The Seven File

Eight

Inspector West was playing bridge when the phone sounded in the foyer of his apartment. It was nine-thirty, a cool, lovely spring night; a breeze off the Potomac had blessed Washington with two days of surpassingly pleasant weather. The ringing phone was a reprieve for the Inspector; he was facing the formidable job of making four spades with the king and queen of trump out against him. He didn’t know where they were, he only knew they weren’t in the dummy. His wife and Tom Wilkins, a next door neighbor, sat on his left and right and he hadn’t learned anything from their expressions or first round of play. If Wilkins held the honors there was no chance of a finesse. And Wilkins would set him with relish. Tom Wilkins was a frank and pleasant chap, but bridge turned him into an irritating sort of person. The high, shrieking laugh was the worst of it. the Inspector thought.

“Excuse me,” he said, standing.

“Take your time,” Wilkins said, beginning to laugh. “And take a peek at your Blackwood while you’re away. It might help.”

The Inspector smiled as he felt a good sport would smile, and walked into the foyer to answer the phone. He was curious about the call, of course; as an FBI agent he was never off duty.

When he recognized the voice of the caller he knew immediately that this was top priority. The very top. “Yes, sir,” he said, and listened...

A few minutes later he returned to the bridge table, smiling ruefully. “Just my luck,” he said. “The indispensable man, that’s me.”

“Oh, Dave, no!” his wife said.

“What’s the matter?” Tom Wilkins asked.

“It’s work, that’s what’s the matter,” Mrs. West said, sighing with humorous resignation. She had caught her husband’s eye as he entered the room, and knew he had to leave immediately — but that he wanted to leave without any suspicious flurries or fanfare.

“We’re bringing a lot of files up to date,” the Inspector said, picking up his cards. “It’s a round-the-clock job, and when they reached my section — they planned it for Sunday night. I’m sure — they just yell for me to come in. Okay, where were we now?”

Tom Wilkins was laughing again. “Just so you don’t run out before we set you, Dave.”

“We’ll see about that,” the Inspector said.

He played carefully and deliberately, seemingly engrossed in the game. There was nothing in his manner to indicate that his thoughts were turning around a brownstone on Thirty-first Street in New York, and a baby named Jill Bradley. The nurse was gone, too. There was hope in that. A neurotic perhaps, fancying slights, unhealthily involved with the child — women like that usually turned up in a day or so, frightened silly, hysterically repentant. With the baby in perfect shape. He played a card and took the trick, controlling his impatience. Oliphant Bradley was on his way to New York with two hundred thousand dollars. The New York office would cover him from La Guardia. So far there had been no news break. That was luck — if anything about a kidnaping could be called lucky. If the story broke the chances of bargaining for the baby went down ominously.

He took another trick and grinned at Tom Wilkins’ discomfiture — but seeing him only as a red face and spectacles, an unavoidable source of delay. A hundred agents were on their way to New York now. From New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, from as far west as Chicago — specialists at this kind of work. They would be spread around the city in hotels, boardinghouses, the homes of local agents. There would be no observable increase of activity in New York headquarters, no sudden concentration of out-of-town agents. This was fundamental security. Elevator men, waitresses, cab drivers, janitors — they might talk, innocently but disastrously. “You watch, something’s breaking. I’ll bet I saw fifty new FBI guys in the building today—” and who might be listening to this? A bartender, a wife, a girlfriend — or someone involved in the kidnaping?

“Darn it, you squeaked through,” his wife said, as he took the last trick. She had held the missing honors, after all. He hoped with all his heart that this was an omen....

When Wilkins left the Inspector strode into the bedroom and began packing. It was a quick and simple task; he was an orderly, systematic man, with a physical discipline like that of a professional soldier. Everything he wanted was in its proper place; there wasn’t a second wasted searching for clothing or toilet articles. The Inspector was in his late forties, but his hair was still thick and black, and his reflexes were those of a man half his age. He was designed for function; his memory was precise, his eyes were shrewd and intelligent, and his voice, when he was angry, could cut through evasions or excuses like a whip. He was as hard to please as he was sparing of praise. But men considered it a privilege to work for him.

When he came out of the bedroom his wife was waiting for him with his hat and coat. “When will you call?” she asked him.

“Tomorrow night,” he said.

“Take care of yourself. Dave.” She had no idea of where he was going, or what his job might be. and it didn’t occur to her to ask; over the years she had succeeded in suspending her curiosity if not her fears.

He hesitated an instant, smiling quickly at her. “I’ll take care of myself,” he said. Then he kissed her and turned to the door. She watched him as he hurried down the corridor toward the self-service elevator. He was looking at his watch.

On Sundays the FBI in New York normally operated on a reduced work schedule; the heavy flow of routine correspondence was cut down to a trickle and hundreds of typewriters and teletypes were silent. Many clerical employees were off duty and several floors of the huge old building on lower Broadway were empty and dark. Only a skeleton force manned the research labs in the basement. Even the neighborhood was calm and quiet. A few cabs cruised the area, and an occasional truck rumbled through the comparative silence of Sunday night. Couples strolled the sidewalks, enjoying the first Spring weather, and down the block a newsie was shouting a garbled version of Monday morning’s lead story. It was a typical end-of-the-week scene, quiet, lazy, almost drowsy.

At nine o’clock Jerry Roth, an assistant-in-charge of the New York office, came in and took an elevator up to his sixth floor office. Several agents had come in before him, and two more entered the lobby as his elevator was on the way up. The uniformed guard in the lobby gave them a soft smiling salute as they passed by his desk. It was normal traffic; agents were in and out around the clock, dictating reports, checking files, running down leads. There was nothing to indicate to him, or to anyone else who might have been watching the building, that all the resources of an intricate and powerful organization were being readied for action.

Jerry Roth stood behind the desk in his brightly lighted office, a bear of a man with features that looked as if they had been cut from dark, well-seasoned wood. In spite of gray hair and the deep lines at the comers of his mouth and eyes, he was a belligerently formidable man; anyone with sense would have kept clear of him in a barroom brawl.

Now, staring at the five agents before him, he rapped on his desk, not for attention but for emphasis. “I’ll go through this just once,” he said quietly. “A girl named Jill Bradley was kidnaped from her home at 715 East Thirty-first. An extortion note has been received, so we’re in on it now. We don’t have to wait five days for a presumption of an interstate violation. The parents don’t know for certain when the baby was taken. Possibly Friday night or sometime Saturday. They’ve made arrangements to meet the ransom demand.” Roth let his eyes touch each face deliberately. “So far nobody else is in on it. That’s the way it’s going to stay. Washington is sending an Inspector over to handle the job at this end. It’s Dave West. You’ve heard of him. I’ve worked with him. When this is all over you’ll know why I think he’s the best we’ve got. Now let’s go. We’ve got things to do before he gets here.” Roth picked up a paper from his desk and glanced at it briefly. “Okay then: Bums, I want you to get out to Thirty-first Street. Photograph the block from your car. We’ll need a blow-up of that neighborhood to work with here.

“Doorways, alleys, newsstands, shops, houses, warehouses, everything, check for spots from where we can keep the Bradleys’ home under surveillance. Make sketches, so we can get the scale right. When you’re finished report to the photo lab. They’ll be ready for you. Get moving now. Nelson, you go down to our library and dig up everything you can find on Oliphant Bradley. Check Dun & Bradstreet, Poor’s Directory of Executives, Who’s Who. I want every line you can find on the family’s business associates, in-laws, clubs they belong to, where their summer homes are, everything. There’ll be yards on the old man. The son is Richard Townsend Bradley. He’s married to a girl whose maiden name was Eleanor Sims. There may be something on her; I don’t know. Put it all on tape, and get two girls to type it up. I want in on my desk when West arrives.”

Nelson, a tall redhead, said, “Do you want me to check the morgues on the local papers?”

Roth hesitated, then shook his head. The newspaper morgues were more complete sources of information, but no matter how they camouflaged their interest in the Bradleys, an alert editor or reporter might guess at the truth... Their prime consideration was returning the child safely to its parents. Nothing else mattered. Catching the kidnapers, trying them, executing them — these were secondary considerations. “Never mind the papers,” he said. “Work with what we’ve got in our own files.”

“Right, sir.”

Two agents remained. To the one on his left, Roth said, “Bell, I want you to set up a headquarters for the Inspector on this floor. Get a dozen of our best clerks in here tonight, and line up communications men. Have extra cars and trucks standing by, and fingerprint kits, assault equipment, tear gas rifles — anything we might need. Set up a file on this case, and keep it clear of the regular records.”

Control and speed were essentials; if West wanted an agent, a file, a lead card, anything at all, he would want it right away — not thirty seconds from now. A ton of paper might bulge in this file before they were through, and each separate piece had to be instantly available. The clerks would set up indexes to channel the flow of tips and action reports, and register would be provided to account for the minute-by-minute location and activity of each of the hundred-odd men under West’s command. This was routine, standard operating procedure; when West walked in an hour or so from now his headquarters staff would be standing by, ready for action.

“Open our file with this,” Roth said, and handed Bell the telephone memorandum from Washington.

“A seven file,” Bell said.

“That’s right.” Roth’s voice was suddenly hard and angry. “Seven.” This was the general file number for kidnapings, and its implications touched bitter memories in these men. “Get with it,” Roth said, and then turned to the last men who stood before his desk. “If it had been any other job, I wouldn’t have called you in, Crowley.”

“That’s okay, sir.”

Roth rubbed his wide hands together, and a frown deepened the lines at the comers of his eyes. “How is she?” he said. “Any word at all?”

“No, they’re still making tests.”

Roth cleared his throat. “I called you because I remembered you’ve got an uncle living on Thirty-first Street. In the same block as the Bradleys.”

Crowley nodded, and said, “That’s right.” He frowned faintly, a pleasant-looking young man with curly black hair and intelligent eyes. “He’s lived there ever since he took his pension from the city police.”

“And you visit him, don’t you?”

“Yes, every couple of weeks. He’s all alone now, except for a son in New Mexico.”

“Well, you can probably see what I’m getting at,” Roth said. “West will want a man inside the Bradleys’. You could go to your uncle’s and cross the roofs to the Bradley house.”

“That would work,” Crowley said.

“I know,” Roth said. “And you’ve got an excuse to be in the block. You’ve been going there to visit your uncle. If the street is being watched, you won’t give anything away. If anyone asks questions about you, they’ll get safe answers.”

“Sure,” Crowley said. “It makes sense.”

Roth looked down at his desk. “Once you go inside the Bradleys’ house, you stay inside. No matter what happens to your daughter. We can’t pull you out after you go in. You understand that, don’t you?”

“I understand.” Crowley said.

“You want me to leave it up to the Inspector?”

Crowley hesitated, then smiled slightly and shook his head. “He’s got his problems. Don’t worry him with mine. Look, I don’t want to make a speech. If I can help find that Bradley baby, I’ll go in. Tell the Inspector I’m his boy.”

Roth nodded slowly. “All right. Tom.”

Oliphant Bradley walked into La Guardia’s terminal building at ten-thirty that night, only four hours after receiving his son’s message in Boston. He carried a grip in each hand, but shook his head at a porter who offered to assist him; in one bag was a change of clothes, in the other was two hundred thousand dollars in used bills of small denominations. The old man was frowning as he strode through the crowded terminal toward the cab rank; during the flight he had begun to worry about having called the FBI. It was the wisest thing to do. of course. That wasn’t what worried him. It was the question of propriety. It was his son’s decision to make...

The agent he had talked with in Boston had held him up for several interminable minutes with questions: What was the exact wording of the note? Had there been any threatening letters in the past? When was he leaving for New York? When would he arrive? Would he bring a picture of his granddaughter?

Bradley had finally hung up on him and driven off to the bank. He had his work to do, let them get busy with theirs! But it wasn’t this interrogation that had started him worrying — it was the task that faced him now; the business of explaining his decision to Dick and Ellie. Dick had stressed the need for secrecy; no one must know the baby was missing. Jill’s life depended on their swift, silent obedience, he had said. But Dick was wrong there. The baby was already dead. All they could do now was make certain that retribution was swift and final. But to exact payment you needed the machinery of investigation and enforcement. Oliphant Bradley was convinced he had done his duty. But he wondered uneasily if Dick and Ellie would understand...

A cab door opened for him. He was too preoccupied with his thoughts to notice that several inconspicuous young men had blocked off that taxi from the rest of the crowd. He climbed in, gave the driver his son’s address and settled back, holding the satchel of money in his lap. As they turned into the fast bright stream of Parkway traffic, the driver looked up and caught his eye in the rear-vision mirror.

“Do you have the child’s picture, Mr. Bradley?”

Bradley started. The abrupt question demoralized him. He felt confused and nervous, menaced by the onrushing headlights, the roar of speeding traffic. “What did you say?” He leaned forward, hugging the bag of money close to his body.

The driver reached back without taking his eyes from the road and handed him a flat, black leather case. “Identification, sir.”

The case opened like a little book. Inside there was an oblong card under a protective sheet of clear plastic. Mr. Bradley studied the photograph on the card, then leaned still further forward to peer at the driver’s profile. “Your name is Shattuck?” he said.

“Yes. Do you have the child’s picture with you?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Just drop it over the front seat, please. Then sit back and relax.”

As they turned off Second Avenue half an hour later, Shattuck said quietly, “When we stop don’t forget to pay the fare, Mr. Bradley. We don’t want anyone to think I’m anything but a cab driver.”

“Are they watching the house?”

“There’s no point in assuming they aren’t.”

Thirty-first Street was peaceful and quiet at this hour of Sunday night. Yellow shafts of light shone from home and street lamps, and groups of men and women sat on the stoops of the old brownstones. Everything seemed secure and safe; this was one of a thousand city streets in which life was going its casual, ordinary way. A burst of studio laughter sounded from a television set, and a woman on the sidewalk said to her husband, “Do you want to go in and watch the last of the show?”

Mr. Bradley climbed from the cab and paid the fare that had registered on the meter. He added an appropriate tip, and said good night to Shattuck, playing his part with scrupulous care. Turning, he squared his old shoulders and started up the steps of his son’s home, his eyes raised to the shining brass numerals on the door. When the door began to open he felt his heart lurch heavily. They were watching for him. They would understand, he thought. But the weight of his decision had suddenly become a terrible burden...

Shattuck drove three blocks down Lexington Avenue before pulling up at an all-night restaurant. He walked inside with a folded newspaper under his arm and took a seat at the counter. The man beside him was finishing his dessert, and he and Shattuck began to talk casually about the weather, and then the Saturday night fight at the garden. The man pulled a newspaper from his pocket to refresh his memory on the scoring. “You see. they gave him seven out of ten,” he said.

Putting his newspaper down beside Shattuck, he finished his coffee and lit a cigarette. “Take it easy now, Mac,” he said.

“Sure thing,” Shattuck said.

The man picked up Shattuck’s paper, which was folded over Jill Bradley’s picture, and strolled out of the restaurant.

Shattuck pushed his cap back on his forehead and sipped his coffee...