Snowjob (7 page)

“I’ll come with you.” She was heading for her coat but I stopped her, taking her arm.

“No. He wants me there on my own. I’ll set Sam to watch the house. You go upstairs with Ben like I said.”

She bit her lip and tears came into her eyes. “Oh God, Reid. Take care of Angie.”

“They’re not going to hurt her. But I’m going. You and Ben go upstairs now. Don’t come down until I get back with Angie.”

Ben said, “I want to come. You promised.”

“You’ll get a chance to clobber him, but not tonight. First we get Angie. Do as your mom says. Your dad would want you to.”

His eyes widened when he saw the gun in her hand and he stood back as she got up and went upstairs, slowly. He followed her and she paused halfway up to speak to me. “Get my Angie back, Reid.”

“I promise.” I waited until she was out of sight, then led Sam all around the downstairs, including the basement, and told him “Guard.” It’s his command to attack silently and pin an intruder, on the ground usually, after he’s knocked him down.

I turned off all the downstairs lights and went out to my car. There was very little traffic on the streets and I drove down to the main square in under five minutes. There were a few pedestrians on the street, stopping to look in the windows of the stores which were all closed. But I didn’t see Angie or any parked cars with people in them. I left the car running and got out, pretending to be cleaning the windshield with a handful of snow from the mound along the edge of the sidewalk. A minute or so later a Lincoln slid into a parking spot opposite me. It had tinted windows and I couldn’t see who was inside.

I watched as the passenger door opened and a man got out. He was short, wearing a city topcoat and a fedora. He had his hands in his pockets and he strolled across to me, elaborately casual.

I took a few steps toward him and he took one hand out of his pocket and held it up. “Stay there. We can’t talk in the middle of all this traffic,” he said, and laughed at his own joke.

I backed to my car and he came up to me. Latin, bad skin, thirty-fiveish, five-six, around one-sixty pounds, I registered. I took a good look at his face.

“Don’ bother tryin’ a remember me,” he said. “After tonight you’re outa here.”

“Where’s the little girl?”

“In the car with my associates,” he said.

“Turn her loose, then we talk.”

“We talk first. Then she walks, ’kay?”

“What do you want to talk about?”

He hawked and spat. “We unnerstand you been askin’ a lot of dumbass questions. That makes some people I know kind of mad.”

“Why’s that? I’m a friend of the family. What are friends for?”

He sighed. He was milking his moment, I thought. He’d seen too many movies. He took his hands out of his pockets and spread his arms. “This is a friendly talk we’re havin’ here. This ain’t your beef. Go home.”

“Or what?”

“Or instead of havin’ any more friendly talks we take the kid and she doesn’t come back.”

“I get the message. Her mother wants her back. That’s all. I’ll be out of town as soon as you deliver the girl.”

“Good.” He tapped me on the chest. “Like it won’t do no good getting p’lice protection. All’s they’ll do is drive by the house a few times. We’ll pick the kids up, both of ’em. And next time it’s no more mister niceguy.”

“You’ve made your point. I’m out of here as soon as I get the girl.”

“Smart.” He spat again. “I like that.”

He turned and nodded at the car and the rear door opened. Angela got out. She was dressed in a pink parka and toque, still carrying her schoolbooks. She ran across the street to me and I put my arm around her. The guy took his right hand out of his pocket and wagged his forefinger at me. “Remember now. Next time’s for keeps.”

He turned his back and strolled away to his car. I wanted to follow and kick him right up in the air but that wouldn’t have solved anything. Instead I took Angie’s hand. “Are you all right?”

“I’m scared,” she said in a very small voice.

“Did they hurt you?”

“No. They were okay. They gave me a chocolate bar but I didn’t eat it.”

I put her in the car, then got in as the car opposite pulled away, its lights out. I couldn’t have read the license plate anyway from where I was but they were professionals in their own way. “Tell me what happened,” I said, putting my car into gear.

“I was just coming out of Jennie’s house and this car came up and a man asked me if I knew where the library was. I did like Dad told us. I stayed away from the car but the man said he couldn’t hear me. He got out, with his hand over his ear, and I figured he was deaf. So I started saying it again and he grabbed me. I dropped my books but he put me in the back seat and another man held me while the first one picked up my books.”

“Nobody touched you other than that?”

“No.” She shook her head, a tense little negative that showed how frightened she had been.

“You were very brave. Your dad’ll be proud of you,” I said and concentrated on my driving.

“Why did they do it?” she asked. “Dad said men take girls in their cars sometimes and do things to them, you know. But they didn’t.”

“They wanted to scare me,” I said. “And they did. But don’t worry, it’s all over now.”

She said nothing else and I drove to the house in silence, wondering what to do next.

The hall light was on when I got there and I ran up the drive and opened the door. Melody was standing on the stairs. Sam was standing on the bottom step, looking at her unmovingly. “Easy, boy. Here,” I called and he broke off eye contact and came over to me. Melody ran down the stairs and put both arms around her daughter. She still had the gun in her hand and I took it from her. “She’s okay. Nothing happened,” I said.

“I’m fine, Mom. They didn’t do anything, ’cept put me in the car,” Angie said, and then the two of them wept.

Ben was standing a few feet away. “I’ll kill them,” he said. “I’ll take Dad’s gun an’ blow ’em away.”

I put my arm around him. “No need, old huddy. She’s all right. Now go pack a bag. You three are going on a trip.”

FOUR

Melody fussed over Angie until she was certain the girl was fine, while I sent out for pizza for supper. Then, when she was settling down to normal again, I set out to convince her that she had to leave town and hide for a while.

It was a tough sell. The kidnapping had achieved its objective. She was scared and wanted to be sure we carried out the letter of my promise. She wanted me to leave town. I didn’t bully her but I pointed out that if Doug got off, as I figured he might, then the same guys would be using the same tactics on him again. The only way to beat them was to go after them, and burn them out so they couldn’t come back again and cause trouble.

I wasn’t sure how that could be done, but it had to be tried, and that meant I had to do the burning. And before that could happen, she and the kids had to disappear for a while. She thought about it without talking while we drank coffee. And at last she agreed.

We made the plan in private, where the kids couldn’t hear and blow security. I asked her if she had a choice of places to go and she did. Her sister lived in Chicago and Doug’s mother, who had been widowed and remarried, was living in South Carolina. None of the neighbors knew the name of either family, so there could be no follow-up. She agreed with me that double protection would be best, so she called the head of the library board and told him she had a family emergency in Chicago. With Doug out of circulation, she was taking the children with her for a few days.

That was part one of the plan. Part two, which would be revealed to the children later, was that they would switch planes in New York and head south to Doug’s mother. Organized crime is not well enough organized to have its tentacles down into rural Dixie and she would be safe there while I finished what I had to do.

Angie was excited about getting away so that was fine. Ben was the only one to show any reluctance. With fourteen-year-old machismo he wanted to stay where he was and fight. But he listened to me and agreed finally. So by nine o’clock the neighbors had been told the Chicago story and I was driving the family to the airport in Burlington, me with Doug’s .38 in the right-hand pocket of my parka.

I sat with them until they were called through security to board their flight. Melody gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and said, “Explain to Doug. Don’t let him think we’re running out on him.”

“No fears,” I said and squeezed her hand. “Have a holiday, if you can. I’m going to do some heavy-duty digging. Doug’s innocent and what happened tonight proves it. Now I just have to make it stick.”

I waited in the concourse until their flight left for New York, then phoned home and talked to Fred for half an hour, giving her a quick rundown of what was happening, but leaving out the bit about Angie’s being abducted. With a brand-new daughter of our own, I knew she would take that to heart too much. When I hung up I made a second call, to Peter Horn, the special constable I had left in charge at Murphy’s Harbour. He’s Ojibway—a Native North American—they don’t call themselves Indians anymore. He’s wise and tough. I explained what I wanted done and he told me he’d get some of his buddies on it right away.

The call put fresh heart into me and afterward I went back out to the car and headed for Chambers, the Fords’ hometown. But I’m a man of my word, even when I’m dealing with criminals, so I didn’t go back to town. Instead I stopped ten miles out at a crummy motel and checked in under the name Collins. From the look of the place they’d had their quota of John Smiths registered there over the years.

I didn’t mention Sam but it was a cold night and I wanted security, so I brought him in to sleep beside the bed. Then I took a slow hour or so going over all the things I’d learned that day and putting together a case in my mind. It wasn’t until midnight that I realized I hadn’t phoned Irv Goodman in Toronto. Never mind, I thought, I would speak to him the next morning. It was Saturday and he would be at home.

Except for traffic noise the night passed peacefully and I was up at seven to let Sam out and get ready for the day. After I’d showered I took Sam and headed out to find a restaurant. There was a simple country place on the highway and I had a big breakfast with enough cholesterol to last a week and then drove into town.

It was nine o’clock and the main square was lined with cars, most of them with ski racks on the roof. I found a spot and left the window down while I went in to visit Doug.

There was a different official on duty this morning, a young woman who seemed to have some sympathy for Doug as a member of a minority group. She told me I could have fifteen minutes with him and this time there was a different guard, a bored, older man who lounged against the wall and didn’t act officious.

I filled Doug in on what had happened. He gritted his teeth but didn’t get dramatic on me. “You did right, Reid. Now tell me, you think your own family’s gonna be okay? These guys have got long arms.”

“I’ve called the Harbour and told my assistant. He’s Ojibway. He’s arranging to have some guys cover the house for me. They’re all hunters. They’ll fade into the scenery and put on an armed guard without making a fuss to worry my wife.”

“Will they do that for you?” Doug was impressed.

I nodded. “Anyway, enough about that. I need to know what you were working on. It’s the only way to untie this thing and get you out of here with no comebacks on your family.”

He sniffed thoughtfully, then relaxed a little. “Now that Melody and the kids are safe, I guess it’s okay,” he said. “Let me explain.”

By the time he was finished I could see what he meant. He didn’t have enough details to make a case but the bare bones were that Manatelli was using Cat’s Cradle, and the local bank, to launder money for him. Cindy Laver had given him the facts. It seemed that Manatelli, or somebody, she didn’t know who it was, had formed a company in Delaware, the state where most American corporations are based. The company had contracted to be a partner in Cat’s Cradle. They would buy all of the credit card slips used at the resort at a discount a quarter percent better than the financial companies allowed. That way Cat’s Cradle got cash, with a small markup, and Manatelli got the credits. He was paying these into the bank which would then, Doug thought, pass them on to some bank in the Cayman Islands which would issue cash drafts in nice clean untraceable dollars.

I listened and thought about it. “Couple of things. First, it doesn’t sound like a major case. I mean, what are we talking about here, in credit card slips, a hundred thousand a week in peak season? Surely the mob has bigger funds than that to worry about.”

“This isn’t their whole take,” Doug said. “I think Manatelli is skimming his boss. And anyway, the Cat’s Cradle take would be bigger than that. According to Cindy there could be twice that some weeks.”

“Yes. But no crime’s been committed. All it proves is that Manatelli is a poor businessman. He’s making a loss on every dollar.”

“That’s his cost of doing business,” Doug explained. “And besides, it means he never has tax problems. His income is always negative.”

“But where’s the crime?” I persisted.