by Lionel White
“Aw, lay off her,” Red said. “She was only—”
“Shut up,” Dent cut in. “Did everything go O.K.?”
“O.K.,” Gino said.
Dent turned to Terry Ballin.
“You this kid’s nurse?”
The girl nodded. There was no fear in her, only shock and hatred.
“All right, then,” Dent said. “I guess you know what’s happened. The Wilton kid here is being kidnaped—has been kidnaped. You happened to be with her. You’re lucky to be alive. Behave yourself, do what you’re told, and you may stay alive—for the time being.”
He turned to Pearl.
“Take the kid and the dame into the back room.” Again looking at Terry Ballin, he said, “The room has been soundproofed. The windows are shuttered from the outside and barred. There’s no way out except through the door. So make it easy for yourself. Don’t give Pearl a hard time and she won’t give you one. Now take the kid in there, get that gag off her puss, quiet her down. We’ll give you some food. You’re going to be here for some time.”
Pearl went to the rear of the room, opposite the windows facing the road, and opened a door. Janie Wilton leaned quickly against the Ballin girl’s legs and her eyes looked up pleadingly. Suring straight ahead, Terry walked the child through the door.
Three pairs of eyes followed her.
If I could only get Pearl out of here for a few minutes, Red was thinking, I’d sure as hell take a crack at that.
I’d like to beat her; Gino thought to himself. Beat her and beat her and beat her until she cried to God for mercy. God, I’d like to get my nails into that soft flesh!
Trouble. That’s what Cal Dent was thinking. A dame who could be plenty of trouble. Damnit, they should have killed her.
He was sorry they had brought her along. He knew that he would have to watch that girl.
When he looked over at Red and Gino he also knew, as well as if they had yelled out what was passing through their minds, exactly what each was thinking.
It was a part of Cal Dent’s smartness; one reason why he was the boss. He always knew. Thus he planned in advance for any unexpected breaks, good or bad.
Dent used the pencil clipped to his shirt pocket to cross off a date on the lumber company’s advertising calendar thumbtacked to the wall. It was Monday, the twentieth of October.
Red and Gino were sitting at the white kitchen table when Dent returned. He carried a quart bottle of beer and he opened it and filled three glasses.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Red talked first.
“Everything,” he said in his incongruously high, squeaky voice, “went according to plan. We waited in Stamford to see the messenger take off. He left at five after eight. At eight-twenty we were parked three blocks from the Wilton house. A car passed us just as the station wagon turned out of the drive, but it kept on going. We followed the girl and edged her to the curb two blocks away. No one was in sight. She thought it was an accident at first and pulled her brakes and started to yell at me.”
“I got out an’ slapped her,” Gino cut in.
“Let Red tell it,” Dent said.
Red took his eyes away from Gino. There was art odd half-quizzical, half-doubtful expression on his freckled face.
“Gino showed her a gun; told her it was a snatch. I reached in and took the kid. She started to fight, but I calmed her down. The dame tol’ her to do as we said. She’s smart. Knew what was happening. We left the car where it was. Put the kid and the girl in back of the sedan and started down the road for the Merritt Parkway.”
“No one see anything?”
“Nothing. Everything went smooth. Had the curtains drawn in the limousine and Gino gagged the kid and kept the gun on the girl.”
Dent was thoughtful for a moment.
“If everything went smooth,” he asked, “how come the girl’s got a shiner and a bloody mouth?”
“Gino socked her a couple of times.”
Dent turned to the little dark man. “Why?”
“Showed her I meant business,” he said. “What’s the matter with hitting her, anyway? I wanted to make sure she stayed quiet going through traffic. Anyway, I still think we should’ve bumped her off right then.”
“Nothing’s the matter with hitting anyone,” Dent said, “if it’s necessary. All right, go on, Red.”
“Nothing else,” Red said. “Here we are. No trouble, nothing. We crossed the East River at the Whitestone Bridge. The kid was lying in the bottom of the car with a blanket over her when we went through the tolls. No one could see in the back, anyway, with the shades down. The girl was quiet.”
“I held a knife on her,” Gino said. “A knife always keeps ‘em quiet.”
Dent nodded.
“O.K., boys,” he said. “Take the car out to the barn and start stripping her down. Plates and everything. We’re through with it. I don’t think anyone would ever make a connection, but we’ll take no chances.” He poured three more beers from a second quart bottle. Five minutes later Red and Gino left the cottage and Dent heard the engine of the car as it started.
He watched from the window as they drove into the old barn, some hundred yards from the house. This place, in late October, after the summer people had returned to their city apartments, was, he reflected, an ideal hideout.
Two other lonely, wind-swept houses were in sight, and then nothing but the interminable sand dunes and the sea. The other houses had been deserted for several weeks now and only an occasional beach patrolman ever went near them.
Dent himself had found the place. Red and Pearl had rented it and had been living in it for more than two months, as man and wife. The story they had given out was that Red was just back from a hitch in the Army, was newly married and taking a six-month rest. He wanted quiet. They had told the tradespeople in the nearest town that they would stay on until the middle of December, or as long as the fireplace and the coal stove could keep them warm.
Gino had been casually mentioned as Pearl’s brother, who stayed with them now and then. Dent himself, up until three days ago, had not been near the place. It was as safe a hideout as he could figure, near enough to the city to get there within a short time, but far enough out and lonely enough to avoid the curiosity of nosy neighbors. An ideal spot.
As Dent thought it over, the door to the back room opened and Pearl returned. Carefully she locked the door behind her.
“How are they?” Dent asked.
“They’re all right,” Pearl said. She reached into the cupboard and took out a bottle of gin. “Now?”
“Now.”
Pearl poured herself a straight shot and then sat down.
“The kid’s O.K.,” she said. “She’s quieted down now and stopped crying. Gino slapped her around a little too.” She drained her shot without a chaser. “But the dame! You say she’s a nurse? With what she’s got, brother, she could be wearing mink and living in a Park Avenue penthouse. Why did they bring her along and what the hell do we do with her, anyway?”
“Pll decide that later,” Dent said.
“It’s all right with me,” Pearl said. “But keep her away from Red. I saw the way he looked her over.”
“Jealous?” said Dent.
“Damn right,” Pearl said. “But you don’t want any trouble now, Cal, do you?”
“There’ll be no trouble,” Dent said.
“I don’t get it,” Pearl said. “Why bring her here?”
“Look,” Dent said, irritation in his voice, “if we didn’t take her, she could have identified us. On the other hand, if the boys had killed her then and there, it could have spread the alarm too quick. I wanted to play it safe; get them back here before anything breaks.’
He shook his head when Pearl gestured toward the bottle. Walking over to the iron sink, next to the kerosene cooking stove, he took his shaving brush down and began working up a lather. His hand was steady as he pulled the straight-edged razor over the stubble of his cheeks. Dent
was a meticulously clean man.
Chapter Two
At six o’clock that evening, Cal Dent carefully parked the car at the curb, twisted the key in the lock, and stepped to the street. He walked slowly over to the drugstore, entered, and bought the late afternoon edition of the World-Telegram. Leaving the drugstore, he moved down the street several doors and turned in at the tavern. The bartender nodded to him and Dent said, “Bourbon, water on the side.”
He spread the front page of the paper on the bar. The light was bad but he had no trouble making out the headlines. Nobody seemed to be getting anywhere in Korea. The boys were still stealing everything in Washington that wasn’t nailed down. There were threats of another coal miners’ walkout. The usual. And nothing on the Wilton case.
Dent had almost finished his drink when the door opened and a short, thick-bodied man in his late forties entered. His face was blue-veined and he wore a dark suit and a dirty white shirt. A felt hat was pulled well over his eyes. He stood next to Dent and ordered a beer. Dent had another bourbon. Five minutes later both left. They entered the car together, Cal Dent taking the wheel. Not until they had left the main section of the town did either man say anything.
“Well, everything go all right?” The fat man looked straight ahead. His voice was very deep, but he talked in a sort of half whisper.
“Right on schedule,” Dent said. “They’re all at the place now. It’s going like clockwork.”
The fat man grunted.
“I’ll drive you into Smithtown,” Dent said. “You can get a train out of there in about an hour. Get back to New York. I’ll see you tomorrow at four o’clock.”
Some time later, as the fat man left the car at the Long Island Rail Road station, Dent handed him a small round package. “Here’s the recording,” he said. “We got it late this afternoon. It’s a beauty.”
Cal Dent was back at the hideout by ten after nine. As he pulled the car around to the ocean side of the cottage and cut the engine, the blaring tones of music from a radio came from the shack and he cursed under his breath. He jerked the emergency brake savagely and twisted the ignition key from the lock. He entered the front room unheard by the others. Gino was slumped on the broken-backed ottoman, his hat on the back of his head and a pencil in his hand, marking up a Racing Form.
Pearl and Red sat opposite each other at the card table, the gin bottle between them, listlessly playing two-handed rummy. Dent strode to the portable set and snapped it silent. The others looked up quickly.
“You damn fools!”
He stalked to the table and snatched up the gin bottle, noticing automatically that it was three quarters empty.
“What the hell is wrong with you mugs? Damn it, anyone could have walked in here and you’d never have known it. What is this, anyway, a kaffeeklatch? Do I have to do all your thinking for you?”
“Aw, look,” Red said, “there ain’t nobody within five miles o’ this place.”
“Shut up,” Dent snapped. “Maybe there ain’t, but the noise that radio was making would wake ‘em up ten miles away. Keep it down if you have to hear it. And for the love of God, at least listen to what’s going on. You want some strange car, maybe a beach cop, driving up and the law walking in on you?”
The others looked sheepish, except for Gino, who continued marking up his scratch sheet as though no one else were in the room.
“See Fats?” Red asked at last, standing up and brushing the cards aside.
“I saw him and I gave him the recording. Also I got the papers; nothing broke so far. How about that?” He gestured toward the radio.
“We got the nine-o’clock news,” Pearl said. “Nothing yet. What do you think, Dent? Do you suppose they called in the law?”
Dent shrugged and sat down at the table. Pearl coughed, without bothering to cover her mouth. She brought him a cup of black coffee, knowing he preferred it to a shot.
“Jees,” Red said, “they musta squawked by this time.”
“There’s no way of telling,” Dent said. “If Wilton believed the note, believed that we are watching him, he’s probably keeping his mouth shut. If he talks, we’re bound to know about it. The cops could never keep it from the newspaper boys. Not for long, anyway.”
“So let ‘em sing,” Red cut in. “What’s the difference? They still gotta pay up to get the kid.”
“He’ll pay, all right,” Dent said. “He’ll pay after he hears Fats play that tape tomorrow morning.”
Pearl coughed again and reached for the gin bottle. This time Red stopped her.
“Lay off the booze, baby,” he said. “Take it a little—”
“You mind your own business, Red,” Pearl snapped. “If I wanna—”
“Red’s right, Pearl,” Dent interrupted. “Take it easy, kid. We got a long, nervous wait and I don’t want no one getting hung. Sit down and we’ll play a little three handed.”
Pearl shrugged and put the bottle down.
“How they doing inside?” Dent asked as he started to deal. He nodded toward the door at the end of the room.
“Kid’s sleepin’,” Pearl answered. “The girl wouldn’t eat anything for dinner.”
Dent nodded and fanned his cards to look at them.
Gino stood up and walked over to the radio set. He twisted the dial slowly as the volume came up. After several minutes he swore under his breath and slapped the set.
“Can’t get that station with the California results,” he said, disgust in his voice. “This goddamn set ain’t—”
Get a news report,” Dent ordered.
Gino shrugged and again turned the dial. He found WNEW, and Dent, ooking at his wrist watch, saw that it was exactly half past nine. He stopped playing as the newscaster’s voice cut in.
At once Dent subconsciously realized his watch must be a couple of minutes slow.
"... and up to an early hour this evening police had expressed a belief that the child had been taken by her nurse.”
The rounded, unctuous voice of the announcer finished the sentence as the room suddenly became deadly quiet but for the slap of Red’s cards as they fell to the table top. Gino stood back from the set, his small head to one side. Both Red and Pearl watched the radio with a sort of deadly fascination. Dent’s face was still and noncommittal. And then the voice continued:
“But it has been learned by this station that FBI men late today were closeted with the Wilton family in their Riverside, Connecticut, home, and it is now believed that both little Janie Wilton and her nurse, Miss Terry Ballin, are in the hands of a gang of professional kidnapers, despite the fact that there has been no kidnaping case following these classic lines within the last dozen years. It is rumored that a note was received by the family shortly after the child disappeared on her way to school. The station wagon, which has been recovered, is in the hands of the State Police and is being carefully gone over by laboratory technicians. This station will interrupt programs later in the evening, in case of further developments, to give you the latest news on what promises to become one of the biggest stories since the tragic Lindbergh case.”
Gino quickly reached up and snapped off the set as the announcer went on to talk of late developments in the Korean truce talks.
Dent’s sigh was like a whisper as he stood up. “Well, that’s it,” he said. “Wilton talked.”
“The son-of-a-bitch,” Gino said.
“What the hell did you expect?” Dent snapped. “You can’t keep a thing like this quiet. We knew that he probably would talk. So what? It won’t matter.”
Pearl shrugged. “It would have been nicer the other way. But you can’t blame them. I guess when they got that note they probably just went a little crazy.”
“They’ll be a lot more crazy when they hear from Fats,” Red said. “Boy, that tape recorder is somethin’. The kid was really good.”
“This is what we expected,” Dent said. “Thing to do now is just be careful and take it easy. Gino, get that radio back on, but keep it down
low. I want to hear everything that’s happening. Let’s pick up the cards and keep going. We got a long night in front of us.”
Red stretched and yawned. “You an’ Pearl play,” he said. “I’m going upstairs and hit the sack.”
Red didn’t bother to say good night, but started for the door leading to the staircase. Pearl looked at Dent and winked. Gino was back on the
couch, the racing paper in his hands and his hat pulled over his eyes.
Dent drew the cards together and started reshuffling.
“Two-handed is better,” Pearl said, and there was a subtle note of double meaning in her husky voice. “Deal ‘em off, Cal.”
Dent finally snapped the radio off shortly after three-thirty. Pearl had long ago followed Red upstairs to bed. Gino still lay on the couch, his mouth wide and snoring gently. He had removed his shoes, and the yellow and red silk socks were an obscenity on the fabric of the improvised bed. His hat still covered his eyes and forehead. Dent looked at him for a moment with distaste and then shrugged. He decided to let him sleep.
A minute later he walked to the door of the room in which Terry and the child were. He listened carefully and then reached up and snapped the heavy padlock on the door. The precaution was as much to protect Terry and the little girl, he reflected bitterly, as it was to keep them from escaping.
Minutes later and he too climbed the staircase and entered the small unfinished bedroom that was a twin to the one occupied by Red and Pearl.
He was careful to fold his trousers and hang them neatly from the top bureau drawer. He hung his shirt and coat on the back of a chair and climbed between heavy Army surplus blankets. He cursed Pearl under his breath for not bothering to buy sheets. The swine, he thought, they all live like pigs. And they don’t even know the difference.
Well, once this caper was over and he had his split, it would be the last he’d see of them. Except possibly Pearl. With Pearl, he might do something. She had the raw material and, properly molded, God knows, she might really be...
He fell into a nervous half sleep thinking about it.
