The Frumious Bandersnatch

by Ed McBain

  She almost panicked again.

  She kicked out at the walls, tried to scream again, almost choked, tried to cough out the gag, tried to force her eyes open, her lids fluttering helplessly against the blindfold. She tried to calm herself. Sucked in great gulps of air through her nose. Lay still and silent for several moments, regaining her cool, telling herself to relax, be still.

  She eased herself up into a sitting position, her back to what she supposed was the rear wall of the closet. Exploring with her feet, she located what she guessed was a hinge, the thin sole of her slightly heeled sandal catching on something that jutted from the otherwise flat surface, yes, it had to be a hinge, yes, she was indeed facing the closet door.

  Bracing both feet hard against the floor, she inched her back slowly up the rear wall of the closet, banging her head on what was obviously a recessed horizontal shelf, but easing her way up and around it, and struggling to her feet at last. Her hands tied behind her back, her feet bound, essentially blind and mute, she used her head and her shoulder to explore the hinged side of the door, locating another hinge higher up. Using her nose as a pointer, she zeroed in on a small protruding knob at the top of the hinge.

  The blindfold ended just above her cheekbone. She pressed the side of her face against the hinge, and tried to hook the edge of the blindfold over the knob. She was about to give up, when—on the eighth or ninth attempt—she finally snagged it. Yanking downward with a sharp jerk of her head, she pulled the blindfold loose, and opened her eyes.

  A thin ribbon of light limned the lower edge of the closet door.

  She waited for her eyes to adjust.

  Duct tape.

  It was duct tape.

  The same thing that bound her ankles, and undoubtedly her hands, which she could not see.

  She searched the closet floor and the shelf at eye level for any sharp object that might help her free her hands or her feet.

  There was nothing.

  She tried to hook the gag over the same hinge that had served her with the blindfold. But because it was a rag twisted an inch or so inside her mouth, and tied tightly at the back of her head, there was no slack to it at all, and she could not free it.

  She did not know what to do next.

  CARELLA wanted to know what they were supposed to do next.

  He had waited till a respectable seven A.M. before phoning Lieutenant Byrnes, and now the two men were discussing whether or not they should drag the FBI into this.

  “For all I know, Loomis has already called them,” Carella said.

  “Who’s Loomis?” Byrnes asked.

  In the background, Carella could hear a television set going. He imagined his boss at breakfast, sitting at his kitchen table over bacon and eggs, watching television as he ate. Byrnes was a compact man in his fifties, white-haired and blunt-featured. He had no particular fondness for the FBI.

  “Barney Loomis,” Carella said. “He’s the CEO of Bison Records. He thinks the perps are going to ask him for the ransom.”

  “Oh? How come?”

  “Her parents are divorced, one in Mexico, the other in Europe. Also, neither of them has any money.”

  “State line been crossed here?” Byrnes asked.

  “We don’t know where the boat went after the snatch. Could’ve gone across the river, sure, docked someplace there. In which case, yes, a state line’s been crossed.”

  “You say this girl’s a celebrity?”

  “Personally, I never heard of her, Pete. According to Loomis, she’s the hottest thing around. But he owns the label, so what do you expect him to say?”

  “You think he may have already called the Feds?”

  “I have no idea. He wants that girl back.”

  “What’d you say her name was?”

  “Tamar Valparaiso.”

  “Cause here she is now,” Byrnes said, and got up to raise the volume on the television set. “Can you hear this?” he asked Carella.

  “I can hear it,” Carella said, and nodded grimly.

  “…from a luxury yacht in the River Harb last night,” a television newscaster was saying. “According to U.S. Coast Guard reports…”

  “How’d they’d get in this?” Byrnes said into the phone.

  “Harbor Patrol called them.”

  “…two armed and masked men boarded the River Princess at about ten-fifteen, seizing the talented young singer as she was performing her debut album, Bandersnatch, for a hundred or more invited guests…”

  “What channel is that?” Carella asked.

  “Five,” Byrnes said.

  “Four’s gonna sue the city.”

  “…Barney Loomis, who says Bison has not yet received a ransom demand. In Riverhead this morning…”

  “That’s it,” Byrnes said, and lowered the volume. “Sue the city? Why?”

  “Cause I confiscated a tape of the kidnapping.”

  “Ooops.”

  “It was evidence. So what do we do here, Pete? Pursue this or phone the FBI?”

  “Let me talk to the Commish. I’ll tell you the truth, I don’t know. What I don’t want is for the Feds to use us as errand boys. That’s the last thing I want. Nobody called from them yet, huh?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Let me see what the Commish advises. I know he won’t want heat later on, anybody saying we dropped the ball prematurely. You’re about out of there, anyway, aren’t you?”

  Carella looked up at the clock.

  “Half an hour,” he said.

  “Get some sleep, you may have to come back in. I don’t know how this is gonna fall, Steve, we’ll have to play it as it lays. Call me later, okay?”

  “You coming in today?”

  “No, it’s supposed to be my day off. Call me at home.”

  “There’s the other line,” Carella said.

  “I’ll wait. Maybe it’s the Feds.”

  Carella put Byrnes on HOLD, stabbed at a button on the base of his phone.

  “Carella,” he said.

  “Carella, this is Sandy McIntosh, HPU. You got a minute?”

  “Yeah, hang on.” He switched over to Byrnes again. “It’s the Harbor Patrol. Am I on the job, or what?”

  “Stay with it for now,” Byrnes said. “Call me later.”

  Carella switched to the other line again.

  “Okay, Sandy, I’m back,” he said.

  “This may be nothing at all,” McIntosh said, “or maybe you can use it. Around nine-fifteen, nine-thirty last night…”

  IT WAS NOT often that this precinct caught something as big as a celebrity kidnapping—if, in fact, Tamar Valparaiso was a celebrity and not some figment of a record label’s imagination.

  Neither Bert Kling nor Meyer Meyer had ever heard of her. Perhaps this was not too surprising in Meyer’s case. His kids listened to rock, but he was tone deaf when it came to anything more recent than the Beatles. Kling, on the other hand, was familiar with all the new groups, and even listened to rap on occasion. He had never heard of Tamar Valparaiso, even though her face and her story were splashed all over that morning’s tabloids.

  The two men signed in at seven-forty-five, were briefed by Carella and Hawes—who were exhausted after a long night on the water—and then headed out at eight-thirty, to pick up where the departing team had left off.

  Sandy McIntosh had reported stopping a twenty-seven-foot Rinker at around nine-fifteen, nine-thirty last night, heading inbound toward Capshaw Boats, its home marina, at Fairfield and the river, just off Pier Seven. Three passengers aboard. Two men and a woman. Name on the boat’s transom was Hurley Girl. Serial number stenciled on each of her sides was XL721G. Capshaw Boats was where Meyer and Kling were headed on this misty Sunday morning.

  Today was the fourth of May.

  Meyer had celebrated his wife’s birthday the night before, ordering champagne for everyone in the small French restaurant where they’d dined—not an enormously big deal in that there’d been only half a dozen other patrons. He’d sure a
s hell impressed Sarah, though. Sarah Lipkin when he met her all those years ago. “Nobody’s lips kin like Sarah’s lips kin” was what the fraternity banter maintained, a premise Meyer was eager to test. Married all these years now, never tired of her lips. Married all these years now, he could still impress her with six bottles of champagne. Veuve Cliquot, though, don’t forget.

  Clear-eyed this morning, despite the full bottle of bubbly he and Sarah had shared last night, he was at the wheel of the police sedan, wondering out loud if the Feds would be coming in on this one.

  “Thing I don’t like about working with them,” he said, “is they have this superior…”

  “Way I understand it, it’s a dead cinch they’ll come in,” Kling said.

  “Then why are we shlepping all the way downtown?”

  “Way the Loot wants it. Guess he’d like a heads up, case there’s static later on.”

  “What’s her name again?” Meyer asked.

  “Tamar Valparaiso.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  This was the third time he’d said this.

  “Me, neither,” Kling said.

  Third time for him, too.

  The two made a good pair.

  Both men were some six feet tall, but Meyer presented a burlier look, perhaps because he was entirely bald, perhaps because he was possessed of a steady, patient demeanor that made him seem somewhat plodding in contrast to Kling’s more open, enthusiastic country-boy style. Born and bred in this city, Kling nonetheless looked like he’d been found in a basket in a corn field. He was the perfect Good Cop to Meyer’s Bad Cop, although often they switched roles for the fun of it, blond, hazel-eyed, fuzzy-cheeked Kling suddenly snarling like a pit bull, steely blue-eyed big bald Meyer purring like a pussy cat.

  The man who owned Capshaw Boats and its adjoining marina was a one-eyed former Navy SEAL who called himself Popeye, not to anyone’s great surprise. He had opened the marina at a little before six this morning…

  “Lots of skippers like to get out on the water before all the river traffic begins. That’s a nice calm time of day, you know,” he said, “that time just before sunrise. It’s called morngloam, not many people know that.”

  Meyer certainly didn’t know it.

  Neither did Kling.

  “I think it’s a Scottish word,” Popeye said. “Morngloam. The opposite of it is evengloam. That’s the time just before sunset. Evengloam. I think it comes from the word ‘gloaming.’ I think that’s a Scottish word. The derivation, I mean. I think it’s Scottish.”

  “Tell you what we’re looking for,” Kling said. “Harbor Patrol stopped a boat from your marina last night…”

  “Oh?” Popeye said, his one good eye widening in surprise.

  “Name’s Hurley Girl, serial number’s…”

  “Oh, sure, the Rinker. She was already back in this morning, when I got here.”

  “Whose boat is she?” Meyer asked.

  “Mine. Well, Capshaw’s. I rent her out.”

  “Then she doesn’t belong to one of your customers, is that it?”

  “No, she’s mine. I just told you. She’s a rental boat. I sell boats, and I store boats, and I service boats, but I also rent them.”

  “Who’d you rent this one to? Would you remember?”

  “Oh, sure. Nice young feller. I’ve got his name inside.”

  “Can you let us know who he was?” Kling asked.

  “Oh, sure. Just let me finish here a minute, okay?”

  He was washing down one of the boats. Soaping it, hosing it. Meyer watched him with interest. Kling looked upriver where early morning traffic was already moving steadily across the bridge to the next state.

  “When you say she came back in…” Meyer said.

  “She was tied up at the dock when I got in this morning.”

  “When did she go out?”

  “Evengloam last night. Nice time of day.”

  “You rented her out last night at sundown…”

  “Just before sundown. Twilight. Evengloam.”

  “When was she due back in?”

  “Well, she was a twenty-four-hour rental. Actually, she wasn’t due back till this evening sometime. I was surprised to find her here this morning.”

  “We’d like that name, if you can get it for us,” Kling said.

  “Oh, sure,” Popeye said, and turned off the hose. “Come on in.”

  They followed him inside. The office was hung with lobster pots and fishing nets. Through the windows facing the river, Meyer and Kling could see racks and racks of stacked boats. Popeye went behind the counter, vanished from sight for a moment as he knelt beneath it. He emerged again, plunked a long narrow black book onto the counter top, and began riffling through its pages.

  “Name was Andy Hardy,” he told them.

  “Andy Hardy, huh?” Meyer said.

  “There it is, right there,” Popeye said, and turned the registry log so they could see the name.

  “That’s Mickey Rooney,” Meyer said. “A character he played in the movies. Andy Hardy.”

  “You know, you’re right,” Popeye said, opening his one good eye wide in surprise.

  “Never occurred to you, huh?” Kling said. “While this guy was renting the boat?”

  “Well, the name did sound familiar, but we get a lot of people in here, you know. Sometimes too many damn people, you ask me.”

  “How’d he pay for the rental?”

  “Credit card.”

  “Showed you a credit card with the name Andy Hardy on it?”

  “Andy Hardy was what it said. Same as on his driver’s license. Picture matched his face, too. You rent a boat, it’s the same as when you rent a car, you know. You’re responsible for it. There’s more boating accidents, ratio of boats to cars, than there are automobile accidents, you know. Anything happens to the boat—theft, fire, accident—I’ve got the man’s credit card.”

  “And you got Andy Hardy’s credit card for the little Hurley Girl out there, is that it?”

  “You betcha,” Popeye said.

  “Think we can get a line on Mr. Hardy?” Kling asked Meyer.

  “Fat Chance Department,” Meyer said.

  “I saw his driver’s license, too, I just told you,” Popeye said. “He seemed legit to me.”

  “Maybe he is,” Kling said. “We’ll hit the computers when we get back to the office.”

  “We’ll want our people to look over that boat, too,” Meyer said.

  He was already on his cell phone.

  “Why?” Popeye asked.

  “It may have been used in a crime,” Kling said.

  Meyer was dialing a number he knew by heart.

  “How’d this Andy Hardy get here?” Kling asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did he walk up? Drive up in his own car? Arrive in a taxi? How’d he get here?”

  “In a black Ford Explorer. Two other people with him. They waited in the van while he filled out the rental papers.”

  “Can I take a look at those papers?” Kling asked.

  “Sure,” Popeye said, and went digging under the counter again. Meyer was just telling the Mobile Crime Unit where to find them.

  “Man and a woman, right?” Kling said. “These two other people with him?”

  “How’d you know that?” Popeye asked.

  “Happen to see the license plate number?”

  “Didn’t look. Here you go,” Popeye said, and put the rental folder for the Rinker on the counter top. Kling leafed through it. Andy Hardy, sure enough. Gave an address in Connecticut.

  “Was the driver’s license issued in Connecticut?” Kling asked.

  “Yep.”

  “This address match the one on the license?”

  “Yep. That’s why I asked to see it.”

  Meyer pressed the END button on his cell phone, looked over at the papers Kling had spread on the counter top.

  “They’re on the way,” he said.

  “Did they
leave the van here when they went out on the boat?” Kling asked.

  “Unloaded it and left it, yes.”

  “Unloaded it?”

  “Took a carton from it.”

  “What kind of carton?” Meyer asked.

  “This cardboard carton. Not very big.” He showed the size with his hands.

  “Think the masks might’ve been in it?” Meyer asked.

  “You talking to me?” Popeye said.

  “My partner.”

  “Could be,” Kling said. “Any writing on the carton?”

  “Didn’t see any.”

  “And you say they left the van here?”

  “In the parking lot, yes.”

  “Was it gone this morning?”

  “Didn’t notice.”

  “When you came in, I mean.”

  “Didn’t notice,” Popeye said again.

  They were trying to pinpoint the exact time the suspects might have dropped off the boat and departed in the van.

  “Do renters usually return boats in the middle of the night?” Kling asked.

  “No, when their time’s up, usually. The rental period.”

  “Are all your rentals for twenty-four hours?”

  “No, we sometimes rent for a week. Sometimes longer.”

  “But this one was for twenty-four hours.”

  “Yes.”

  “Evengloam to evengloam,” Meyer said.

  “Supposed to be.”

  “But Hardy brought it back early.”

  “Yes.”

  “Anybody here to receive a boat in the middle of the night?”

  “We’ve got a night watchman, but he doesn’t check boats in, nothing like that.”

  “So they just leave them at the dock, is that it?” Kling said.

  “With nobody here to check them in,” Meyer said.

  “We don’t have too many people bringing boats back before they’re due,” Popeye said.

  “But Andy Hardy did.”

  “What’d this guy do, anyway?” Popeye asked.

  “Maybe nothing,” Kling said. “Is your watchman here now?”

  “Left when I opened up this morning.”

  “How do we find him?”

  “Let me get you his address,” Popeye said, and went over to a desk under a calendar of a girl wearing a sailor hat and hardly anything else.

  “Phone number, too, please,” Meyer said.