Follow the Sharks (8 page)

Stern slowly removed his glasses. “Sit down, Mr. Donagan. Please. Sit down.” He leaned forward and stared at Eddie through narrowed eyes. Eddie returned his stare for a moment, then slowly took his seat. “Just let me worry about this.”

“Why should you worry?” muttered Eddie. “E.J. ain’t your kid.”

“Because I’ve been through this before and you haven’t, that’s why. Because if we don’t think about catching them then every crazy out there will think kidnapping is a neat way to make a quick couple of bills. Better’n megabucks, huh? So I’m worried about E.J., yes. And all the rest of the kids out there.”

“We’ve only got until tomorrow night.”

Stern nodded. “Right. So here’s what we do. We’ll put a man in the bar at the bowling alley. We’ll have someone follow Coyne, keep track of the bag of money. We’ll tap into all the phones at the bowling alley. Also,” he added, glancing at me, “your office phone. And here, too. Some point they’ve gotta tell you what to do next. And some point, you gotta transfer that bag of money. We find out what we can, try to keep tabs on ’em, and as soon as we get the boy back we move in.” He poked his glasses at Travers, the State Policeman. “Can you give me some Travers nodded. “Sure. No problem.”

“Okay. One in the bar. One in a car in the parking lot. Another one to tail him when he leaves the alleys, assuming they make the transaction somewhere else. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Travers.

“Get ’em together. We’ll brief ’em tomorrow. We’ll put a woman in the bar. They won’t expect a woman.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “The guy who called was pretty specific about me not being followed. If they pick up on it—”

“I agree,” said Eddie. “I don’t want to risk—”

“Trust me,” said Stern.

“Why?” said Eddie. “Why the fuck should we trust you?”

Stern turned his head to look at Eddie. His smile resembled that of a coral snake. “Because, Mr. Donagan, I’m in charge and I know what I’m doing. And you don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” He turned to look at Jan, and his tone softened. “I know you’re scared and worried. Believe me, I understand how it is. I’ve been through it. I promise you we’ll do nothing to jeopardize the safe return of your son. But once we get him back, we want to do everything we can to catch the lousy bastards who are doing this. You want that, don’t you?”

“I just want him back,” whispered Jan.

“Me too,” said Eddie, “and I think all this is just going to screw it up. It’s too risky. Let’s just give them their money. If they think we’re not doing what they said…”

“They’re pros,” said Basile, speaking for the first time. “But so are we.”

“It ain’t a goddam game,” Eddie answered, his voice rising. “Christ! You talk like this was some kind of a game you wanna see if you can win. This is my kid you’re playing with.”

“Leave it to us, will you?” Stern glanced at Travers and Basile, who nodded.

“Yeah, okay. We’ll leave it to you pros. But I’m warning you…”

“Don’t,” said Travers. “Don’t warn me, Mr. Donagan.”

“Eddie,” said Jan. “Please.”

Eddie suddenly shoved his chair back and stood up. “Fine,” he said loudly. “Good. Okay. You take care of it. I’m getting out of here. I’m gone. Just remember,” he added, sweeping his hand to include all of us, “if anything goes wrong you’ve all got it on your consciences. All of you.”

Eddie left the room and a moment later we heard the front door slam.

“He’s very upset,” said Jan. She got up and moved to follow him.

“Let him go,” said Sam. But Jan disappeared out the door.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Stern. “That’s about it for now, anyway. Okay?”

He looked from one to the other, and we all nodded. We started to stand, in preparation to leaving, when Jan came back into the room. Eddie was with her, scowling. He looked directly at me. “I’m gonna stick it out,” he said. He glanced at Stern. “But I don’t like it.”

Stern twitched his shoulders, indicating exactly how much he cared what Eddie thought, and said, “All right, then. You get the money, Mr. Farina, and we’ll all meet back here at six tomorrow.”

I
ARRIVED AT THE
route 2 bowling alleys a little after eight-thirty. The green plastic trash bag, heavy with stacks of bills, was locked in the trunk of my BMW. I circled the building a couple of times, searching fruitlessly for a place to leave the car. I finally found a spot next door in front of an abandoned gas station. I hoped that the State Police officer who was stationed somewhere outside had seen me.

I locked up and went inside. The summer leagues were in full swing. The place echoed with the din and clatter of bowling balls rumbling down the wooden lanes and crashing against the pins, the lusty shouts of the bowlers, and the clank and whirr of the automatic pinsetting machines.

I found the bar upstairs. The Kegler’s Eleventh Frame Lounge. It was dimly lit, with deep maroon carpeting and heavy dark wood paneling and furniture. Against the far wall was an L-shaped bar. A giant-screen TV over the bar showed in silent pantomime the Red Sox tilting, as the sportswriters liked to say, against the Orioles. When I stepped into the room the bowling noises behind me subsided into a low hum.

I found a seat at the bar and looked around. One of the couple of dozen people in pastel bowling shirts sitting around drinking draft beer was supposed to be a State Police officer. I didn’t know which one. A woman, I assumed. I felt out of place in my suit and tie. I didn’t know what I was getting into, and I desperately wanted the reassurance that I was not alone in this caper. At a corner table a chunky gray-haired woman sat alone. As my gaze settled on her I sensed that she had been watching me. Her eyes seemed to deflect off me to the television. I stared at her for a minute, hoping to catch her eye, to promote a quick wink or slight nod that would confirm what I hoped was true. She seemed intent on the efforts of Oil Can Boyd to extricate himself from a nasty bases-loaded situation. It occurred to me that if things had worked out differently, it could have been Eddie Donagan out there on the Fenway Park mound getting shelled by the Orioles on a muggy summer evening.

The bartender had a florid face and a receding hairline. He ceremoniously passed a rag over the bar in front of me. I lifted my elbows for him.

“What’ll ya have?”

“A Wild Turkey on the rocks. With, ah, two olives.”

“You shitting me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Two olives?”

“Yeah. Of course. Two olives.”

He rolled his eyes and moved to the other end of the bar. I saw him whisper something to one of the men sitting there. They both looked my way, grinning.

On the television Eddie Murray lined a hit into center field. I swiveled around to check the gray-haired police lady. Her table was empty.

“Here ya go. Wild Turkey. On the rocks. Two olives. You want a little cocktail onion, maybe, in there too? How’s about a Maraschino cherry? Twist of lemon? Wedge of lime?”

“Just the olives. Thank you.”

He shrugged and moved down the bar to resume his conversation. There was a constant movement of people in and out of the lounge. They seemed to come in, order a beer, wait for their turn to bowl, leave with half-empty glasses on the tables, then return several minutes later to resume their places. I couldn’t figure out how they remembered which were their own beers.

I sat there on the stool, one elbow on the bar, my Wild Turkey in my hand, half turned so that I could watch the room. I was waiting. I didn’t know what for. The gray-haired lady came back in, accompanied by two other women. One of them was slender and blonde and wore jeans so tight as to defy all the logical possibilities of bending and stretching to roll a bowling ball. I thought it would be interesting to watch her try. The other lugged around a bosom that must have made her bowling technique unusual. All three women glanced my way and seemed to smile at me. I wondered if they knew that I had two olives in my bourbon.

The Red Sox changed pitchers. I smoked a Winston and sipped my drink. It was five of nine. Nothing was happening. It occurred to me that maybe the kidnappers had discovered that I had allies in there with me and that the phones were tapped, and had decided to change their plans. There was nothing I could do but wait.

I finished my drink and swiveled back to the bar. The red-faced bartender said, “’Nother?”

“Please.”

“Two olives, right?”

“Of course.”

A group of half a dozen men entered the lounge and bore down on the bar. They stopped beside me, and one of them said, “You mind moving down a couple?”

I shrugged and slid over to an empty stool near the end of the bar. The men crowded around me, one sitting on the stool beside me and two standing close behind me. I had to keep my elbows close to my body to avoid contact with them. I cradled my drink and crooked my neck to watch the television.

“Goddam splits,” one of the guys said loudly. “I’m in the pocket all night, nothin’ but splits.”

“Ahh, it’s the damn lanes. You oughta move over maybe two boards. You’re comin’ in too high on the head pin.”

“Nah. I tried that. Ball don’t feel right any more. Maybe get it redrilled.”

“Hey, let’s go, Pete, willya? Miller Lites all around, okay?”

The Red Sox had finally taken their turn at bat. The Baltimore right fielder made a nice over-the-shoulder catch sprinting toward the bullpen. I tried to peer around the men standing near me to see if the gray-haired lady was at her seat. She was gone, but the blonde and the big-breasted girl were there. I wondered how many gutter balls were rolled by the time the third string came along, the way these people consumed beer.

I turned back to the bar. A long envelope lay on top of my napkin. Nothing was written on it. I tore it open. Inside was a greeting card, with a picture of Snoopy lying on his back atop his doghouse staring at the sky through big dark sunglasses. Snoopy was saying, “I’m not moving until you do.”

Beneath that, printed in all capital letters with a black felt-tip pen, was written, “Go to the phone downstairs.”

I caught the bartender’s eye, and he came over, prepared to wield his rag and take my order. “Ready for another two-olive special?”

“No. Let me have my bill. And did you happen to see who left this?” I held up the envelope.

“Nope. Hang on a minute, I’ll get you the bill.”

I glanced around at the bowlers who were crowded against me. They were engaged in an animated debate on the relative merits of the four-step versus the five-step approach. They seemed to take their bowling nearly as seriously as their beer drinking. None of them met my eye. I hoped that the State Police person, whoever and wherever he or she was in the lounge, noticed where the envelope had come from.

The bartender was pouring beer from the spigots. He seemed to have forgotten my bill. I extracted a five-dollar bill from my wallet, slid it under my glass, and elbowed my way out of the lounge. The racket outside assaulted me. It seemed to have been lubricated by all that beer I had seen consumed. The yells and laughter seemed pitched higher, the crash of colliding pins seemed to echo louder, and the whine of the machinery seemed to penetrate my brain deeper, than they had when I had entered the building.

The downstairs alleys were rigged for candlepins, that bowling variation peculiar to New England. The balls are smaller, about the size of a softball, and the pins are tall and slender. When I reached the foot of the stairs I noticed that the pitch of the din was set an octave or so higher than that of the ten-pin lanes upstairs.

The people were just as boisterous.

The pay phone was set against the wall at the far end of the alleys. A woman with “Prime Time Players” stitched in script across the back of her bowling shirt was talking into it. I moved to stand near her. She glanced up at me, her black eyes crackling with what appeared to be anger. “Molly” was written on the pocket over her left breast.

“Look,” she was saying into the phone, her eyes appealing to the ceiling for patience, “I really gotta go. That’s just your problem and you’re gonna hafta take care of it… There’s some guy standing here waiting for the phone, and I don’t wanna talk about it anyway. In case you forgot, I am married, you know?”

She glowered at me, shifted her eyes to the receiver she held in her hand, then said softly, “Yeah, me too, honey. Yeah, it sounds nice. But I really do. I really gotta go.”

She held the phone away from her ear and stared at it as if she might embrace it, then set it gently on its cradle. She cocked her head at me, showed me the pink tip of her tongue, and tossed her hair. I watched her walk away.

The jangle of the telephone was almost lost in the general din of the place. I picked it up before it could ring a second time.

“Hello?” I said.

“Mr. Coyne?” I could barely hear her, but I was certain it was the same female voice I had heard over my office phone the previous day.

“Yes. You’ll have to speak louder.”

She said something I didn’t catch. I felt an instant of panic. I could botch the whole thing up by misunderstanding the message.

“Please,” I said loudly, cupping one ear with my hand and pressing the receiver against my other ear. “It’s deafening in here.”

“I have your instructions,” I heard her say. “Can you hear me now?”

“Barely. Yes.”

“Okay. Get onto Route 2 heading west. In Lexington you’ll see a sign for Waltham Street. The first exit goes to Lexington Center. Pass that and stop on the overpass. Drop the parcel over the bridge. Do you understand?”

“Drop it over the bridge to Waltham Street. Yes.”

“What time do you have?”

I looked at my watch. “Nine-eleven.”

“You’re two minutes slow. All right. Drop the parcel off the bridge at exactly nine forty-three by your watch. Do you have that?”

“Nine forty-three. Okay.”

“Go, now, then.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Will—?”

I heard a click on the other end. I replaced the telephone and glanced quickly around. The gray-haired lady was nowhere to be seen, nor did anybody else seem to be paying any attention to me. Outside, the only noise was the swish of the traffic on Route 2 and the distant grumble of thunder. I could see lightning playing across the western horizon.