What of Terry Conniston?

by Brian Garfield

  “Yeah.” Orozco’s big fleshy face was thoughtfully creased. “Yeah. Listen, maybe—”

  The phone rang. Oakley made a grab for it and barked into it; afterward his expression changed and he handed the receiver to Orozco. Orozco lifted it to his ear and talked and listened. When he hung up he said, “There wasn’t any phone call.”

  “What?”

  “No record of a call to this number on the computer.”

  “They’re nuts. These God damned incompetent computers—”

  “No. Wait a minute, Carl. Suppose it came from a wiretap.”

  “A what?”

  “A phone they hooked up to the wire someplace. Usually when you tap a wire you just connect an earphone because you don’t want to talk, you just want to listen in. But it’s easy enough to connect a two-way phone to a line anyplace along the wire. Linemen do it all the time when they repair a break and then call in to the central office to check out the line. You can call any number from a lineman’s phone but it doesn’t get recorded on the computer because the lineman doesn’t have a phone number. Get it?”

  From the back of the room Frankie Adams said dryly, “That’s great. You’ve made a discovery that deserves three Eurekas and an Edison light bulb. Now all you need to do is follow every phone wire in the southwest from one end to the other until you find one that’s got holes in the insulation where they spliced into it. Give that man a great big hand, folks.”

  Without dignifying Adams’ raucous commentary by replying, Orozco rewound the tape and switched it on again. He said, “What time did the call come in?”

  “Twelve thirty-eight,” Oakley said. “I wrote it down.”

  The tape scratched. “Yes?” “Conniston?” “Yes.” “You know who this is?” It droned on. Orozco was holding his wrist as if taking his own pulse, his stare fixed on his watch. No one stirred until, near the end of the recorded dialogue, Orozco let go of his wrist and turned off the recorder. “Six minutes. That means it went over about twelve forty-four.”

  Oakley’s eyes widened; he said softly, “Sure. The jet.”

  Adams complained, “What the hell are you talkin’ about now?”

  “Of course,” Orozco observed, “it might have been a private jet or a commercial air liner, but probably it was one of them Air Force trainers from Davis Monthan up at Tucson. I don’t expect they’d give out flight-plan information to just anybody but I know somebody on the Tucson police force that owes me a favor. They’ll give the information to him.”

  “Then get at it,” Oakley said. His glass was empty; he went out into the corridor. Frankie Adams trailed him to the bar. “How about explaining it to me?”

  “Easy. A jet plane flew over the kidnaper at just about exactly twelve forty-four. If we can find out what planes were in the air at that time and precisely where they were, we’ve narrowed down the place where the phone call came from.”

  “That’s a pretty flimsy clue.”

  “It’s the only one we’ve got. When all you’ve got is a long shot, you shoot it.”

  “How about putting men on that road where they want you to make the ransom drop?”

  Oakley poured a drink and said, “And suppose they were spotted?”

  “Use a plane, then. A helicopter. A balloon. Hell, it shouldn’t be too hard.”

  “Why do you think they picked that particular road? It’s a narrow dirt road that snakes through the woods like a slalom course. You can’t spot it from overhead at all—the trees mask it out. And you’d have to post an army in the woods if you wanted to cover the whole road from the ground—there isn’t a straight stretch of more than a hundred yards anywhere along it. It’s up and down through canyons and hills all the way.”

  “You’ve got to give them credit,” Adams said.

  Oakley grunted and carried his drink back to the office. Orozco said, “They’ll call back. I just talked to a guy in Nogales about a suitcase.”

  “Why go that far? We can use one of our own.”

  “Sometimes this new electronic stuff comes in handy. It won’t hurt to have a bleeper in the suitcase.”

  “Bleeper?”

  Orozco grinned without mirth. “One of them Mission Impossible gadgets. Small enough so you can hide it in the hinges of the suitcase. It gives off a radio signal. You use a direction-finder to pick up the signal, and you can keep tabs on the suitcase. After we get Terry back we can maybe catch up with them by radio.”

  “It’s worth a try. But whoever they are these characters seem pretty hip.”

  “Sure. They may ditch the suitcase first thing. But I figure to take the chance. Can’t lose much except the price of the gadget. It’ll get here tonight. I told him to get amove on.”

  The phone rang; Orozco answered it. The conversation was brief. When he hung up he said gloomily, “Focking Air Force.”

  “They won’t disclose the flight plans,” Oakley said.

  “It’s classified information,” Orozco said with a straight face. “Nobody knows where their planes are except them. And of course anybody who happens to be looking up at the time when they fly over. Security, you know?” He shook his head in dumbfounded exasperation. “Shit. If we had more clout we could probably force it out of them but we can’t push it too hard unless we let them know what’s happening.”

  “Which we can’t do.”

  “Earle Conniston picked a fine time to die,” Orozco agreed.

  “I know a general or two in Washington. Maybe I can exercise some leverage.” Oakley sat down at the phone and began to make calls. It took him twenty minutes, at the end of which time he sat back in disgust. “They’re both gone for the day. They’ll call back in the morning.”

  “Long time to wait,” Orozco said.

  Adams, in the doorway, said uncertainly, “On the tape he played over the phone. Terry complained about how it was dark and miserable. Dark, she said. You think that means she’s blindfolded?”

  “I hope to God it does,” Oakley murmured. Unsatisfied, Adams drifted out of the room, his thin nostrils dilating, his fists contracting.

  Oakley got up and stared out the window at a seventy-dollar cow wandering past the corral fence. Behind him Orozco said, “With Conniston dead, what’s going to happen about the chicano land claims?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Oakley said absently.

  “They ain’t going to give up their demands just because he’s dead. In fact, time his will comes up for probate, they may just challenge the whole thing in court.”

  “Let them. It’s not my problem.”

  “You’re the executor, ain’t you?”

  Oakley turned with a snap of his shoulders; irritable, he said, “Leave it be, Diego. Let’s get this thing ended first.”

  Under the padding of flesh Orozco’s blunt jaw was set. “There’s people starving, Carl.”

  “They’ll just have to go on starving until we get Terry back.”

  “And suppose we don’t get her back? Alive, I mean.”

  “I told you. We’ll discuss it afterwards. Now drop it.”

  Orozco’s shrewd eyes studied him. “Okay, Carl,” he murmured. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

  C H A P T E R Eleven

  The slow sleepless night spread acid through Mitch Baird; it ate away his dwindling hopes. His nerves, drawn fine, twanged with vibration. The lamp flickered on low oil; darkness condensed from the amorphous shadows like wolves.

  By the back wall Theodore stood looking down intently at Billie Jean. He had a rubbery leer. They had spent half the night outside somewhere together; incessant sex was to them what opiates were to Georgie. Lamplight shone faintly on the surface of Theodore’s half-closed trachomic eye.

  They were all on edge. Mitch sat near the girl Terry and wondered in a dulled hopeless way what would come of her, and of himself. She had retracted into her defensive armor; she lay on her side against a rolled-up sleeping bag, her legs stretched out, picking at splinters in the floorboards with sick concentration.
Staring at the lovely symmetry of her legs, Mitch imagined her—naked, pink, tender. Protective fantasies drifted in his mind, carrying him on vague sunny flights of dreams in which he vanquished all the others single-handed and spirited Terry away and was rewarded by Earle Conniston’s generosity and Terry’s passionate love.

  He felt weight behind him and twisted his head back to see Georgie edging toward the door. Floyd, sitting by the lamp packing things away in knapsacks, said, “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Bathroom.”

  “You just went half an hour ago.”

  “I can’t help it,” Georgie whined. “Maybe I got a bug or something.”

  “Have you got diarrhea?”

  “Uh—a little, yeah.”

  Floyd watched him with a poker stare; finally he said, “All right.” He cupped his hand over the lamp chimney and blew it out.

  Mitch tensed in the sudden darkness. He heard Billie Jean chortle. The door was a brief pale rectangle; it closed and Floyd put a match to the lamp. Mitch glanced at Terry—still picking at splinters, indifferent to her surroundings—and went over to Floyd; he squatted down and said softly, “What happens in the morning?”

  “I already explained it once. Do you need a blueprint?”

  “I don’t mean about the ransom. I mean about Terry.”

  “Indeed?”

  “She gets away in one piece. We agreed on that.”

  “That’s your problem, old cock. I wash my hands of it. Why don’t you discuss it with Theodore?”

  “Look, at least let me have the gun when you leave.”

  “Maybe. We’ll see when the time comes.”

  Mitch tightened his stomach muscles. “How do we know you won’t just pick up the ransom by yourself and keep going with it?”

  “Leaving you holding the bag,” Floyd said. The idea seemed to amuse him. “Of course there’s Georgie. Part of the money’s for him.”

  Unsatisfied, Mitch brooded into the lamp flame. Footsteps thudded the porch and Floyd blew the lamp out; Georgie came in. Floyd said, “Shut that door!”

  It scraped shut; a match in Floyd’s fingers burst painfully before Mitch’s eyes. When Georgie had settled down against the far wall Floyd said, “We’ll have to have a little GI party, Mitch—police the area before we clear out. We don’t want to leave anything behind. Not even a Kleenex. Am I making myself understood?”

  “Yes, sure.”

  “You can take care of that while I’m gone picking up the spoils.” Floyd smiled spuriously. “Relax, old cock. Don’t take things so hard.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “Maybe I will let you have the gun.”

  Mitch glanced at him quickly. There was no figuring Floyd. But then Floyd explained, “We’ll be better off all around if Theodore isn’t left behind to tell all about it. After all, we can hardly expect plastic surgery to do much good for Theodore, can we?”

  “So you leave me to take care of the dirty work.”

  “Tritely put, old cock, but reasonably accurate.”

  “What about Billie Jean?”

  “I thought you understood.” Floyd was still smiling. “I’m leaving the disposition of both ladies to you.”

  “You bastard.”

  “Am I not. An interesting dilemma, what? All your humanitarian instincts of conscience dictate that you render them no harm. Yet either one of them can make deathly trouble for you—only by killing them both can you guarantee your own freedom.”

  “You lied to me about that plastic surgeon.”

  “What gives you that idea?” Floyd shook his head gently. “I didn’t lie, Mitch. It wouldn’t have been as interesting.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “I hardly expected you to. But it’s easy to explain. Examine my options for a moment and perhaps you’ll understand.”

  “Go on.”

  Floyd spread his hands with an attitude of patronizing patience. “The one unforgivable crime is murder. I have nothing against killing in principle but I recognize, purely logically, that once having committed a murder you have forfeited all possibility of mercy or, better yet, of forgetfulness. You don’t follow? I’ll put it another way. Crimes of property are forgivable, particularly when perpetrated against the very rich. Crimes against the person which do not in fact result in personal harm are also forgivable, particularly something like kidnaping when the victim is released unharmed. In other words if we take the ransom and run, leaving the girl alive and free, we’ve done nothing more lasting than depriving a wealthy man of a sum of money which he’ll hardly miss. Terry hasn’t been hurt. No one has been hurt—only a few feathers have been ruffled. The police and the FBI will come swarming around, searching for us, intent on capturing us and recovering the ransom, but if they don’t immediately pick up our trail—if we elude them for a reasonable period of time—then the heat will die down, the ruffled feathers will lie smooth again, and it will all be forgotten in time.”

  “Not so with murder. Once murder has been committed the law won’t let the heat die down. The feathers will stay ruffled. You understand?”

  “Sure. But I don’t see what it has to do with—”

  “I’ll proceed. Now, in the morning I’ll pick up the ransom and bring it back here to be divided. You can feel reasonably certain I’ll do just that because after all, you have my own brother as a hostage, so to speak. Correct? All right. Now I’ve let you in on my personal plans. I intend to take my share of the ransom and one of the cars and split from here—by myself. The rest of you will be left to fend for yourselves. You will be the only one armed. You will no doubt hold the others at bay, put Terry in the sports car and drive away with her, leaving the other three stranded here on foot. That will give you ample time to drop Terry off at a safe place, and time to get yourself across the border with your share of the loot. Now we return to your original question—did I or did I not tell the truth about von Roon?”

  Floyd paused and took out his wallet. From it he withdrew a dog-eared snapshot. Mitch held it close to the lamp and leaned forward to examine it. The photograph showed part of a street—half a block of single-story adobe buildings jammed together along a chuck-holed street that had no sidewalk. Centered in the picture was a building with a pale stucco front and a wooden sign fixed above the door: FARMACIA—G. von Roon.

  Floyd said, “Keep it if you like. The town’s called Caborca.”

  Mitch lifted his eyes from the photo to Floyd’s somber dark face. “How do I know you didn’t just make up the whole yarn to fit some old snapshot you happened to pick up? Maybe there is a guy named von Roon but how do I know he’s a plastic surgeon like you said?”

  Floyd opened his wallet again and took out a one-column newspaper clipping. It was yellow and brittle, ready to break at the folded seams. Mitch scanned it briefly. The article, clipped from a three-year-old New York Times, was an inside-page feature tracing the whereabouts of Nazi war criminals who had been released from prison after serving Nuremberg sentences. One paragraph was circled in ball-point ink:

  Gerhard von Roon, 71, was once a surgeon at the Vorbeckberg hospital complex, where human guinea pigs suffered and died in surgical experiments. Israeli sources allege von Roon, a plastic surgeon, has disguised a score of top Nazi fugitives who have disappeared and never been brought to trial. Authorities in Mexico, where von Roon now has a pharmacy in a small village, have been unable to confirm such charges. Recently interviewed, von Roon laughed with the expansive air of a man without secrets. He said, “They suffer from paranoia. I am only a pharmacist—see for yourself.” He lives quietly, seems well liked in the community of Caborca where he works, and talks freely about any subject except the Nazi years—a subject he considers closed. “I have served my sentence.”

  Floyd Rymer said quietly, “The point is, old cock, I was forced to tell you the truth. Otherwise if you thought you had no way out you’d most likely turn yourself in to the law. But I’m giving you a way out. A hundred thous
and dollars tax-free and a new face.”

  “Aeah,” Mitch said dully.

  “It’s my only guarantee you won’t betray me—you see? Because if I didn’t give you this choice you’d turn state’s evidence and put the FBI on my tail. But even with time off you wouldn’t get out in less then ten or fifteen years. This way you’re free and rich. And so am I.”

  “And nobody gets killed?”

  Floyd smiled. “Now you’ve got it.”

  It made a kind of sense. But he still didn’t trust Floyd.

  Floyd added, as an afterthought, “One thing, Mitch. When you dump Terry out make sure she’s far enough from civilization to give you a good head start before she gets a chance to start talking. Ditch her car somewhere and buy a clean car—don’t take buses or planes. Always travel by car. It’s hardest for anyone to find out where you came from or where you went.”

  Mitch half-heard the last of it: he was looking past Floyd at the crumpled shape by the far wall. He said nervously, “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Who?” Floyd swiveled to look. “Georgie?” He got to his feet and raised his voice: “George!”

  Georgie didn’t stir. Floyd walked forward, increasing the pace as he approached; he was almost running when he reached his brother. He went down on one knee and gripped Georgie’s shoulder and shook him. Georgie rolled over sluggishly, blinked and laughed. “The hell time’s it?”

  Floyd said without turning, “Mitch. Bring that food sack over here.”

  The noise had roused the others. Terry was sitting up, looking back and forth, puzzled; the two in the back corner came forward into the lamplight and watched. Mitch took the knapsack over to Floyd and watched him paw through it. Floyd dumped everything out, opened a cracker tin and drew several packets from it. His eyes counted them; he tossed them aside and said something in his throat. Mitch couldn’t make out the words.