I laughed. “You lose,” I said. “Matter of fact, I stuck around and watched the fun. One of the cops even asked me did I see anyone. And I said yeah, sure, a little guy with glasses named Leo Schumann. You’ll find him at—”

“Aw, you’re kidding me.”

“Sure. And why not? It’s a big laugh, all of it. Those cops, I watched them. They couldn’t find second base. I wish you two had been along. You wouldn’t have a care in the world after seeing those clowns fall all over themselves.”

Mary looked at me. “They say Warren is going to deliver the money,” she said. “He issued a statement or something, that there won’t be any double-cross. And he made the police promise that if they didn’t find anything by midnight they’d lay off. It was on the radio just now.”

“Good.”

“You must of talked to him pretty convincing,” Specs said. “What’d you say?”

“I told him where to leave the dough, is all. And about my partner, how itchy he was with a knife. That’s you, Specs.”

“Steve.” She spoke soft and didn’t look straight at me.

“Yes, Mary?”

“What did you tell him about Shirley Mae?”

“I said I’d call him tomorrow.” Now it was my turn not to look at her.

“And when tomorrow comes?”

“Don’t worry, I got that one figured, too. I’ll call him. I’ll call him in the morning, just like I said. And I’ll tell him a place for midnight, tomorrow night. That gives us another day at least.”

“And then what do we do?”

“Take it easy, one thing at a time! I’ve got a plan, all worked out. Tell you all about it when we’re ready to go. But right now I got to concentrate on tonight.”

I turned to Specs. “I got a job for you,” I said.

“What’s up?”

“I want you to take that heap of yours down to the filling station and gas up.”

“The one at the crossroads?”

“No. There’s a little one, remember, just this side.” I sure as hell didn’t want him to go to any crossroads, not with the troopers there. He’d blow his top, sure. “Go to this place and get some gas and oil. Check your water and air, too. I want that car in good shape for tonight.”

“Won’t you use the Olds?”

“No. I been thinking it over. The Olds is faster, yes, but I’m going to take a chance Warren and the cops will play ball. Then I won’t have to run. It’s a sure thing, after I’m gone, they’ll try to check the tire tracks. So it might as well be your car; we’d be leaving it anyway, because they’ll be on the lookout for it in a few days—after you haven’t been to work, and they start hunting for you.”

“You mean I’m gonna lose my car?”

“We own the new one, don’t we? And with the dough we’ll have, we can buy a dozen cars if we like.”

“All right, Steve.”

“Get going. I’ve got things to do.”

He headed for the garage. I backed out to let him through, then parked. I waited until he was out of sight down the road, then came back to the steps.

Mary said, “What do you have to do, Steve?”

“Nothing. But I’m glad to get rid of him for a while. He’s beginning to wear me down. How was he this morning?”

“All right, I guess. Until the broadcast. Then he got jumpy, you know, wondering if you’d made out okay.”

“Well, don’t pay any attention to him. It’ll only be for a few days.”

“But he’s coming with us, isn’t he?”

“Only until we get south and locate a boat. I don’t want him hanging around on any cruise. That’s just for the two of us.”

“Oh, Steve, I can hardly believe it. This is all—I don’t know—such a nightmare.”

“Be seeing daylight tomorrow.” I hugged her. “Remember, there’s always the two of us, together.”

“I know, Steve. What do you think keeps me going, so far? If it wasn’t for you, I’d be out of my mind.”

I wanted her to get it off her chest this way. It would do her good, and keep her from handing the same line to Specs tonight. Tonight was going to be bad for them, waiting here.

And it was going to be worse for me.

I went inside. “Fix some supper, Mary.”

“So early?”

“That’s right. I’m leaving soon as it gets dark.”

“But I thought midnight—”

“I’m going to get set, first. So there won’t be any slip-ups. I told you from now on in this is my show, and I’m running it right.”

She went out to the kitchen. Specs drove in.

“Everything set?”

“Perfect. And I got some magazines, and this paper—”

“Give me that.” I took the paper out of his hands and crumpled it up without looking at it. “Now listen to me, Specs. I’m serious about this. From now on, no newspapers around here unless I say so, get me? And no radio, either. We can’t afford to have Mary getting upset with all that baloney they hand out. You wouldn’t want her to crack up, go running to the cops, would you?

“Aw, Steve, she’s not like that. She’s so nuts about you she’d do anything, kill herself even, before she went to the cops.”

I knew that. But it was Specs I didn’t want reading the papers.

“Just the same, what I said goes. Here, you can have your magazines.” He’d bought three of them, these two-bit girlie-picture deals. Pinups, that was Specs’ idea of a hot score.

“Read these tonight while you’re waiting,” I told him. “And just think about how it won’t be long until you’ll be able to climb in the sack with the real thing.”

The sun was slanting off over the lake now. I walked down to the water for a minute and looked out. Only a few clouds, and it would be a nice clear night. No moon yet, though. I’d used the calendar when I figured, too.

Looking at the sunset now it was hard for me to remember what was coming. The water was calm, not a ripple. And the air was so still you could hear birds calling from way across on the other side of the lake. It was lazy and peaceful and
real.

Nothing else had seemed real, lately. But this did. It reminded me of when I was a kid, on vacation up north. We used to go to a cottage like this and I’d do a little fishing in an old rowboat they had there. Sometimes I’d get tired and lie down in the bottom of the boat along about sunset and just let her drift. I’d look up at the sky and watch the colors change. I remember I’d wonder, sometimes, what I was going to be when I grew up.