The Kidnappers (7 page)

Those stiletto eyes rested on me until I started to squirm.

“You said Willie dropped some ‘stuff' when he was pulled into the car. Can you describe it?”

I hesitated. “School stuff. Uh . . . a math book, and a blue notebook. One of the ones they sell at school. A whole bunch of papers fell out and scattered around. A page with a red A– on it. That's all I can remember.”

For a moment he was silent, before he turned to my mom. “I'd like Joe to come down to police headquarters and see if he can identify the man he saw. And also maybe work with a police artist in re-creating the man's face, if the mug shots don't pan out.”

The study door opened and Mark stuck his head in, hesitating when he saw the group of us. “Uh, Mom, there's a caterer on the phone. There's some kind of problem. He needs to talk to you immediately.”

“Oh, no!” she moaned, and stood up, glancing anxiously at Detective O'Hara. “Right now? You need Joey right now? Can it wait until my husband shows up?”

“Later this afternoon will be fine,” the officer said. He handed her a card. “They'll be expecting him here.”

“What's going on?” Mark demanded, looking from one face to the other. “Is this guy a
cop
?”

Nobody answered him, but Mark suddenly showed enlightenment anyway. “Holy cow, Joey, was it
true
? You really saw Willie
kidnapped
?”

“Everything being discussed here is strictly confidential,” O'Hara said sharply, and Mark got the benefit of those glacial eyes.

“Yes, sir,” Mark said. “I'll tell the caterer you're on your way, Mom.”

They left us in the study, Pink and me. He let out a deep breath. “Wow! Just like on TV, Joey! Boy, wait'll we tell the other guys at school!”

“Not before they get Willie back,” I warned him.

“Yeah, sure. Wow! I wonder if they'll interview you for the ten o'clock news?”

By the time we got as far as the kitchen, we found Mom on the phone again, saying, “Oh, no!” one more time. Then she said, “Yes, I'll hold,” and I figured it was safe to interrupt.

“Mom, am I going to have to disappear into my room once the party starts?”

“That would be a good idea,” she agreed. “Why don't you rent a video or two for the evening?”

“Okay. Would it be all right if Pink stays over, too? So it won't be so boring by myself?”

“Fine, if it's okay with his parents. Yes, Mr. Cardoni, I understand that. What can we do instead?”

She flipped a hand, dismissing me, and Pink and I went on back to my room to discuss what movie we wanted to see. Mark stuck his head out of his doorway as we passed it.

“Is it true, Joey? Was old Willie kidnapped?”

“I guess so. I told you that, and you said I was full of it.”

“Well, you usually are, so how did I know that for once you weren't making up some far-out story? Did that detective admit it, then?”

“He didn't admit anything. He didn't suggest anything. He didn't answer a single question any of us asked him. He just asked his own questions.”

“He wanted details about the kidnapping, what Joe saw,” Pink offered. “So it's gotta be true, doesn't it? Why else would he have come? And Joey's got to go down to the police station and look at mug books and maybe work with a police artist to come up with a sketch of the guy who grabbed Willie.”

Mark whistled, impressed. “Does Dad know yet?”

“No. Mom asked if I could wait until he came home, to take me down there.”

Mark grinned. “Boy, he's going to be irked. Mom, too. She was expecting him to help with something or other. And Ernie's hiding from her, I think, so she won't give him any more orders. He was grumbling about being hired to be a chauffeur, not an errand and delivery boy. Too bad I don't have my license yet, I could run the errands for them.”

“No way is Mom going to let you drive in the city,” I told him, pretty sure I was right. “Maybe next summer, if we go up to Grandma Charlotte's on the farm, they might let you drive there. On back country roads.”

“You're just jealous because you can't drive for years yet. In or out of the city.” He didn't want to talk about that. “Mug shot, huh? I wonder if they'll put the picture on TV and in the papers if you identify him? You know, if the guy finds out you saw him, and could identify him, he might come after you, Joey.”

I hadn't thought of that, and I didn't like it much. “How would he find out?”

“I don't know. Reporters always manage to find out that kind of stuff, and they don't keep it a secret.”

Pink didn't usually talk much when Mark was around, but he spoke up now. “Maybe he already knows, Joe. Maybe he was the guy who almost ran us down.”

Mark had been heading back into his room, but he paused. “Somebody almost ran you down? When?”

“Just a little while ago,” I said reluctantly. “He was just some creep in a cab who gunned it around a corner while we were trying to get across the street. You know how everybody drives in this city.”

Mark acted like he was taking it seriously. “Funny coincidence, though, right? Just after you saw Willie kidnapped, and before you talked to the cops?”

Pink looked serious, too. “It was almost as if he intended to run over us, Joe. And he didn't stop.”

“Does anybody ever stop, unless his own car is too damaged to run or he's penned in by traffic?”

“He'd have got us, for sure, if that Camaro hadn't pulled out and got in his way,” Pink said. “Maybe you better be careful.”

It didn't seem likely, but the idea made me uneasy.

“Well,” Mark said cheerfully, “watch your back, little brother.”

I glared after him when he went back in his room. As soon as we'd closed my bedroom door, I demanded of Pink, “You don't really believe what you said, do you? That the cab driver was trying to hit us? To hit
me
?”

“Could have been,” Pink said. He flopped onto my bed. “It's true what Mark said, you know. If the kidnapper knew you saw him and could identify him . . .”

I scowled. He sounded as bad as my brother. “He didn't see me. I told you. And even if he had, he wouldn't have known who I was. The most he could possibly have seen was part of my face through a dirty window, for pete's sake.”

“For the sake of argument,” Pink suggested, “say somehow he
did
find out who you were. He
might
try to keep you from talking to anybody. Especially the police.”

“But how would he have known where I was?”

“He could have been watching this apartment house. He could have followed us and been waiting for a chance at you.”

“In a battered old taxi?” I scoffed, but my heart was beating faster.

“Maybe that's what he usually drives. Maybe he borrowed it from a friend. Maybe he rented it. More likely he stole it.”

“But he was in an expensive late-model car when he kidnapped Willie.”

“That might have been stolen, too. Or maybe he drives it for someone else. You know, he could be a chauffeur who had seen Willie at the school when he was picking up someone else's kid, and decided to pad his income with a little ransom money.”

I didn't like the way Pink was coming up with logical answers to everything. “But there's no way he could have known who I was,” I persisted. “So everything else is a fairy tale.”

Pink even had an answer to that. “Maybe Willie told him.”

Exasperated, I wanted to kick him. “How could Willie tell him? He didn't see me, either!”

“Maybe not, but Willie was chasing you, wasn't he? The only reason he was in front of the door where you were hiding was that he was trying to find you to beat you up, and he told the kidnappers you'd disappeared right about there. They could have figured out you were hiding from Willie and saw
them
.”

“
Why
would he have told them?”

“Because they tortured him, wanting to know why he was where he was instead of in front of the school, waiting to be picked up.”

I didn't like Willie much, but I didn't want to think about possible torture. Making up such things in adventure stories was one thing; having it happen to anyone I knew was something else.

Another thing occurred to me. “How did they know they'd be able to kidnap him that long after school got out? If his usual ride had showed up on time, he'd have been gone before they got there.”

“Didn't their maid say, when your mom first called the Groveses' apartment, that Willie was delayed in getting home because their car had been involved in a minor accident that held the driver up?”

“So what do you think? The kidnappers caused the accident, and then rushed over to kidnap Willie? No kidding, Pink, I think you're nuts.”

“What kind of a car was it that was involved with the Groveses' car?”

“How do I know?”

“Why don't we find out? Maybe it was a black Chrysler New Yorker.”

“And maybe it wasn't. That car didn't have a mark on it that I could see, and if it did, it would make it easier to trace the car. They wouldn't want that. And how could they plot an accident and still be sure they'd get there in time to grab Willie, if they did it with the same car? In lots of accidents a cop comes, and even if he doesn't, the traffic gets snarled up so you don't know how long you'll be tied up.”

Pink had been in my room plenty of times, but he looked around now as if he were seeing it for the first time. “How come you don't have a phone in here?”

“Because they don't think I'm old enough. Mark didn't get one until he was fifteen and kept tying up the phone Mom uses. Why do we need a phone?”

“To call somebody and see if we can find out what kind of car was involved with the Groveses' chauffeur's fender bender.”

The whole thing sounded like one of my wildest fantasies, but between Mark and Pink, they'd made me nervous.

“If Willie's still missing, they probably aren't taking any phone calls. They're waiting to hear from the kidnappers,” I said, feeling the need to deny everything Pink was suggesting.

“We won't know unless we try,” he said, shrugging. “Let's see if Mark will let us use his phone.”

Mark was more cooperative this time. “Sure.” He started to hand me the phone, then hesitated. “You want me to call? My voice doesn't sound like a kid's, so maybe somebody will talk to me.”

I hated to admit it, but he was right. Most of the time he sounded like a man on the phone. “Go ahead,” I told him.

A few moments later, to my horror, and Pink's wide-eyed amazement, we heard him saying, “This is Officer Delaney, I'm working on the investigation. Would you give me the name of your chauffeur, please; we need to ask him a few questions. Oh, you did? Well, there are several of us working on the case, of course. Howard Patterson? And his home phone number? Yes, thank you. Perhaps you can save me a few minutes. Can you tell me about the minor accident Mr. Patterson was involved in, the day of the kidnapping?” Mark, looking at us, winked, obviously enjoying himself. “Certainly, I'll hold.”

“What do you think you're doing?” I hissed. “Impersonating a police officer is a felony, isn't it?”

He covered the receiver with his free hand. “Cuts through a lot of hassle, and who's going to know the difference?” Then, removing his hand so that he could speak on the phone and lowering his voice as much as he could, “Yes, sir. Can you tell me if there was a police report made on the accident Mr. Patterson had that made him late to pick up Willie at school? No? I see. But the chauffeur did get the other driver's license number and ID? Insurance information? I see.”

Mark was making a face now as if he really were an investigator. I'd forgotten how much he liked to act. I didn't see where playing a character in a play was that much different from making up stories for my own entertainment, but this wasn't the time to bring it up.

I lost track of the next few sentences he said, which was probably just as well. I was pretty sure he was telling more lies. When he finally thanked the speaker at the other end and hung up, he made a rueful face.

“That wasn't much help. Not much damage was done, and nobody was going to turn in an insurance claim and risk losing their coverage. There was a small amount of cash involved, handed over on the spot by the other driver, who admitted the accident was his fault. He was driving a standard yellow city cab.”

“Like the one that nearly hit us,” Pink said, just as I thought the same thing.

But again I was in denial. “There must be a million yellow cabs in this city. It wouldn't have to be the same one. Why didn't you ask what the other driver looked like?”

For once I caught Mark off base. “I didn't think of it,” he conceded. “Well, I got the chauffeur's name and phone number. Let's call him, and if he isn't out driving the car maybe we can find out.”

I suppose I could have stopped him from impersonating an officer this time, but for some reason I didn't. The real police weren't likely to tell us the answers even if they knew them. And it seemed important to know.

Mark had gotten into the swing of being an impersonator by this time, and he sounded like a real detective, running down clues. He wound up this call in triumph.

“Got it! The driver of the car that caused the fender bender with the Groveses' driver was a big guy with a Greek name the chauffeur couldn't remember off hand, dark hair, a strong, rather handsome man. Sound like the guy that snatched Willie?”

“No,” I said. “Well, the guy was dark, but he wasn't especially good looking.”

“So what does all of this give us?” Pink wanted to know.

“We didn't see the driver of the cab that nearly hit us, so that doesn't prove anything,” I mused. “But we now know that it wasn't the kidnap car that kept the Groveses' chauffeur from getting to school on time.”