The Penny Ferry - Rick Boyer (33 page)

"The guy who came to fix our furnace. I remember
he had a bandaged hand, too."

"Oh," I said, putting the photo away.
Danny, our yellow Lab, raced into the room, his toenails clicking on
the linoleum, and jumped up to the window, paws on the sill. He
sniffed and began a low growl, the fur on his back rising in a dark
patch.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I never left the house the next morning. He came in
through the front door wearing a green jumpsuit. Mary thought he was
the UPS man.

"
Charlie . . . ?" I heard her call to me in
a high, thin voice that wavered. I came around the hallway to see her
standing straight up, as if stretching back, with a green arm around
her neck and a small black gun pointing at the side of her head. But
I wasn't looking at the gun; I was staring at the four-inch blade
that extended down from the right fist of the green sleeve. The tip
of the blade was pressed into the material of Mary's nightgown right
over her left breast. The fist twitched. The knifepoint dipped into
the soft fabric.

Mary gave a yelp and a high, whining shudder.

My knees began to shake and my mouth and throat felt
numb and full of electric currents. My hair was moving.

And from around in back of Mary's head of long black
hair crept a face.

I was expecting the black Gila-monster eyes, the
black hair and wide face. But the face that glared at me with animal
hate was not that one. And I was still rational enough to realize
why: Mary would have recognized it. A blondish baby's face sat round
and pink under the driver's cap.

"
Listen real good," it said quietly. "We
see three dogs out back. Two big ones and a little one. Any more in
here?"

"No."

We. He'd said we . . .

"Now: anybody else in the house? Any kids, old
folks? Anybody?"

"No. We're alone."

"Now you don't wanta lie."

"We're alone I said."

"
Okay. Now where's the switch for those lights
at the front door? Walk over to it but don't touch it."

I did, and he walked Mary along until he was directly
opposite me. She was looking at me and at the ceiling. Her eyes
weren't focused, and her breath was coming in little whiny pants,
like a dog crying.

"Charlie? Ohhh . . ."

He silenced her by a short, hard rap on the head with
the barrel of the pistol. It must have hurt terribly. She clenched
her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. Tears rolled down her face. I
wanted to kill the man. But I knew better than to move a muscle.

"Now you flip it on while I count three, then
you turn it off, hear?"

I nodded, and flashed the light on for three seconds.
Almost immediately afterward I heard a distant car door slam. Then
footsteps on the gravel walk, and two men dressed in street clothes
came in. The door had been left open, and they were inside in a
hurry, shutting the door behind them.

"Good morning everyone!" said the man with
the wide hat. His right hand held an automatic. I couldn't see his
face. Then his left hand went up and grabbed the hat brim. The hand
was bandaged. The hat came off and we could all see him now.

It was Carmen DeLucca. He stared at me, smiling. Then
suddenly the smile dropped. The lizard eyes bored into mine.

"Hear you been looking for me, Doctor Adams.
Well, I saved you the trouble. You both do exactly as we tell you or
you'll die."

He walked farther into the hall, and motioned the
third man to bring the large carton that had been the ruse for Mary
to unfasten the chain bolt. He turned and looked at both of us again.

"Matter of fact, you might just die anyway."
 

CHAPTER TWENTY

It was now almost nine; an hour and a half had passed
since the three hoods had forced their way into the house. It felt
like a century and a half. Mary had become hysterical and Babyface
had led her into the downstairs john, seated her on the toilet, and
handcuffed her left wrist to the radiator pipe in there. The door was
left open a few inches so we could all hear her. They had me in the
living room, my right wrist handcuffed to the arm of a heavy desk
chair.

In the hour and a half I had phoned Susan Petri and
announced that I was not coming in to the office. There was a
two-second hesitation on the other end of the line— a pause that
I'm sure was noticed by DeLucca, who listened in on the kitchen phone
extension. But finally she had said fine and the conversation closed.
Had she guessed that something was amiss? I did not think so. Damn.

Through it all I sleepwalked as if in a dream, the
trembling and electric buzzing clouding my senses and thinking. What
was I happening was happening to someone else, not Charles and Mary
Adams.

The men had helped themselves to coffee and eggs.
They rifled through the place— for a second time— and took
clothes that fit them. Babyface slid outside fast to make sure our
dogs were locked in their runs. The men put their tan Chevy in my
garage and locked the doors, but only after they backed out our cars
and switched their plates. The plates they took out of the big carton
that Babyface had carried with him up to our door an hour and a half
earlier. They took out the handcuffs first, then the license plates.
They were New Jersey issue, and I knew they were what hoodlums call
cold plates. Joe had told me cold plates were stolen but not used for
several months so that their descriptions would not appear on police
hot sheets.

They were going to take our cars someplace. They were
on the run.

What about us? If pursuit was immediate, they would
take us as hostages. If not, they would leave us tied up in our house
and take off, buying themselves probably ten or twelve hours' time.
Enough time to get to another big city and take a plane far, far
away. Or they could decide not to leave us tied up.

They could instead decide to kill us.

And knowing Carmen DeLucca, who had killed so often
he had nothing to lose, I knew this last possibility was real. And I
didn't like it. Mary, seated in the semidark john and looking up
through the red-print curtains, knew it too, and did not like it
either. That's why she was crying and hysterical.

It was not knowing what course they would take, and
the complete powerlessness over it, that was so frightening. It was
not only scary, it was exhausting. I was scared to death and weak and
tired, all at once.

And then DeLucca came into the room where I was
handcuffed and asked me what I had done wish the strip of photo
negatives.

At quarter to ten I came to and looked down at the
wires taped to my left forearm. DeLucca was good with wires and
juice; he could set off gas bombs with them and make people
unconscious from pain. I smelled singed hair and skin. Mine. And all
because I couldn't answer his question.

Then DeLucca and his gang said they were going to
work on Mary until they got an answer. I could hear her saying
"Don't— please don't," over and over again. I knew if I
ever got a chance to kill any one of the three I would do it. They
came back and sat down and told me Mary was not injured.

"
Marty just got a little fresh with her, didn't
you?"

Babyface leered at me. I tried to lunge at him but
was now tied into the chair with a strap. I felt like a marionette. I
swore at him until he cracked me across the mouth with the back of
his list. I didn't mind the pain; it seemed to wake me up.

"Okay," said DeLucca. "So you don't
have it and don't know where it is. I didn't think you did, but I
hadda make sure." Then he sat on the sofa, hunched over, and
clapped his hands slowly together, thinking. He turned to his
confederates.

"We got nowhere to go now, except away. We can't
go back to Lynn now. We can't go to Andover. The Doc ain't got it; we
can't get it. The whole Mob's after us. We can only get lost."

The third man, a tall, thin, and morose lout with
pale skin and bad teeth, stood up and paced.

"Don't forget the money, Carmen," he said.
"We got the cars; now we need the loot."

Carmen DeLucca looked at me and said they needed five
thousand bucks in cash, and it gave me a little hope. Because I knew
that as long as I was in the process of getting him the money, Mary
and I were safe.

"I can get that for you, but it won't be before
this afternoon, even if I started now. We've got very little money in
savings and checking accounts; it's mostly tied up in investments and
term accounts that take some time to free."

"How soon?"

I shrugged. As used to big money as a guy like
DeLucca was, he probably had no experience with or knowledge of the
ways in which straight people keep money. A thug gets a bankroll and
spends big bills until the roll is gone, then works at getting
another.

"There are a lot of papers to sign. I'd have to
see two bankers and my tax lawyer to free most, of it. About eighteen
hundred you can have in twenty minutes."

"Not enough," said DeLucca. He did not
bridle at the fictitious red tape I spewed about bankers and lawyers.
There would be penalties for tapping the term accounts, but no red
tape. I told him I could furnish the deposit contracts and explain
them to show I was telling the truth, but he shook his head. He
believed me. He knew only street money and bad checks; anything else
was beyond him.

Then the tall one called Carmen out of the room for a
talk, and I didn't like that at all. They could just decide to put
both of us on ice now and get moving. I heard arguing in low voices, 
both urgent. The men were cornered and scared, and very mean to begin
with. That spelled danger. But by the time they came back I had a
better idea.

"I know where you can get twenty thousand in
small bills. In a sack, ready to go, unmarked. Twenty thou. And I can
have it delivered."

It was some time before DeLucca answered. He sensed a
trick.

"
How soon? And how many people you gotta visit?"

"One phone call and it's on its way. I don't
have to see anybody, DeLucca, so you don't have to worry about me
blowing it. But the deal is, you get the cash and we go free."

"The deal is like it was planned: we get the
dough and Marty and Vince and your wife hole up in a motel room we've
rented near here. You and me, we take the red car and drive away. 
Someplace deserted I let you out of the car and keep going . . . and
you remember that your lovely wife is still in that motel room. They
are not to touch her unless I say otherwise or unless the law comes
in. Then she dies. But I get where I'm going safe, and I figure you
haven't called any law, and if when I call this motel room everything
is cool there, then, but only then, they tie your wife inna chair and
wrap a hanky around her mouth and turn the TV up loud and leave. Got
it?"

I nodded. So this was not a last-minute effort on
their part.

They had planned it pretty carefully, perhaps
arriving in town the night before and staying in the rented motel
room, wherever it was. After I was released it would be perhaps an
hour before I could reach a phone. Even then I would know that Mary
wouldn't be left alone in the room until DeLucca gave the word to his
confederates over the phone from God knows where. And he might not
call them until late. In a way the plan made me breathe a little
easier; it indicated that they did not want violence, only escape.
For this they needed another car and cash-- and they knew that I had
both.

"
Now where's this twenty grand? What bank?"

"No bank. It's at Dependable Messenger Service
in Cambridge, in the safe."

"No it ain't. I know it ain't."

"Oh yes it is. When you burned that safe the
money was out, sitting inside another strongbox. I had a hunch the
place was going to get hit. But there's a new safe there now, and the
money's back."

"Let's get to a phone," said Vince, "and
see."

Before I went I demanded to see Mary, who looked
fine, considering. I didn't know what Marty had done to her and for
the time being didn't want to— I was afraid I would lose control
and lunge at him and both Mary and I would get shot. They gave me
definite instructions for the phone conversation, which I followed to
the letter. It was rather brief. I told Sam I had a private problem.
Private. He was to tell nobody about it, or else the problem would
get a lot bigger immediately.

"
You've got to believe me, Sam."

"
I believe, Doc— I believe. Come by and get
it. I'll have it ready and nobody'll know."

"No. Can you bring it to the Minute Man Park off
Route 2A? Bring it alone— to the park at eleven-fifteen. Walk in
the park, which should be empty, until you see my red-and-white
International Scout. It looks like a jeep. Nobody will be inside but
the door will be unlocked. Put the sack inside on the back seat,
close the front driver's door so it locks, then go back to the
office. Okay?"

"I got it."

"Sain? Don't call anybody after we hang up.
It'll go bad for us if you do."