by Lionel White
“Red’s nuts,” Pearl said. “I had a case of beer. But Red had two quarts of gin stashed upstairs. He was all excited after battling Gino around and went up and got it.”
“Is there any more hidden away?”
“Not that I know of. But you know Red. If he’s got any more, he certainly isn’t telling me about it.”
Dent rinsed off his razor and carefully folded it. He washed his face in cold water and then dried himself on the towel next to the sink. Turning, he reached for the shirt hanging on the back of a kitchen chair and pulled it over his shoulders.
“Go in and get the morning papers,” he said, “but be careful. I don’t like the idea of that local cop being out here yesterday. And it was a tough break his picking Fats and me up last night. You better sort of let it be known around town that we’re friends of your husband. Drop something about our being out here on a business deal. But be careful.”
Pearl nodded and stood up. “You want Red should drive me in?” she asked.
“No. Red’s still supposed to be sick. After that measles crack of yours, he should stay around the place. You take the car and tell him to stay around the barn for a while. I want to talk to Fats.”
Pearl nodded and took her bag from the table as she left the room. She stopped at the door for a moment.
“You’re not sore any more, are you, Cal?” she asked hopefully.
“I’m not sore.”
Fats waited until the door closed behind her and then stood up. He walked over by the couch and looked down at Gino. “How you feeling,
DU/i
Gino looked at him for a moment blankly and then spoke between cracked lips..
“I’ll kill that crumb! I’m going to kill him.”
Dent swung around. “It’s all over now,” he said. “Forget it. The hell with Red. Listen, we’re in the middle of a five-hundred-thousand-dol-lar caper, and you and Red have to fight. Forget it.”
Gino turned, groaning, to the wall.
Fats shrugged his heavy shoulders and sat down. “Cal,” he said, “don’t you think five hundred thousand was too much? What makes you think—”
“Look,” Dent said. “Use your head. We’ve been all over that before. The Wiltons have millions. He inherited six million from his old man. You read about it in the papers. It’s his only kid. What the hell you think he’s going to do? Place a price on the kid? You think he’d pay three hundred thousand, but balk at five?”
“Yeah, but getting five, in cash...”
“A guy with six million can do it. He’s got friends. He can do it. Damn it, that’s what’s always been the trouble with punks who tried this racket before. They couldn’t think in big terms. Do you think Lindbergh wouldn’t have given a million as quick as he would seventy thousand to have got his kid back? Of course he would. This deal will either work or it won’t. So we might just as well make a killing if it does.”
Fats grunted and reached for a pack of cigarettes lying on the table in front of him.
“I hope you’re right,” he said.
Gino squirmed on the couch and turned toward the room.
“I’m freezing,” he said, his voice thin and weak.
Dent nodded his head at Fats, who left the room and a few minutes later returned with a blanket from one of the upstairs bedrooms. He tossed it carelessly over the injured man.
It was almost ten-thirty and Dent had turned the radio to WNEW when he heard the car return. Pearl left the Packard in front of the house. She entered, her arms full. A faint meouw came from a basket she held in her arms.
“What the hell is that?” Fats asked, looking up sharply.
“A cat.” Pearl smiled. “The grocer’s cat had kittens and he gave me one.”
“What do you want—”
“Look. He offered me a kitten. Said it would be a good mouser and that all these old houses had field mice when it got cold in the fall. So I
took it.”
I Dent nodded. “You did right,” he said. “Take it in and give it to the kid to play with. That’ll give her something to do. And give me those papers.”
Pearl tossed the newspapers to Dent and started for the back room. “Brother, wait till you see them,” she said. “This is a bigger story than
the hydrogen bomb.”
Quickly Dent spread the front sheet of the Times on the table and Fats moved across the room to read it over his shoulder.
The story was played up in heavy type, spread over the four right-hand columns at the top of the front page.
KIDNAPERS MAKE CONTACT
Dent skipped the subheads and began reading the newspaper’s account.
Kidnapers of seven-year-old Jane Wilton are known to have twice made contact with Gregory Wilton, wealthy Riverside, Connecticut, broker and father of the missing child, it was revealed early last evening by Col. W. F. Newbold, of the Connecticut State Police.
For the first time it has been definitely established that a kidnap note was left at the home of the child some few minutes before she was carried off, along with her nurse, Miss Terry Ballin. Early yesterday morning, some twenty-four hours after the child had been abducted, a phone call was made to Mr. Wilton at his lower Manhattan office, and a tape recording of the child’s voice was played over the telephone, thus assuring the family for the first time that the child was still alive.
Police have revealed that a second telephone call was made to the family home in Riverside last evening and that a demand was made for five hundred thousand dollars. FBI men and state police officials have refused to verify the actual conversation. It is believed that the second telephone call was made from a pay station in the Grand Central area.
Stanlislaus Lazarus, arrested yesterday for questioning in connection with the crime, is being held on a short affidavit and officials refuse to divulge what his possible connection with the case may be. However, it is believed that the first telephone communication was made from his apartment in midtown Manhattan.
Morris J. S. Gordon, senior member of the well-known law firm
of Gordon, Blassingame and Golden, representing the Wilton family, has made a special plea that police and government officials give the family complete freedom to negotiate with the kidnapers.
“A crime has been committed,” he said, “but at this point the safety of the Wilton child is infinitely more important than the apprehension of the criminals.”
Every effort, it is understood, is being made to leave a free way open for the kidnapers to satisfy their demands so that the youngster may be safely returned to her family.
It is believed...
Dent pushed the paper away.
“Nothing here that wasn’t on the air,” he said.
Fats, still looking at the newspaper, suddenly laughed.
“Hey,” he said, “this is hot. The Times says Buggsy Moretti, notorious leader of the underworld—yeah, that’s what they call Buggsy—they say he has assured police officials that the crime is done by a bunch of amateurs and that no professional criminals would touch kidnaping. He has also offered to help the cops.”
Dent smiled thinly. “That louse couldn’t help himself,” he said.
Fats continued, “Not only that, but everybody is getting into the act. Some professor up at Columbia—he’s supposed to be a crime expert— thinks that because of the half-million-dollar ransom demand, the whole thing is an international plot.”
“The more screwballs get mixed up in this,” Dent said, “the better all around. The main thing is the cops are being called off for the time being. Not that you can believe that, though. Only thing is, they’ll probably give Wilton a free hand for the next day or so.”
“What’s probably got ‘em baffled is telling Wilton to get the money any way he wants,” Fats said. “They must think we’re nuts.”
“No,” Dent said, “you can bet the FBI has got it figured out. They probably have a fair idea of how we’re going to work it. Only thing is, they won’t be able to do anythin
g about it. The heat’s on, all right, but right now they’re worrying most about the kid. As long as they figure she’s still alive, we’re safe. By tomorrow this thing will really be getting hot.”
Fats nodded.
“I’m going up and catch some sleep,” he said. “If Red’s going to drive me in town tonight, he better get some too.”
“Red will be all right,” Dent said. “Go ahead and turn in. I’m going
to talk to the girl.”
* Dent walked to the rear of the room, and as he passed the front windows he pulled aside the curtain and looked across the sands toward the ocean.
Far down the beach he saw the outlines of a man standing knee deep in the surf and casting a line into the water.
Chapter Eight
Janie Wilton lay on her stomach on the floor in the middle of the room, playing with the kitten. She had tied a long piece of string around a twist of paper and was pulling it across the linoleum in little jerks as the kitten daintily batted it with a furry paw. The child was laughing.
The novelty of the sudden change in her life fascinated her and, like all children, she had been quick to readjust herself to a new environment. Already she had forgotten her experience with Gino. She hadn’t actually been injured, and she felt about him as she would have felt about a strange dog that might have bitten her for no reason. Once out of her sight, he was out of her mind.
When Dent entered the room, she looked up quickly. And then, a second later, she smiled shyly and went back to playing.
Pearl sat on one of the cots and watched. Standing near the darkened windows was Terry Ballin, who also watched the youngster, a half-smile on her face.
Dent stood quietly in the door for several moments, his eyes on the two girls. They must be, he reflected, about the same age. He was at once struck by the sharp contrast between them. They were almost of a height, although Terry could have been about an inch the taller. Both were slender, well formed, good-looking. Both wore faint, amused smiles. But there the similarity ended.
The dark smudges under Pearl’s large, widely spaced eyes gave her an old, worn look that was probably intensified by the cigarette she carried listlessly in one corner of her large, perfectly formed mouth. Even the languid way in which she held her perfectly proportioned body seemed to emphasize the overwhelming sensuality of her peculiarly exuberant physical personality. She looked exactly like what she was—a fullblown woman of wide experience, capable and willing to satisfy desires that were ever near the surface.
Pearl was the type of woman Dent had known most of his life. He understood her through and through. Born and brought up on the streets
of a tough neighborhood in a tough city, girls like Pearl matured early and usually gained their first experience with men while they were still in their teens.
Dent had known many such girls, but few as attractive as Pearl. Cal Dent was that unusual sort of man—the sort that can be found fairly often among ex-cons—who could take his sex or leave it. Pearl attracted him, it is true, but there was nothing exclusive or personal in the attraction. To Dent, she was merely another woman, to be had or not to be had, according to the circumstances of the moment.
The man was able to put aside all thoughts of women, irrespective of their proximity, during those times when he was immersed in a job. The fact that at this time he was in the middle of the biggest thing in his life precluded any possibility of his taking more than a purely academic interest in her.
There was another thing about Dent. Knowing instinctively that Pearl, like all the others like her, was always available, he himself was emotionally immune to any deep attachment or romantic illusion. With a girl like Pearl, Dent could spend a night or a week or even several years. But once he was ready to leave, he would go without regret and without remorse.
As his eyes left Pearl and went to Terry Ballin, Dent was suddenly conscious of the vast channel of difference that separated the two.
Terry, in spite of her soft, high-breasted body and the almost overpowering physical appeal of her rounded arms and legs, had about her much of the impersonal, casual charm of a child. Looking at her, Dent found himself wondering what kind of woman she was. Whom had she known? What had she done? There was the typical candor of a young girl in her brown-flecked eyes. Vibrantly alive, she gave the impression that she was still psychologically unprepared to meet life as a mature, full-grown woman.
There was a brightness, an odd Celtic alert intelligence, about her expression, but it was basically the expression of an inquisitive, inexperienced schoolgirl. She was the kind of girl of whom Dent had known very little.
Watching het, as she in turn smiled down at the child and the kitten, Dent found her strangely attractive. He was baffled to experience one of the very few soft, almost sentimental sensations he had had in recent years.
He quickly caught himself up short and his face was a hard, neutral mask as he turned back to Pearl.
“Take the kid out in the other room and give her some lunch,” he said
shortly. “I want to talk.”
I Both girls started toward Janie and again Dent spoke.
“I mean for you to take her,” he said, nodding at Pearl. “You,” and he pointed at Terry, who looked at him with a strangely unfrightened, curious expression, “stay here with me.”
There was a sulky line around Pearl’s mouth as she took the child’s hand and started for the door. Janie hung back, but Terry nodded for her to obey and a second later the door closed behind the two of them.
Dent walked slowly over to the rocking chair and sat down. He took a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket and extracted one. As he was about to light it, he seemed suddenly to remember the girl, and he held the pack toward her.
Terry shook her head. “No, thank you,” she said.
“You don’t smoke?” Dent asked, the tone of the question showing a complete lack of interest in the answer she might give.
“I smoke,” Terry said.
Dent’s gray eyes lifted slowly to her face. “You smoke, but not mine— is that it?”
Again Terry shook her head. “No,” she said, “only I don’t feel like smoking just now. I guess I’m too...”
“You don’t have to be nervous with me,” Dent said. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“If I’m not going to be hurt,” the girl said, “why am I here? Why did you take me?”
Dent shrugged. “You were with the kid,” he said simply. “So we had to take you. Didn’t want you broadcasting our descriptions.”
For a moment Terry looked at him thoughtfully. And then, when she spoke, her voice had a soft huskiness.
“But after,” she said. “How about after? Do you suppose I won’t, as you say, broadcast your descriptions?”
For a moment Dent looked at her sharply, as though the idea had occurred to him for the first time. Then he shrugged.
“When it’s all over,” he said, “it won’t matter. Description or no description, once I have the money, I’ll be well on my way.”
Suddenly Terry Ballin lost that peculiarly childlike expression and her eyes were filled with anger. Her face flushed.
“No,” she said. “No. I know about your kind of man. You’d as soon kill as not. You, and those others in there, you’re all of you alike. All of you cowards and killers. No, you haven’t the slightest intention of turning me loose. I’ll be lucky if, once you get the money, you let the child go.”
As the girl spoke, her voice filled with bitterness and loathing. Dent looked at her in quick surprise. It was hard to realize she was capable of so much sudden anger, so much feeling.
Without stopping to get her breath, Terry continued. She no longer stood still, but walked quickly back and forth as she talked.
“Yes, I’ve known men like you before. Back home in the slum where I was raised. I guess your kind are all over. All you want is money, and you don’t care what you do to get it. You rob and steal and kill. You’ll—”
&
nbsp; Dent, aware that the girl’s voice had risen until she was almost screaming, jumped to his feet. He reached out and grabbed her by both arms and quickly shook her.
“All right,” he said. “That’ll be enough of that. Now quiet down. I told you to keep your voice quiet. What do you want me to have to do to you?”
The minute he touched her, Terry suddenly stopped talking. She didn’t struggle as he held her and her eyes were wide as she looked into his face. They stood there motionless for several seconds.
“Sit down,” Dent said then, and he dropped her arms. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t have you yelling in here. I don’t know what we’ll do with you, right now. All I can say is, be quiet and do what you’re told and I’ll see you’re not hurt for the time being. You want to help the kid, then behave yourself.”
The words came from his mouth almost automatically, and as Terry fell back on the cot, her head went back so that her auburn hair fell far down over her square shoulders and her arms dropped straight to support herself. Dent saw her for the first time as a woman. Up until that moment she had been merely a cypher—another pawn in his gamble, and a not too important one. As he watched her breathing heavily and attempting to regain control of herself, he suddenly realized that he actually never had considered the girl. He had automatically accepted the idea of her eventual murder.
From the very beginning, when he had first planned the crime, and even before he had recruited the others to help him, he knew that the kidnaping would be the final, the supreme gesture of his career. He was fully aware of the impact the crime would have on the public, fully aware that with his record, he could expect to get the chair if he were captured. He had been prepared to go all out, and all out included murder if that were to prove necessary.
Up until that very moment, murder had seemed to him merely a technical probability—one that he had not considered in relation to any person in particular. Certainly, from the very beginning he had planned the
kidnaping with the full intention of eventually returning the child un-I harmed. Hardened as he was, he would have been incapable of coldbloodedly planning the killing of a child for money. But kidnaping he
