The Kidnappers (10 page)

“I've got orders to help any way I can. What do you want me to move?”

“You getting hungry?” Pink asked as the elevator took us upward.

“Yeah. Starving. We better call the cops first thing, though. Or tell my father, and let him do it.”

Father inspected our faces the way he'd always done when I told him anything he didn't immediately accept, then nodded briefly. “All right. I'll report this. We'll have guests arriving within the hour, so get whatever you're going to need out of the kitchen, and stay out of sight the rest of the evening,” he ordered.

After he'd headed for the phone in his study, we looked around the kitchen. “Do we dare eat any of this stuff?” Pink asked hopefully.

Sophie came through the doorway in time to hear him.

“Mom said we could heat TV dinners, but there's so much food here nobody's going to miss the little bit we'll eat. Mark already took a plateful to his room. Let's get what we want and leave before Mom comes back to check.”

There were sandwiches that looked like pinwheels; I sampled one to make sure it was as tasty as it looked, then piled half a dozen of them on a plate.

“Wow, these are good,” Pink said, helping himself to some little individual quiches and lifting the lid off a pot of meatballs. We made a quick pass around all the stuff that was heating in various places and packed in containers, poked into the refrigerated foods, and heaped up enough to last us for a few hours, anyway. Then we all trooped back to my bedroom, where Father found us a few minutes later.

“They said if the man was carrying groceries, he probably lives in the area. Every officer on patrol will know what he looks like.”

“Do you think that means that they're hiding Willie close by?” Pink asked, licking juice from the meatballs off his lips.

“Possibly.” Father looked over what we were eating without comment. “No doubt we'll find out before long, when they rescue the boy. Now remember, your mother has worked hard to make this party a success, and it's important for me in a business sense, so don't disrupt it. Don't go out anywhere. There's no sense in putting yourself in further danger, Joel.”

After he'd gone we settled down on the bed with our food. “Which movie are we going to watch first?” Pink wanted to know.

“Before you start, maybe we could find a newscast,” Sophie proposed. “We could see if they show that sketch Joey told them how to make.”

So we turned on the TV and flipped channels until we found a newscast. We had to sit through stuff about Congress and some big warehouse fire and a gazillion commercials. There was no reproduction of the sketch the police artist had made.

I was disappointed, but I hoped that meant they had some other way of catching up with the kidnappers.

Willie had been a bully, angry with me because of an accident, nothing I did on purpose. He'd felt he could threaten me because he was taller and heavier and he knew he could push me around.

Now someone was pushing
him
around. Scaring him. Maybe hurting him. I hoped they weren't torturing him, that they wouldn't kill him, even. I hoped if they'd demanded a ransom that his dad could come up with the money. But I couldn't help hoping, too, that this experience would change Willie's personality for the better.

I wondered if he'd still be mad at me after he was rescued.
If
he was rescued.

We had just started the first video—which promised adventure, romance, and spectacular special effects—when Mark came in without knocking. Typical. Mark never knocked, at least not until he was already halfway in.

“Hey, Sophie, I need you to run an errand. Go downstairs to Andy's and bring up a math book, will you? I forgot mine, and we've got a test coming up Monday.”

Sophie bit off half a miniature quiche before she asked, “Why don't you go after it yourself?”

“Because I'm in the middle of this really exciting show, live, and I don't want to miss any of it. His folks are taking everybody out for the evening in a few minutes, so I can't wait.”

“If I go, I'll miss part of
my
movie,” Sophie objected.

“Yours is a video. They can wait for you for a minute,” Mark said. “Come on, I have to get back.”

“I don't think so,” Sophie told him. “My supper's hot right now, and besides, I'm nervous about running around while all this stuff about Willie is going on.”

Mark scowled at her and turned his attention to me. “You go, then, Joey. It'll only take you a few minutes. I'll make it worth your while.”

“How worth my while?” I demanded. I knew they'd restart
our
movie when I got back.

Mark dug into his pocket and dug out a crumpled bill. “Here, go on. It'll only take you five minutes. My show's coming back on, I gotta go.”

He shoved the money at me and took off without waiting for my answer.

“Are you going to do it?” Sophie asked.

I stared at the bill in my hand. “Well, wait for me to get back to watch our movie, okay?” I took time for a few bites of the meatballs before they were completely cold.

Sophie didn't look happy. “Daddy said you weren't to go out anywhere. Just in case.” She didn't specify just in case what, but she didn't have to.

“He meant outside the building. What could happen here inside the building? A minute in the elevator each way, another minute for Andy to answer his door and hand over the book. If I don't go, I'll have to give the money back.” Besides having Mark mad at me, I thought. He always thought everybody else should do what he wanted, and it annoyed him if we didn't go along with him.

“I'll be right back,” I decided, setting my plate aside. “If you guys go after dessert before the party starts, get me some, okay?”

Nobody paid any attention to me when I walked through the apartment toward the hall and the elevator. The caterers were apparently leaving, except for a few people sticking around to serve. Junie was doing something last minute in the kitchen, and I could hear Mom's voice somewhere out of my sight.

I would be glad when things got back to normal. I hoped us kids wouldn't have to help with the cleanup when it was all over. Poor Junie needed the overtime, anyway.

The elevator was on our level, so I didn't have to wait. I zipped down to the sixth floor, got the math book, and then had to punch the button to get the elevator back; it had gone on down to the lobby.

When it came, the doors slid open, and I saw that there were two people already in it. Nothing about them registered until I had gotten on and the doors closed behind me.

Then I glanced around and saw him.

Two feet away, carrying a paper sack again, this time with a carton of orange juice sticking out of it.

The guy with the earring.

The dinosaurs must have felt like this when the glaciers swept over them, burying them in ice, cutting off their oxygen.

The elevator was moving, silently as always. If I'd been able to breathe, I could have heard myself doing it.

I couldn't really think, then, but I remembered later.

There were two men. One was tall and rather slim, dressed in a blue suit with a red and white tie. He was carrying a briefcase.

The other one was not as tall, but more muscular, in a dark blue jacket. I'd done a good job of describing him for the police artist, because he looked a lot like the picture produced on the computer.

My chest had begun to ache. I had to draw in some air, but I couldn't do it. I stared straight ahead, not looking at the men. I could see the floors flipping by, and I prayed the two would get off before the elevator reached our apartment on the top floor.

Sometimes praying helps a lot. This time it didn't, though for a moment I had hope. The men had pushed the button for the floor below ours, and the elevator came to a stop. The doors slid open, and I thought they were going to get off and I was going to be safe.

Then my fingers, gone numb in shock, forgot to hang on to the math book I was carrying. It slid out of my hand and landed with a thump on the floor of the elevator.

Both men swiveled to look at me.

The sack the nearest one was carrying split down the side as he turned, spilling stuff onto the floor. A package of chips landed on my foot, a couple of TV dinners—Mexican—skidded toward the front of the elevator. The juice container split and began to leak.

The elevator doors opened, but the men didn't get off. Instead they were staring at me.

“It's him!” the taller one said. “It's that Bishop kid!”

The elevator doors decided nobody was getting off, so they closed before anybody moved to stop them, and we rose the rest of the way to our floor, where they opened again.

I finally managed to get a gulp of air, and I lurched forward, actually getting a foot into the hallway before the men moved.

“Stop him!” one of them cried, and a hand grabbed the back of my shirt.

I twisted, desperate now to reach our door and safety. I heard my shirt rip, and for an instant I was moving again. Then he got a solid grip on my arm and wrestled me to the floor. With his weight on top of me, I didn't have a chance. I couldn't even gather enough wits to pray that someone would come out of our apartment, that something would happen to save me.

“Hurry up, get him in the elevator,” one of the men said, and I was hauled backward in a way that almost strangled me. I was trying to yell for help, but it came out a squawk that wouldn't have carried very far.

I was slammed against the rear wall of the elevator as the doors came shut, and we dropped downward. Tears of pain and fear formed in my eyes.

“Hurry up,” the tall one said as we returned to their floor. “If someone calls for the elevator, we don't want anyone to have noticed where it's coming from, when they start looking for him.”

There were two apartments on this floor. They hauled me out of the elevator, unlocked the door into one of them, and jerked me roughly inside.

“Move,” the shorter one said, and the door closed behind us.

If terror really killed people, I'd have died right there.

“What are we going to do with him?” the one with the earring demanded, shoving me along through the foyer and into a living room beyond. He was propelling me fast enough so that when he finally let go, I fell onto a couch.

“I know what I'd like to do with him.” The tall one stood over me, pursing his lips. “It was a good plan, and everything was going just the way it was supposed to, until this nosy brat stepped in.”

“We'll have to shut him up.”

I flinched. I hoped shutting me up didn't mean permanently.

“We don't have time to deal with him now. Lock him up. We'll talk about what to do with him later.”

“With the other kid? Or by himself?”

“What difference does it make? They can't do anything behind locked doors.” The tall one seemed to be the boss. He had picked up the things that fell out of the sack, and he turned away with them. “I'll stash this stuff in the kitchen, and then we'd better get ready to go.”

The other kid. That registered. If I'd had any doubts that they were the ones who'd kidnapped Willie, I didn't now.

I was dragged to my feet and urged across the room and into a hallway. The guy with the earring produced a key and unlocked a door, and I was thrown inside, on my knees. I heard the lock clicking shut behind me.

“Bishop?” The voice was familiar, incredulous.

I raised my head and met Willie's eyes. He was sprawled out on the bed, and he sat up.

“What are you doing here?”

“They kidnapped me, too, I guess. So I couldn't tell anybody about them.” I got up and rubbed the place on my arm where it had been twisted. “Are you okay?”

“If you call being locked up this way okay, I guess so,” Willie said. He didn't seem quite as big as he had when I'd last seen him at school.

I licked my lips and eased onto one corner of the bed, facing him. “I imagined you being tortured or something, to make you talk.”

He stared at me as if I were an idiot. “Talk about what?”

“I don't know. The combination to your dad's safe, maybe.”

“I don't know the combination to my dad's safe. How come they kidnapped
you
? Are they going into this business wholesale or what?”

“I don't think so,” I decided. “I think it's because I saw them kidnap you, and then I described the one with the earring for the police—”

He sat up straighter, dropping one foot to the floor. “You did? Where were you?”

I explained to him, feeling kind of foolish. If I hadn't run away from him and hidden in the foyer of that apartment house, they'd never have been able to kidnap either one of us. Well, maybe they'd have still snatched Willie, but I wouldn't be here now.

“You said the police. Are they looking for me?” he asked eagerly.

He didn't include
me
, I noticed. “I guess so. They didn't tell us anything, but I described the guy I saw, the one with the earring, and they made a computer picture. It hasn't been on TV yet, but it was distributed to the cops, so they know what one of them looks like.”

“Did they have my picture, too?” Willie demanded.

“No. Just the kidnapper's. Or maybe the cops got your picture from your family.”

He scowled. “Why don't they have my picture in the paper? I'm the one who's missing!”

“Who knows why the cops do anything? I don't think they've made it public that you've been kidnapped. Probably the kidnappers threatened your dad if the news gets out before they collect the ransom.”

“Then if the cops are already looking for them, how come they needed to kidnap
you
?”

“Because I met them in the elevator in my own building. I don't suppose they want me to report that they're here. Why
are
they here? This building is full of families of businesspeople, not crooks.”