On the Other Hand, Death

8

The ransom note was discovered just after eleven.

Timmy had arranged for a tow truck to haul McWhirter's Fiat out to Dot's place until a locksmith could open it and the Fiat dealer could produce a new set of keys. The note, inside a plain white envelope, had been stuck under the Fiat's windshield wiper. The tow truck operator hadn't noticed it, but Timmy, always on the lookout for out-of-place objects, spotted it as the tow truck pulled in at Dot's. The envelope, which had not been on the Fiat at five in the morning when Timmy and I first discovered the empty and abandoned car, was addressed to Dorothy Fisher.

I heard about it from Timmy when I checked in at Dot's from the Price Chopper pay phone two blocks from

Tad Purcell's house. I bought a bag of ice and sucked on a cube while I drove straight out to Moon Road. The sun was brutal in a blinding white sky, and a puddle formed on the car floor where the ice bag leaked.

At Dot's I read and reread the note, which was handwritten in an inelegant, almost childish script that none of us had seen before. It definitely was not the same handwriting as in Friday's threatening letter to Dot.

The note said, "Pay one hundred thousand dollars if you want Pete to live, we will contact you Mrs. Fisher."

McWhirter was dazed. He paced back and forth across Dot's kitchen looking enervated, helpless, alone. As the rest of us moved about the room we had to bob and weave awkwardly to keep out of McWhirter's path.

I phoned the Spruce Valley Country Club and had Bowman paged from the locker room.

"Greco's been kidnapped. Dot Fisher received the ransom note. They want a hundred grand."

"You're making this up, Strachey. You'll go to jail for this."

"No. It's the truth."

"Kee-rist. On a Saturday. All right, all right, I'll be there in twenty minutes. This had just better be for real, Strachey, or you are up shit creek with me, you get that?"

'"Up shit creek with Ned if not for real.' Noted."

I reached Crane Trefusis at Marlene Compton's apartment at Heritage Village. "One of Dot Fisher's house-guests has been kidnapped," I said. "There's a ransom note. They're asking a hundred. Do you know anything about this, Crane?"

"Did you say kidnapped?"

"Uh-huh."

A silence. Then: "I know nothing about this, no, of course not. Have the police been notified?"

"They have."

"Who is the victim?"

"His name is Peter Greco. A friend of Dot's who happened to be staying with her for a few days.

Maybe you'd like to put up the hundred, Crane, to get Peter back. Dot hasn't got a hundred grand.

All she's got is a schoolteacher's pension and Social Security. Plus, of course, a house and eight acres."

A pause while the wheels turned again. Then, calmly, he said, "No. You are mistaken."

"Mistaken about what?"

"That Millpond has anything to do with this."

"Uh-huh."

"We have our limits, Strachey."

"Right. We are not a crook."

Another silence. Then: "I–I'll go so far as to put up a reward for the safe return of this young man. From my personal accounts."

"How much?"

"Five."

"This is a human life we're talking about, Crane."

"Of course. Seventy-five hundred."

"You're paying me ten to catch somebody who wrote on the side of a barn."

"Eight."

"Ten, at least."

"All right, ten." He sighed. "You're an extremely hard-nosed man, Strachey. You'll go far in this business, I'm sure." This business? "You know as well as I do that you are the man who's probably going to bring about an arrest and collect the reward. You play all the angles, don't you?

My sources were correct in their assessment of your abilities. I'm impressed."

I'd been playing games with him over the reward money and hadn't, in fact, thought ahead to who might collect it. But the idea of an additional "ten" dropping my way for a particular purpose did not fill me with repugnance. It seemed, as I thought about it, that the ten could become useful, even necessary. The thing that scared me was the thought that the reward money would not be collected at all.

"I'll donate the money to charity if I'm the one to collect it," I lied. "Meanwhile, Crane, one question: Is Bill Wilson working for you in any capacity?"

"William Wilson of Moon Road?"

"Right. Kay's hubby."

"No."

"Kay told me you said you were keeping your eye out for the right spot for Bill."

"Yes, well. Regrettably the position of vice president for community relations at Millpond is occupied at the moment. But I'm certainly keeping Mr. Wilson in mind. Why do you ask about Wilson?"

"He was on your list of suspects, remember?"

"That was for the vandalism, not the kidnapping. Do you think the two are connected?"

"Could be. The motive for both appears to be forcing Dot Fisher to sell out to you, Crane."

He said nothing.

"Crane? Are you there?"

"I was just thinking."

"What did you think?"

"I was thinking, Strachey, that you and Mrs. Fisher and her friends might be-how shall I put it?

— engaged in an unethical act? Is that possible? An act calculated to elicit public sympathy and bring pressure to bear on Millpond to increase its offer to Mrs. Fisher? Of course, it was just a thought."

"Think again, Crane. I work for you, don't I? I'm doing that because our interests have happened to overlap in a limited way, and of course I'm thrilled to be able to make off with your 'ten.' At the point where our interests diverge and I can't work for you anymore I'll let you know fast. Meanwhile, be assured that I will not plot against you. And I'm confident that your thinking vis-a-vis me is likewise. Am I right?"

"Of course," he said emphatically, hollowly. "What kind of man do you think I am?"

"Swell. I'll expect the ten-grand reward to be announced as soon as the news of the kidnapping is made public. For now, I think that the police, if they know what they're doing, will want to keep it quiet. But your offer, if I understand you, is in effect immediately. Agreed?"

"Agreed. And… meanwhile, you can inform Mrs. Fisher that Millpond is willing to raise its offer for her property by another ten percent."

"I'll pass along your timely point of information, Crane."

"Thank you."

A sweetheart.

I dialed the number on outer Delaware Avenue of a man whose family conducted games of chance in a well-organized way throughout the capital district. We'd enjoyed a couple of personal encounters seven years earlier, but broke it off over a conflict stemming from the disapproval each of us strongly felt over the other's way of looking at the human race. Vinnie and I still kept in touch from time to time, though, and exchanged confidences.

I asked Vinnie about Crane Trefusis's connections with the mob.

"Lotta dough. Crane makes it squeaky clean. Why do you wanna know this, Strachey?"

"I'm on his payroll for a couple of days. I like to know who I'm working for. But what I'm really interested in, Vinnie, is who Trefusis's muscle is. When he wants to make a point with somebody he considers dumb, who does he send out to make it?"

"I'd hafta check, but I think maybe it's one of his own. A guy in his security office. Dale somebody. Ex-cop. A boozer. You want me to find out for you for sure?"

"I do. Don't let anybody at Millpond know you're asking. But check."

"For you, I'll do it. Half an hour."

"I'll phone you back. Hey, Vinnie, who was that fair-haired boy I saw you with on North Pearl Street last month? Your pop know you're dating the Irish?"

"Heh-heh." He hung up.

Next I dialed a number in Latham belonging to a man I'd once helped out. Whitney Tarkington, fearful that his grandmother, a straitlaced Saratoga grand dame, would discover his homosexuality and disinherit him, had hired me five years earlier to take care of a blackmailer.

I'd done the job, discreetly if a little messily, but Whitney's accounts were closely monitored by a committee of bankers and he hadn't been able to pay me an appropriate amount for my fee.

Instead, he had promised me the assistance of his wealthy circle of gay friends if and when I thought they could be useful in a particular way.

"Hel-ooo-ooo."

"Hi, Whitney. It's Don Strachey. The day has come. I have a favor to ask of you beautiful upscale guys. I want to borrow a hundred grand."

"Good-bah-eye."

"Wait, don't hang up, Whitney! You'd have the money back within.. three days. I guarantee it.

And the trustees of your zillions, Whitney, will pin a medal on you. Because-now get this, Whitney-I'd be paying ten percent interest. Ten percent in three days."

"At the sound of the tone, you may repeat that last part. Beep."

"Ten percent in three days. That's what I said, Whitney baby. What a killing you'd be making!

And if you haven't got a hundred grand in your wallet, you just ring up some of your railroad-and-real-estate-heir-type jerk-off buddies and collect, say, twenty grand each from five of 'em. And Tuesday noon, or thereabouts, I repay the hundred, plus an additional ten. In cash. Even a Pac-Man franchisee doesn't rake in that kind of money in three days."

"Donald, my dear, I must confess that you have piqued my interest. But really, Donald, haven't 43 you heard? Wholesaling cocaine is against the law in the State of New York. We'd all be found out, and when word reached Saratoga, what would mother say? I have promised her, you know, that I would never embarrass her in public. And my getting dragged off to Attica in chains by some humpy state trooper in a Gucci chin strap would be a bit of a social blunder, don't you agree? And grandmother! Why, I'd be finito with Grams!"

"I can promise you that there is no dope involved, Whitney."

Except, possibly, me. My palms were sweating, my pulse interestingly elevated and erratic. I explained about the kidnapping, and he listened, uttering occasional little ooohs and ahs.

"Taking a bit of a gamble, aren't you, Donald?"

"Uh-huh. But don't mention the kidnapping to anybody, Whitney. Not yet. Just say it's a sure-fire investment opportunity that came up. Hog bellies from a freight train that derailed on Gram's croquet court or something."

"Well, my dear, this is simply dreadful. And even though, as you well know, I have precious little time for starry-eyed radicals, under the circumstances I suppose I have no choice except to-"

"Could you just hurry it up, Whitney? The banks in the shopping malls close early on Saturday.

Now, here's where you can drop off the hundred…"

I went back to Timmy and Dot, who were attempting to calm McWhirter down with a cup of herb tea.

Timmy said, "Who was that?"

I said, "Manufacturers Hanover Trust. Saratoga branch."

"Oh, swell. They should be helpful. Did you open an account?"

"Nope. Just made a withdrawal." end user