Ransom (10 page)

Sam Forte shivered in his chair as if he were suddenly cold. He put his hand to his mouth; when he took it away there were deep fingermarks in the soft flesh round his jaw. He had shut his mind against the thought of the worst happening to Sylvia, but Hungerford, with the brutal facing of truth born of his job, had forced the possibility of the fact on him.

“I think we shall have to set ourselves a time limit. Give ourselves till say seven o’clock tomorrow morning. If we have made no progress by that time, then we release Parker and his gang.”

The door opened and Michael Forte came in. He paused to give some instructions to Manny Pearl behind him; then he shut the door, crossed to his desk and sat down. His father

and Hungerford sat across the room from him, saying nothing and waiting for him to recognize their presence. At last he glanced across at Hungerford with an inquiring look.

The Commissioner shook his head. “Nothing. The garage attendant found nothing in our files on the young guy who hit him. And the last I heard we were getting nowhere with Parker and the others.”

Michael Forte could feel the beginning of a severe headache, something he had not had since he was in his teens, when he had occasionally suffered mild attacks of petit mal. Even over the past four years of crises, savage criticism and the civilized assassination that was called political comment, the old malady had never recurred. But now the headache was attacking him and soon, he feared, there would be the odd feeling of detachment, the sensation of being removed from everything that was happening to him. He hoped he would not faint as he had done two or three times when he was young.

“I’ve just been upstairs talking to an Arab sheikh. He told me that where he comes from, kidnappers are beheaded and their heads stuck on a pole in the public square for a week. He thinks advertisement is a good deterrent.”

“Insensitive bastard,” said Hungerford.

“No, I think he was trying to be sympathetic, in some roundabout way. He appreciated that a head stuck on a pole in the middle of City Hall Park wouldn’t get me many votes.” He swung his chair round, stared out the window for a while at the darkening sky, then turned back. The other two men saw how close he was to breaking and they kept quiet, not wanting to push him any closer to the edge. At last he said, “I’m no longer interested in law and order or votes. The next time the kidnappers call I’m going to tell them they can have Parker and his gang.”

Sam Forte was aware of Hungerford’s quick glance in his direction, but he didn’t acknowledge it. He got up, moved across past his son to the window and looked out at the trees, their leaves dying and being whisked away by the wind, the

seasons appearing to change even as he looked at them. He wondered if Sylvia had a window to look out of wherever she was being held; he felt an abrupt wave of pity for his daughter-in-law. Then he wondered if she would understand his efforts to save what he could of the career they had both nurtured so patiently all these years.

By leaning forward he could see the statue of Horace Greeley, bald head flecked with the dandruff of bird dung. There was another man who had run for political office, had been vilified, who had lost his wife just before an election, though she had not been kidnapped but had died. / am not dead, but I wish I were, Greeley had written; and Michael already had that same look of hopeless despair that must have been on Greeley’s face when he had penned those words. Hope must still be kept alive, Sam decided; not just for the safe return of Sylvia but for success in tomorrow’s election. He looked at his watch: they still had sixteen hours to the absolute deadline, fourteen hours to the deadline he had discussed with Hungerford.

“Michael -” He kept his voice soft and sympathetic while he told his son of the need for some proof from the kidnappers that Sylvia and the other woman were still alive. “I don’t think you can surrender at once - “

Michael shook his head, put his hand to his eyes as the pain increased. He felt sick and he suddenly swung his chair round and put his head down between his knees. At that moment there was a knock, the door opened and Manny Pearl stood there with Malone and Jefferson.

“Mr Mayor - ” Then Pearl was across the room in a swift pattering run, was on his knees beside the still bent-over Mayor. “Mike! Mike, are you all right?”

Michael Forte slowly straightened up, leaned back in his chair. He blinked, saw Pearl; then a ghastly grin slipped across his mouth. “Okay, Manny - I’ll be all right.”

Manny Pearl stood up, his face as white as that of his boss. “Jesus, you had me scared!” He looked around at the others, his concern for Michael touching because it was so sincere

and unexpected by the other men who knew him. “He’s so goddam healthy and fit - You’re sure you’re okay?”

Michael nodded. “Get me a drink, Manny. Maybe the others would like one - ?” Only Hungerford nodded, and Pearl moved across to the drink cabinet in a corner of the room. Michael, his head still aching but his composure recovered, looked at Malone and Jefferson. “Any luck over at The Tombs?”

“None,” said Malone. “What’s been happening here?”

Malone meant it as a general question, but from the expressions on the faces of the two Fortes and Hungerford he guessed at once that there were several answers. It was Michael Forte who said, “We’ve decided to hold off releasing those men until seven o’clock tomorrow morning. I’m going to make a broadcast, ask the kidnappers for some proof that our wives are still alive. Do you agree to that?”

“I have no vote in this city,” said Malone.

“That was a pretty low blow this afternoon.” Michael Forte pushed his steak, hardly touched, away from him. “You don’t seem to appreciate the fix I’m in.”

“Look,” said Malone, pushing his own steak away. He picked up the beer he had asked for with his dinner and sipped it; compared to the stuff back home it tasted like aerated water that had a hop or two dunked in it; maybe Americans made their beer the way they made their tea, with beer-bags in a glass. “Look, I’m not a boneheaded bastard - or at least I try not to be. I’m not a stranger to politics - I’ve had one or two brushes with it back home. One of our Police Commissioners once told me never to expect to outlive politics - I think he also meant never expect to beat them, either.”

“You think that’s all I’m considering- politics?”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, it damn well isn’t!”

“I don’t care what your considerations are - ” Malone put down his glass, stared at Forte across the table between them. “If I don’t get my wife back, and your politics or whatever has been even part of the reason, I’ll take you apart bone by bone!”

Forte stared back, then slowly he relaxed. “I think you would, too,” he said quietly. “But only because I wouldn’t fight back.”

Malone, after more persuasion from Manny Pearl, had decided to leave the hotel and move up to Gracie Mansion. He had not seen Michael Forte till they had sat down to dinner, just the two of them, and then Forte had made his comment on what had happened down at City Hall that afternoon.

“My kids are due home some time tonight. They’re going to ask the same sort of questions you’ve been asking.”

“What are you going to tell themV

“Lies, I guess. You see, releasing those guys isn’t just up to me. The District Attorney is the key man - and like me, he’s got people behind him leaning on him. He’s got political ambitions - next time around he’d like to run for Governor. But he’s the one who’ll have to effect the release. He’ll come to some arrangement with the judge who’s going to preside on the bomb conspiracy case and have a motion made to dismiss it. He’s not a callous son-of-a-bitch, but he’s even more hard-nosed than I am about law and order. And he knows those anarchists better than I do. He figures if we let them go free, go to Cuba, they’ll be back in the United States within six months. They’re fanatics and they’re not going to give up their fight. You want something else to eat ?”

“Just some of this fruit.” Malone took an apple from the bowl on the table.

“Fruit for dessert is an old Italian custom. My mother never believed in apple pie or angelfood cake or all those things Americans are supposed to fight wars for.”

“Were your parents born in Italy?”

“Only my mother. Her name was Verrazano. My father claims she is a direct descendant of Giovanni da Verrazano, who was the first European to sail into New York Bay - we have a bridge named after him.”

“That must have been a help when you first ran for Mayor.”

“It was when I first ran for Congress too.”

“Does your wife mind you being in politics?” Malone suddenly realized he was talking about an absolute stranger, a woman he had never even seen.

“No. Does yours mind you being a cop?”

Malone chewed on the slice of apple in his mouth. He could not taste it, but the peeling and slicing of the fruit gave him something to do with his hands. Any minute diversion was a relief from the agony that filled his mind each time he thought of Lisa. “I don’t think she understands the -the politics of it, if you like. When it comes to law and order she tends to think of everything in black and white. Most people do, I guess.”

“You’re looking at our present situation in straight black and white.”

“I think you are too - when you forget you’re the Mayor.”

“Maybe. But nobody lets me forget I am the Mayor.”

Then the two Forte children arrived, brought home from their respective schools. Roger, red-haired, sixteen and already taller than his father, shook hands with Malone. “Glad to meet you, sir.”

“It would be better in other circumstances,” said Malone, and the boy, after a moment’s puzzled blink, then nodded.

Pier Forte freed herself from her father’s embrace. She was as dark as her father, already a beauty at fourteen, and Malone had the immediate feeling that she was going to cope with this situation better than either her father or her brother. She is not only Michael Forte’s daughter, he thought, she is very much Sam Forte’s granddaughter.

“I am sorry for you, Inspector. But I am sure my mother will do her best to see that the kidnappers don’t hurt your

wife.” The speech sounded almost rehearsed, yet Malone knew the young girl had had no expectation of meeting him, had not known that he would be here.

He glanced at Forte, then back at the young, composed face. “I’m sure they’ll both be all right.”

“When are you releasing the anarchists, Dad?” Roger had picked up a banana from the table and was peeling it; without being greedy he looked like a boy who would always be eating, never able to fill the frame that was too big for him. “There’s a guy at school who’s one.”

“One what?” his father said.

“An anarchist, for Pete’s sake - “

“They’re everywhere,” said Forte drily to Malone; but his humour did not reach his eyes. “Roger goes to Portsmouth Priory, it’s supposed to be one of the top Catholic schools in the country. When I was there we were only interested in two things - dodging prayers and catching girls.”

“Some of the Catholic girls at St Tim’s are saying prayers for Mother,” said Pier; then added, and Malone did not know whether she was being truthful or just gracious: “And for Mrs Malone too, Inspector.”

The mention of prayers reminded Malone of his own mother; he tried to remember the time gap between New York and Sydney, wondered if she and his father and Lisa’s parents down in Melbourne had yet heard the news. Christ, he thought, I’m so bloody concerned with myself. “Mr Forte, I wonder if I could make a couple of phone calls to Australia?”

As soon as he uttered the words they sounded ridiculous in his own ears: on the rare occasions back home when he had made a trunk call to Lisa’s parents in Melbourne, he had counted the pips as if they were gongs of doom. But Forte was a man accustomed to his overnight guests asking if they could make international phone calls: “Ask Nathan to place the calls for you. He’ll get you priority, if it’s needed.”

As Malone went out of the room he heard Forte say to his children, “You’re to go down to Grandma Veerkamp’s - “

“We want to stay here!”

Malone heard no more as, out in the hall, he found Nathan the butler, who led him into a small study, got the Melbourne number first and handed the phone over to Malone. “I hope it is a good line, sir.”

The line was almost too clear: Malone heard Lisa’s mother gasp as he spoke to her. It was ten o’clock in the morning in Melbourne and the news of the kidnapping had been on the early morning radio news. It’s already tomorrow out there, he thought; her parents and mine are probably out of their heads trying to work out the actual time of the deadline. It had always confused him that Australians and Americans had two different dates for the bombing of Pearl Harbor, almost as if history were echoing itself on successive days. He tried to sound reassuring to Lisa’s mother and to her father, who soon took over the phone from his wife; but distance and Malone’s own despair exposed his words for the sham they were. He wanted to hang up, but that -\ould be too brutal. He did not know Lisa’s parents well and he had no measure of their capacity for pain.

Then he realized that Jan Pretorious was comforting him. “Scobie, all we can do is trust in God. I wish we could be there with you. If the worst - ” his voice faltered for a moment: ten thousand miles of painful silence separated the two men ” - if the worst happens, we’ll fly over at once. Will you call us again?”

“As soon as I have something definite.”

While he waited for the call to Sydney to go through he looked at the books on the shelves in front of him. They seemed to be all political biographies: Presidents stood in ranks at eye-level before him: some books looked as if they had been handled more than others, some Presidents taken down and scrutinized to see what example they offered. On the desk on which the phone stood was a brand-new book, but Malone had to look twice to make sure he had

not mistaken the title: Baedeker’s United States, i8gj. He leafed through it, the phone still held to his ear. In that year one could stay at the Waldorf-Astoria for four dollars, including meals; Los Angeles was still trying to drag itself together as a city; Las Vegas sold wool and nothing else. He wondered who in this house had bought the book, who was so tired of the present and afraid of the future that they wanted to retreat so far into the good old days. He could guess who it was; and he understood. He wondered what Australia had been like in 1893, felt his own desire to escape into nostalgia.