Stolen Away (20 page)

The fire crackled.

I sat sideways and looked right at her, getting her attention away from the flames. “So then when the Lindbergh kidnapping broke on the radio and in the papers, Means figured it must be the ‘big-time snatch’ his pal mentioned.”

She nodded; her eyes looked unblinkingly my way, the fire reflecting in them, the stone on her chest doing the same. “Means claimed he’d contacted several prominent men here in Washington, including Colonel Guggenheim, but hadn’t gotten anywhere. Means was viewed as the little boy crying wolf. I later ascertained from Colonel Guggenheim and a prominent local judge that this was quite true.”

I’d lost count of the colonels in this case, a long time ago.

“Means offered to get in touch with his old cellmate, and I urged him to do so. The next morning he told me he’d succeeded in contacting his old friend, and that the man was indeed the ‘head of the Lindbergh gang,’ and eager to open negotiations for the baby’s return. Then began the continuing succession of meetings, including several with Jerry Land present, working with Means as the intermediary with the kidnappers.”

Jerry Land was Admiral Emory S. Land, the Lindbergh relative who’d conveyed word of what Mrs. McLean and Means were up to, to Slim.

“Where do things stand now?” I asked her.

“Last Monday, I gave Means a big pasteboard carton filled with bills in denominations of five, ten and twenty dollars.”

“You gave that to him already?”

She nodded. “One hundred thousand dollars.”

I sighed. “Have you seen him since?”

“Oh yes. He lives over in Chevy Chase with his family. He has a wife and son, you know—the son is his motivation, he says. He says he hopes to atone for his past and make his boy proud.”

“Yeah, well, that’s touching. But that was days ago. Has he delivered the ransom to the ‘gang’? He obviously hasn’t delivered the baby to you.”

“It’s supposed to happen soon. I’m going to Far View tomorrow—that’s where the kidnappers have agreed to make delivery. Means is meeting me there.”

“Where and what is Far View?”

“My country home. In Maryland. I’ve made arrangements with a doctor friend of mine for anyone who might inquire, that for the next few days to a week, I’m at Union Memorial in Baltimore taking a rest cure.”

“There’s a lot of intrigue in this thing, isn’t there?”

She shook her head, laughed a little. “Yes there is. And Means insists on using code names and numbers…he was a double agent at one time, you know.”

“Yeah. He worked for the Germans just before the World War.”

“I’m Number Eleven. The baby is referred to, always, as ‘the book.’ Means himself is ‘Hogan.’ Admiral Land is Number Fourteen. And so on.”

“I need another drink.” I got myself one. “How about you, Evalyn?”

“I shouldn’t.”

“Anybody who can hand Gaston Means a cardboard box with one hundred grand in it can risk a second glass of sherry.”

“Valid point,” she said, and took the sherry. “I’ve involved you, I’m afraid, in the intrigue.”

“Oh? How in hell?”

“Well, I knew Colonel Lindbergh wanted me to meet with you, but if Gaston Means, or the kidnappers, knew I was dealing with a policeman…even one so far off his beat…it might prove disastrous. I can trust my staff—they’ve all been with me for years. But if anyone, Gaston Means in particular, should ask them—you came here today to be interviewed for a position.”

“What position is that?”

“Chauffeur.”

I snorted a laugh, finished my Bacardi. “That’s rich. I couldn’t find my way across the street in this town. Well, I’d like to meet Means. And maybe it
would
be best if I did it undercover.”

“Undercover?”

I pointed to myself with a thumb. “Meet your new chauffeur. Who’s going to escort you to your country place—where I’ll size Means and his story up for myself.”

Her smile was almost demure. “That would be wonderful, Nate. You think…you think I’m a foolish old woman, don’t you?”

“You’re not old at all.”

“The fire’s dwindling. Would you put some wood on?”

“All right.”

When I returned to the couch, she was sitting with her legs tucked up under her, illuminated by the blaze I’d rekindled. I sat next to her and she moved closer.

“I haven’t been with a man since my husband and I separated,” she said.

I didn’t believe that, but I said, “A lovely girl like you?”

She was amused. “You think calling me a ‘girl’ is going to win me over?”

“You look like a girl to me.”

The amusement dropped like a mask; something was smoldering in her expression, and the fire had nothing to do with it. “Nate. Nate. Why don’t you just kiss me?”

“We just met. You don’t know anything about me, Evalyn.”

“You have a dry wit. You have a gun in your suitcase. You have nice eyes, a little cruel, but nice. Your hair looks red in the firelight. I know all that, and more.”

“More? What else do you know?”

“I know you have a gun in your pocket, too.”

“That isn’t a gun.”

“I know.”

I kissed her. Her mouth was wet and warm and tasted like sherry. Her tongue flicked my tongue.

“More,” she said.

I kissed her some more; it was nice and got nicer. Hot and got hotter. I slid my hand up the slope of her bosom—I felt the chill cut stone of the Hope diamond and pulled my hand away like I’d been burned. I drew the rest of me away, too, head reeling from rum and where I was.

“Let me get this off,” she said hastily. She removed the diamond necklace, and the pearls, too, and tossed them on an overstuffed chair nearby, as casually as if she’d slipped off her shoes. The diamond was catching the fire and flashing.

“Help me with this,” she said, reaching behind her, and I did, and soon the gown was around her tiny waist and her breasts, perfect, high, full, enormous, were basking in the golden glow of the fire. I put my hands on them. I put my mouth on them. Sucked the tips till they were hard.

“What about your servants?” I asked, gasping, my face half-buried in her treasure chest.

“They’ll only come when I ask them,” she said.

“Me too,” I said.

We arrived at Far View after dark the next night. Behind the wheel of Evalyn McLean’s powder-blue Lincoln Continental, I was every bit the perfect chauffeur, wearing a spiffy gray woolen uniform with shiny black buttons and matching cap, bequeathed by a driver who’d recently retired from the Walsh family’s employ after thirty faithful years. He’d been heavier than me, but Mrs. McLean had someone on her staff take it in. Evalyn and Inga—her fortyish, blonde maid, a dourly attractive woman who’d been with her “mistress” over twenty years, and who was aware of my true identity—sat in the backseat and directed me; I didn’t mind having two backseat drivers: my only flaw as a chauffeur, after all, was my complete lack of familiarity with Washington, D.C., and its environs.

From Massachusetts Avenue, we had headed in the direction of Baltimore, then doubled back; we were soon off the main highway and exploring the wilds of Maryland via narrow, rutted back roads, occasionally gravel, usually dirt. The private drive to Far View was gravel, but neglected, weeds overtaking it; the same was true of the grounds, where weeds poked up between the patches of snow. Nonetheless, the house itself—which I had foolishly pictured as the modest “country place” Evalyn had casually mentioned—was impressive in the moonlight, a sprawling Southern mansion of the plantation variety, pillars and all, ghostly white amidst tall skeletal trees.

“My mother spent a lot of time here,” Evalyn said, leaning up from the backseat. “I haven’t been out here, since she died.”

“When did she die?” I asked.

“Last month.”

It was the first she’d mentioned it, but I found that telling. She’d jumped on the Lindbergh bandwagon within weeks of her mother dying. Evalyn—a woman in mourning, her emotions frazzled, looking to do something meaningful with her rich, empty life—made easy prey for a shark like Gaston Means.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” I said.

“Another victim of the Hope diamond curse?” she wondered aloud wryly. “She was a Christian Scientist, actually…wouldn’t stand for medical help. Thank God I’m a heathen.”

“You never liked this house anyway,” Inga said.

“True,” Evalyn said. “I don’t like its history.”

“What history?” I asked.

Evalyn leaned back. “A man and wife lived here, a long time ago. They fought continually—he beat her for her supposed faithlessness, and on nights when the wind was blowing a certain way, her screams could be heard for miles, it’s said. Finally he knocked her over the head and put her down a well, here.”

“I wonder if it’s safe,” I said.

“The house?” Inga asked.

“To drink the water.”

Nobody in the backseat laughed, but I caught Evalyn’s tiny smile in the rearview mirror. That dry wit of mine again.

As we drew nearer to the house, I could see that its windows were boarded up.

“Looks deserted,” I said, pulling up near the garage and stables in back. This surprised me, because she’d said the phones would be working.

“It is deserted, virtually,” she said. “There’s an elderly caretaker I’ve kept on.”

“Does he like growing weeds?” Inga asked sarcastically.

“The place does look a little raggedy,” Evalyn said to her maid, “but winter hasn’t quite left us. Gus’ll tend to things in due time, I’m sure.”

Inga grunted. She was very pretty, in a peasanty sort of way, but she was sour; the kind of woman whose time of the month was all month.

I helped the mistress and her maid out of the car—Inga wore her black-and-white uniform under a simple wool overcoat, while Evalyn wore a mink coat over a dark brown angora frock trimmed white, her belt white, her beret brown with a white band. I got the suitcases, including my traveling bag, out of the trunk; there were four bags, all of which I managed to carry. Neither woman made a move to help me, including waiting for me to put the bags down so I could open the side door, which was unlocked. Evalyn had called the caretaker in advance.

But that didn’t mean anything homey was waiting for us. We moved from the smallish kitchen through the big, dark, cold house where only the occasional piece of furniture remained, in every case shrouded with a sheet. The air, was stale, musty, but the house wasn’t dirty; caretaker Gus had done
some
work. The bedrooms were on the second floor. The third floor was closed off.

Evalyn did not allow me to switch on any of the lights.

“Means’s instructions,” she said, “as per the kidnappers’ orders, are that lights are forbidden. The idea is that Far View should continue to look unoccupied.”

“Cold in here,” Inga said, patting her arms, though still in her overcoat.

“The furnace isn’t in working order,” Evalyn said.

“The fireplaces are,” I said.

She waggled a jeweled finger. “Means said not a single light—including the fireplaces.”

“Where
is
Means?” I asked.

“He said he would come,” Evalyn said. “Let’s go to the kitchen. Inga, see if you can whip something up for us.”

Inga grunted.

We huddled around the wood-burning stove—which Evalyn permitted us to get going—and I held a flashlight for Inga, who morosely prepared a meal that did not include Maurice’s filet of sole with Marguery sauce or his patented parfait. Canned pork and beans was the extent of it; that and coffee. But it tasted fine to me. Evalyn seemed satisfied by the fare, as well—though I had a feeling it was the evening’s main course that she found filling: intrigue.

We were sitting drinking coffee, shivering despite the blankets around us Indian-style, when the lights of a car coming up the driveway slanted through the cracks of the boarded-up windows.

Several minutes later a big man—both tall and fat—entered; he wore a dark heavy topcoat, under which a blue bow tie peeked, and a homburg, which he immediately removed, revealing himself to be nearly bald. He had a flashlight in one hand. He clicked the flashlight on and held its beam under his chin.

“It’s me,” he said. “Hogan.”

Gaston Bullock Means had a puckish smile and a deeply dimpled baby face. Washed with the flashlight light, that face was at once sinister and benign.

Then the light was suddenly in my face; I squinted into it, grinding my teeth, remaining servile.

“Who’s this?” Means said.

“My chauffeur,” she said. “His name is Smith. I’ve just hired him.”

“Nobody’s name is Smith,” Means snapped.

“Look in a phone book,” I said, pulling my head out of the light. “You’ll find you’re mistaken.”

He dropped the beam to the floor, where it pooled whitely. “His credentials are sound, Eleven?”

Evalyn, a.k.a. Eleven, said, “Indeed.”

“All right, then,” he said to me, grandly, “henceforth you’re Number Fifteen.”

Inga spoke up, huffily. “I thought I was Number Fifteen.”

“Ah, yes…that’s right. Smith—you’re Number
Sixteen.”

“Swell.”

He walked over to Evalyn, but did not sit, though there was an extra chair immediately handy. “Can I speak candidly in front of these people?”

Sure he could—we had numbers, didn’t we?

“Yes,” Evalyn said. “I brought only this skeleton staff, as per your request.”

“Good. Good.” He snapped off the flashlight and sat. He was an enormous man, as big as the wood-burning stove. “I have good news for you, Eleven. The Fox was waiting for me when I got home last night.”

“The Fox?” she asked.

“My old cellmate. The leader of the kidnap gang. The Fox. That’s how his men know him.”

The bad guys had their own code names, too, it seemed.

Means leaned forward conspiratorially. “He asked me if I had the ransom money. I told him I did. I told him to wait outside until I made sure my family was asleep, and then I would let him in, and let him see his money.”

I probably shouldn’t have spoken up, but I did. “Wasn’t that foolish?” I asked.

“Foolish?” Means looked at me as he might regard a buzzing fly.

“Foolish,” I said. “What was to keep him from stealing the money?”

He lifted his chin nobly. “The Fox was my cellmate. There is such a thing as honor among thieves!”

No there isn’t.

“Oh,” I said.

“I took him downstairs, to the basement, and took the cardboard box of money from its hiding place and piled the bills on a table. I let him examine them for himself. He was pleased right off the bat that the denominations were small and the bills old and worn, the serial numbers nonconsecutive. In other words, Eleven, the Fox is convinced that you’re going to play fair. He counted the money twice, and was delighted to find it totaled precisely one hundred thousand dollars.”

I spoke again. “Where’s the money now?”

“No longer in my home,” Means said irritably. “Locked in a safe, pending further developments.”

“Inga,” Evalyn said, sensing Means’s growing irritation with me, “get Mr. Means some coffee.”

Inga did.

“That’s ‘Hogan,’ Eleven. Always Hogan.” Means sipped his coffee with great satisfaction, saying, “We should have delivery of the book any day now. As soon as the Fox and his people are convinced the police are not watching us.”

“The book?” I asked.

“The baby,” Evalyn reminded me.

Means looked at me sharply; his eyes, which usually twinkled Santa Claus-style, narrowed and grew colder than the room, and the room was an icebox. “You ask a lot of questions for a chauffeur,” he said.

“I used to be a cop,” I said.

Evalyn blinked.

“Mrs. McLean thought,” I said, “her new chauffeur ought to be something of a bodyguard, as well as a driver, considering current circumstances.”

“I see,” Means said, his puckish smile returning, but his eyes remaining ice-cold. “And where were you a police officer?”

“You ask a lot of questions yourself, Hogan,” I said.

Means looked at me with bland innocence. “It’s the way I learn things, Fifteen.”

“I’m Fifteen,” Inga said crabbily.

“I’m Sixteen,” I said. I smiled at him. “And never been kissed.”

He beamed at that. “I like you, Sixteen. I really do. We’re going to be great friends.”

“That’s peachy. Have you seen the baby?”

“No—but by tomorrow this time, with God’s help, we all will.”

Evalyn splashed coffee from the cup in her hand.

“Or the next day,” Means said, with a shrug. “The Fox promises delivery soon.”

“What about the money?” I asked.

“What money?”

“That’s code,” I said, “for one hundred thousand dollars ransom in a cardboard box.”

“Oh, yes,” Means said. “I’ve told the Fox he will not receive his booty until the book is safely in Eleven’s arms.”

“And he accepts those terms?” I asked.

“Certainly. He trusts me implicitly. I was his cellmate, remember.”

Means stood; he was as big as a grizzly bear, and every bit as dependable. “I leave you to your vigil.”

With that, and a tip of his homburg before placing it on his big bald head, Means slipped out into the cold night, where the wind howled, shaking the brittle trees like a faithless wife.