Ransom (19 page)

She had waited in the living-room, her gun pressed against the side of the shivering and weeping Sylvia, while Abel, gun in hand, had gone along the hallway to the door. If it was the police, if Lisa Malone had by sheer luck found a prowling squad car, she was not sure what she would do. She had thought about murder in cold blood, but now she was so close to it her mind had stopped functioning. The hand that held the gun in Sylvia’s side did not belong to her; it was as if her whole right arm had become numb and useless. If the gun went off it would go off of its own accord.

She had almost collapsed with relief when Abel had come back along the hallway carrying the unconscious Lisa. A hissing sigh had escaped her and she had stepped back from Sylvia, half-sitting on the back of the couch to take the weight off her weak empty legs. She had been glad then of Abel’s help, leaving him to take the two women into the bedroom, revive Lisa, tie their hands and feet, then board up the window again. If she had needed any proof that she could not have accomplished the kidnapping on her own, he had provided it then.

She could not remember the first time she had seen him, only the first time she had noticed him. He had been in her night class three weeks then, a quiet boy sitting right back at the far corner of the classroom, never asking a question, never putting himself forward to answer one. She had been teaching English, the course aimed at those who had never got above the tenth grade; she knew she was not a good teacher and it had taxed her patience to lower her intelligence to that of the class in front of her. But the school had provided the retreat she wanted. No one was likely to come looking for a summa cum laude Barnard graduate in a night class in one of the poorer sections of Kansas City.

Then one night after she had dismissed the class Abel had come shyly up to her desk. “Miss - ?”

“Yes?” She had to struggle to remember his name; none of the students really meant anything to her. “Simmons, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Could I walk you to your car?” She looked at him curiously and he stumbled on, “I heard a coupla guys talking. They gonna wait for you outside.”

“Who?”

He shook his head. “Dunno their names. But they been talking dirty about you. I wouldn’t want nothing to happen to you, you know?”

She had experienced a little trouble with some of the men in her class, but she had managed them without difficulty; she had wondered for a moment if this was just his awkward way of leading up to a date with her. Her first reaction had been to brush him off, but there had been something in his thin, serious face that had suddenly caught her, a look of concern for her in his pale, cautious eyes that told her that this boy saw her as more than just a pick-up date. And when they got outside the school there were indeed two of the boys from the class waiting there. They had said nothing, just stared sullenly at her and Abel, then hurried off into the night. They had never come to her classes again.

The relationship with Abel had developed slowly, he never pushing himself on her, she giving him only small encouragement. She would occasionally have coffee with him, but she had kept the association on a strictly teacher-student level and he had accepted it. She told him nothing about herself, but she learned that he came from Chicago, that he had run away from home at sixteen, that he had bummed his way through the Midwest and now was working as a laundry deliveryman in Kansas City. He had come to night school because he had some vague ambition to be something more than a working stiff for the rest of his life. But what had intrigued her was that his hatred of the

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Establishment (though he did not call it that) and its uses of authority was even stronger than her own.

Then two months ago there had occurred the incident for which she had been waiting four long years, the opportunity to revenge herself on the society that had killed her husband. There had been an added sweet irony that the revenge would be effected through the release of Mark; she had suffered a severe shock when she had seen his photo in the newspapers, because she had had no idea what he had been involved in since she had left home. The plan had come into her mind as a sudden inspiration; she had spent the next few days studying it as thoroughly as any course she had taken at college. Her decision to take Abel in with her had been deliberate; she did not expect him to be surprised by what she suggested and he had not been. She had told him nothing of Roy or Mark: the plan was just to effect the release of five men who believed the same as they did, that all authority was rotten.

But once she had involved him, she had had to commit herself to him. He had at once lost his shyness with her, had told her what she had suspected, that he was in love with her. She had had no man in bed with her since Roy, but she felt she owed Abel something and she had allowed him to make love to her. He was a fumbling, aggressive lover and, to get some satisfaction from the act after so long without it, she had tried to educate him. He had mistaken her self-interest for an expression of love for himself. From then on she had known that when she had to break away from him it would have to be secretly and she would have to head for a destination where he would never find her. She might even have to join Mark in Cuba.

In the living-room Abel had turned on the television set again. Another ancient movie was being shown: Glive Brook and Marlene Dietrich were on a train somewhere in China. But they were ghosts in a world he did not know and was not interested in, and he switched the set off. Then he heard one of the women call weakly from the bedroom.

He was about to ignore the call, then.abruptly changed his mind: they were his prisoners as much as Carole’s. He put on his wig, which he had not worn out into the storm, and donned the dark glasses. He unlocked the bedroom door and went into the room where Lisa and Sylvia, hands and feet bound, lay uncomfortably on their beds.

“Untie us so that we can get out of these wet clothes,” Lisa pleaded. “Otherwise we’re going to catch our death - “

“Won’t make much difference one way or the other. You asked for trouble, you can’t complain if you get it.”

“What do you want us to do - apologize?” Sylvia lay on her back, her bound hands resting on her stomach.

“Too late for that, Mrs Forte.” He smiled at their discomfort.

Sylvia tried to control her shivering, but she was afraid as much as cold and she spoke through trembling lips: “Please let us be comfortable - at least for as long as we’ve got.”

Lisa, still exhausted, felt she was listening to some nightmare dialogue; she struggled as if trying to wake from the dream, but the horror was that she knew she was already awake. She knew she was cut and bruised, but she was so numb with the cold wetness of her clothes that she could feel nothing. She sneezed, and the small ordinary reflex seemed to clear her mind.

“Ask Carole to come in,” she said.

“What do you want her for?” Abel stiffened with anger and suspicion.

“She’s the boss, isn’t she? Perhaps she’ll let us take our clothes off.”

For a moment Lisa thought she had said the wrong thing. Abel took a quick step towards her and she turned her face away from the expected blow. Then he roughly grasped her hands, began to fumble with the cord that bound them.

“You talk too much! You’re gonna wind up-” Anger made him cruel and awkward; Lisa had to bite back a cry of pain as he tore at her hands. “Okay, get up!”

She stood up and at once fell forward. He caught her, held

her away from him; then savagely he began to tear at her clothing. But the wool suit and the sweater would not rip; she staggered back and forth as he tried to claw the clothes from her. Then, panting heavily, he threw her back on the bed.

“Take ‘em off!”

Lisa, ready to collapse again, shook her head and gasped, “Not with you in here - !”

He glared at her for a moment, the blank dark glasses somehow making his face even more menacing; in her confused and frightened mind she was staring at a death-mask. Then he turned to Sylvia. His head felt ready to burst and he did his best to steady himself. He did not tear at the cords that bound Sylvia; he struggled to keep his fingers methodical as he picked at the knots. He freed her, then stood back.

“Okay, you take your clothes off!”

Sylvia looked at him, then at Lisa, who shook her head violently. Then she stood up, turned her back on Abel and took off her wet jacket. She peeled off her sweater, having difficulty with it as the soaked wool clung to her. She slipped out of her skirt and stood in her brassiere and half-slip.

“They’re wet too,” said Abel. “Take ‘em all off.”

“Not till you go out of the room. I’m not going to stand naked in front of you.”

“Why not? You think I wanna screw you or something? I wouldn’t touch you with someone else’s - “

“What’s going on?” Carole, carrying a tray with food on it, stood in the doorway.

“They wanted to get outa their wet clothes. I’m helping them.” Abel sensed at once that Carole was on the side of the other two women. Jesus, the bitches of the world! Why did God invent them? “This one’s got some idea I wanna rape her - “

“I didn’t say that!” Sylvia could feel her whole body trembling as if it were about to shatter; she knew she was on the verge of hysteria. But she mustn’t succumb to it; she searched for some pride to keep her going in front of these

strangers. All her adult life had been dedicated to putting up a front: the experience came to her aid now. “I just won’t undress in front of strange men, that’s all. Neither will Mrs Malone.”

Lisa stood up, impressed and encouraged by Sylvia’s defiance. She, too, had sensed that Carole would be on their side. Despite the gun she had carried and the kidnapping she had engineered, the girl had betrayed herself as still possessed by middle-class proprieties; Lisa had heard the argument over Abel’s language out in the living-room and there had been other hints that Carole did not subscribe to complete permissiveness. Scobie had once told her that habitual behaviour was one of the main things that always trapped a criminal in the end: she took a chance now that Scobie was right.

“I don’t think you’d want to do it either,” she said to Carole. “It’s not that we’re afraid Abel will do something to us - ” that was a lie: he might not rape them but he would kill them ” - it’s just - well, modesty, I suppose. Some of us still have that.”

Carole said nothing for a moment. She knew the two women were co-opting her against Abel; there was danger if she agreed to let herself be used by them. But she was still angry with Abel; more importantly, she had to remind him that she still was the one running this operation. She put the tray down on the dressing-table, nodded to Abel.

“Leave them to me.”

“I’ll stay,” he said coldly. “Just in case - “

“In case of what? They’re not going to try to escape again. Not without their clothes. I’ll take them out and hang them on one of the heaters,” she said to Lisa and Sylvia. Then she looked back at Abel. “I said leave us, Abel. There’s some coffee in the kitchen for you.”

He stood absolutely stockstill for a moment, then a faint trembling shook him. His hand went to his belt; but his gun was on the table out in the living-room. He would have killed all three of them there and then if his hand had found the

gun; he was blind with anger and pain. He made a whimpering sound, like that of an animal caught in a trap; then abruptly he turned and stumbled out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Carole felt a weakening rush of relief and she put out a hand against a bedpost to steady herself. “You’re afraid of him too, aren’t you?” said Sylvia quietly. “You have to save yourself as well as us from him.”

Chapter Eight

“The Cubans have said they won’t take Parker and the others,” said Michael Forte. “They won’t allow any plane carrying them to land there.”

“How do you know?” asked Malone suspiciously: were they playing some callous political trick on him?

“The State Department has been in touch with them through our contact channels - the Swiss spoke to them for us. The Cubans are quite adamant - they don’t want Parker and his buddies.”

“Why not? Christ, I thought they’d throw out the red carpet for anyone who wanted to blow up this country.”

“They didn’t give us their reasons, but the Swiss guess they are fed up with being a haven for American malcontents. They’ve suggested we try somewhere else.”

“Where, for instance?” He thought of suggesting Australia, but it would have sounded like a sick joke; Canberra equated even the mildest protestor against the status quo with Attila the Hun; five anarchists would be akin to five carriers of bubonic plague. “Russia?”

“The State Department is trying Algeria.” Forte could detect the suspicion and frustration in Malone, and he found he could not blame the Australian. “But we have to do that through channels too - we have no diplomatic exchange with them. The Swiss are handling it for us there too. But it will take time - protocol always takes time.”

Malone could feel himself seething; but once again he knew he was trapped, that there was nothing he personally could do. Even as a lowly cop he knew the hobbling effects of protocol: it was one of the defences of uncertainty. He had seen it used by inspectors and above when he had been only a detective-sergeant; he could imagine how it was used in

the rarefied atmosphere of embassies and foreign ministries. Lisa’s and Sylvia Forte’s lives would mean little to men in Algiers or wherever who, even if asked to act urgently, would have to observe the rules against the day when more than the lives of a couple of women would be at stake. It’s a pity, Malone thought bitterly, ordinary citizens don’t rate the status of a hot line.

When he and Jefferson had come across here to City Hall, coming in out of the wind and the rain, they had at once been engulfed by a rip tide of frantically questioning newspapermen and television cameramen. The front hall had been thronged with people, their voices rising to the coffered ceiling of the dome, so that Malone, coming suddenly into it, had the impression of being trapped in a tremendous bowl of shouting. Several people, come down from the Biltmore, still wore their Forte for Mayor buttons. The whole scene had a touch of the ballyhoo of election night, except that something more tragic than a mere election defeat was possible.

Uniformed policemen had cleared a way for Malone and Jefferson through the crowd and escorted them down the hall to the Mayor’s office. As soon as Malone had entered the room he knew at once there was no good news for him. There was an air of crisis, reflected in the tense manner of all the men gathered there. He recognized most of the faces, but there was one new one: that of Pat Brendan, the District Attorney. He was a short, stocky man with a long Irish upper lip, bright blue eyes and fashionably long sideburns that distracted one’s gaze from the thinning hair on the top of his head. He wore a purple shirt and a purple-and-white figured tie and a brown suit that looked as if it had been cut for him by a tailor who had been afraid of running out of cloth. Malone, a quick student of types, guessed that Brendan was a politician who had decided to go for the young vote. At forty-five or thereabouts he had the slightly clownish look of a man who had arrived too late on the scene, the fancy dress guest who had missed last night’s ball.

Malone spoke to him now. “You’ve agreed, then, to let Parker and the others go?”

Brendan looked around at the other men before he replied. “I don’t think we’d ever considered the possibility of not letting them go - ” He saw the look on Malone’s face and read it correctly; he might pretend to be a middle-aged swinger, but he was no fool. “Okay, maybe we did think about it. We’ve had enough pressures on us - ” He looked back at Michael Forte. Okay, Mike, he’s your pigeon: you tell him.

“We’ve had advice from all over, Scobie,” said Forte. “There have been people calling me up who haven’t spoken to me since I moved into this office four years ago. The President, the Attorney-General - they’re great believers in law and order down in Washington. Mr Cartwright’s chief too-”

Cartwright tried to hide his embarrassment. “I’ve talked to the Chief, Mr Mayor. He doesn’t suggest we should hold out indefinitely. But he points out that the government down in Uruguay called the bluff of the Tupamaros when they kidnapped that British ambassador in Montevideo.”

“The governments in Argentina and Turkey didn’t manage to call any bluffs,” said Malone. “The kidnappers there killed their hostages. I don’t want that to happen to my wife!”

“We’re doing our best to see that doesn’t happen,” said Cartwright. He had eaten nothing but a couple of hamburgers all day, but he had had innumerable cups of coffee, as he always did when he had to work in long stretches, and his belly felt swollen. He had eased his belt out another hole, but he still felt uncomfortable. “But we’re handicapped by this storm - “

“Have you found out anything at all?” Malone said.

“We think we have a trace on one of the kidnappers. A woman phoned in from Jamaica, out on the Island, and gave us a tip. She’d heard the description on TV of the grey

delivery truck and she told us about the one she’d seen being driven into the house across the street from her. She said the people who’d taken the house were newcomers, a young couple. We checked - there was nobody in the house, but the truck was in the garage, minus its licence plates. There were some fingerprints on the wheel. They belong to Joseph Abel Swokowski, who was booked two years ago in Louisville, Kentucky, for taking a stolen car across a State line. He slugged the officer who was taking him to court and got away.”

“And that’s all you have so far?”

Cartwright hesitated, then nodded. What did this Aussie cop expect - miracles ? “We’ll get Swokowski eventually.”

“But not by tomorrow morning?”

Cartwright flushed, then shrugged. “I told you, Inspector - we’re doing all we can. But we need one piece of luck -something to turn up - ” He sighed, eased his belt away from his middle. “Trouble is, there seems no connection at all between those men in The Tombs and the kidnappers. We don’t even have a positive identification on any of those anarchists, except for Fred Parker. Two months and they’re still no more than just names to us.”

I’m that far ahead of you, Malone thought: Jefferson and I know Parker’s real name. But Parker, he was sure, did not know who the kidnappers were.

“I think we’re going to have to release those jerks in The Tombs,” said Brendan. “As soon as we get the word from the Algerians that they’ll take them, I’ll go see Judge Kazan. But it bugs me - “

“Not just you, Pat,” said Michael Forte.

“What happens if the Algerians won’t take them?” said Malone.

“I don’t know - I just don’t know.” Michael Forte closed his eyes for just a moment, as if blinking at a blow. “I have to go on the air in another forty-five minutes. I’m asking them for some definite proof that our wives are still alive. If they produce proof- let our wives speak to us on the phone

would be good enough - then we’ll release those men at seven tomorrow morning.”

“Assuming the Algerians agree, how long will it take to fly them to Algiers? They won’t release our wives till those blokes are there.”

Forte looked at Manny Pearl, the man with all the facts, “It would probably take seven or eight hours. I’ve chartered a 707 - it’s standing by, ready to go as soon as we give them the word.”

“Then it could be tomorrow night before we see our

wives

?’

“I’m afraid so.”

There was a faint rumble deep below the floor. A late train was going uptown, taking home the first of the night-workers, the last of the revellers. Malone had not ridden on the subway at night, but as a plainclothesman he had travelled on late trains out of Sydney to the suburbs, riding shotgun as it were against hooligans and, once, a pervert who had been molesting women. Night riders, he guessed, were the same anywhere.

Silent hunched figures, made pale by the callous lighting above them, their reflections staring at them from the dark-backed windows opposite them: some might look happy, a boy or a girl still excited by the lover they had just left, but most of them had the look of people who had seen their own ghosts at one minute past death. Down there beneath his feet, Malone wondered how much misery was riding uptown, sitting there with their skulls on their hopeless shoulders beneath the advertisements that promised them riches and a better life. But, though he was normally a generous man, he had no pity for them tonight. He was hoarding it for himself, telling himself he needed it. He had reached the last resources of a despairing man.

“Where have you been tonight, Inspector?” Sam Forte, in the middle of the worst night of his life, looked as impeccable as ever. He had had a nap after dinner, then taken a bath, changed his entire wardrobe and come down here

to City Hall determined to sit out the hours till Sylvia and the Malone woman were returned safely. Joe Burgmann had been in touch with him before he had contacted Michael, had told him that the swing now appeared to be back to Michael and that if it kept up the election tomorrow would be in the bag. So one issue was safe; now he could concentrate on the safe return of Sylvia. Oh, and the Malone woman. In the meantime Malone himself looked as if he would have to be humoured. If he started talking to the press in his present mood he might alienate the sympathy that was building up for Michael. “I called you, I thought you might have cared for some company while Michael was out, but my grandchildren told me you had gone out with Captain Jefferson.”

“Where did you take the Inspector, John?” said Hunger-ford.

Malone and Jefferson looked at each other, then Jefferson, face as bland as the black ball on a pool table, said, “I thought the same as Mr Forte - that Inspector Malone might like some company. We continued our tour that was interrupted this morning, showing him how we operate.”

Malone glanced at Michael Forte, saw the quick warning frown and was puzzled for a moment. Then it clicked: ” Michael did not want Frank Padua mentioned in front of those in this room. “I was just filling in time,” he said to Sam Forte. “Trying to keep my mind off what might be happening to my wife and Mrs Forte.”

Sam Forte nodded sympathetically, but Hungerford said, “What were you doing over at The Tombs ? The Mayor said you called him from there. I hope you haven’t been encouraging the Inspector to do a little private investigating, Captain?” He glanced at Cartwright, then looked back at Jefferson. “There are enough of us in the act now.”

Jefferson looked uncomfortable and Malone said, “Blame me, Commissioner, not Captain Jefferson. I persuaded him to let me try and talk to the anarchists, to find out if they knew anything about my wife.”

Hungerford jammed a cigarette into his holder, but didn’t light it. He gave Jefferson a bad-tempered stare, then he looked back at Malone. “I’m refusing you permission to go near them again, Inspector - that’s official.”

“They are my responsibility, Des.” Pat Brendan tightened his gaudy tie, as if trying to strangle his annoyance; but his voice was steady. “However, I agree with you. No more visits to them, Inspector.”

“I saw them as a private individual,” said Malone, trying hard to keep his own voice steady. “I understand that until those blokes are convicted they are entitled to see anyone they wish. It’s part of what Captain Lewton was complaining about this morning when I met him. The rights of prisoners.”

“Jesus!” Hungerford’s holder snapped in his hands; the cigarette fell to the floor unnoticed. “A cop arguing for them\ Whose side are you on?”

“I’ve already answered that several times today,” said Malone. “My own and my wife’s.”

There was a tap on the door and the Mayor’s secretary, wan and tired-looking, put her head into the room. “Mr Mayor, the State Department is on the line.”

“I’ll take it in here.” Michael Forte picked up the phone, looked around at the other men as they all leaned forward. Only Sam Forte remained as he was, hands resting comfortably on the arms of his chair. Malone, leaning forward himself, had to admire the old man’s calmness. “Yes, this is Mayor Forte. Any news from Algeria?”

The look on his face instantly told the others the news was bad. He listened for a while, once or twice offering a half-argument, but whoever was on the other end of the line gave him no encouragement. At last he hung up, stared at the phone for a moment as if it were some totem that had unexpectedly let him down. Then he looked up and about him.

“The Algerians won’t play ball either. The Swiss said they considered the request for an hour, then came out with a flat no. No reasons, just no and that was it.”

“But why the hell - ?”

“The Swiss think the Algerians got in touch with the Cubans in that hour and they’ve both decided it was a good opportunity to embarrass us politically. The State Department agrees the Swiss opinion is probably right. If it had been any other city but New York and if I hadn’t been - well, a national figure-” His glance towards his father was so swift that it could have been no more than a tic of the eye. “Anyhow, that’s how it is. I’m sorry, Scobie. Your wife is being made to pay for being in America.”

“That’s no way to talk, Mike,” said Burgmann, heaving himself quickly off the couch. “Jesus, if a quote like that got out-”

“Relax,” said Malone sourly; he was sick and exhausted. “I’m not going to go quoting the Mayor to the press. I’m sure I’m the only one you’re worried about, so put your mind at rest.”

Manny Pearl, the pourer of oil on waters that looked like developing into rapids, interrupted. “I think we better start getting ready for your broadcast, Mr Mayor. If you gentlemen would excuse him - ?”

In the next few minutes he gave a demonstration of how to clear a room of people and a volatile atmosphere. Only Malone, on a nod from Michael Forte, and Sam Forte stayed behind, as the others, diplomatically herded by Manny Pearl, filed out the doorway. Manny looked back into the room, winked at Forte, then closed the door.