by Lionel White
The voice was very low and held an oddly calm note. “I want to talk to the men who are holding my baby, Janie Wilton.”
For a moment the voice broke, and then it went on, this time a little stronger.
“Whoever you are, and wherever you are,” she continued, “I want you to know that we will meet your ransom demands. Just please don’t hurt my baby.”
Again there were several seconds of silence and once more the voice continued, speaking softly but very distinctly.
“Janie, if you can hear me, this is Mamma. Be a good little girl and do what Terry tells you to do if she is with you. Whoever is with you, please do what they say and obey them. Daddy and I will bring you home soon.
Janie...”
And then the voice broke for the last time and a moment later the announcer returned to the air.
Janie had squirmed out of Red’s arms and was standing in front of him, looking baffled as she stared at the radio. Dent quickly turned it off.
Turning to Red, the child smiled up into his face. “That was my mommy,” she said proudly. “I bet she doesn’t know I’m a member of your gang.”
“Take her back in the other room, Red,” Dent said shortly.
Gino laughed, for no particular reason.
“They’re willing to pay,” Dent said. “Don’t worry, they’re willing to pay.”
Pearl said nothing, but walked to the window and looked out.
Red came back a moment later.
“She’s some kid,” he said. “Some kid—a real sweety!”
“She’s a half million dollars,” Dent said. “Who wants a beer?”
Pearl left the window and walked over to the icebox.
Chapter Thirteen
Thursday had been a tough day on all of them.
It had started with the heavy winds and the rain, but by evening the air had cleared and it had developed into a typical gloomy, bleak fall evening. Nothing in the world can be more depressing than a summer seaside cottage that time of the year, in that kind of weather.
Pearl had always been sensitive to weather, and the heavy atmosphere had combined with her natural fears to put her in an unhappy mood. Her emotions were ever near the surface, and even when the fear began to leave her, she still felt a forlorn sense of foreboding. During dinner she had eaten little.
Red had nerves of iron, but the inactivity of the last few days was beginning to wear on him. He wanted people and gaiety, and with the exception of the child, Janie, the others either bored or annoyed him. He would have liked to talk with Terry but those others, particularly Pearl, had made that impossible. His restlessness hadn’t interfered with his appetite, but shortly after dinner he began to pace the floor and mumble angrily under his breath.
Gino was probably having the worst time of all. With him it wasn’t a matter of nerves; it was a matter of pain. Red had given him a brutal beating, and he still ached all over. But even more than the physical pain
was the agony of his emotional pain. He seethed with a cold hatred for tall of them, but mostly for Red.
Dent was quick to sense the tension and he regretted that the weather had held up their plans for an additional twenty-four hours. From the very beginning he had realized that this was the sort of job that must be consummated as quickly as possible. He had a keen sense of judgment as to just how much the others would be able to stand.
Terry and the child had gone to bed soon after dinner. Pearl sat on the couch and her eyes followed Red as he paced the floor. Finally she threw the cigarette she had just lighted halfway across the room.
“For God’s sake,” she said, “will you plant yourself someplace? You’re driving me nuts.”
Red swung around and faced her. “Listen, you—”
Dent quickly stood up. “Take it easy,” he said. “I know everyone is keyed up. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I got a little surprise upstairs in my bag. Take it easy a second, and I’ll go up and bring it down.”
They all watched him as he walked to the staircase.
Dent went into his bedroom and pulled a canvas satchel from under his cot. He drew open the zipper and reached under a half-dozen shirts and some underwear. He pulled out a fifth of brandy.
“Well, I guess this is an emergency,” he said under his breath as he closed the bag. His face was very sober.
Pearl looked up from the sink as Dent returned with the bottle.
“My hunch was right,” she said. She put four glasses on the table.
“Drinking,” Dent said, “is a lousy idea. But I guess we all got one coming.”
Gino pulled himself out of his chair and crossed to the table. He took his straight and his face showed pain as he drained the shot glass. Red drank his quickly and laughed nervously. Pearl and Dent mixed theirs with water. They sat around the table and Dent poured seconds.
Red downed his drink, then looked up and smiled.
“Can you imagine,” he said; “a guy can dig up a half-million bucks. Jeese, you wouldn’t think there was that much money in the whole damn world!”
“There’s that much,” Dent said, “and we’ll have it in another twenty-four hours.”
“Or maybe they’ll have us,” Pearl said.
Red looked at her and scowled. Dent laughed and Gino’s face cracked into an ironic grin.
The liquor had its usual effect, and gradually the tensions that had been building up all day were relaxed as they sat and talked. Once or twice
Red addressed a remark directly to Gino, and even that dour little man’s face seemed to lose its perpetual mask of bitterness.
Pearl was quick to react to the alcohol, and she rapidly assumed an air of wild gaiety. Dent himself drank sparingly and watched the others. Red found a hillbilly band on the radio and drummed on the table with a spoon in time with the music. For more than two hours they sat there talking of the money they would get and what they would do with it.
After his third short drink, Gino had pulled himself to his feet and gone over to the couch. The alcohol had given him momentary surcease from his physical pains, and for the first time he lay back completely at ease. His mind was soon trapped in the vicious circle of his own dreams and desires, and he no longer listened to the others.
At eleven o’clock Dent got up and twisted the radio dial until he found a news program.
Outside of wild speculation and false rumors, there was nothing new on the Wilton kidnaping. Dent soon snapped it off.
“Let’s kill it,” he said, motioning to the almost empty bottle, “and then hit the sack.”
Pearl poured the remaining brandy into three glasses. Realization that the bottle was empty, combined with the radio news, had suddenly sobered her.
Dent downed his drink and set the glass on the table.
“You all get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll hold the fort.”
Gino looked up from the couch. “No,” he said. “I can’t sleep anyway. The rest of you go up and I’ll sit here for a while.”
Dent looked at him closely for a minute before answering.
“O.K.,” he said. “Call me when you get tired and I’ll relieve you. But be sure to call me. We’re too close to home now to take any chances. Somebody’s got to be awake all the time from now on.”
Gino grunted.
He stared open-eyed at the ceiling as Pearl and Red started for the stairway, followed a second later by Cal Dent.
Twenty minutes later, as he pulled the gray Army blanket up to his chin, Dent heard Red and Pearl quietly quarreling in the next room. There was the sudden sound of blows and a moment later he heard Pearl crying. For another fifteen minutes he was kept awake by the sounds coming through the thin partition of the wall separating the two rooms, and then all was quiet.
He couldn’t sleep.
After turning and tossing for more than half an hour, he finally reached over for the flashlight at the side of his bed. He snapped the switch and directed the beam on his wrist watch. Then he got up and pulled the light cord. He went back an
d sat on the side of the bed and reached for a cigarette.
For Cal Dent, insomnia was almost a totally new experience. He had always been able to drop off within minutes after going to bed. The house was as still as death and there was no sound but the noise of the surf as the breakers crashed on the sands a couple of hundred yards from the cottage.
Cal realized that there was something disturbing him. He thought about the job. But it wasn’t that. Things were coming along just as he had planned them. He admitted to himself that the situation was tense, that the others were keyed up. But he himself wasn’t a worrier and he had been in plenty of tighter spots. No, it wasn’t worry over the job that was keeping him awake.
Red and Pearl? It was true that the sounds from the other room had annoyed him. But being an unwilling witness to their warfare hadn’t bothered him, and he had only been glad when they had quieted down.
He drew long drags from his cigarette and wondered what it was that was keeping him awake. At last, when the butt became too short to smoke, he stubbed it out in the ash tray and stood up. He pulled on a pair of trousers and stepped into, his shoes without bothering to lace them.
Gino looked at him curiously when he entered the downstairs room.
“Go up and hit the sack,” Dent said. “I can’t sleep, and one of us might just as well get some shuteye.”
Gino grunted and sat up. Wordlessly he nodded and started upstairs.
For a number of minutes Cal sat and stared into the dead fireplace. He felt very strange. The drinks? No, it couldn’t be that. He hadn’t taken enough to feel it. Anyway, liquor had never had much effect on him.
It was only when he became conscious of the movement in the next room that it came to him.
It was the girl, Terry. Somehow, all along, she had been in the back of his mind. Her very presence seemed to have been upsetting him from the very moment she had entered the hideout.
As he listened intently, he once more heard a slight sound, as though she were tossing in her sleep. He sat there thinking of her; thinking of her lying on that hard Army cot not more than ten feet away. There was nothing between them but the thin wallboard partition.
Dent stood up and crossed the room. He made no noise as he carefully turned the doorknob.
The light fell obliquely across the bedroom and he stood half in the doorway. He could see the outlines of the child as she slept curled up in a tight ball. He could hear her heavy breathing. He opened the door a little wider and looked over at the other cot.
Terry lay bathed in the light. Her flaming hair was a halo around her white face on the pillow. Her large eyes were wide and she was looking directly at him. For a full minute they stared at each other, neither one moving.
Dent took a step into the room. As he moved toward her the girl suddenly swung her feet to the floor, pulling the blanket up to her chin.
“No,” she said. “No.”
There was the urgency of fear in her voice.
Dent stopped short, as though he had suddenly walked straight into a concrete wall. Again he stared at her.
“I can’t sleep,” he said finally. His voice was a dull monotone, almost without meaning.
Terry rose to her feet, winding the blanket around herself. She nodded toward the other cot.
“I don’t want her to wake up,” she said in a low whisper. “I don’t want to wake her. Please go.”
“I can’t sleep,” Dent said once more.
“I’ll come out,” Terry said. “But please go now. I’ll come out.”
Wordlessly Dent backed to the door. He half closed it as he went into the other room.
Within less than two minutes Terry followed him into the room. Carefully she closed the bedroom door on the sleeping child. Dent was vaguely conscious of the fact that she had swiftly pulled on a sweater and skirt. Her legs and feet were bare.
The girl walked into the room, watching him as she moved. She went over to the couch and sat in the corner of it, tucking her legs under herself.
“The others have all gone to bed,” Dent said aimlessly.
Terry nodded.
“And you,” she said. “You have to stay up?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Dent said. “I was thinking about you.”
He looked over at her and for the first time he was fully aware of her in the room with him.
Now there was no fright in her, only a strange look of curiosity.
His eyes followed the lines of her slender body up to the white column of her throat. And then once more he stared into her face. He repeated himself.
“I was thinking of you.”
“What were you thinking of me?” Terry said.
“What kind of a girl are you?” Dent asked. “Who have you known— what have you done?”
Terry half-smiled. “I guess I’m just an ordinary girl, like all girls,” she said. “I’ve known a lot of people, but never anyone quite like you and these other men here.”
“I’m not like the others,” Dent said.
“Yes, I know. But I’ve never known anyone like any of you. And as to what I’ve done—well, I’ve never done much of anything, until this happened to me.”
“Men?” Dent said. “Have you known many men? Are you married? Do you have a boy friend?”
Terry laughed softly. “I’m not married,” she said. “I have a lot of boy friends.”
Dent walked over to the couch and looked down at her for several minutes. She looked up into his face and still there was no fear in her.
He sat down, suddenly, beside her. He reached over and took one of her hands.
“I’ve never known anyone like you,” he said.
He felt her go taut as he held her hand in his own, but she made no effort to withdraw it. And then in a moment she relaxed and her head fell against the back of the couch.
Dent turned his body toward her and his other hand reached out and he took her arm. He pulled her toward him until their faces were only inches apart.
For a moment he stared at her and then quickly he pulled her close and his lips found her mouth. He felt her slender body stiffen in his arms.
A moment later he drew back. His eyes were suddenly cold and bleak.
“What’s the matter?” he said. “Haven’t you ever been kissed before?” His voice was bitter and vicious as he spoke. He still held her arms above the elbows and her body was still pressed close to his.
Terry looked back at him and there was still no fear in her face.
“I’ve been kissed,” she said. “I’ve been kissed. Only...”
“Well, then, kiss me,” Dent said. Once more he leaned toward her. Her lips were slightly parted as he found her mouth again. Her hands came up between them and she pressed slightly against his chest but she didn’t struggle.
Dent’s right hand fell from her arm and went around her waist.
Terry shook her head quickly and Dent took his lips away for a brief second.
“No,” she said. “No. You don’t understand. There has never been anyone....
“There is now,” Dent said. “There is now.”
He reached across her and found the light switch on the lamp at the end of the couch. A moment later only the moonlight streaking across the floor gave illumination to the room.
Terry started to say something, but once more Dent found her mouth. He lifted her from the couch and stood her on her feet, never taking his lips from hers. She began to fight with him silently and he breathed heavily. His lips drew away from hers and he kissed her neck hungrily. His arms held her tightly and his hands caressed her. She moaned.
Time stood still in that moon-sprayed room, and the sound of the surf roaring and breaking on the sands outside played an obbligato to the surging blood racing back and forth through his constricted veins.
They fell to the floor and Dent felt the softness of her. Only dimly was he aware of the girl’s struggles, and he failed to understand when she cried out in pain. It seemed to him then as though for a mo
ment she willingly yielded to his demands. He didn’t realize that she was unconscious.
The fury of his desires mounted to a higher and ever higher pitch and his passion was a hard, cruel thing. He was consumed with an abandoned exaltation that knew no control and no point of satiation.
He could taste her tears as he kissed her face.
It must have been more than a half hour later when he picked her up as gently as though he were lifting a child and carried her into the other room. He laid her on the bed, then fell beside her, and once more his arms found her.
Long after, he roused himself and stood up. He closed the door behind him as he returned to the other room.
Like a man in a hypnotic trauma, he tossed some kindling into the fireplace and lighted newspapers under it. He didn’t turn on the light again, but he was vaguely aware that the rain had fallen off to a slow periodic drizzle and the wind had died down to a whisper.
He lay on the couch and stared sightlessly at the ceiling.
The wonder of the last hour overwhelmed him. Nothing, nothing ever in all the years of his strange and wild life, had prepared him for this night.
Chapter Fourteen
Pearl lay there for several minutes, her eyes still closed, and tried hard to remember where she was. There was an odd roaring noise in her ears. At first she was completely unable to identify the sound, and then, suddenly, she knew that it was the muffled drone of a high-powered engine. For a moment she thought she was back on that old white iron bed in the tenement on Tenth Avenue and that what she was hearing was the growl of a truck or bus pulling up the avenue in gear.
She turned in her half sleep to face the wall and tried hard to drop off into unconsciousness again. But the whine of the engine grew deep and close.
She opened one eye and tried to open the other, but it was frozen tight with sleep. And then she knew where she was. She was in the second-floor bedroom of the beach cottage, out on the south shore of Long Island. Looking toward the window, she knew that it was already daylight, although the room itself was still shrouded in shadows. She pulled herself into a sitting position on the side of the bed and shivered.
