by Howard Fast
“Nothing,” Alice whispered, “nothing.”
Then, still gripping my arm, she led me out of there and back to the car.
7: Montez
We sat down in the car. Late afternoon, with the warm, spring sun cutting through the branches of the trees that lined the streets. It was a very early spring, and already some of the trees were touched with tiny feathers of yellow-green. Two robins stood on the lawn in front of the school, and a boy and girl wandered hand in hand down the street in the distance.
It was all the commonplace, dull lassitude of any suburb in the environs of New York—but for me it was terrible. It was a world gone mad.
“You don’t understand—God-damn it, you don’t understand,” I said to Alice, because, as I felt, no one in the world could have understood it as I did, with the yawning emptiness inside of me and the sickness driving down to my belly.
“I understand, Johnny,” she said coldly.
“They took Polly. Kidnaped her.”
“I know that.” Her voice was dead, not angry or alarmed or full of fear and hysteria, but dead. “I know that. Your virgin took her. Your stinking virgin took her.”
“Alice, I didn’t want this. Did I think it would come to this? My God, I’d cut off my hand to undo this.”
“Then you’d be less use than you are now.”
“So I was wrong,” I pleaded. “Every step of the way, I was wrong. Now I’m going to the police. The hell with everything! The hell with whatever happens to me! I don’t care—I’m going to the cops and throw the whole thing in their laps.”
“Why didn’t you do that yesterday?”
I started the car. “I’ll do it now.”
“No. You won’t do it now,” Alice said coldly.
“What? Didn’t you want me to?”
“I wanted you to—and that was before they took Polly. Now they have Polly. Haven’t you any sense? They kidnaped my daughter. They have her.”
“That’s just it.”
“And you’re running to the police? What do you expect the police to do? They took Polly because they want the key. Oh no, Johnny. You’re not going to the police.”
“You’re crazy!” I cried. “You’re absolutely crazy! That’s my daughter too. Do you expect me just to sit while they have my daughter? Do you expect me to sit around and do nothing? How cold-blooded can you be?”
“I’ll tell you how cold-blooded I can be,” she replied softly. “As long as I can remember, Johnny, I wanted kids. Lots of kids. I used to dream about a house that was full of kids. But it didn’t work out that way, did it? One child, and there won’t be any more—just Polly. Well, that’s how cold-blooded I am, Johnny.”
“God, I’m sorry.”
“That’s no good, being sorry.”
“Well, what are we going to do, Alice? That’s all I’m asking you—what are we going to do?”
“You know what we’re going to do, Johnny? We’re going home, and we’re going to sit down, you and I, and we’re going to think this thing through. We’re going to be as calm and thoughtful as two people can be at a time like this, because I think that Polly’s life may just depend on how calm and thoughtful we can be. I’m not going to cry, Johnny, and I’m not going to be eaten up with fear or hate. That won’t help us and it won’t help Polly. And I’m not going to say any cruel things to you—I’ve said enough. From now on, we’re dealing with the life of someone we both love very much, and we’ll try to do it right. Maybe that means going to the police, maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know yet. But let’s not plunge. Whatever we do, we’ll try to make it the right thing. Do you agree, Johnny?”
“I agree.”
Then I drove her home.
In the living room, she sat with her face in her hands, staring at me, someone I had seen without seeing and known without knowing, her round open face fighting pain, her voice terribly controlled as she said to me, “It always comes back to the key, Johnny. They want the key so much and so quickly.”
“I don’t give a damn about the key. It’s Polly I care about.”
“I guess it’s harder for you than it is for me,” Alice reflected. “I don’t want to admit that. I mean I don’t want to admit that anyone could suffer more than I am suffering right now. But I think you are. Please hang on, Johnny.”
“I’ll try.”
“About the key—we must think about the key, Johnny. If we had the key, we’d be in some position at least. At least, we’d have a thing to bargain with. Now we have nothing. That’s so terrible.”
“It’s no use thinking about the key.”
“But it is, Johnny,” she insisted. “Look at it another way. Suppose we were to call in the police, the FBI—you know, the way sensible people do in a kidnaping. You have read about it. I have. We call them in and tell them everything. Then Montez communicates with us—”
“No one has. Not Montez—no one.”
“He will, Johnny, believe me. It’s only a little while since they took Polly—not even an hour yet. But just see if we can follow this through. The police would say, ‘Talk to him, make plans.’ They listen in, but Montez will be smart enough not to have the call traced while he’s a sitting duck. Montez wants the key. He makes arrangements. The police tell us to go through with it. We leave the key somewhere. Montez picks it up. Then—”
“Then?”
“No, it makes no sense. If Montez were just a common thief, it might make some sense. But he’s a diplomat. What can he be thinking of?”
“I’ve been trying to understand that,” I agreed. “It just runs around my head like madness, because I always come to the same answer.” I looked at her.
“Someone has to say it,” she whispered.
“You mean that they’ll kill Polly.”
“Yes.”
“No matter what we do? Whether we give them the key or not? Either way?”
“Yes, Johnny. Either way. Only, they can’t stop there.”
“Where?”
“With Polly. Don’t you realize?”
“No, I don’t realize!” I cried.
“Johnny—Johnny, darling, easy. We have to talk about these terrible things. I know what it does to you, but think of what it does to me. Johnny, this is so new to you, but I was twelve when the fire-bombing of London began. Do you know how that is to a twelve-year-old? The world went mad and fell into pieces. You had to be able to say, ‘I think Grandma’s dead.’ ‘You think?’ ‘I can’t exactly be sure. Her head isn’t there.’ You lived in that world. It was grotesque, full of funny madness. But you had to think about it and talk about it, otherwise there was no hope.”
“But this world hasn’t gone mad. This is a civilized place.”
“Is it, Johnny? These men have made up their minds to kill Polly because they want the key. The key is worth money. They want money. Therefore, they will kill. It’s not so civilized, Johnny—it’s the world of the atom bomb and the murders in the street in Algiers and the riots and massacres that go on somewhere each day—yes, and the unborn children condemned to death each time the Russians explode a bomb or we do, for that matter. Civilized—”
“For Christ’s sake, don’t lecture me now!”
“I never lectured you before, Johnny,” she said bitterly. “We both have to grow up quickly.”
“Does this help?”
“It helps. Evil people have Polly, and they have decided to kill her. We must face that.”
“How can you be so sure that they’ve decided to kill her?”
“Because I have a little common sense. They have started on something, and now they have to kill Polly and you and me. Not Polly alone, but all three of us.”
“How can you say that? Why?”
“Because they are already in so deep that two more deaths don’t matter. But if they leave us alive, what hope can they possibly have?”
“How do they know we wouldn’t go to the police?”
She shook her head. “From all you say, Johnny, your
Mr. Montez is a shrewd and resourceful man. He takes big chances. You know, he’s not really a man, Johnny. I mean, this sexlessness, this use of his wife, this gluttony—what does it all add up to? He’s like a bomb, filled with self-contempt and self-destruction, and with a dream that money could wash him clean. In everything he does, there must be a streak of madness, the long, long chance. He will take the chance that we don’t go to the police, because I still believe that if we think sensibly, we should not go to the police. If we do, Polly is gone. And he will guess that we would think that way.”
“But if we should go to the police?”
“He will still have to kill us. It’s his only way out of this. Don’t forget that he has diplomatic immunity—not simply that, but representing a country that already wears a chip on its shoulder from our treatment of that country in the United Nations. I think he would be quite safe with the three of us out of the way. Who is to accuse him?”
“We could.”
“Not if we are dead. I don’t want to buy my life at the price of Polly’s. There must still be a few hours, and something we can think about, some way—if we only had the key.”
“If all you say is true, then we’re better off without the key. I don’t think he’ll dare to hurt Polly until he has the key. It makes no sense for him to kill her before he has the key—he loses the only weapon he has.”
“Yes, and the key was the only weapon we had, and we don’t have it,” Alice said hopelessly.
“They don’t know that. We can put up a bluff. They don’t have to know that we don’t have it.”
“No, Johnny, they don’t have to know that—”
The telephone interrupted her. “I’ll take it from the bedroom extension,” she said hoarsely. “I’ll call out to you when I’m there. Then take a beat and lift it.” She raced into the bedroom, and then shouted at me, “Now, Johnny!”
I took the beat and lifted the receiver, and I think we managed it with one click. It was Portulus Montez.
“Mr. Camber?” he asked, his voice like silk.
“Speaking.”
“It’s a pleasure to talk to you again. It is always a pleasure to talk to civilized people, one meets them so rarely, one leaves them with such sadness.”
“Where is my daughter?” Incredibly, my voice was not shaking and my hand, holding the telephone, was not shaking. Something was beginning to change inside of me.
“Your daughter? Should I know?”
“You damn well should. So let me tell you this, Montez, if anything happens to her, so help me God, I’ll find you. If it takes the rest of my life and I have to go to the ends of the earth, I’ll hunt you down and kill you!”
“I’m shocked, Mr. Camber,” he said. “That’s a terrible threat to make, a criminal threat. Even making allowances for the American propensity for romance, it remains a terrible threat. Has something happened to your daughter?”
“You know damn well what happened to her. Your wife kidnaped her.”
“My wife? You must be out of your mind, Mr. Camber. My wife has been here all afternoon, and if you were to utter this outrageous charge publicly, five witnesses would swear that she has been here. I fail to understand you, Mr. Camber, and can only attribute your incredible statements to your lack of emotional balance.”
“Oh no! Don’t brush me off, Montez. If anything happens—”
“One moment, Mr. Camber!” he snapped. “Let us suppose that a third party were listening to this conversation. You have threatened my life and you have defamed my character with slanderous charges.”
“I couldn’t defame you.”
“There is a point where even my patience will wear thin, Mr. Camber. If sorrow has intruded upon you, I am ready to sympathize, but I do not propose to listen forever to the nonsense you are talking. Now what will you have? Shall I hang up or shall we have a civilized and rational conversation?”
“I’ll talk to you.”
“Very well. Now you tell me that your daughter has been kidnaped. That’s a frightful thing. Of course, you have informed the authorities?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Is that wise, Mr. Camber?”
“For the moment, my wife and I believe that it is.”
“Your wife. Yes, from all I have heard, a most remarkable woman. Is she listening to this conversation? I understand you have a telephone extension in your home.”
There was a moment of silence; it hung there, and I left to Alice the decision as to whether or not she would speak. I had to. This was not anything that I could cope with. Whatever I said tumbled back at me. My world was a cloudy one, in which I groped and shuffled and stumbled.
Her voice clear and even, Alice replied, “Yes, Mr. Montez, I am listening.”
“Ah, I thought so. Mrs. Camber. A pleasure to meet you—a real pleasure, believe me, I have heard so much about you.”
“What do you propose, Mr. Montez?” Alice asked.
“Propose? Of course—this terrible thing that happened. I suppose there is nothing so upsetting. One loves a child. The child disappears. If only I could help you.”
“I think you can, Mr. Montez,” Alice said quietly.
“Do you? Then I will. Perhaps you were wise not to go to the police. I would never advocate such a course myself, but perhaps, as the parents, you were wise. Kidnaping is an ugly, dirty affair, and there is nothing that makes two parents more helpless, is there?”
“Do you have to go on with that?” I said. “For Christ’s sake, Montez, let’s get to the point. What do you want?”
“Only to help you, Mr. Camber.”
“Johnny,” Alice said, “I think we should hear Mr. Montez out. He has said that he wants to help us. I think we should listen to him. As to what he wants, I think we understand that.”
“Excellent!” Montez exclaimed. “I doff my hat to you, Mrs. Camber, and I earnestly hope that some day I may have the pleasure of knowing you. Life offers few things so rewarding as a remarkable woman, and I include you in that category. How earnestly I wish that I could remove some of your anxiety. May I say that I have a hope—no, more than a hope, a strong feeling—that your daughter will be found in good health and circumstances. I shall pray for that.”
“Thank you,” Alice said coldly. “But the point of all this, Mr. Montez?”
“Ah, you press me. But what can I say to you? I am sure that you would offer anything you possess for the return of your child. As one who would presume on your friendship, I offer my help. I am sure that if you had twenty-five thousand dollars, you would gladly give that if the kidnapers should ask it. But such a great sum—and so impossible for people like yourself. If I had twenty-five thousand dollars available, I should not hesitate to give it to you. How could it be better spent? But, alas—it is beyond me at the moment. Ten thousand dollars—yes, I could let you have ten thousand dollars, if it would help in this moment of anxiety and sorrow. I would ask only the smallest security—something of no consequence to you at all. So call upon me if you must.”
“What do you want us to do?” Alice asked.
“I’m afraid that in such circumstances there is nothing you can do until you hear from the kidnapers. I would advise you to pay what they ask—to think of the child first.”
“But how—”
“Always, the child first.”
“Montez,” I cried. “You’ve got the upper hand. I admit that. For God’s sake—”
“As I said, you can always call on me. Good-by, Mr. Camber. And Mrs. Camber, a pleasure. Good-by.”
And then the phone was dead.
“I want so much to cry,” Alice said to me. “I want to break down and scream. Women do that. Why don’t I, Johnny? What’s wrong with me?”
I shook my head.
“It’s a rotten world, Johnny. It’s never been anything else. It’s Montez’s world, and it’s always belonged to his kind. Blood and terror—and they dare to tell us that it makes sense and has meaning. But it makes no sense and it h
as no meaning, only fear and bloodshed. And filth. And then one child. I loved her so much I could die—”
“I know.”
“Johnny, what are we going to do?”
“Sit here. Wait. He has to call back.”
“Johnny, I don’t want to think about it—and then I do. She’s so small, so defenseless, so helpless—”
The phone rang. Again, Alice ran into the bedroom and we picked it up together. It was Helen Federman from the PTA, and she explained that Chris Tenney, who had agreed to have the next dessert luncheon, had just discovered that her in-laws were due for that week, and while she could still manage the luncheon if she had to, it would be a blessing if someone else could exchange with her. She wasn’t trying to squirm out. All she wanted was an exchange.
“Of course,” Alice said. “It’s perfectly all right. Only I can’t talk now.”
“Darling, that sounds mysterious.”
“It’s not mysterious. It’s only that I’m expecting a very important call. I must hang up, please.”
“But you will make the exchange?”
“I promise.”
Alice was trembling as she came back to the living room. I walked over and put my arms around her. “Johnny,” she whispered, “I love you so much. It’s hard for me to show things. I never really learned how to show things.”
“Easy,” I said.
“I’m all right. It’s only that when the phone rings—it’s so terrifying—”
The phone rang again. It was Jenny Harris from next door. She was worried. Something must be wrong, and couldn’t she help? Alice assured her that nothing was wrong.
“How much more?” Alice asked me. “You still want to go to the police, don’t you, Johnny?”
“No,” I replied after a moment. “No, I’ve changed my mind. I think you’re right.”
“It’s just that we’re so damned helpless—”
The telephone rang again.
“Camber?” he said, a voice I could not place immediately, hard, flat, cold.
“Yes. I’m Camber.”
“All right. Listen carefully, because I am not going to repeat this. Do you know where the Boat Livery is—on the Hackensack River?”
