The Heavenly Fugitive (38 page)

Somehow those words came alive, and she slowly rolled off the bed and fell on her knees. Words would not come, and her thoughts ran like quicksilver, wondering wildly.

Finally she gasped, “Oh, God, I can’t bring you anything. I’ve run from you all of my life, and I’ve never loved you, but I’m going to die. I’ve always thought it was only cowards who would pray when death faced them, and that means I’m just a coward, but I do need you, O God. . . .”

****

Johnny Pesky was a small man, his movements quick. His eyes darted around Ryan Kildare’s office. He had once been a jockey, until his weight and lack of skill caught up with him. From there he had turned to crime, as had most of the young men he had grown up with.

Ryan smiled at Pesky and said, “Sit down, Johnny. What’s on your mind?”

“I can’t sit. I can’t sit down,” Pesky said nervously. He even talked faster than most people. He walked over to the window and peered out, snapping his fingers and shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have come.” He had a habit of repeating his sentences, especially when he was nervous, as he appeared to be now.

“What’s the trouble, Johnny?”

“It ain’t my trouble. It’s yours. It’s all your trouble.”

Ryan turned his head to one side. “What does that mean?” he said.

“You gotta promise me something, Kildare. Promise that whatever I tell you, it don’t get outta this room—not ever, you hear me? Not outta this room!”

“Sure. Privileged communication. What kind of trouble are you talking about?”

“I got your word, then? You gonna keep all this to yourself? Especially about me.”

“All right. You know my word’s good.”

“Yeah, I know it is. I wouldn’t be here except—well, when you pulled my brother out of that spot he was in last month, I felt grateful. I still do. He’s a good kid. I don’t want him to go the way I’m going.”

Ryan had been able to help Johnny’s brother Timothy out of a rather difficult legal situation. The boy had been involved in one of Johnny’s deals. It wasn’t Johnny’s intention for his brother to get in trouble, but he was caught and charged. Kildare got him free with no sentence, and Johnny was indeed grateful.

Suddenly Pesky shook his shoulders rapidly, like a dog shaking off after a swim, stepped closer, and whispered furtively, though there was no possibility of any hearer except Kildare. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “That friend of yours, Winslow?”

“You mean Phil Winslow?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, the DA’s assistant.”

“What about him?”

“Look, I work for Leo Marx, you know that. I ain’t proud of it, but that’s what I do. Well, here’s what’s comin’ down, Kildare. Leo’s snatched Winslow’s sister.”

“You mean Amelia?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. The canary that sings in the nightclubs. That’s her. That’s her.”

“Leo’s kidnapped her?”

“That’s right. Winslow’s got something he wants, and he’s holding the dame until he gets it from him.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I was in on it, but I didn’t know what they was up to. I just drove the car was all I done. Then they grabbed her and put her in the car. Knocked her out cold. All I done was drive ’em. That’s all I done. You gotta believe me.”

“I believe you, Johnny, but it’s a bad spot for you. Anybody involved in a kidnapping is in big trouble.”

“I know that. I’m gettin’ out. Goin’ to Chicago. I got friends there. Just leave me out of it.”

Ryan Kildare’s mind worked rapidly. “Tell me everything you know about it, Johnny, and I’ll keep you out of it. I’ll even help you get away.”

“All right. Here’s the deal. There’s an old farmhouse twenty miles out of the city. . . .”

****

Ryan stared across the desk at Phil. He had called Winslow, and the two had met in Phil’s office at the courthouse. Ryan had poured out the story he’d heard from Johnny Pesky, without revealing his source. “It’ll take a miracle to get her back. According to what my informant told me, that farmhouse is out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a big empty field. The first sign they see of police moving in, they’ll kill her. You know they will.”

“Where is it? Where are they keeping her?” Phil said tersely.

Ryan shook his head. “I can’t tell you unless you promise me something.”

“Promise what? This is no time for games, Ryan.”

“I know that. I’m going with you. That’s all. Give me your word on that, and we can do something.”

Phil nodded quickly. “Sure. It’ll be you and me.”

“It’ll have to be that way. According to my informant’s story”—Ryan pulled out a map and laid it on the desk—”this big farmhouse is right here just north of Tarrytown. Look,
I’ve drawn a plan according to what he told me about the house. It’s out in the middle of this big field. There’s a barn out here, you see, about fifty yards from the house, but she’s on the second floor of the house, and the door is barred and there are bars on the window.”

Phil studied Ryan’s rough sketch of the farmhouse and its environs and finally asked, “How many men have they got?”

“My informant says it changes. They use this big barn out here to store liquor before moving it into the city in smaller loads. There’s always two men on guard outside, but they always go into the house at noon to eat.”

“The guard will be closer at night.”

“I think so.”

“It looks like you and I will have to go in at high noon, Ryan.”

The two men stared at each other, and Ryan said, “If I ever wanted to pray about anything, this is it.”

“All right, let’s pray now.”

The two men got on their knees and laid the matter before God, and when they got up, Phil asked Ryan, “Why are you doing this?”

“I think you know. I love Amelia. Have for a long time. Does that bother you?”

Phil clapped the other man on the shoulder. “Not a bit. Come on, brother, let’s do it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

A Heavenly Fugitive No More!

Dawn brought sunlight, fresh and sharp, through the windows of Amelia’s prison room. It flashed against the panes, cutting long, sharp shadows against the dusty patch of carpet. Amelia stood at the window looking out on the farm field surrounded by groves of trees. A breeze came through the barred window, stirring the musty, pungent odors of the room.

A queer twinge stirred in her as she closed her eyes and thought about the events of the night. Something had changed in her—an inexpressible peace had filled her. She knew it was the same peace she had seen in Rosa when they had last talked. Now as she thought back on her own life, there was regret and some grief and sorrow, but it was all as if it had happened to someone else. She no longer felt the pain.

She turned from the window and stood beside the bed where she had knelt for so long in the darkness. She had cried out to God, had shed tears on the faded, threadbare sheets. She could not remember everything she had said to God, but did remember crying out,
“Please, God, help me!”
And she also remembered calling out for Jesus. At His name she had suddenly felt the fear dissipate and had slumped to the floor sobbing quietly, not from fear but from an incredible release that had swept over her.

For a long time she stood quietly, and her thoughts went to her parents. “I would like them to know that I finally made it into God’s family,” she murmured. “They’ll be so happy to know that—if I can only get out of this alive.”

The man called Jake came up with a plate of badly cooked eggs, burned bacon, and half a pot of coffee. He stared at her and said nothing for a moment, then muttered, “Your brother is coming to deliver the stuff sometime late this afternoon.”

Amelia said nothing to him. She suspected this man would be the one to execute both her and her brother. He left the food and went back downstairs. She ate half of it, then sat on the bed and waited.

The morning passed slowly, and she spent much of that time praying. She had no Bible, but she was soaked in the Word of God, having heard it all of her life. It amazed her how much of it came back to her memory now at her hour of desperate need. She prayed simply, “God, keep Phil safe. Don’t let anything happen to him.” Almost as an afterthought, she also prayed, “And, Lord, help me. I don’t deserve any help, but I want to serve you if it’s your will for me to live.”

When the sun was directly overhead and the shadows had disappeared, she knew it was midday. She heard one of the men—not the one who had brought her breakfast but another—call from outside. “Hey, Ed, you and Sammy come on in. The grub’s ready.” Looking out the window toward the barn, she saw the two men, both armed with pistols in their belts and rifles in the crooks of their arms, turn and walk toward the house. They had been there all morning and, she suspected, all night. But now they disappeared under the roof that sheltered the front porch. Their feet clumped across the wooden floor below, and she could clearly hear dishes rattling and someone humming.

A few minutes after the men had entered, Amelia heard a sound outside the window and turned to look. She thought it might be a bird, but instead she saw a man’s cap rising just outside the window, and her heart leaped into her throat. She could not imagine what one of Marx’s men would be doing, and she watched with trepidation.

And then suddenly a face appeared, and Amelia gasped, “Ryan!”

It was Kildare on a ladder. He was wearing a soft cap pulled down firmly over his head and dark clothing. He pressed his finger to his lips, urgently indicating for her to keep silent. She moved toward the window and whispered, “Ryan, what are you doing here?”

“Getting you out. Phil’s waiting out there. We’ve got to hurry. We’ve only got until those men finish eating.”

“But how will I get out?”

“Look.” Reaching behind him, he pulled up a pair of heavy red-handled bolt cutters. Quickly he put the jaws over the bottom of one bar and strained to pull them together. At first he seemed to make no impression, and then there was a distinct
twang
and the bar was free. He quickly snapped the two remaining bars and moved upward until he had cut all three of them. “Come on,” he said, hooking the cutters on his belt.

“How did you get here, Ryan?”

“We hid in the barn last night. We knew the guards would go in at noon. Come on, there’s no time to explain.”

Amelia awkwardly climbed out of the window. Ryan was already halfway down, reaching up to steady her. Clinging to the edge of the long ladder he had placed against the house, she started creeping down. She had taken no more than five or six steps on the rungs when a noise came from overhead. She looked up startled and saw Jake leaning out of the window.

“Hey, you, stop right there!” he shouted.

Amelia froze and Jake laughed. “I don’t know who that is, but he’s gonna wish he hadn’t found his way here.”

Amelia looked down and saw Ryan reach under his coat and pull out a gun. Jake saw it also, and as she glanced up, she saw him take aim at Ryan. Jake was pulling the trigger when the flat crack of a rifle broke the silence. The bullet caught Jake in the chest and drove him backward out of sight. Amelia heard his body crash to the floor, and then she heard Phil yelling, “Come on, get down from there!”

Amelia scrambled down the ladder, and Ryan grasped her as she reached the bottom. “This way,” he said.

Shots began to ring out, and Ryan pulled her down to the ground. “We’ve got to get to the barn,” he said. “They’re firing out that window. Phil will keep them busy. Come on.”

Amelia got up and ran awkwardly, following Ryan around the corner of the house. She took one glance at Phil, who was behind a walnut tree. Bullets were chipping off the bark, and he was returning the fire furiously.

The barn was at least fifty yards away, and Amelia had difficulty running in her high heels. Once she looked around and saw Phil running toward her, bent over. A bullet whistled over her head, and then Ryan said, “Here, get inside.” Amelia stumbled into the gloomy interior of the barn while Ryan returned fire with his handgun. “Come on, Phil!” he yelled, and seconds later Phil stumbled in, falling flat.

“Phil, are you hurt?”

“No, I’m okay,” Phil said. “Come on, get behind that beam over there. They’re going to be rushing us.”

“We can’t hold them off for long,” Ryan said.

“No, that’s why I got this.” Reaching into the deep pocket of his coat, Phil pulled out a strange-looking weapon. “It’s a flare gun,” he told Amelia. “The police are waiting until they’re sure you’re clear.” He ran quickly to the other end of the barn, stepped outside, lifted the flare gun, and pulled the trigger. As the flare hissed into the sky he ducked back inside. “Now we just have to hold out for a few minutes.”

Amelia stared at Phil, who was peering out the door. “Phil, how did you know where to find me?”

“You can thank Ryan for that.”

There was no time for explanations, for Leo Marx’s henchmen were pouring slugs into the barn.

“No more rifle bullets,” Phil said, throwing the rifle down and pulling out his handgun. “The police better get here fast.”

Only a few seconds later they heard a shout from outside. “Look out, here come the cops!”

“They’re here!” Ryan yelled. He ran to the door and looked out. “Marx’s men are running.”

“They won’t get far,” Phil said grimly. “We’ve got fifty men surrounding this place. They’ll all be coming in now that they’ve seen the flare.”

He walked over to Amelia and halted. His face was grim, and lines of strain marred his cheeks. “Are you all right, sis?”

“Yes.”

“They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

“I just have a lump on my head—but worse than that is they were going to kill me, and you too.” She turned to Ryan, who was standing to one side saying nothing. She walked over to him and said, “You found me, Ryan?”

“I think God must have had something to do with it.” He explained how he had located her and then said, “I think it’s the end for Leo Marx and his bunch. Was he inside?”

“Yes, he and Jake—the man you shot at—but he might be dead.”

“Leo might be better off if he were,” Ryan said slowly.