On the Other Hand, Death - Stevenson Richard. Страница 22

He glared. "I have my doubts."

"The machine's secret is safe with us, Ned. We'll never tell."

He was leaning close to me and about to let loose with some tiresome empty threat when the door opened and they all charged in at once: Timmy, McWhirter, Edith, two burly types in jackets who appeared to be the junior police detectives Bowman had phoned for earlier, and, in the midst of them, her great hips thundering out a five-plus on the nearest Richter scale, Kay Wilson. Kay held

out a small package, which Dot Fisher, who had just completed the phone call to her lawyer, accepted.

"Why, thank you, Kay. Thank you so much."

"Somebody left this in our mailbox, Dot honey, but it's addressed to you, and I figured I better drag my old bones down here right away, 'cause you can see right there it says, 'Deliver immediately—life or death.'"

"Oh. Oh, my."

We all gawked at the small package. It was wrapped in a cut-up brown paper bag, and measured about eight inches by four inches by one inch.

Bowman gently pried up the lid and flipped it onto its back.

She did so. The handwriting was the same as that on the ransom note but again not the same as on Friday's threatening letter. "Immediately" was spelled "immeatetly."

Bowman asked for and was provided a pair of vegetable tongs and a paring knife. Without touching the package with his fingers, he slit through the cellophane tape holding the paper on and slid the wrapping aside. The cardboard box was fire truck red, the type a Christmas gift might arrive in, a wallet or fancy handkerchief. A sheet of notebook paper, folded in quarters, was taped to the top of the box.

Bowman asked Kay Wilson, Edith, Timmy, and me to step outside. They shuffled out. I stayed. Bowman went huff-huff, but he otherwise ignored my insubordination for the moment and went on with his duties.

The paper, unfolded, revealed these words: "Put $100,000 dollars in Mrs. Fishers mailbox tonight at 3 a.m. in the morning, or we will send Petes hart. If you follow the car Pete will die."

We stared at the box.

McWhirter, trembling, said, "Open it."

Bowman gently pried up the lid and flipped it onto its back.

McWhirter clutched the tabletop and groaned. Dot whispered, "My lord!" Bowman shook his head in disgust.

The object that lay damply, crazily, grayly atop a bed of soft white tissue paper was unmistakably a human finger.

10

• McWhirter, his voice breaking, barely

audible, said, "We have to pay them."

Dot groaned. "Yes, of course, of course."

I said, "The money will arrive here at three. But we'll get it back, don't worry."

"Yeah," Bowman said grimly. "I guess we better have the cash ready. Just in case. Jesus, these people aren't fooling around." He sat gazing at the finger, tapping two of his own on the table. He looked up at McWhirter now and said, "Mr. McWhirter, I've heard of kidnappers who have . . . Well, let me just put the question to you directly. Are you certain that the finger in that box belongs to your friend Peter Greco?"

McWhirter blanched, looked away, and said quietly, "Yes. Oh, God, yes."

Bowman grimaced, in part no doubt at the thought that one man could know another's finger that intimately. Then he dispatched one of the junior detectives to retrieve some equipment from his car.

I said, "Obviously, we've got to get Greco away from these people fast. How do we set this up? We've got thirteen hours to do it in."

"Unless they're even dumber and sloppier than I think they are," Bowman said, "they'll arrive minus Greco in a stolen car, snatch the money, and off they'll go, thinking we won't dare follow so long as they've still got a hold of

Greco. I'll have to have this place totally covered, plus the other end of Moon Road, Central Avenue out to Colonie, and back as far as Everett Road. I'll order up a chopper too."

"At three in the morning?"

"No!" McWhirter croaked. "Just give them the money. Don't I have anything to say about this? You people are just going to get Peter killed, the way you're talking. Look at what these people are capable of. Just look at that." We looked. "Just . . . give them the money, and I'll . . . I'll pay it back."

"Mr. McWhirter," Bowman said, "I think I can understand how you feel—sort of." He shot me a warning look, apparently fearing that I might begin to think of him as human. "By that I mean," he sputtered on, "I can see, Mr. McWhirter, how you might be pretty scared and upset at this point. But believe me, the chances that we'll get your friend back in one piece—" We all looked down at the finger again. "I mean, by that I mean . . . the best way to make sure we get your friend back here alive is to not let these people slip away at the one time we can be sure we know where they are. You get what I'm saying? We let them run off with that hundred grand, and they might just get cocky and start thinking they can get away with anything. If you follow my meaning."

McWhirter screwed up his face in agonized confusion. His mouth tried to make words, but he couldn't get them out.

I said, "Lieutenant Bowman has experience with these things, Fenton. He's right. You can be sure it'll be done with all the finesse the Albany Police Department is capable of."

Bowman looked my way, waiting for any qualifications I might be going to add, and when I offered none—nauseating flattery was called for here—he said, "You bet."

Dot Fisher's small fist suddenly hit the table. "Now, you people are just the absolute limit! Whom was that letter addressed to, may I ask? And the package. Whom was that sent to? Well?"

No one had yet called the finger a finger. It was just "it." Or "the package." I said to Dot, "The ransom note and the package were both sent to you."

"Exactly! So it seems to me that I should have some say in all this. And what I say is, you are all putting Peter in terrible, terrible danger. Well, I won't stand for it! The decision is mine to make, and I've decided. We will pay the kidnappers what they've asked for and let them go their way. And then, when Peter is safely back here with those who love him, then I will expect all of you to do everything within your power to retrieve that money and put those reprehensible savages in the penitentiary where they belong!"

Bowman said, "But—"

"And one other thing," Dot went on, waving Bowman into silence. "If the money is not returned to Mr. Strachey within seven days, I will sell my property and repay him promptly. No one can stop me, and that is that."

My options had now doubled in number. If the hundred grand somehow slipped away, I could then decide whether I wanted to be a monumental deadbeat or a mere son of a bitch.

Bowman had begun shaking his head and yammering on about how Dot would be making a big mistake by simply handing over the ransom, and it was out of her hands anyway, and it was well known among professionals that in seven out of ten cases it turned out that. . . .

Dot sat rigid, the lavender veins in her neck pulsing wildly.

I caught Bowman's eye. "She wants to do it her way,

Ned. It's Mrs. Fisher's decision to make. Not ours."

He glowered at me, and while Dot and McWhirter cringed and waited for him to pop off irrelevantly, I looked back at Bowman and lightly winked. He immediately got the point.

"Well," he said, throwing his hands up. "If that's the way you want it, Mrs. Fisher. If you insist, you go ahead and pay the ransom, and then we'll do all we can to track down these vicious perverts—sorry, no offense, Strachey —and then we'll get your money back. Or what's left of it."