Yellow Dog Contract (25 page)

“I'm in good health and I've been reasonably well treated. My release depends upon your doing exactly what I tell you to do. It also depends on your making absolutely sure that you do not under any circumstances contact either the police or the FBI. I can't emphasize this too strongly. Do not contact the police or the FBI. If you do, I'll be killed. It's as simple as that.”

There was another brief silence and then Mix's voice came on again. “The people who're holding me are serious. They mean business. They want two million dollars for my release. I repeat. Two million dollars. You're going to have to deliver it exactly when and where I tell you to. The money must be unmarked. It must be old or at least well used. Don't try anything tricky. If you do, you'll just get me killed.”

Mix's voice, with its familiar deep rasp, was firm and authoritative until the last sentence when it cracked slightly. I didn't blame him. My voice would have cracked before then. There was another pause, another noise like the rustle of paper, and when Mix's voice resumed it sounded as if he were reading.

“What you've got to do is simple. After you get the money, put it in two suitcases. Rent a black Ford LTD sedan. Put the two suitcases with the money in its trunk. Make sure the trunk is locked. At four o'clock this afternoon park the car in the parking lot of the Safeway store near Chevy Chase Circle. Do not lock the car. Leave the keys on the floor under the accelerator and put a plain piece of white paper under the windshield wiper. Typing paper will do. Don't waste time trying to see who drives off in the Ford. He won't know anything. Follow these instructions exactly and they'll let me go. If you don't, they'll kill me. They mean business.”

The tape whirred on for a few moments until Vullo reached over and pressed another button. There was a silence for several seconds that I finally broke with, “Well, he's alive isn't he?”

“As of this morning,” Slick said.

“Or eleven-thirty last night when the
Post
came off the presses,” I said. “Who'd they send the tape to?”

“Me,” Gallops said. “It was inside my paper when I went out to get it this morning.”

“You talk to Mix's wife?” I said.

“She was the first one I talked to,” Gallops said. “She agrees with me. We do exactly what Arch wants. No cops. No FBI. But that left me with a problem so that's why I got in touch with him.”

“Who?” I said.

“With me, dear boy,” Slick said. “The problem was, of course, the money. It would be impossible for the union to put its hands on that much cash without attracting the attention of the FBI and probably the police. So I suggested a possible solution. Mr. Vullo has agreed to supply the money.”

I looked at Vullo. “You're going to put it up?”

“The Foundation is going to lend it to the union,” he said.

I looked at my watch. It was two forty-five. “You haven't got much time to get to the bank.”

“Fortunately, we started quite a bit earlier this morning,” Slick said. “By ten o'clock Mr. Vullo was on the phone making arrangements for the money to be flown in from New York and Philadelphia.”

“You used several banks, huh?” I said.

Vullo nodded and then gave his thumbnail another bite. “Seven. Three in New York. Three in Philadelphia. And one here. The last of the money arrived approximately an hour ago. It's being counted and put into the suitcases now.”

I thought about what I'd just heard and been told for a few moments and then I said, “It looks as though you're all set.”

“Not quite,” Vullo said.

“What do you mean not quite?” I said.

“We need someone to deliver the money,” Vullo said. “I'd prefer it to be one of my associates.”

“Me?”

“I would've preferred both you and Murfin,” he said. “Unfortunately, Murfin's still out of town.”

“I don't think I want to be responsible for two million dollars,” I said.

“You won't be solely responsible, Harvey,” Slick said. “I plan to accompany you.”

“He's gonna look after my interests,” Gallops said. “The moment that money leaves the building it's gonna be the union's money. I'd like to make sure that there's somebody besides you, Longmire, looking after it.”

“Well,” I said, “I'm flattered, but I still think I'll have to decline.”

“Mr. Longmire,” Vullo said.

“Yes.”

“I believe that you have so far received only one half of the fee that we agreed on.”

“That's right. Half.”

Vullo opened his desk drawer, took out a check, and used the eraser end of a yellow pencil to push it across the desk to me. “The other half,” he said.

“Providing I deliver the money, right?”

“Yes.”

I looked at the check, but didn't touch it. Then I looked at Vullo. “You don't want to miss the ending, do you?”

“If this is the ending,” he said. “If it isn't, then I think the Foundation's first report will be of remarkable interest.”

“What the hell's he talking about?” Gallops said.

“Conspiracy,” I said.

“Fuck yes, there's been a conspiracy. Arch got kidnapped and whoever did it wants two million bucks to let him go. That's a hell of a big conspiracy.”

“You're right,” I said, “but I think that Mr. Vullo was counting on something a bit juicier.”

Gallops looked at Slick. “Now what's he talking about?”

“I'm not quite sure myself,” Slick said, “except that I think both Harvey and Mr. Vullo were anticipating other developments and ramifications.”

I looked at Gallops. “There'll be a lot of both when they let Mix go and he finds out what you've been up to.”

Gallops stared at me for several seconds. Finally he said, “I got a call last night. Late last night. From St. Louis. They tell me you and Murfin were out there sticking your nose into things.”

I nodded. “It was interesting. Sort of.”

“Lemme tell you something else interesting, Longmire. When Arch disappeared, I took over and ran things the way I thought they oughta be run. Now if Arch comes back and he don't like what I've done, well, that's gonna be between Arch and me, isn't it? Not between anybody else. Just Arch and me.” He looked at Slick. “I don't think this is such a hot idea. I don't need their fuckin' money. We can raise it someplace else.”

Slick made a placating gesture. “You should remember the time factor.”

Gallops thought about that a moment and said, “Well, I still don't like it. I don't like people sticking their nose in where it don't belong.”

“Mr. Gallops,” Vullo said, “I have already agreed that the Foundation would supply the ransom money. I did this because I felt that if there were a larger conspiracy involving Mr. Mix's disappearance, his return and his own account of what had happened to him would clarify everything. However, if you feel that we're invading your privacy, I'll withdraw my offer to supply the ransom.”

“What you're really saying is that you wanta talk to Arch when they let him go. Is that right?”

“That's right,” Vullo said.

Gallops shrugged. “If that's all you want, I don't give a fuck if you talk to him for a month. It'll be up to Arch. If he wants to talk to you, fine. If he don't—what the hell, that's your problem.”

Slick came in smoothly. He looked at his watch and said, “Now that we all understand each other I think Harvey and I had best be on our way.” He rose and looked at me, as though waiting for me to join him.

“I think I'll pass,” I said.

“Shit,” Gallops said.

Roger Vullo stared at me, an expression of curiosity and interest on his face. “May I ask why?”

“Sure,” I said. “I think somebody should call the cops or the FBI. Let them handle it.”

“You heard Arch,” Gallops said. “Call in the cops and he gets killed.”

“Kidnappers always say that,” I said.

“And a lot of people get killed, too,” Slick said.

“Mr. Longmire,” Vullo said. “We had an agreement that you would spend two weeks on the Mix thing and then give me your report. It would seem to me that the conclusion of your report now depends on whether Mr. Mix is released by his kidnapper. You're not being asked to rescue Mr. Mix. You're simply being asked to help deliver the ransom safely. In exchange for that service I'm prepared to pay you the rest of your fee.” He reached over and tapped the check with his pencil.

I looked at the check. I looked at it for several moments. Then I picked it up and put it in my pocket. “I still think somebody should call the cops,” I said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I
DIDN
'
T COUNT
the money. I didn't even look at it. I simply picked up one of the suitcases and put it in the trunk of the black Ford that was parked in the basement garage of Vullo's building. The suitcase was heavy. About forty pounds. Slick put the other one in the trunk and then slammed the lid shut.

“Will you drive?” he said.

“Sure.”

There was a long red light at the corner of M and Connecticut. I used the time to roll a cigarette. I was just pushing the lighter in when the signal changed. I turned the corner, the lighter popped out, I lit my cigarette, and said, “I thought he was dead.”

“Mix?”

“Yes.”

“So did I, dear boy, until just a few hours ago.”

“You told me there was a chance he might be alive. A tiny chance, I think you said. What happened, did you get a tip?”

“It was a little more than a tip,” he said.

“Are you going to tell me about it or do you want me to beg?”

“It was a phone call. It was from a black woman—or a woman who was trying to sound black.”

“What'd she say?”

“She wanted to know how much the union would pay to find out what had happened to Arch Mix. Well, there's the one-hundred-thousand reward that the union's offering, but when I told her about it she said it wasn't enough.”

“How much did she want?”

“She said she wanted two hundred thousand. I told her that was a great deal of money and that I would have to check with the union first. She asked how long that would take. I said at least four or five hours. She said she wasn't talking about that. She was talking about how long it would take before she could get the money. I said at least twenty-four hours, possibly forty-eight. She said, and I'll try to quote her exactly now, ‘He'd be dead by then.' Then she said she'd call me back and hung up. She never called back.”

“When was all this?”

Slick thought about it for a moment as though trying to pinpoint it exactly. “It was mid-morning of the day that we had the picnic in Dupont Circle. About ten thirty.”

“The same day that Sally Raines got killed.”

“Yes.”

“And this was the tiny chance you told me about that Mix might still be alive.”

“That's right.”

“You ever tell the cops about it?”

“Yesterday,” Slick said. “I told them yesterday.”

“What'd they say?”

“That it was probably a crank call. There've been a lot of them.”

“It's funny,” I said.

“What?”

“That they'd mention the same amount of money.”

“Who?”

“The woman who called you and Max Quane. Max told his wife that he was about to pull off some deal that would net him two hundred thousand. Max was shacked up with Sally Raines. Just before he got killed Max called me, half petrified, and said he thought he knew what had happened to Mix. A woman called you and told you the same thing, except that she implied that Mix was still alive. She also talked about two hundred thousand dollars. But the woman never called back—possibly because she was Sally who got shot to death that same afternoon, but not before leaving half a word that everybody seems to think is a vital clue.”

“A what?” Slick said.

“A vital clue. It's what the police are always finding except that Ward Murfin found this one. It supported what I call Longmire's Yellow-Dog Contract Theory, which isn't much of a theory anymore.”

“Perhaps you'd better tell me about your vital clue first, dear boy.”

“It was on a wadded-up piece of paper that was found in Sally's room just before she got killed. It was one word. Chad. I thought it meant Chaddi Jugo.”

“Ah!” Slick said.

“You remember Chaddi.”

“Indeed.”

“That was your show, wasn't it, Slick, dumping Chaddi?”

“I was merely on the periphery.”

“I thought you thought it up.”

“I was only in on the initial planning.”

“Which was why you got me to go work for Hundermark.”

“It was the start of a brand new career for you.”

“Sure. Well, anyway Arch Mix once mentioned to Audrey that he wasn't going to let them do what they did to Chaddi Jugo—or something like that. Audrey remembers telling Sally that so she probably told Max Quane. I thought Max—and possibly Sally—had figured out who killed Arch Mix and why.”

“That was the basis of your Yellow-Dog Theory?” Slick said.

“Yellow-Dog Contract Theory.”

“I thought those contracts were against the law.”

“If my theory proved correct, they'd rewrite the law. My theory was that Arch Mix had been killed so that the PEU could strike ten or twelve of the biggest cities in the nation and create such a voter backlash that the Republicans would be guaranteed another four-year lease on the White House.”

Slick thought it over. “I can't say that I object to the outcome, but the means seem a bit gamey.”

“They might even take the House of Representatives.”

“Another decided improvement.”

“You always did have funny politics, Slick.”