Fine things (25 page)

“But how the hell do we find him?”

“We'll start looking today. If you want us to, we could be on our way down there tonight. I'd like to start from San Diego and see if I can pick up the trail there. They probably stole another car, or rented one they aren't going to return. They're not as smooth as you'd think. I think he knows he's in no real danger. He's not facing kidnapping charges here. We're talking child stealing—in the eyes of the law, that's peanuts.” Bernie got angry just hearing it, but he knew it was true. And he was ready to do anything to find her.

“I want you to start right away.” They both nodded. They had already made tentative arrangements, in case he said that. “What do I say when he calls me?” He still hadn't.

“Tell him you're working on getting the money. That it may take some time, a week or two. Give us some time to get down there and start looking. Two weeks ought to do it. We should have located them by then.” It was an optimistic assessment but they also had a good description of his girl friend, who also had a record and was on parole and had been living with him at the hotel he had checked out of the previous morning.

“Do you really think you'll find him in two weeks?”

“We'll do our damnedest.” And he believed they would.

“When are you leaving?”

“Maybe around ten o'clock tonight. We have to make a few more arrangements.” They had three other jobs they were working on, but this was the biggest and they had other operatives to take over on the others. “Speaking of which—” He mentioned their fee, and it was a big one, but Bernie wasn't going to quibble. He'd come up with it somehow. He had to.

“That's fine. Where can I reach you if he calls me?”

They gave him a number where they'd be until they left, and twenty minutes after they left he got another call from Chandler.

“How's it going, old pal?”

“Fine. I'm working on getting the money.”

“Good. Glad to hear it. When do you think you'll have it?”

He had a sudden flash of genius. “Probably not for a week or two. I've got to go to New York to get it.”

“Shit, man.” Scott sounded pissed and Bernie could hear him confer with his friend for a long time, and then finally he came back on the phone. They had bought the story. “All right. But two weeks is it. I'll call you two weeks from tonight. Be there. Or I'll kill her.” And with that, he hung up, without even letting him talk to Jane. He was panicked but he dialed Winters' number.

“Why'd you tell him you were going to New York?” Winters was puzzled.

“Because I want to come with you.” There was a brief silence.

“Are you sure? It may be rough. And he'll recognize you if you get close.”

“I want to be close to Jane, if she needs me, when you get there. I'm all she's got left now. And I couldn't stand sitting here waiting.” Bernie didn't see Nanny standing in the doorway, listening to him, and she quietly disappeared. She approved of his idea of going to Mexico to help find her. “Can I come? I'll still pay you the same fee.”

“I'm not worried about that. I'm thinking about you. Wouldn't you be better off staying here, trying to continue your normal life?”

“My life stopped being normal at seven o'clock last night, and it won't be normal again until you find my daughter.”

“We'll pick you up in an hour. Travel light.”

“See you then.” He hung up, feeling better. He called Grossman, who promised to report the entire disaster to the court the following morning. And he called Paul Berman in New York and his assistant at the store. And then he called his mother.

“Mom, I've got bad news for you.” His voice trembled at the prospect of telling her. But he had to say something. Thanksgiving had just been all shot to hell, and maybe even Christmas and New Year's …and the rest of her life….

“Something happened to the baby?” Her heart stopped.

“No. It's Jane.” He took a deep breath and plunged in. “I don't have time to explain it all to you now. But Liz' ex-husband appeared a while back, he's a real sonofabitch and he's spent most of the last ten years in and out of jail. Anyway, he tried to blackmail me out of some money, and I wouldn't pay him. So he kidnapped Jane. He's holding her for half a million dollars ransom.”

“Oh my God.” She sounded as though she had just died and he felt it. “Oh my God …Bernie …” She couldn't believe it. What kind of person did something like that? What kind of lunatic was he? “Is she all right? Do you know?”

“We think so. And the police won't really get involved because his being the natural father makes it only child stealing, which is no big deal, and not kidnap. They're not real excited.”

“Oh Bernie …” She started to cry.

“Don't, Mom, please. I can't take it. I'm calling because I'm leaving for Mexico tonight, to try to find her with two investigators I hired. They think she might be there …and Thanksgiving is off.”

“Never mind Thanksgiving. Just find her. Oh my God …” For once in her life, she really thought she was going to have a heart attack, and Lou was out at some damn medical meeting. She didn't even remember where he was now.

“I'll call you if I can. The investigator thinks we might find her in two weeks …” To him, it sounded hopeful, to her it sounded like a nightmare, and she began sobbing into the phone.

“My God, Bernie …”

“I've got to go, Mom. I love you.” He went to pack a small bag then, and put on a shirt, a warm ski sweater, blue jeans, a parka, and hiking boots. And as he turned to pick up his suitcase he saw Nanny Pippin standing in the doorway with the baby in her arms. And he told her what he was doing. He was leaving for Mexico at once, and he promised to call her as often as he could. And he wanted her to be careful of the baby. He was suddenly worried about everyone, after what had happened to Jane, but she assured him they'd be fine.

“Just bring Jane back soon.” It sounded like an order and he smiled at the brogue as he kissed his son. “Be careful, Mr. Fine. We need you whole and hearty.”

He hugged her silently and then walked to the doorway without looking back. There were too many people missing now …Jane and Liz …but he hurried down the stairs as Winters honked outside in an old station wagon that one of their operatives was driving.

Chapter 30

As they drove to the airport, Bernie couldn't help thinking how strange his life had become. Barely more than a year before, his life had been so normal. A wife he loved, a new baby, and the child she'd had before. Now suddenly Liz was gone, Jane had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom, and he was about to travel all over Mexico with two strangers he had hired to find her. And as he looked out the window, his thoughts of Jane rapidly overwhelmed him. He was terrified that Chandler Scott and his associates might do something to hurt her. And the thought of their molesting her had been on his mind all night. He mentioned it at the airport to Gertie, but she seemed sure that Scott's interest was purely the money, and Bernie let her convince him.

He called Grossman from the airport again and promised to let him know their progress. And it was a long night after that. They arrived in San Diego at eleven-thirty, and rented a large car with four-wheel drive. Winters had arranged for it from San Francisco, and they set off in the car directly from the airport. They didn't want to waste time stopping at a hotel, and they crossed the border at Tijuana. They drove rapidly through Rosarito and Descanso, and were in Ensenada an hour later. Winters had a feeling that they would have gone there, and with only a fifty-dollar bill in hand, the border guard had remembered them in Tijuana.

It was after one o'clock by then, but the bars were still alive, and they spent an hour in Ensenada walking into a dozen bars, each one taking a cluster of them, ordering a beer, and then showing Scott's picture. Gertie came up with the gold this time, a bartender who even remembered the child. She was very fair, he said, and she seemed afraid of the couple with her. Scott's girl friend had asked him about the ferry to Guaymas at Cabo Haro.

Gertie hurried back to the car with the information, and they set out on the route the bartender had suggested, south through San Vicente, San Telmo, Rosario, and then east across Baja to El Marmol. It was nearly two hundred miles and the trip took them five hours on rough roads, despite the four-wheel drive. They stopped in El Marmol for gas at seven o'clock Monday morning, and at eight o'clock they stopped for something to eat as they drove down the east coast of Baja. They had two hundred miles to go to Santa Rosalia. And it was a long tiresome day before they got there shortly before three o'clock. And then they had to wait two hours for the ferry to Guaymas. But they hit gold again when the ferry operator who helped them load their car remembered Scott, the woman, and the child who sat between them.

“What do you think, Jack?” He and Bernie stood on the deck watching Baja disappear behind them, as Gertie stood some distance from them.

“So far so good, but don't expect it to stay that way. It doesn't work that way, as a rule. At least we're off to a good start so far.”

“Maybe we'll get lucky fast.” Bernie wanted to believe that, but Jack Winters knew it wasn't likely.

It was a hundred miles from Santa Rosalia to Empalme, and two hundred and fifty from Empalme to Espiritu Santo where the man on the boat thought Scott had gotten off. But in Espiritu Santo the men on the dock were sure he had gone to Mazatlan, which was another two hundred and fifty miles. And there the trail went cold. By Wednesday they knew nothing more than they had in San Francisco. It was another week before, with painstaking work covering almost every bar and restaurant and store and hotel in Mazatlan, the trail continued to Guadalajara. It was only three hundred and twenty-four miles from Mazatlan to Guadalajara and it had taken them eight days of painstaking work to follow Scott there.

In Guadalajara they knew he had stayed at a tiny hotel called Rosalba's on a back street, and they knew very little more than that. Jack had a feeling they would have gone inland, maybe to one of the small towns on the way to Aguascalientes. It took them another two days to follow that lead, and by then it was Friday and Bernie's time had run out. He had to be back in San Francisco in two days to get Scott's phone call.

“What do we do now?” They had talked all along of Bernie flying back to San Francisco from Guadalajara, if they hadn't found her yet, so he could take Scott's phone call, and the Winters would stay in Mexico to hear from him. They were calling Grossman daily, and Bernie was calling Nanny and Alexander. All was well with them, and he missed his son terribly. But by Friday, his thoughts were filled with Jane, and the bastard holding her hostage.

“I think you'd better go back tomorrow.” Winters was thinking as he spoke, and they were both drinking a cerveza back at their hotel. “I think you ought to tell him that you've got the money.” Winters' eyes narrowed, formulating a plan, but Bernie didn't like it.

“Five hundred thousand dollars? And what do I do when I'm supposed to give it to him? Tell him it was all a joke?”

“Just arrange a meeting place with him. We'll worry about it after that. It'll tell us a lot if he wants to meet us somewhere down here. You can explain that it will take you a day or two to get down here, and by then, with luck, we'll have him.”

Winters was thinking all the time. But so was Bernie. “You don't think they're back in the States by now?”

“Not a chance of it.” Winters was sure of that. “He's too scared of the cops, if he has any brains. They won't do much to him for this, but with his record, that stolen car is going to wind him right back in jail, on a parole violation, if nothing else.”

“Amazing, isn't it?” Bernie looked at him bitterly. “He steals a child, threatens her, maybe causes her untold emotional damage for the rest of her life, and they worry about a beat-up old car. Nice, our system, isn't it? It's enough to make you a goddamn Communist. I'd like to see the bastard hanged for this!”

“You won't.” Winters was philosophical. He had seen a lot of this kind of thing, and worse. Enough to make him never want a kid, and his wife agreed with him. They didn't even have a dog anymore, after their last one was stolen and poisoned and dropped on their doorstep by someone they'd once gotten arrested.

They discovered nothing more the next day, and he left on Saturday night for San Francisco. He was home in San Francisco by nine o'clock that night, and he hurried back to the house, suddenly desperately anxious to see the baby. Now he was all he had left. Not only was Liz gone, but Jane was too, and what he wondered was if he'd ever hear her voice again, echoing down the hall as she came running to him, shouting “Hi, Daddy!” The thought of it was too much for him, and after he set down the bags in Nanny's room, he walked out quietly and went to sit in the living room, his face in his hands as he cried silently. It was too much to lose both of them, and Jane like this. He felt as though he had failed Liz in the only way that had ever mattered to her.

“Mr. Fine?” Nanny had seen the look on his face, and she had left Alexander asleep in his crib to find his father. She walked quietly into the darkened living room, knowing what a terrible two weeks it had been for him … a terrible fourteen months in fact…. He was such a decent man, and she was so sorry for him. Only her faith in God kept her certain that they would find Jane and bring her home again and she tried to tell him that from the doorway, but at first he didn't answer. “She'll be home again. God will give us the wisdom we need to find her.” But instead, he found himself thinking of the Lindbergh kidnapping years before, and the heartbreak those people must have gone through.

“What if we never find them?” He sounded like a child, convinced that all was lost, but she refused to believe that. And slowly he raised his head to look at her, with the light shining behind her in the doorway. “Nanny, I couldn't face that.”

“With the grace of God, you won't have to.” She came over and patted his shoulder and turned on the light. And a few minutes later she brought him a mug of steaming tea and a sandwich. “You should go to bed early tonight. You'll think better in the morning, Mr. Fine.” But what was there to think about? How to pretend he had half a million dollars he didn't? He was very, very frightened, and he hardly slept at all that night, tossing and turning, and thinking.

And in the morning Bill Grossman came to see him. They talked endlessly about where they'd been and what they'd found and how the trail went cold in Guadalajara. Winters called them that morning to report in and there was nothing new since the day before except a suggestion Gertie had made.

“She thinks we ought to try Puerto Vallarta.” They had talked about it before, but decided he'd be too visible there, and would be more likely to go inland. “Maybe she's right. Maybe he's cocky enough to try something like that. And we know he likes the good life. Maybe he's trying on a yacht for size.” But Bernie didn't think it very likely.

“Give it a shot.” He was staying home all day, in case Scott called earlier than he said he would. He was terrified to miss him. And Grossman sat keeping him company till the late afternoon. He had already told him that morning that the court had proclaimed themselves “distressed” over Mr. Scott's “poor judgment.” “Distressed?” Bernie had shouted.
“Distressed?
Are they out of their goddamn minds? My kid is God knows where right now, thanks to their stupidity, and they're
distressed?
How touching.” Grossman knew how upset he was, and he had a right to be. He didn't tell him that the social worker assigned to the case had said it was probably because Mr. Scott was anxious to make up for lost time and get to know his daughter. There was a good chance that if Grossman had told Bernie that, he would have gone to City Hall and killed her. Not quite, but close. And his nerves were badly frayed when the phone rang at five o'clock. Bernie was sure that it was Scott, and he took a breath before he picked up the phone. “Yes?”

It wasn't Scott. It was Winters. “We've got something for you. Did he call yet?” It was just like playing cops and robbers, except what they'd stolen was his heart … his baby …

“No. I'm still waiting. What's up?”

“I'm not sure yet…but we may have found him. Gertie was right. He's been all over Puerto Vallarta.”

“Is Jane with him?” Oh God …please God …don't let them have killed her…. He had been thinking more and more of the parents in cases like this who never saw their children again. Thousands of them every year …the figures were something terrible like a hundred thousand….

“I'm not sure. He's been spending a lot of time at a place called Carlos O'Brien's.” And so did everyone in Vallarta. It was the most popular bar in town, and Scott was a fool to have gone there. But no one seemed to remember the child or the woman. He had probably left them at a hotel. “See if you can get something out of him when he calls. Maybe you can chat for a while…. Play it friendly.” Bernie felt his palm sweat on the phone at the thought.

“I'll try.”

“And make a date with him. Pretend you've got the money.”

“Yeah.”

Bernie was a nervous wreck when he hung up, and explained to Grossman. And the phone rang again less than five minutes later. This time it was Scott, with a very poor long-distance connection.

“How you doing, pal?” He sounded happy and relaxed and Bernie wished that he could get his hands on him and throttle him till he choked.

“Fine. I've got good news for you.” He tried to sound relaxed and in control and unconcerned as he shouted over the static.

“What kind of news?”

“Half a million dollars' worth.” Bernie played his part well. “How's Jane?”

“That's great news!” Scott sounded delighted, but not as much as Bernie would have liked.

“I said, 'How's Jane?' “His hand clenched on the phone as he waited and Grossman watched him.

“She's fine. But I've got bad news for you.” Bernie's heart stopped. “The price has gone up. She's such a cute little thing, I just figure she's worth a lot more than I originally thought.”

“Oh really?”

“Yep. I think she's worth a million now, don't you?” Jesus Christ.

“That's not going to be easy.” He scribbled the amount down on a piece of paper for Grossman. But it might give them more time. “I'll have to go back to my sources again.”

“You got the five hundred thou now?”

“Yes,” he lied.

“Then why don't we do it in installments?”

“Do I get Jane back after the first installment?”

Scott laughed at him. “Not likely, old buddy.” Son-ofabitch. Bernie had never hated anyone so much, or had so much good reason. “You get her back when we get the whole million.”

“Fine, then you don't get it in installments.”

Scott's voice hardened in the phone. “I'll give you a week to get the other half, Fine. And if I don't get it…” He was the greediest bastard alive. But now they had another week to find Jane. With luck, in Puerto Vallarta.

“I want to talk to her.” Bernie's voice matched Scott's.

“She's not here.”

“Where is she?”

“She's safe. Don't you worry.”

“I want to make one thing very clear to you, Scott. If you hurt one hair on her head, I'm going to kill you. You got that? And you're not getting one thin dime until I see her alive and healthy.”

“She'll be fine.” He laughed. “Hell, she even has a sun-tan.” Puerto Vallarta.

“Where is she?”

“Never mind. She can tell you all about it when she comes home. I'll call you one week from tonight, and you better have the money, Fine.”

“I will. You better have Jane.”

“You got yourself a deal.” He laughed. “For one million dollars.” And on those words he hung up, as Bernie sat back breathlessly. There was a film of sweat on his forehead, and when he looked at Grossman, the lawyer was shaking.

“Nice guy.” Grossman felt sick.

“Isn't he?” Bernie sounded bitter. He felt as though he would never recover from this, even if they did get her back.

The phone rang again half an hour later. It was Winters. He didn't mince words. “We got him.”

“Oh my God. Are you serious? I just talked to him.” Bernie's hand shook on the phone, and his voice trembled.

“I mean we know where he is. A waitress at Carlos O'Brien's has been babysitting for Jane. I had to pay her a thousand dollars to keep her mouth shut, but it was worth it. She says she's fine. She told the girl that Scott isn't really her dad, but he 'used to be,' he was married to her mom once, but he told her that if she ran away or tried to get help, he'd kill you and the baby. Apparently the girl friend got tired of babysitting at night while Scott goes out to play, so they hired this waitress.”