Manhunt. Volume 13, Number 5, September 1965

Middle-Man by Raymond Crooks

Krag was a private-eye. He’d been around. But he’d never been in the middle of anything like this.

Athens, New York, didn’t resemble Athens, Greece, any more than it did Honolulu, Hawaii; it was a straggle of tenements and railroad yards along the banks of a narrow, turbulent river, with a few grim-looking, old fashioned factories on the side of an overhanging hill, and an outlying section of seventy-year-old mansions where the owners of the factories lived, counted their money, and tried to kid themselves that they were aristocrats. The whole town was owned by a dozen families, and it didn’t look as if they worried themselves sick over its appearance. But then, they didn’t have to. Nobody came there to study town planning or the five points of 19th century American architecture. There was no tourist season in Athens. I only came there myself to prevent a kid being killed.

The day before, I’d found a letter waiting for me in the office. It was made up of words cut out of a book, possibly a dictionary, and pasted onto a piece of paper. What it said was, “Go to Athens, N.Y. See Henry Jackridge. We have his kid. He will give you ransom. No cops. Work fast, or kid killed day after tomorrow. You will be watched. This is no bologna.”

That was all. No signature, no address, no bologna. So I had gone down to Grand Central with an overnight bag, and hopped a train for Athens, N.Y.

It was a fine day March, sunny, but a little chilly, with the wind sifting dust and old newspapers down the Main street of Athens. The minute I got off the train I knew I was being tailed. The plainclothesmen of Athens police force didn’t look like cops, they looked like farmers dressed up for a Saturday night in town. Their shoes squeaked. At least, I knew that this Jackridge had gotten in some law on this case, although I had read nothing of it in the papers. Still, the law can be pretty close-mouthed when they know a kid’s life is at stake. That makes them all the madder afterwards, when the money has been paid, the kid returned, and they have five continents in which to look for the kidnappers.

I dropped into a cigar-store, and got Henry Jackridge on the phone and explained who I was. “I got a letter telling me to see you about a family matter,” I said.

He caught on quickly.

“Yes, yes, I understand,” he assured me. “Come to my house immediately. 22 Livingston Avenue.”

“Oke.”

I left the Cigar-store, checked to see that my squeaky-shoed friend was still with me, and looked about for a cab. When I found one, it proved to be a ten-year old Chrysler Imperial that had probably once belonged to one of the aristocrats on the hill. I hopped in and left squeaky-shoes to shift for himself.

We went up to Livingston Ave. The streets, cobble-stoned and dreary, crawled and wound around the granite hills, and the cab did most of its driving in second. The few people I saw in the streets were all leaning forward or backward. Living in this town could become a habit, but not a good one. If you slipped on the ice in winter-time at any point in Athens, you probably wound up cracking your skull against the railroad station down in the valley.

When we were pretty high up, Livingston Avenue became genteel. Shady trees, bare, stony lawns, and, situated at odd angles and several levels, huge gingerbread mansions, built when labor was cheap and taxes were low. A number of them were boarded up, haunted by the ghosts of dead bank-accounts and failing businesses. The Jackridge house was a red-brick affair, bristling with cupolas and brown woodwork. It had hell’s own amount of steps leading up to it, and looked about as cheerful as a boarding-school for apprentice torturers.

I got out, paid the cabby half his week’s wages, and began to fight my way up the steps. It was cold and windy up there, and when I arrived on the veranda I felt that the worst part of this job must surely be over. After those steps the rest would be a cinch.

I was admitted by a decrepit old bird who was only held up by the starch in his shirt, and led into a cozy cavern where three people clung together to keep from getting lost. The decrepit old bird took the breeze after announcing my name, and I wore out some more leather crossing the room to the lonesome three.

They were grouped around a fire-place you could have parked a Cadillac in, two men standing, and one woman sitting. There was a fire, but it didn’t even light up the fireplace. The room was vast, shadowy, furnished with what looked like antiques, and chilly.

One of the men said, “Mr. Krag? I’m Henry Jackridge. This is my attorney, Mr. Lovell, and this is my... er... Mrs. Jackridge.”

I gave them all a nod. The lawyer looked like a lawyer. Jackridge was fairly tall, well-built, about forty years of age, and as handome as the law allows. He had light blond hair, and a sort of noble- looking face, like a matinee idol who has grown up. The only things that spoiled its calm, aloof perfection were the little lines of worry between his eyes, and the tiny network of red arteries in his eye-balls and on his nose and jaw. In that gloom anyone else might not have seen them, but I get paid for seeing things. A noble-looking rummy.

Mrs... er... Jackridge was good to look at. She was anywhere between thirty and forty, and it didn’t matter much just where. She was small, dark-haired, dressed in something dark, simple, and expensive, and she looked the type that would draw whistles at fifty. That is, if you were crude enough to whistle. She had a look of such calm superiority, such inborn good manners, that she could bring out the best in the worst of us. You wouldn’t have the nerve to whistle. The heavens would fall and the earth swallow you up of you did. She looked a trifle haggard and worried, as was natural, but you could tell she wouldn’t let it get her. Nothing could.

I thought I’d put things straight right from the start. “I’m not in any way connected with the kidnappers,” I said. “I’m a private detective. Why they picked me for go-between I don’t know. Probably just got my name out of the phone-book.”

“Why didn’t they use one of their own gang as a go-between?” Mrs. Jackridge asked. Her voice was almost a whisper, low and genteel.

“In the first place, it may not be a gang. There may be only one of them, or at most two. If so, they need themselves, or don’t trust each other. So they pick a neutral stranger. They can keep an eye on him, without exposing themselves.”

“I see,” the lawyer said. “Well, Mr. Jackridge received this communication yesterday.”

He handed me a paper. It was like the one I’d received, with printed words pasted onto it. They read:

“It was mailed from Grand Central.”

“Have the cops seen it?” I asked.

“Yes.” Jackridge answered. “I asked them to leave it with me. They’ve checked up on you, and they think we should let you handle it as the kidnappers say.”

“You reported to the police as soon as you found the boy missing?”

“Well, soon after. We didn’t know he was kidnapped for sure until we got the first letter informing us.”

“Weren’t you afraid to bring in the cops? Afraid for the boy’s safety—?”

Lovell spoke up. “Kidnapping is a crime, Mr. Krag. To suppress knowledge of a kidnapping is to compound a felony—.”

“It was I who informed them,” Mrs. Jackridge said. She stood up, and looked me square in the eye. “I love my boy. I want him back safe and sound. He’s worth more than $50,000 to me.” Her eyes grew narrow, and she clenched her jaw. “But they’ll be caught. I’ll see to it. No one can do this to me and get away with it.”

“Well, maybe they’ll be caught, maybe not. The cops can’t act until the boy is returned. By that time the trail can be as cold as a mackerel. However, that’s not my business, and the cops wouldn’t care for me to act as if it were.”

“Precisely,” Jackridge said, as if he were glad I took that view of things. “The police agree that we are to give you the money, and that you are to leave it as prescribed in the note. There’s really nothing else you need worry about, is there?”

I shrugged. “I guess not. Except my two hundred bucks. I hate to take it, because I feel I’m working more for them than you, but I guess it won’t make much of a dent after fifty thousand.”

“I guess not,” Jackridge said.

Going down those steps was easier than going up, even toting 50 grand, but I walked all the way to the station without seeing a taxi. It was downhill all the time, and I was winded when I arrived. I spotted at least three guys tailing me, but I didn’t give them bad marks. Try tailing someone down-hill some day, and see how good a job you can do. I’d rather do it on horse-back.

It was the screwiest job I’d ever been on. From one point of view it wasn’t too bad. Two C’s for a day’s work, and then I was through, except for the local, state, and FBI boys giving me a couple of goings-over to make me describe every person I’d seen all day long, from New York to Athens and back again. But consider: I’d been forced to do a job I didn’t particularly care for. It was the first time I’d ever taken a job for any reason but that I wanted to, and could use the money. Secondly, if I wasn’t working for the snatchers, I wasn’t working for the Jackridges either. Thirdly, I didn’t know who the Jackridges were, when their kid was snatched, what had been done about it, why he referred to her as ‘Mrs... er... Jackridge’ why she said ‘they can’t do this to me’ instead of ‘to us’. And I couldn’t find out. I couldn’t make a false move, or the kidnappers might get scary and scrag the kid. And I was as curious as a cat at a fish-fry. I was in the case one day, and out the next. Nuts. I’d read about it in the papers.

So when I left the fifty grand in a cheap leather brief-case, under the West Side Highway overpass that night, I didn’t care who was lurking nearby to grab it, or whether it blew away in the breeze, or if a horse came along and ate it up. I went home to my apartment, mixed a drink, and drank it. Then I went to bed, thought an hour or so, and fell asleep.

Next day, nothing.

The day after, I read all about the case. And it seemed pretty much over. The kid had been found wandering on the George Washington Bridge, with a note in his pocket resembling the other two, giving the kid’s name and address. The gang could throw away their dictionary or whatever it was.

I learned plenty that I hadn’t known before.

The Jackridges had been divorced a few years back. Incompatibility, or something to that effect. Whether she didn’t like the way he went about getting those red lines on his eyeballs, or whether he got them afterward from standing too close to a torch that he might have been carrying since, I didn’t know. At any rate, they shuffled the kid between them, a month here, a month there, you know how it goes, and it was while the kid was with Daddy that he was snatched. He was coming home from a birthday party up the block, at 5:00 P.M. when a black Chevrolet sedan pulled up, and a short, grey-haired man jumped out and grabbed him. He’d been taken for a long ride, and then brought to a dingy room up several flights of stairs. That’s the way the kid told it. It had been dark and he’d been scared, but it was obvious he’d been held somewhere in New York City.

There was a lot about me, too. Some of the papers hinted that I was a denizen of the underworld, a shady character, and that I knew more than I would admit. Since I hadn’t admitted anything yet, that wasn’t so bright.

The law came around for me while I was still reading about it. They were in no great hurry, because they’d probably had me taped ever since I arrived in Athens two days before. The leading singer in the ensemble was an FBI man named Tomlinson, a tall, muscular bird in a tweed suit, who wore horn-rimmed glasses.

They spent two hours going over my life story, and my experiences as a go-between for kidnappers. They didn’t hesitate to remind me that as a licensed detective, I was a deputy sheriff of New York County, and that everything from malfeasance in office to high treason would be charged against me if I withheld or distorted the truth.

“You don’t have to tell me that,” I said. “No private cop can exist without the approval of the police. I know that, and I’ve never been out of line yet. I didn’t ask for this job, and I only obeyed the instructions of the snatchers because I was afraid of what might happen to the kid. I’m through with the job now, and I’m glad of it. I’ll do anything you ask to help catch the lice that did it, but I know nothing more than I’ve told you.”

Tomlinson was pacing the floor of my living room. He stopped, and shrugged. “Okay. I guess you’re clean. But remember. You are out of it.”

“With pleasure.”

He sat down again.

“Listen, Krag. Let’s go into this from another angle. You don’t know anything but what you’ve told us. But you’re a detective. It’s said you’re a good one. What do you think about this case? What were your impressions of it? Of the people involved?”

I grinned.

“Do you smell a fish?”

“Never mind what I smell. Just tell me what I want to know.”

“What do you want to know? The name of the kidnapper? I don’t know it. I don’t even know what you do know.”

He gloomed at me out of those spectacles for a moment, then-grinned. “You’re a card,” he said, and I could tell he really loved me. “But you’re not a judge and jury. What did you think of Jackridge?”

“What do you want me to do? Frame Jackridge? I thought he was nice fellow whose kid had been snatched, that’s all.” I was silent a moment, and he kept looking at me as if he thought I’d practice levitation or something any minute now. “He drinks,” I said.

“He sure does,” Tomlinson agreed.

“Mrs. Jackridge is one of the old school. She said, ‘they can’t do that to me—!’” I stood up. “She put up the fifty grand, didn’t she?”

He nodded.

“Why?”

He stood up, too.

“Because Jackridge was broke. In fact, he was worse than that. He owed a packet. The Jackridge & Sons Glass Co. Inc. was a hollow shell, brother, just a hollow shell. A business three generations old, and he ruined it. Speculation, over-expansion, and too much money spent to buy out his chief minority stock-holders, one of whom was his wife.”

He put on his hat, and signalled to his extras.

“Let’s go. Stay around, Krag. You’ll be wanted.”

“Nuts, and I was just getting ready to open up a branch in Calcutta,” I said.

There it was, a case building up about which I could think a lot of thoughts. I was out of it, but I couldn’t help thinking. Still, no one was paying me to do any thinking about it, so I did my best to forget it. Some day I was going to be called upon to give a few words of evidence on the subject, if the kidnappers were ever caught, that is, and I didn’t want my evidence to be colored by what I’d thought in the meantime.

I went down to the office afterwards, and found that Dave Ahrens, the lawyer, had been calling for hours, trying to get hold of me for a job. It was an insurance case, and he wanted me to prove that a certain witness had been bribed. I told him it would have to wait a few days, until I was sure the law didn’t want me on tap any more. I messed around with a few other details, and went home. It looked as if that two hundred bucks would be spent long before I got a chance to earn any more. I wished I could do something about that. I wished the lads who had snatched Jackridges’ kid had picked up a Bronx phone-book by mistake.

I went out to a movie that evening. When I found one I thought I might like, I called the night clerk of the apartment hotel where I lived, and told him where I’d be in case anyone wanted me. I saw a picture about the early settlers of the West. It seems they had it tough.

I returned to the apartment and breezed into the lobby. The night-clerk wasn’t at his desk, so I couldn’t ask him if there’d been any calls. I took the self-service elevator up to my floor, crossed the hall to my door, and got out my keys.

The door opened, and I was looking into a gun. It was held by a tall, weedy-looking individual with a face like a guppy. It was just a narrow ridge on the front of his head, all bony nose, with a little, full-lipped mouth underneath. His eyes were like tiny vials of prune juice, and they seemed to be focused in two different directions, not on me. That wasn’t anything to act on, though. He had a battered grey fedora on the back of his head, and about thirty dollars worth of pawn-shop special hanging on his skeleton. I could almost see through his ears.

“Step in, nosey,” he said, “and drop the keys.”

I stepped in.

“Walk over to the wall there,” he said. “Don’t do anything to make me nervous.”

He looked as if his nerves were sticking through his suit already, so I walked carefully like a man measuring his rug. I saw the night clerk lying on the floor next to the sofa, his feet and hands bound and a gag cruelly distorting his mouth.

“Can I say something?” I asked, when I was facing him again.

He was leaning against the door. The gun was trembling.

“Sure, say a lot.”

“You’re off your nut, whatever your game is. I’ve been with the cops all day. They’re due to call up any minute now. They’ll want me to go down to Headquarters to look at some files sent up from Washington. Pictures and so forth. If they don’t get an answer, they’ll come looking for me.”

“You’re kidding.” His black liquid eyes bored at me dully. “What made you think you’d get away with it?”

“With what? Who the hell are you and what do you want?”

He walked slowly over to me, his long legs gawky, his gun still levelled at me.

“You louse,” he said. He came up to within two feet of me, and cursed like a farmer who’s been stepped on by a horse. I was calm enough now to think as well as talk, and that was what got home to me. He did talk like a farmer, or at least like someone from outside of New York City. His voice had a nasal twang to it, and he used curses that weren’t common among city-bred people.

“I seem to have annoyed you,” I purred, “but I haven’t the dimmest notion why. What did I expect to get away with? What are you after anyway?”

“You switched the money,” he said, and went off into the barnyard again. He was working himself up, his face twitching and hands shaking. “Damn you anyhow, you switched the dough! Didn’t you know we had our eye on you? I’ll scrag you for that!”

He swung with his left fist, awkwardly, holding the gun on me with his right. I had to take it. Pain exploded in my jaw, but it didn’t rock me.

“Change hands,” I grinned. “You’re no lefty.”

He smacked me again. The room see-sawed. At that, he was stronger than he looked. I staggered, and recovered.

“I wonder if you’d really shoot that thing,” I said. “It would bring the whole building down on you.”

“I’ll shoot it all right,” he snarled. “You got us in one hell of a mess, you have. Fifty Grand, and it ain’t worth a damn nickel. You’ll pay for that. With a bone broke for every grand you’ll pay for it.”

“I don’t know what in hell you’re talking about!” I roared.

He smacked me about the eyes, twice. Blood was trickling down my cheek, and my face felt like an overstuffed cushion. I didn’t know whether I was more mad or scared. It was a close tie.

“Where’d you get it?” he rasped. “Where’d you get that dough?”

“What dough, you fish-faced abortion?” I yelled.

He hit again. The next time, I thought, I’ll jump him. Either him or me. No more of this one-sided hitting.

“The ransom dough,” he hissed. “They put the arm on Harry this afternoon for the Wyatt Falls bank job. The dough was marked, and it ain’t been passed for half a year. Where’d you get it? We never been near Wyatt Falls in our lives!”

I relaxed. I knew now.

“I got it personally from the lily-white hands of Henry Jackridge,” I said, and I was almost smiling. “That’s all I know, and it’s the truth. If you think you can make anything out of scragging me, you’re crazy. That’s where I got the dough”.

He stepped back a pace. He was frowning.

“It’s impossible,” he said. Before he could draw another breath I had his gun-wrist in my hand. I dug my thumb into his wrist making him squeak like a toy mouse. I pushed the gun out and down, stepped on his right toe, and then his left. He hopped and staggered like a drunken tap-dancer. I seized his wrist with both hands, ducked under his arm, and flung him over my shoulder. He landed across the room, but his gun lay on the floor. I picked it up and dropped it into my pocket. I went across the room slowly, allowing him time to arise and reassemble himself. I grinned.

“Pretty handy just now, weren’t you? I didn’t care for it,” I said. “Believe it or not, it annoyed me.”

I let him have it. A right and a left to the jaw, and a pounding in the ribs. He whimpered and went down. I gave him the leather. He crawled away. I looked around, my eye lighting on a statuette of a naked dame gazing up at the lighting-fixture in an enraptured way. I used it for a book-end normally, but now I used it to put my tail-worn friend to sleep. I stripped off his belt and gagged him with it. I then untied the night-clerk and used the ropes to tie up the kangaroo.

“Stay here,” I told the night-clerk. He looked as if he had just risen from the dead, but didn’t believe it. “There’s bourbon in that cabinet, there, imbibe.”

When I saw that my chum was coming out of it quietly, I whipped off the gag. I squatted down next to him, and watched. He opened those wacky eyes, and looked at both my ears at once. I grinned.

“You scrounge,” I said, “Let’s talk.”

He looked down at the floor.

I let him have it.

“C’mon lovable, talk!”

He talked.

I left instructions (ten dollars worth) with the night clerk to call Police Headquarters ten minutes after I’d left, and tell them exactly what had happened. Ten minutes was enough time for me to get my Ford out of the garage and head for the Washington Bridge. What I’d find when I got to Athens didn’t matter, and I wasn’t worried. They wouldn’t soil my play, Tomlinson and his crew; they wanted what only I could unearth. I held a damp rag to my face all the way to Athens.

It was almost four A.M. when I hit Athens, and twenty minutes later when I crawled at a thirty-degree angle up to the Jackridge mansion. I got out, chilled, and started up those steps. After a thousand years I was at the top. The wind bit at me, and the world looked as dead as Atlantis in the mist and pre-dawn darkness. I knocked on the door. More time passed, then a light appeared in one of the windows downstairs. The door creaked open a crack.

“Who’s there?”

It was only a whisper.

I shoved the door open, and walked in. I spun around, my hand on the gun in my pocket.

It was Mrs. Jackridge.

She was fully dressed, and as wide awake as a rube at a carnival. She held onto the door for a moment, then closed it.

“Good Morning, Mr. Krag,” she said, in that low cultivated voice. “I’m afraid I didn’t expect you.”

“Quite all right, don’t you know. Let’s not be formal. Don’t disturb the footmen and retainers. Have you got any coffee?”

She regarded me gravely. Poise. She had it.

“Of course. This way please. May I take your coat?”

“Sure. All except the gun.” I shoved it into my pocket.

She raised her brows, but said nothing. I followed her into the cavernous parlor. There was a fire this time too, only bigger. She must have run across a bargain in logs.

I sat on the sofa, and stretched. After a while, she brought coffee on a tray. She sat opposite me, and we drank as if I were a visiting vicar. She was calm, cool, and watchful.

After I had had a few swallows of hot black coffee, and was sure I was in the land of the living, I put down my cup and smiled.

“Would it be possible, Mrs. Jackridge, to speak to your husband?”

She shook her head slowly.

“I’m afraid not,” she answered. “You see, he isn’t here.”

“Indeed not? Where, may one ask, is he?”

She leaned back in her chair, and folded her hands. I could see she was as tired as a woman could be. There were shadows under her eyes that the dimness of the light couldn’t shade away, and a drawn expression around the perfect mouth. But she was as calm and aloof as if we were discussing the program for a church social.

“I really don’t know where he is,” she said. “He’s just gone.”

“He’s been kidnapped too?”

“I hardly think so, Mr. Krag. Nor do you.”

I nodded.

“Truer words were never spoken,” I said. “A few hours ago, I was out of this case entirely. The Feds and the New York cops had gone over me with a disc-harrow, and decided that I was no more than I seemed to be: a private detective of small means and limited brain-power who’d been picked arbitrarily by a gang of kidnappers to be their go-between. I went to a movie to take my mind off my troubles, and when I returned I found a hayseed with a gun who seemed to think I’d double-crossed him.”

She nodded, to show that every immortal word was engraved in her mind.

“Why did he think I’d double-crossed him? Well, he and his pal, a certain Harry Dell, had kidnapped your son. Your husband had turned over to me fifty-thousand dollars to pay the ransom with. Two days later, Harry passed some of the money. He was arrested by nightfall.”

“The police were very alert.”

“You’re not kidding. They were arrested for a bank robbery that had taken place in Wyatt Falls, New York, six months before.”

She knit her brows. Puzzled, you know.

“Indeed?”

“In-deed. Now how do you think a thing like that could occur?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Is that a fact. Well, this bum was as mad as a Mexican at me. He thought I’d tampered with the ransom money in some way. I don’t know why he thought I’d have money on me that was stolen from a bank in Wyatt Falls, but he thought it was me, all right. The numbers on the bills were registered, and broadcast. It was new money just brought in from the Federal Reserve.”

“So?”

“So this. It wasn’t me that paid them the ransom, it was your husband. If I’d substituted hot money for cold, I’d still have only fifty grand. Why, then, was this cluck so suspicious of me? Why didn’t he first bring all this up with your husband, who was the man who paid out the fifty grand?”

She sniffed.

“You’re very clever, Mr. Krag. Why not, then?”

I leaned back, and grinned.

“Because, of course, your husband was above suspicion in that respect. He’d arranged with them to kidnap the kid, get you to pay the ransom, and then split it with him.”

“Really?”

“You know it as well as I do, Mrs. Jackridge, that’s why he’s not here now. He’s gone. There’s nothing left for him here. He’s lost you, he’s ruined his business, he’s found that his kid isn’t worth as much to him as twenty-five grand and a chance to begin ruining his life somewhere else. The only thing, of course, is that when he starts passing that dough, he’ll be caught just as Harry Dell was caught. The cops are probably trailing him now. He’s crazy if he thinks a principal in a kidnapping case isn’t watched day and night. They’re watching you, they’re watching me. They’ll be here in no time asking me what I’m doing so far from home at this hour.”

She nodded. A woman of few words.

“Before they do come, though,” I said, “I’d like to tie it up in a neat package. If you tell me, maybe between the two of us, we can make it sound a little better for you. Where did you get that hot money that you gave your husband?”

“You mean the money for the ransom?”

“Yes. Without exaggerating, you can say that’s what I mean.”

She smiled. Just a little, grudging smile. “You think I held up the bank in — where was it?”

“Wyatt Falls. Look. You’re beautiful, you’re cultured, poised, cool, and a great lady of the old school. If I had a million and were better-looking, I’d ask you to be my wife. But the fact remains that you gave that money to your ex-husband to pay the kidnappers with, and that very money was taken in a hold-up from the bank in Wyatt Falls six months ago. Now where did you get it?”

She stood up.

“From Joe d’Angelo. Now you’d better go. I’ve a hard day before me, you know. The FBI will probably be here, as well as the local police, and heaven knows what all. I really must sleep.”

I rose too, a gentleman to the hat-brim.

“I quite understand, Mrs. Jack-ridge. Just repeat that name again?”

“D’Angelo. He’s a coal and fuel dealer on Pensey Avenue. Do you intend to see him?”

“Why, I think he ought to be good for a few laughs.”

“Probably not. Remember this, though. When I traded fifty thousand good dollars for an equal amount of what you call ‘hot ones’, I didn’t know that my husband was the real criminal himself. In my life I’ve taken hard knocks, you know. I’ve seen my husband ruin a business that two generations built up. He used my love for him to swindle me out of my share of it. He ruined our life together. He ruined himself. But I love my child, and I’ve always been determined that nothing shall hurt him—.”

“I know. You said, ‘they can’t do this to me.’ That’s what first started me thinking. So you made sure that they would be caught for something, even if it wasn’t kidnapping. Very smart. Except of course, that once they were caught, it might come out that they were the kidnappers, in which case the cops would want to know where you got the dough that was stolen from the bank. I know you’re tired, but you’ll have to do better than that.”

She sighed.

“You’re not a very nice person,” she said. “It’s true, though. I’ve known d’Angelo for some time. Everyone knows him. He’s our local gangboss, I guess. He owns the Argosy Club, out on Route 17. They have gambling there. My husband and I often played. I think my husband owed him money. When I heard that my boy had been kidnapped, I went to him. I thought, with his underworld connections, he could help. He promised to do all he could. He was quite kind. Then he suggested that I give him the money, and that the next day he would give me the bad money. I was afraid to do that, but he assured me it would be all right. If the police caught the men for kidnapping before they passed any of the money, he said he would take full responsibility. He said that he had enough protection to avoid being prosecuted by the state for possessing stolen money, and that the FBI would be grateful for his help in assuring the capture of the kidnappers for some offense, at least. So I acquiesced.”

“Did you suspect your husband of complicity then?”

She nodded.

“I wasn’t sure, but I suspected him. Believe me, it was the sort of thing he wouldn’t mind doing. Besides, with so many wealthy people around, I thought it odd that the criminals should be so stupid or unfortunate as to pick as their victim the one man in town who was facing ruin.”

“I see. Well, I’ll see what I can do for you. A lot depends on Mr. d’Angelo. We’ll see how kind he really is. Well, I’ll see you later.”

I left her standing there, weary to death and aloof and beyond fear, and went out. I went down those steps again, and got into my car. No one was in sight, but I wished I had a C-note for every cop that had his eye on me. There was no particular reason why I was doing this, except that I was sure that this was a plot that couldn’t be untangled by a cop. This d’Angelo would be a bird who’d know all about how to talk to cops. I wanted to get it straightened out. It wouldn’t let me sleep if I didn’t. And I felt I had to earn that two hundred bucks.

The coal and fuel business must have been prosperous, judging by the size of the three-story mansion on Pensey Avenue, and the Buick and two Cadillacs parked outside. A grey Cadillac, and a black one, to match his top-coats I guessed. I parked behind the grey one, and went up the steps (all the better-class homes in Athens had steps, it seems). It must have been hell on everyone over forty. I knocked on the door and rang the bell. After a few moments, in which the wind tried to raise me off the porch, the door opened a crack.

“Who’s there?” a surly voice demanded.

“Engelbert Dollfuss,” I replied. “Open up. I want to see Mr. d’Angelo.”

“Who?” he squeaked. “Engel—?”

“Bert Dollfuss. C’mon, it makes to freeze out here.”

“You a cop?”

“F B I.”

The door opened. I was in a lofty hall done in heavy drapes and tapestries. A wide stairway swooped up into the shadows. At the far end, light seeped from under the portieres. My host was a square article in a purple shirt and shoulder-holster. He was as bald as an egg.

“Show it,” he said.

“Show what?”

“That you’re from the FBI.”

“Aw, I was only kidding. I’m really a plumbing inspector. Is Mr. d’Angelo here? I’d like to inspect his plumbing—.”

He grabbed a handful of my coat, and shoved me toward the door.

“Out,” he said. “Your act stinks.”

A voice shouted behind the portieres.

“Luigi! Ch’e?”

My buddy rattled off some Italian, but I yelled over him, “Mr. d’Angelo! I’ve come from Mrs. Jackridge.”

The curtains pulled apart, revealing a kitchen, brightly lit. My dancing-partner shoved me toward it. I walked in, and saw three men at a table. There was a jug of wine on the table, a bowl of nuts, and a deck of cards. Two of the men looked as if they’d cut their own throats just out of meanness, the other was a portly, balding, fat-faced lad of about fifty. He wore no tie on his custom-made silk shirt, but he had a fortune in jewelry on his pudgy, hairy fingers. He smiled, and nodded to the others. They rose, and left. My bodyguard frisked me, removed the difference, and evaporated too.

“Sit down,” d’Angelo said, still smiling like a real-estate salesman. “What you say your name was?”

“Krag,” I said.

“Have a glass of wine? Good. Imported.”

“Thanks.”

He poured me a glass. I drank. It was imported dago red.

“What can I do for you?”

I heaved a breath. It was about four-thirty in the morning, and I was beginning to feel the effects of a misspent life.

“I’m the private orb who was picked as go-between by the kidnappers of Mrs. Jackridge’s child. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. All I want is the truth about this whole business, and to shield Mrs. Jackridge as much as possible.”

“Why? She paying you?”

“No. Perhaps you wouldn’t understand.”

He shrugged and lit a cigar.

“Why not? Mrs. Jackridge is a fine woman. I got respect. A great lady. But why you have to find out anything. Who’s paying you to?”

“No one. But the FBI, the New York police, the Athens police, and the State troopers will all be wanting to know where Mrs. Jackridge got the false shekels to pay Harry Dell. I’m not boring you?”

“Me? No.”

“She says she got them from you.”

“If she say so.”

“So you admit it. What will we tell the law that won’t make her look too bad?”

He thought a minute. You could see this was small onions to a big operator like him. He drank some more paint, and puffed at his cigar. The cigar smelled like it was imported from ancient Egypt.

He finally made up his mind.

“Come with me,” he said.

I chuckled. Not loud, but with a bit of English onto it.

“Excuse me, Mr. d’Angelo, but I don’t feel like going anywhere. I don’t know about the coal and fuel business, but the detective business is kind of wearing. I’m tired. I’d a lot rather just sit and talk. What do I tell the cops? Or what do we tell the cops.”

He settled back in his chair, his eyebrows raised. You could see he was a philosopher. It takes all kinds, he was thinking.

“I wanna show you something,” he said.

“Let’s talk first. Why did you give her that bashful money?”

He shrugged.

“Wots a matter? Why not? First place, she’s a nice lady. Class, you get me? Second place, kidnap I don’t like. It’s bad.”

“Hellish,” I agreed.

“Is that a crack? Well, stealing kids is no good. I got a heart, you know? Besides, it ain’t a racket. A racket, it’s business. Good today, good tomorrow. Kidnap, you’re here today, gone tomorrow. Besides, how you think I feel? Somebody’s pull a snatch in my territory without my permission. Makes cops, Feds, Newspapers, everyone, come in like a storm. You can’t cover up a kidnap. Natural, I get mad. I figure I fix em.”

“Of course, you put an ad in the papers, asking if anyone had any old marked money they couldn’t dispose of—. Oh well, let it pass. I guess Wyatt Falls isn’t in your territory.”

“Never heard of the place,” he said. He looked as if he really hadn’t, too.

“Well,” I said, “let’s get back to business. How are we going to square this phoney money rap?”

He sighed. His fat face gleamed in the electric light like a greasy moon. It had no more expression than a planet too far from the earth to be interested.

“Listen,” he said, blowing cigar smoke at me, “The cops got the kid back, right?”

“Yup.”

“They got the Wyatt Falls bank money back, no?”

“Yup.”

“What else do you think they want?”

I looked at him. He looked at me. I got another face full of ancient Egyptian cooked mummy-hair. I coughed.

“You tell me.”

“They want Jackridge. Mrs. Jackridge give him fifty thousand good fish. That’s all she know. If Harry Dell wind up with bad money, that’s Jackridge’s fault. Let the coppers figure that one out. Me, I won’t talk. You, you won’t talk—.”

“Her, she won’t talk” I added.

“As long they got Jackridge, they’ll be happy. They got a case. Dell’s friend talk to you, you talk to the cops. They know Jackridge was broke. I got 5000 bucks worth of his I.O.U.’s myself. I’ll show ’em to the law. They’ll work him over so he’ll talk.”

“Sure,” I agreed. “The only thing is, they haven’t got him.”

He rose to his feet, wheezing, using the table for support. When he was erect, and braced against the breeze, he sighed and said, “We’re going to give him to them.”

On the way down to the Argosy Club, gliding through the darkness in the black Cadillac, little was said. Joe d’Angelo and I sat in the back, while one of his paisans drove. D’Angelo was lost in thought, and a cloud of smoke, while I was half-asleep. We got there after about a half an hour of gliding.

It was a quiet-looking place, with only a small neon sign in the shape of a sail-ship, and the air of a Tudor country-house. The bar was dimly-lit and cozy, the dance-floor sparsely populated. Beyond the dance-floor, down a narrow hall, was a large, luxuriant room. Great mahogony tables, soft music over hidden loudspeakers, paintings on the wall, a goodly number of men and women dressed in evening-clothes. The tables were roulette, crap, and black-jack tables. A lovely set-up. D’Angelo nodded here and there, smiling like a host of the old school. He nudged me.

“That there is the Mayor.”

“You mean it? He looks as honest as me.”

He frowned. “Joke,” he said.

He led me into a curtained alcove and unlocked a brass-studded door with a key on his key-ring. On the other side of the door was a brightly lit office that looked like the private den of a Mexican ranch owner. Soft chairs, white walls with pictures on them, dark beams across the ceiling, a cabinet or two, and broad desk in the corner. Lying on a leather-upholstered sofa under a reproduction of Bellini’s Doge Loredano was Henry Jackridge. He was fast asleep, and looking a trifle the worse for wear.

D’Angelo waddled behind the desk, sat down, opened his coat, and heisted out a .44 Automatic. He checked the gat, took the safety off, and said, “Wake him up.”

I shook Jackridge. He opened his eyes, and stared blankly at me for a few seconds. Suddenly the wheels started turning, and he shot up, gaping.

“You!” he whispered hoarsely. Then he swung around to feast his eyes on his host. “What is this?”

We’d sure made a hit. He didn’t seem able to get his voice out of hock. He cleared his throat a few times, and clenched his fist. I got out of d’Angelo’s line of fire, and tried to act as if I weren’t too interested.

“Mr. Jackridge,” d’Angelo said, “I think you better go now.”

“Go? Where?”

“Anywhere. Take the breeze. It ain’t healthy here.”

Jackridge leaned back, and took a deep breath. He unclenched his fists, and his hands trembled. He was at the end of his rope. I could see that he knew it, too; that he didn’t really believe there was any sense in talking. He just wouldn’t admit it yet, that was all; something had happened that he didn’t know about, and he was in the soup. How did people ever manage to get themselves in such a mess?

Jackridge said, “What are you talking about, d’Angelo? You’re not double-crossing me, are you? Why? What’s this—.” He waved toward me, and broke off.

D’Angelo sighed.

“Listen Jackridge,” he said. “You crossed me. You gave those snatchers stolen money. They’re caught already. Makes the case too hot. How I’m gonna get you away in such a short time? No. Deal’s off. You get out, no open your mouth about me. I don’t say nothing about you. Okay?”

Jackridge rose slowly to his feet.

“Stolen money? You’re crazy! Where would I get stolen money?”

D’Angelo shrugged.

“You don’t believe me, read it in the papers tomorrow.”

“It’s true,” I told Jackridge. “One of the thugs jumped me in my apartment last night and told me all about it. He thought I switched the dough.”

“So,” d’Angelo said, “You better go. Mr. Krag, here, will take you out the back way. He’ll take you down the road a ways in my car, and let you loose. He’ll be a witness, if necessary, that you were never here.”

Jackridge glared at him, then me, his face pale.

D’Angelo rose, and took a gun out of his pocket. It was the one I’d taken from Fish-eyes back in my apartment.

“Here,” he said. “Get rid of it after.”

“Right.”

I prodded Jackridge to the door. We slipped out. There was hardly anyone at the tables now, only a few loiterers, dead tired, trying to save their lunch money or break the house. The Mayor was gone. I guessed he’d be busy tomorrow.

We went out a side door, and into the parking lot. It was as cold as bitter death, and a pale, eerie dawn was seeping over the tree-tops. We went toward the Cadillac.

“There’s nothing you would do to help me?” he said shakily. “Not for — no, I guess not.”

“Nope. It’s the end of the trail, Jackridge,” I said.

He sighed.

I opened the door of the Cadillac, and shoved him in. I knew even before I climbed in that Tomlinson was behind the wheel, and two other men in the back, snapping cuffs on Jackridge.

“Well, well,” Tomlinson said softly, “Good morning. I thought you’d never come out.”

“I made it as quick as I could. I had to be polite, you know.”

“Sure. But we’ve been shivering around this town all night without even a cup of coffee.” He started her up, and we swung out onto the highway. “You sure did hop around. Of course, you’ll tell us all about it.”

“Sure.”

“About Mr. d’Angelo, too, won’t you?”

I sighed and lit a cigarette.

“There’s some things I could tell you about Mr. d’Angelo that won’t do you much good, I’m afraid.”

“You mean about the Wyatt Falls money? The hell with that. I mean about being an accessory to a kidnapping. Under the law that’s a serious crime, and your testimony would be valid. Why, if you didn’t talk, I don’t doubt we could send you away on the same charge.”

There were more accessories in this case than you could shake a stick at. Now I was one myself.

“Look,” I said, “if you are not prepared to prosecute d’Angelo as a receiver of stolen money, you’ve got nothing on him. And you can’t prosecute him. He could make up any story as to how he got that money, and you couldn’t disprove it. And he’d get a lot of public sympathy for helping the lovely Mrs. Jackridge.”

“So?”

“So we tell it this way. Jackridge arranged the kidnapping with Dell and his buddy. Where he met them, I didn’t find out, but that’s a detail. They were to split the money. To Jackridge, it seemed foolproof. His wife doted on the boy, and she had money. He never dreamed she’d go to d’Angelo for help, or that he would have some hot money on his hands that ordinarily he’d have to sell at a discount, but now could dispose of at a hundred per cent of value. You’ve got Jackridge, and the two actual kidnappers, all testifying against each other. You can hold the Wyatt Falls job over their heads to force a confession.”

“But Mrs. Jackridge got the money. Jackridge will insist on that. No, we’ve got no alternative. Bank robbery’s a Federal crime. We’ll have to find out where d’Angelo got that money.”

“Do you? He’ll love me for that.”

“As we all do,” Tomlinson said wearily, “as we all do.”

“Jackridge and his pals were put away. Mrs. Jackridge won the sympathy of one and all at the trial, and subsequently received three proposals of marriage, not from me. D’Angelo was grilled about the Wyatt Falls money, gave away nothing, and was sent up for five-to-ten as an accessory on that job. As he was led out of the court room, he paused by me, and said, Take care, amico. You made me trouble.”

What could I say? Since then, I’ve received two threatening phone-calls. I’ve been trailed all over town by some hard-looking characters of the Latin persuassion. I’m waiting for a shot, or a bomb wired to the ignition of my car. The cops are bored by the whole thing. I sometimes think I’ll sell the good-will and fixtures, and open a laundromat. Or move to Athens, Greece, and blend in with the ruins. What the hell, I’m one myself, in a way.

I called Mrs. Jackridge once, after the trial, just for old times sake. She was cordial, without gushing, grateful in a cool sort of way. I asked her if she was taking any action to get her fifty thousand back from d’Angelo.

“No,” she said. “I’d rather forget the whole thing. I’m sick of courtrooms. And, after all, that man did help me.”

“At a tidy profit to himself,” I said. “Well, I see your point. Be happy.”

“I’ll try to. And thanks again. If you’re ever up this way, drop in and see me, won’t you?”

“Sure.”

But I never got up that way again.