The Wrong Kind of Money (24 page)

“What do you want?”

“For your son's release, we want two-point-five million dollars. The terms of his release, and how the money is to be delivered, will come to you by mail. Until the money is paid, your son will be unharmed. We will give him food and water.”

“And if I can't pay? Don't pay?”

“Your son will be—dispatched.”

“What do you mean, ‘dispatched'?”

“Exactly what I say. No more questions now, Mr. Liebling. Wait for your instructions in the mail. Everything will be made quite clear in our instructions, Mr. Liebling. Do you wish a final word with your son?”

“Yes, please,” Jules said.

Then Cyril came on the line again. “Please, Pop,” he said. “Please pay them what they want, Pop. I'm scared, Pop! I'm scared they're going to kill me, Pop! Help me, Pop!” Then Cyril began to cry, and the line went dead.

Bathy stood at the music room door. “Any luck with tracing the call?” he asked.

She shook her head. “The phone company needs at least an hour to set up tracing equipment.”

“Have them set up tracing equipment on every line coming into this house. Also the New York apartment. Also my office lines.”

“Already done,” Bathy said.

“Also I want tape recorders set up on all these lines, so we can tape all incoming calls.”

“Already ordered,” Bathy said. “They'll be installed in a half hour.”

Jules reached for the phone again.

“Who are you calling?”

“The FBI.”

“Don't,” she said, reaching out and pressing the receiver buttons down. “If you call the FBI, that'll mean the police, and the police will mean the press. The press will make a circus out of this, particularly after the business with Ruth. I think we should try to deal with the kidnappers on our own.”

“She's right, Jules,” Hannah said. “If the press gets wind of this, it could frighten them. They might try to—”

“They might decide to kill Cyril,” Bathy said evenly. “It's happened before. I have a friend, Kevin Shaughnessy, who's a private investigator.”

“Call him.”

“I already have,” she said, demonstrating the quick efficiency that was already making her such a valued member of Jules Liebling's business team. “He's on his way to Tarrytown right now.”

Jules stood by the telephone muttering, “Trouble … trouble. Nothing but trouble. First the St. Anselm's thing. Now this.”

“Oh, Jules!” Hannah cried. “You can't blame Cyril for this!” Then she burst into tears.

“Surely you have the money, Jules,” Bathy said, almost contemptuously. “Surely two and a half million dollars isn't too much to pay for your son's life!”

“Cyril's car must still be at the foot of the drive,” he said. “Somebody should get that and put it back in the garage.”

“I'll do that,” Bathy said. She hurried out of the house and down the long drive. At the turning, she saw the headlights of Cyril's yellow Mustang facing her. Its convertible top was down. Both doors hung wide open. Its engine was running. Just beyond, the heavy iron gates to Grandmont, with their scrollwork of reversed L's, were closed. She jumped into the car, closed both doors, taking care not to touch any areas that might contain fingerprints, threw the Mustang into gear, drove it back up the hill to the house, and parked it in its regular space in the garage. Then she removed the keys and locked the garage doors.

In the music room, still weeping, Hannah knelt on the carpet, picking up the spilled popcorn, piece by piece. Suddenly, to her surprise, her husband was kneeling on the floor beside her and took her into his arms.

Kevin Shaughnessy, age thirty-eight, a former Pinker-ton man, turned out to be a heavyset redheaded Irishman who exuded an air of solid authority. He had driven immediately to Grandmont from his home in Yonkers, and had spent a half hour scouring the grounds of the estate with a powerful flashlight. It was nearly ten o'clock when he sat down opposite Bathy and the Lieblings in the music room. A bulge under his jacket indicated where he carried his service revolver in a shoulder holster, and as he hitched up his trouser legs, a second bulge in his left sock revealed where he carried a second weapon.

“There's really nothing more we can do until we hear from the kidnappers again,” he said. “But there are a couple of aspects of this case that puzzle me a little. Mind if I smoke?”

“Certainly not,” Hannah said.

He lighted a cigarette, igniting a wooden kitchen match with his fingernail. “So let's talk about those aspects. To begin with, there's the position of the Mustang. Your son told you that he was driving down the drive, toward the gate, when he saw another vehicle, just beyond the gate, blocking him. And yet when Miss Sachs found the vehicle, with its motor running, it was headed back up the drive, away from the gate, toward the house. Any explanation for that?”

“Perhaps they turned the car around.”

“Perhaps. But why?”

“To throw us off?”

He inhaled deeply and blew out a sharp stream of smoke. “Perhaps,” he said again. “But again—why?”

No one said anything.

“And then there's the position of the car doors. Both doors were open, on the passenger's and on the driver's side. Your son told you he got out of his car to see what was the matter. Assuming he got out on the driver's side and left that door open, why were both doors opened when Miss Sachs found the car?”

There was another silence.

“Now, your son indicated that he was attacked outside the gates. That would mean the gates were open. And yet when Miss Sachs found the vehicle, the gates were closed.”

“They could have closed the gates behind them when they left.”

“Yes, but most kidnappers are in a big hurry, Mrs. Liebling. They don't take the time to close gates behind them, or to reverse the direction of the victim's car. And here's another thing. Your son says he struggled with his assailants on the drive. I assume this would have happened just outside the gates. Your drive is composed of fine, loose gravel. Long Island grit, I believe it's called. I found no signs of a struggle in the gravel outside the gate—or inside it, for that matter. Or in the grassy areas alongside the drive, on either side. Odd, don't you think? What's more, a car passing along on a gravel drive like yours leaves tread marks. And yet when I examined your drive just now, the only tread marks on it were the ones made by Miss Sachs when she drove the car back up to the garage. There were no tread marks from any second vehicle, either inside or outside the gate.”

“This isn't rescuing my son!” Hannah said angrily. “Talking about tread marks!”

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Liebling,” he said. “But we don't know where your son is yet, or who's got him, or how we're going to get him back. Right now I'd like to get to the bottom of some of the puzzling aspects of the case.”

“He's right, Hannah. Let him talk,” Bathy said.

“Now, let's talk about the time of day,” he said. “You said you were watching
The Ed Sullivan Show.
That comes on at eight, and the trained chimp was in the first segment. That means that your son's call came through at about seven or eight minutes past eight—correct?”

“Correct,” Jules said. “In fact, I looked at my watch.”

“Your son said he had been driven by his assailants in their car for about a half hour. That means the kidnapping must have occurred at around seven-thirty, or a little after. Today is July twenty-ninth. Your son said that he couldn't identify his assailants' car because it was too dark. But the sun doesn't set as early as seven-thirty this time of year. There would have been at least another hour of sunshine this afternoon. The kidnapping must have occurred in broad daylight.”

“He was probably terrified. He could have easily been confused.”

“Of course. And yet when Miss Sachs found the car, its headlights were on. Odd, don't you think?” He pronounced the word “odd” with a Down East vowel sound:
Awed.

“Yes,” Jules said. “Very odd.” His face was grim.

“Now, let's turn for a minute to the conversation you had with the kidnappers,” Shaughnessy said. “Admittedly, this was very brief, but a couple of things interest me. To begin with, you said the man had what sounded like a foreign accent.”

“Yes.”

“Any clue as to what kind of foreign accent?”

“French perhaps. Or Italian. I can't be sure.”

“And when he mentioned the ransom figure to you, he used the expression ‘two-point-five million.' Correct?”

“Correct.”

“Doesn't that strike you as a little odd, Mr. Liebling?”

“No. What's odd about it?”

“Two-point-five million. Not two and a half million, or two million five hundred thousand. Two-point-five million sounds like the way an accountant would talk. Or a real estate man.”

“What the hell difference does it make?”

“You see, what I'm trying to do, Mr. Liebling, is to draw up a psychological profile of the perpetrators, from what little evidence we have. And when you told him that you might be unable to pay, or be unwilling to pay, such a sum, he responded that in that case it might be necessary to have your son ‘dispatched.' He used that word. You're sure of that.”

“Absolutely. I remember it distinctly. I asked him what he meant.”

“Odd word. Dispatched. Such a—such an almost
dainty
word. He didn't use the word killed, almost as though he was afraid to use it. You see, Mr. Liebling, if it's any comfort to you, I'm beginning to get the impression that our abductors here are not men who are essentially dangerous. I feel that these people are amateurs, not professionals, which could be to our advantage. They want to extract money from you, of course. But I get the strong feeling that they definitely don't want to harm your son, and won't, unless—”

“Unless we do something that causes them to panic,” Bathy said.

“Correct.”

“That's why we wanted someone like yourself to handle the initial negotiations,” Bathy said. “Without notifying the police, or alerting the media.”

“Of course. Now, you said that your son's plans for this evening were to pick up a friend, drive to Manhattan, and then attend a performance of
My Fair Lady.”

“I think he said he was going to drive to Manhattan first, and pick up the friend there, and then go to the theater. I'm not sure.”

“It doesn't matter. He and the friend were to meet somewhere between here and the theater. Was dinner mentioned?”

“I don't think so, no.”

“What time did he leave the house?”

“I didn't make a note of it. Around six, I think.”

“Six would get him to Manhattan at around six-thirty. That would give them time for dinner before an eight o'clock curtain. That's the usual thing. Now, do you have any idea who this friend of his was?”

“No. He didn't say.”

“And you didn't ask him?”

“No. It didn't seem important.”

“It's become important now. Does your son have any special girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Any male friend that he'd be likely to go to the theater with?”

“Not that I know of.”

“So the friend could have been male or female.”

“Yes.”

“But you see, Mr. Liebling, the odd thing is, if he left the house around six, and the alleged kidnapping took place in the vicinity of the front gates at around seven-thirty, what was he doing in the intervening hour and a half?”

“Don't use the word ‘alleged'!” Hannah said. “Perhaps he forgot the tickets, drove back to the house to get them. That would explain the way the car was headed, and—”

“And the two opened front doors. If the friend was with him when it happened. But that's not the way he said it happened, Mrs. Liebling. He said he was on his way to New York. He said he was alone.”

“When he called, he was obviously frightened and confused.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Liebling, there is another small problem here.”

“What's that?”

“My Fair Lady
is playing at the Mark Hellinger Theater. Today is Sunday. On Sunday nights there are no performances at the Mark Hellinger. On Sundays the theater is dark. So are nearly all New York theaters.”

There was a long silence, and then Hannah said, “Perhaps he didn't realize this. Perhaps he was just hoping to pick up two tickets at the box office.”

“For the hottest new show on Broadway? For a show that has people lined up around the block for tickets that have to be bought weeks—even months—in advance? Is your son that naive? I shouldn't think so.”

When there was no immediate reply, he added, “Mr. and Mrs. Liebling, I can only conclude that your son was not being entirely truthful when he told you about his plans for this evening.”

It was nearly midnight. Hannah leaned forward in her chair. “Mr. Shaughnessy, will you spend the night with us tonight?” she said. “There are plenty of spare bedrooms.”

“Yes, please do!” Bathy said.

“I'd very much like to do so,” he said. “In fact, it would be helpful if I could use your son's bedroom. I'd like to go through his things, if you don't mind. And I may ask to spend several nights with you while we try to get to the bottom of this. These things take time, I'm sorry to say.”

The ransom note arrived in the next morning's mail, bearing the postmark of a Manhattan substation. It was carefully printed, in pencil, on lined yellow paper. It read:

Mr. Liebling:

We have your son. He is safe with us, and will remain safe until such time as our demands are met, at which point in time he will be safely returned to you. It is not our desire to have to dispatch your son, but we are fully prepared to do so if our demands are not met. Our demands are unconditional. We demand $2.5 million, which must be paid in bills of small denominations, no bill to be larger than $20. Their serial numbers must not be sequential. We realize that it may take you some time to aggrandize this much cash, so we suggest you begin doing this immediately. We will telephone you tonight at 6 p.m. for a report on your progress in this direction, and to deliver you the issuance of further instructions.