King's Ransom

6

The driveway to the King estate was flanked by two stone pillars, each of which carried an ornate glass-and-wrought-iron lantern. The pillars were set back some three feet from the private Smoke Rise Road which ran past the estate, the communications link between Smoke Rise and the outside world. Between the pillars and the gravel road was a shelf of grass. Grass, in fact, lined both sides of the road, framing the gray ribbon with an October-bitten off green.

The road was generally barren, especially on nights like this one when October was trying its best to serve as a harbinger of dead winter. A cold wind had come up, blowing off the River Harb, sending everyone but mad dogs, Englishmen and policemen indoors. There was, perhaps, a slight difference in the motivation of the triumvirate. For whereas mad dogs stayed outside because of the vagaries of insanity, and Englishmen because of their internationally renowned sang-froid, the policemen were there under duress. There was not a policeman on that road that night who would not have preferred being at home with a good book, or a good woman, or a good bottle of brandy. There was not a policeman present that night who would not have preferred even a bad book or a bad bottle of brandy or, to be frankly unpatriotic, a bad woman.

There were no women, good or bad, on that road that night.

There were only men, and men engrossed in their work can be dull company to each other even when the weather is mild.

“I never seen it so cold in October in my whole life,” Detective Andy Parker said. “I been living in this city my whole life, and I never seen it so cold like this. Tonight, they better bring in the brass monkeys, I am telling you. Tonight, everything freezes.”

Detective Cotton Hawes nodded. His fingers around the flashlight, even through the leather, fur-lined gloves he wore, felt frozen to the bone. He kept the circle of light on the patch of grass across the road from the driveway pillars. The lab technician at his feet, a man named Peter Kronig, was a person with whom Hawes had had a slight brush not too long ago. Hawes could not say whether or not he disliked holding the light for Kronig while Kronig searched the grass on his hands and knees. He knew that he’d ridden Kronig’s tail pretty shamefully on their one previous encounter, and he was rather embarrassed by their proximity now. Of course, Hawes had been working at the 87th Precinct for only a short time when he had first run across Kronig. Like any new kid on the block, he was anxious to prove himself to the other kids. In the presence of Steve Carella, whom he immediately considered the best cop on the squad, Hawes had begun riding Kronig at the police lab. Carella had chewed him out later, in a kindly fashion to be sure, and Hawes had learned a valuable lesson: Don’t make enemies of the lab technicians. He had learned his lesson well. Its meaning assumed renewed importance now that he was once more working with Kronig.

“Move the light,” Kronig said. “Over to the left.”

Hawes moved the light.

“It’s only sixteen degrees,” Parker said. “Can you feature that? It feels like twenty below, don’t it? But it’s only sixteen. I heard it over the radio. Man, it’s cold. Ain’t it cold, Hawes?”

“Yes,” Hawes answered.

“You don’t talk much, do you?”

“I talk,” Hawes said. He did not particularly feel like justifying himself to Andy Parker. He didn’t know the man too well, this being the first time they’d been on a squeal together, but from what he’d seen of him around the squadroom, Parker was a man it paid to stay away from. At the same time, Hawes did not want to make the same mistake he’d made with Kronig. He did not want to make an enemy where he could make a friend. “It’s just that my teeth are frozen together,” he added, hoping this would mollify Parker.

Parker nodded. He was a big man, almost as tall as Hawes, who stood six feet two inches high in his bare soles. But whereas Hawes’s eyes were blue and his hair was red (except for a white streak over the left temple), Parker gave an impression of darkness, black hair, brown eyes, five o’clock shadow. And, in all honesty, the two men could not have been more dissimilar than their appearances indicated. Hawes was a cop who was still learning. Parker was a cop who knew it all.

“Hey, Kronig,” he said, “what the hell are you searching for? Buried treasure? We got nothing better to do than crawl around on our hands and knees?”

“Shut up, Parker,” Kronig answered. “I’m the one who’s doing the crawling. All you’re doing is bitching about the weather.”

“What, you ain’t cold?” Parker said. “You got Eskimo blood?” He paused. “Eskimos lend out their wives, you know that?”

“I know,” Kronig said. “Let’s try over here, Hawes. Come on.”

They moved several feet up the road, the flashlight playing on the grassy shoulder lining the gravel.

“It’s the truth,” Parker said, “whether you know it or not. An Eskimo goes to visit another Eskimo, he lets you borrow his wife for the night. So you shouldn’t get cold.” Parker shook his head. “And they call us civilized. Would you lend me your wife for the night, Kronig?”

“I wouldn’t lend you a nickel for a cup of coffee,” Kronig answered. “Over here, Hawes. This looks like something.” He stooped suddenly.

“I didn’t ask for a nickel, I asked for your wife,” Parker said, and he grinned in the darkness. “You should see this guy’s wife, Hawes. Like a movie star. Am I right, Kronig?”

“Go blow it out,” Kronig answered. “It’s nothing, Hawes. Let’s move up a little.”

“What are you looking for?” Hawes asked, as gently as he knew how.

Kronig stared at him for a moment, his breath pluming from his mouth. “Footprints, tire tracks, traces of clothing, matches, any damn thing that might give us a lead.”

“Well,” Hawes said gently, “I don’t want to stick my two cents in. You know your job, and I have no right to offer any suggestions.”

“Yeah?” Kronig said. He looked at him suspiciously. “Seems to me the last time we met, you had a lot of suggestions, and a lot of answers. You knew all about ballistics, didn’t you? The Annie Boone case, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right,” Hawes said.

“Yeah, so now you’re shy, huh? The shy flower of the Eighty-seventh Squad.”

“I’ve got no quarrel with you,” Hawes said. “I behaved like a jerk that time.”

“Yeah?” Kronig said, surprised. He kept staring at Hawes. Then he said, “What’s your suggestion? I’m not God.”

“Neither am I. But would the kidnaper be likely to park the car here, or to stand here, or do anything here where he could be seen? I mean, right on the road?”

“Possibly not. Where do you think he parked?”

“There’s a turnabout up there. About five hundred yards from the pillars. Just a little dirt cutoff. It’s pretty well screened with bushes. It’s worth a chance.”

“Then let’s try it,” Kronig said.

“Like a movie star,” Parker said. “This guy’s wife. She’s got knockers out to here. You never seen knockers like on this guy’s wife except on the silver screen. Man, I’m telling you!”

“Shut up, Parker,” Kronig said.

“I’m complimenting your wife. It ain’t everybody got breastworks like this woman got. Man, you could lose yourself up there. You could bury your nose, and your mouth, and your whole goddamn head if you—”

“Shut up, Parker!” Kronig said. “I don’t feel like discussing my wife’s attributes with you, if you don’t mind.”

“What are you?” Parker asked. “The nervous type?”

“Yeah, I’m the nervous type.”

“And they call the Eskimos primitive,” Parker said. “Man!”

The men trudged up the gravel road silently. The night was a piece of crystal, sharp, clear, brittle. Like work horses stamping under a heavy load, they walked to the turnabout, the vaporized moisture of their breath trailing behind them.

“This it?” Kronig asked.

“Yes,” Hawes said. “I noticed it when we drove up.”

“Not a very big turnabout, if that’s what it is.” He shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a turnabout at all. Or at least I don’t think it was planned as one. I think it just became one through use. There. See where some of those shrubs were knocked over?”

“Yeah,” Hawes said. “But a car could have waited here, don’t you think?”

“Sure, it could have. Let’s have some light on the subject.”

Hawes turned on the flash. The beam covered the ground.

“Frozen mud,” Parker said disgustedly. “Like Italy during the war. More than fifteen years go by, and I’m still up to my ass in frozen mud.”

“Any tracks?” Hawes asked.

“Anything I hated,” Parker said, “it was trudging through the mud. You walk around in that slime all day long, and then you sleep in it all night long and next day you get up and walk around in it some more. And cold? You touched the barrel of your BAR and your hand stuck to it, that’s how cold it was.”

“You should have joined the Navy,” Kronig said drily. “I think we’ve got something here, Hawes.”

“What is it?”

“A skid mark. Somebody pulled out of here in a hell of a hurry.”

“That figures.” Hawes knelt beside Kronig. “Does it look any good?”

“It’s covered with a thin sheet of ice.” Kronig nodded reflectively, as if he were suddenly alone. “Well, let’s see what we can do with it, huh?”

He opened his black bag and Hawes brought the flash up so that he could see into it.

“Shellac,” Kronig said, “sprayer, talcum, plaster, water, rubber cap, spoon and spatula. I’m in business. There’s only one thing I’d like to know.”

“What’s that?” Hawes said.

“Do I spray my shellac over the ice, or do I try to get rid of the ice with the possibility of damaging the tire pattern?”

“That’s a good question,” Hawes said.

“One thing you sure as hell can’t do,” Parker said, “and that’s wait for the ice to melt. Winter’s here to stay.”

“Andy Parker, boy optimist,” Kronig said. “Why don’t you take a walk or something?”

“That’s just what I’m going to do,” Parker said. “Back to the house where I can get a cup of coffee from the cook. She’s got knockers almost as big as your wife’s.”

* * * *

The man from the telephone company drilled another hole in the woodwork, handed the drill to Reynolds, and then blew the sawdust out of the hole. Squatting close to the floor, he eyed the hole like a cat waiting for a mouse, and then stood up.

“Okay,” he said. “Now for the wire.” He started across the room, passing Carella, who was busy on the telephone.

“You got nothin’ to worry about, mister,” the telephone company man said to Reynolds. “Figure it out for yourself. When they find out they got your kid by mistake, they’ll just turn him loose, it figures, don’t it?”

“It just seems we should have heard something by now,” Reynolds said.

“Look, don’t get nervous,” the man said. “You start gettin’ nervous, you lost half the battle, it figures, don’t it?”

On the phone, Carella said, “Well, what the hell’s the holdup there? Are you getting me a line to the Auto Squad, or aren’t you?” He paused. “Then would you please get the lead out of your behind? A kid’s been kidnaped here!”

“Do you have any children, Mr. Cassidy?” Reynolds asked the telephone company man.

“I got four,” Cassidy said. “Two of each. That’s a nice family, ain’t it?”

“Very nice.”

“I’m thinking of maybe another one, round it off, that figures, don’t it? Five’s a good round number, I told the wife.” He paused. “She said four is a round-enough number.” He picked up a spool of wire and began paying it out across the living-room floor. “That’s the trouble with women nowadays. You want to know something?”

“What?”

“In China, the women have their babies in the rice fields, it figures, don’t it? They drop their plows, and they deliver the kids themselves, and then they get right up off the ground and go back to plowing or whatever it is they do with rice. It figures, don’t it?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Reynolds said. “What’s the mortality rate?”

“Gee, I don’t know what the mortality rate is,” Cassidy said. He paused thoughtfully. Then he said, “But I do know very few of them die.” He paused again. “It figures, don’t it?”

“If they’d turned him loose,” Reynolds said, “wouldn’t someone have seen him already?”

“Mister, I told you not to start worryin’, didn’t I? Okay, so stop. Now that kid’s all right, you hear me? For God’s sake, he’s the wrong kid. What can they do to him—kill him?”

“Well, it’s about time,” Carella said into the phone. “What’s going on down there, a hot pinochle game?” He listened for a moment, and then said, “This is Steve Carella of the Eighty-seventh. I’m up in Smoke Rise on this kidnaping. We thought—What do you mean, what kidnaping? Are you in the Police Department or the Department of Sanitation? It’s only on every radio in the city.”

“If they turn him loose in the street,” Reynolds said, “he won’t know where to go. He isn’t the kind of child who can find his way around easily.”

“Mister, any kid can find his way around, it figures, don’t it?”

“Anyway,” Carella said into the phone, “we thought we’d run a check on stolen cars just in case the car used in the snatch was—” He paused. “What? Listen, mister, what’s your name?… Okay, Detective Planier, I’ve already heard all the jokes about snatches, and I don’t think they’re very funny right now. What do you do when a guy turns up dead in a pine coffin, crack jokes about boxes? There’s an eight-year-old kid missing here, and we want a rundown on stolen cars, so get a list up here right away… What?… No, just covering the last week or ten days. Thank you, Detective Planier… What? Up your mother’s too,” Carella said. “The address is just Douglas King, Smoke Rise. Off Smoke Rise Road. Goodbye, Detective Planier.” He hung up and turned to Cassidy. “Wise guy,” he said. “I broke up a pinochle game.”

“Did they have any news, Detective Carella?” Reynolds asked.

“I was only talking to the Auto Squad.” Carella answered.

“Oh.”

“He’s all worried,” Cassidy said. “I keep tellin’ him there’s nothing to worry about. In fact, even puttin’ in this extra phone is a waste of time. The kid’ll be back before you can say Jack Robinson, it figures, don’t it?”

“Do you think so?” Reynolds asked Carella.

“Well…” Carella answered, and the doorbell rang. He rose from the phone table and went to answer it. Parker came into the room, slapping his arms against his sides.

“Whoooo!” he said. “The North Pole!”

“Cold out there?”

“Whoooo!” Parker said again. “How’s it going in here? Nice and warm in here, Stevie? You should be outside with the mad scientist.”

“What’s Kronig doing?”

“Trying to make a cast from a tire track. After that, he’ll probably dust the whole damn driveway for fingerprints. These lab boys give me a fat pain in the keester. Goddamn mad scientists. The kid’s probably dead already, anyway.”

Carella gave him a sharp poke in the ribs. “What’s the matter?” Parker asked.

Carella glanced hastily toward Reynolds, who had apparently not heard Parker’s remark. “Any sign of the lieutenant yet?” he asked.

“No, I ain’t seen him. He’s probably curled up home with his wife.” He studied Cassidy, who was trailing his lengths of colored wires across the room. “What the hell is he doing?”

“Putting in a trunk line to the phone company’s main office.”

“And what’s that?” Parker asked, pointing to the instrument set up near the telephone.

“You know damn well what that is. It’s a wiretap.”

“All baloney,” Parker said. “Wiretap, trunk line, all baloney! I never seen such a commotion in my life. I won’t be surprised we get the Chief of Detectives in here.”

“I imagine the lieutenant will call him,” Carella said.

“Sure, and for what? The lab’s outside crawling around on their hands and knees sniffing tire tracks, and the whole damn force is out checking rooming houses and hotels and motels and every fleabag in the city and the suburbs. We got dicks at both airports and covering every train station, bus terminal and trolley car stop. And I ask you, for what? Those cheap thieves got only two choices open to them.”

“Have they, Andy?”

“Damn right. They either turn the kid loose or they kill him out of spite.”

“They ought to take all kidnapers and burn them at the stake,” Cassidy said. “Man sweats his head off raising a nice family, and some guy steps in and swipes a kid. There ought to be a law.”

“You… you don’t think they’ll… harm Jeff, do you, Detective Carella?” Reynolds asked. “When they find out he isn’t the one they wanted?”

“There ain’t nobody safe nowadays, nobody,” Cassidy said. “That’s because the cops are all a bunch of—” He stopped suddenly, seemingly realizing that he was in the presence of policemen. Casually, he cleared his throat. “Maybe I better test this phone, huh?” he said. He picked up the receiver of the new phone. Impatiently, he jiggled the bar. “Hello? Hello?”

“I’m going to the kitchen for a cup of coffee,” Parker said. “You want some, Stevie?”

“No. Thanks.”

“Wiretaps, trunk lines,” Parker said disgustedly, and he walked out of the room.

“Hello,” Cassidy said into the telephone, “this is Cassidy…What?… Never mind the Hopalong wisecracks. I’m testing this Smoke Rise installation.” He listened. “Yeah… Okay. Fine. I’m finished, then. What else you got for me?” He listened, jotting an address onto a pad. “Right. So long.” He hung up. “Well, that does it.”

“All finished?”

“Just pick it up, and you’ve got our main office. You going to try tracing a call, huh?”

“If we get another call to trace.”

“I’ll let you in on something, Officer. But don’t spread it around. If your man uses a dial phone, you ain’t got a chance in hell of tracing the call. You know?”

“I know,” Carella said.

“Oh. You know. Well, you better pray he uses a manual instrument. That sounds like a dirty joke, hey, don’t it?” He chuckled to himself, took some papers from his pocket and then glanced at his watch. “Are them three gonna be eating dinner all night? I gotta get somebody to sign for this installation.”

“They should be finished soon,” Carella said.

“You never seen an outfit like this one for getting things signed,” Cassidy said. “You want to go to the toilet, you got to get somebody to sign for it, it figures, don’t it?” He shook his head. “I swear to God, one of these days, the telephone company is gonna declare war on the United States.”

“Have you heard anything yet, Detective Carella?” King said, and he came through the dining-room arch and into the living room, carrying a coffee cup in his right hand. Diane and Cameron were directly behind him.

“Not yet, Mr. King,” Carella said.

“Mr. King, I wonder if you would si—” Cassidy started.

“Well, what’s the holdup?” King said. “Are you sure your men are really looking? Do they have a description of the boy?”

“Yes, sir, they have a description.”

“Would you sign this…”

“Do they know he’ll be wandering the streets? They can’t expect the kidnapers to deliver him to our front…”

“Yes, sir, they know that.”

“Could you sign this form we…”

“Well, then, why hasn’t someone seen him? Have you got men at headquarters to take care of calls from the public? It seems likely that some citizen might…”

“That’s all taken care of, sir.”

“Mr. King, would you please sign for this installation?”

King turned to Cassidy as if just discovering a Martian in his living room. “What installation?” he asked.

“The trunk line,” Cassidy said. “To the main office.”

“What trunk line?”

“I told you about it before we had it installed, Mr. King,” Carella said.

“Oh. Oh, yes. That.”

“I have to get a few things from you first, Mr. King,” Cassidy said.

“What is it?”

“Is that the only phone in the house there? I mean, the one you had before I put in the trunk line?”

“No. We’ve got two numbers. That one, and my private line upstairs.”

“Could I have those numbers, please?”

“Smoke Rise 8-7214 and 7215,” King said.

“And that’s it, right?”

“I’ve got a phone in the car, too,” King said. “Do you want that number?”

“No, just the ones in the house. Car phone’s a separate thing. We just need a record of the lines going in, so we don’t get all fouled up with—Well, it don’t make no difference. Would you sign this slip, please?” He handed it to King.

“This seems like a waste of time to me,” King said, writing. “Once they turn the boy loose…”

“We’re taking every precaution, Mr. King,” Carella said.

“Is that why there’s a policeman outside my son’s bedroom?”

“That’s right. We have no idea what the kidnapers will do next, you see.”

“It doesn’t seem to me they have much choice.” King handed the signed slip back to Cassidy.

“Thank you,” Cassidy said. “Don’t worry about this, Mr. Reynolds. You’ll have him back in a couple of hours. So long, now.” He went to the door and waved, opened it, stepped into the cold, and closed it quickly behind him.

“Reynolds, you’d better eat something now,” King said. “Inge’s ready for you in the kitchen.”

“I’m not very hungry, Mr. King.”

“Damnit, man, you’ve got to eat! Now go ahead. Jeffry will be back before you know it.”

“All right, sir, thank you.” Reynolds started out of the room.

“Would you send Detective Parker in, Mr. Reynolds?” Carella said. “He should be in the kitchen.”

“Yes, I will,” Reynolds said.

Diane King waited until he was gone. Then she said, “Mr. Carella, the kidnapers have heard by now, haven’t they?”

“They should have, Mrs. King. It’s been on all the radio and TV stations, and the afternoon papers have all put out extras on it.”

“Then it’s just a waste of time, isn’t it?”

“Well…”

“Isn’t it?”

“I don’t like to second-guess kidnapers,” Carella said. “That’s like second-guessing murderers.”

“But… you don’t think they’ll harm him, do you?”

“Of course they won’t!” King put in. “As far as they’re concerned, this is a business deal that went sour, that’s all.”

“They might harm him, Mrs. King,” Carella said calmly. “The same way a mugger will beat up a man when he finds out that the man isn’t carrying any money.”

“But that would be senseless,” King said. “I’m sure they’ll simply turn him loose the moment they hear the news.”

“Well, that’s a possibility, of course,” Carella said.

“But the other is a possibility too, isn’t it?” Diane said. “That they might first hurt him? Before they release him?”

“It’s a possibility,” Carella said.

“A stupid possibility. I can’t believe these men are stupid.”

“Kidnapers don’t have to be smart, Mr. King. Only ruthless.”

“We hadn’t thought of that, Doug. That they might hurt him before they turn him loose,” Cameron said. “It’s a definite possibility.”

“Yes,” Carella said. “And there’s also a third possibility.”

* * * *

“My name is Jeffry Reynolds,” the boy said.

Sy grabbed the front of his sweater and said, “You’re lying.”

“I’m not lying. My name is Jeff Reynolds. Hey, let go of that sweater, will you? It doesn’t belong to me. I’m supposed to—”

“You’re a lying little bastard!” Sy said, and he shoved out at Jeff, sending him sprawling across the room.

“Sy!” Kathy screamed, and she took a step toward the boy.

“Get away from him,” Sy said, moving between them.

I’m… I’m not lying,” Jeff said. Why should I lie?” He was beginning to get a little frightened now. He kept staring at Sy, not wanting to be shoved again, yet not knowing how to prevent it. Telling the truth seemed to be the wrong course of action. And yet he did not know which lie the man wanted.

“What’s your father’s name?” Sy asked.

“Ch-Charles.”

“What’s your mother’s name?”

“My mother is dead.”

“Where do you live?”

“On Mr. King’s estate.”

“Don’t call him Mr. King!” Sy shouted. “You know he’s your father.”

“My father? No. No, he’s Bobby’s father.”

Sy seized the front of the sweater again. “You little son of a bitch,” he said, “don’t get smart with me.”

“But I’m telling you the—”

“Shut up! I know you’re Bobby King, and I don’t have to—What’s that?”

“What?” Jeff said, truly frightened now. “What? What?”

“In the sweater. There. Take off that sweater.” He pulled it over Jeffs head roughly, and then turned it in his hands. A slow smile crossed his face. “So you’re Jeff Whatever-the-hell, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Sure. And the name tape in your sweater says Robert King! You lying little…”

“That’s Bobby’s sweater!” Jeff said. “Mrs. King lent it to me.”

“Tell the truth!”

“I am telling the truth.”

“What does your father do?”

“He’s a chauffeur.”

“What were you doing in the woods?”

“I was playing with Bobby.”

“And your name is Jeff, huh?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Why didn’t you mention all this before? How come you waited for the police call?”

“I didn’t know. I thought—You said you had a gun for me.”

Sy nodded. He stood with his hands on his hips, a small dapper man badly in need of a shave, watching Jeff calmly, nodding, nodding. And then, suddenly, viciously, his hand lashed out, the palm catching Jeff across the cheek.

“You’re full of crap!” he yelled.

“Eddie, stop him!” Kathy shouted.

Sy advanced on the boy. “No snotnose is gonna try pulling the wool over my eyes!”

Jeff rushed into Kathy’s arms, and at last the tears came, tears of fear and frustration. “I am Jeff Reynolds,” he sobbed. “I am, I am…”

“Shut up!” Sy said. “Another word out of you, and you won’t be nobody!”

“Lay off, Sy,” Eddie said. “The kid’s scared.”

“What the hell do I care if he’s scared? You think he’s gonna make a fool outa—”

“I said lay off.” Sy glared at him but stopped his advance. “Let me see the sweater, Sy.” Sy tossed the sweater to Eddie. Eddie looked at the name tape. “It does say Robert King, Kathy.”

“And the boy says he borrowed it. Is that so hard to accept?”

“Yeah,” Sy said. “With five hundred grand at stake, yeah, it’s goddamn hard to accept.”

“Let’s take the boy back,” Kathy said softly.

“Now hold it a minute. Let’s just hold it one goddamn minute. We’re not—”

“He’s the wrong boy, Eddie,” Kathy said plaintively. “Why stick your neck out? What can you gain?”

“Now, look,” Sy said, “we’re in this together, right, Eddie boy? Fifty-fifty, right? So let’s calm down, okay. We can’t turn this kid loose.” He paused, looking first at Kathy and then to her husband. “He knows us, for Pete’s sake. He can lead the bulls right to us!”

“Who said we were turning him loose?” Eddie asked.

“Nobody said so,” Sy said quickly, “but don’t even let the idea get in your head. This is a sweet setup. Let’s not ruin it because a dame gets hysterical.”

“I’m just trying to figure, that’s all,” Eddie said.

“Okay, nothing wrong with that,” Sy said. “But figure right! Our plan calls for two guys.”

“I know. I know.”

“Okay. And we’ve got five hundred grand invested in this kid, remember that!”

“You’ve got nothing invested but a little time,” Kathy said. “What have his parents got invested in him? What have—”

“Time is right, baby. You know how much time we’d do on a kidnaping rap?

Provided we don’t get the chair? This ain’t busting into a goddamn cash register!”

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Kathy, he’s right. We got to hold the kid. At least until…”

“We don’t have to! We could turn him loose right this minute!”

“Sure, and go straight to jail!” Sy said. He turned to Eddie. Seductively, he said, “Your share of this is two hundred and fifty thousand bucks, Eddie. You know how much money that is?”

“Who wants it?” Kathy shouted. “We don’t need it!”

“Sure, she don’t need it. Lady Rockefeller. Wearing a sweater with torn elbows. She don’t need it!”

“I don’t!”

“Well, I do,” Eddie said softly. “That’s all the money in the world. Why shouldn’t I have it?” His voice rose. “Am I supposed to be a two-bit punk for the rest of my life? What’s wrong with making a grab for that kind of loot? I want it! I want that money.”

“Then don’t get talked out of it,” Sy said quickly.

“What the hell, was I born with a Smoke Rise estate like this kid? What did I get, Kathy? South Nineteenth Street and David Avenue. An old man who played the numbers, and an old lady who was a rummy!”

“You can’t blame this boy for—”

“I’m not blaming nobody. I’m saying I had nothing, and I still got nothing—even after all the lousy cheap stickups. Don’t I ever get nothing? Ever? When the hell do I get my chance?”

“This is your chance, Eddie. Turn the boy loose. Then we’ll…”

“Then we’ll what? Get to Mexico? On what? Hope? Love? And do what when we get there? The same thing I’m doing here?”

“A quarter of a million bucks, boy,” Sy said. “It’ll buy all the radio equipment you need, all the schooling. Man, you can own a whole damn radio station!”

“No, just… just a place on the beach—for me and Kathy—where… where I can set up… you know… with the ocean, and maybe a little boat, I don’t know.” Eddie turned to Kathy, and she saw something in his eyes she had never seen there before, a look bordering on tears. “But mine, Kathy. Mine. A place I could own.”

“And a Caddy, man,” Sy said, “with them fins sticking up in the air like sharks! And fancy clothes, and a mink for the bride, how’s that? Blond mink! And a string of pearls a mile long!”

“If only…”

“Anything, Eddie! Anything you want, boy! The world on a string! A quarter of a million bucks!”

“We got to go ahead with this, Kathy. We got to!”

“Now you’re talking,” Sy said.

“But… but he’s the wrong boy!” Kathy said.

“No. No,” Eddie answered. “He… he ain’t the wrong boy.”

“Eddie, you know he is. Why…”

“When you stop to figure it,” Sy said softly, “what difference does it make?”

The room went suddenly still.

“What?” Eddie said.

“Whether we got the wrong kid or not.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Simple. We tried for the King kid, didn’t we? Okay, E for effort. Maybe we goofed. What difference does it make? We want five hundred grand. Does a lousy chauffeur have that kind of dough?”

“No, of course he—”

“All right, who’s got the dough?” Sy waited for an answer and then gave it himself. “King, that’s who. Okay. We call King again. We tell him we don’t care whether this is his kid or his chauffeur’s kid or even his goddamn gardener’s kid. We want the money!”

“We’ll ask King for it?”

“Who we gonna ask? The chauffeur?”

Eddie shook his head. “He won’t pay, Sy.”

“He’ll pay, all right.”

“No.” Eddie kept shaking his head. “He won’t. Maybe Kathy’s right. Maybe we ought to…”

“Because if he don’t pay,” Sy said, “this little boy here is going to be in a goddamn big heap of trouble.” He paused and grinned at Jeff. “And I don’t think Mr. King would want blood on his hands.”

* * * *