Snatch Page 9

  “Okay, Gus. I made a mistake. We gotta work our way out of it.”

  “What do you mean, ‘we’?”

  “You want what you want, Gus, and I want what my employers want.”

  “So who snatched the kid?”

  “Maybe a guy named Mullins. Spike Mullins. He and Dubrowski knew each other at Attica. Last night I went to this bar where I used to meet Dubrowski. I bought a lot of drinks, you know? Tuesday, Dubrowski was flying pretty high. Zonked. Wednesday, he was seen looking pretty seedy in a corner of the bar, talking to this jail buddy of his. The bartender said he saw Dubrowski hand Mullins a wad of bills. My guess is Dubrowski hired this buddy to stand in for him on the grab until he got himself together and got out to the Coast to take over.”

  “Then Dubrowski went home and OD’d.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So we don’t know how to get in touch with Mullins and Mullins doesn’t know how to get in touch with us.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You do nice work, Cord. What do you know about this Mullins?”

  “Dumb and vicious. I got the people in the bar to tell me stories about him. A real psychotic thug.”

  “Another druggie?”

  “No. Apparently not. Gus, we’ve got to find that kid.”

  “I will.”

  “I mean, what would you do if you were this guy Mullins and someone got you into a situation like this and then didn’t follow through? I mean, you’ve got a kidnapped kid on your hands you don’t know what to do with?”

  “Kill him and dump him.”

  “Yeah. The kid is no good to us dead, Gus. At least until Monday night. I said you could do whatever you wanted to the kid—to the family—after Monday night. I mean, to Christina Rinaldi and the Ambassador and all. A dead kid’s a dead threat.”

  “I don’t see we have a deal anymore, Cord.”

  “Maybe I ought to come out to the Coast, Gus.”

  “Stay out of my way, Cord.”

  “We’ll meet. We’ll talk.”

  “Cord. Stay out of my way.”

  Twenty-One

  “MARCO!”

  “POLO!”

  “…MARCO!”

  “…POLO!”

  Spike watched the kids play in the motel pool. They were all about the same size. Three boys and two girls. Wet, skinny, darting kids, faces, shoulders, arms, legs, flashing in the sunlight, their hair changing color and texture every time their heads came up from the water.

  Sitting in a swim suit in a long chair, his legs stretched out before him, Spike finished his second beer.

  “MARCO!”

  “…POLO!”

  Across the pool under an umbrella sat a woman in a swim suit, knitting. Her yarn was in a plastic Sachs bag at her feet. At least one of the kids, one of the boys, belonged to her. He’d climb out to her once in a while, use a towel, stand in the shade of the umbrella, catch his breath. Occasionally, she would look up from her knitting at the kids in the pool and smile.

  I ought to go give her a pound of the best. One-two-three behind your tree. Spike glowered at her and the rest of the world. Bastids. Put me in a room, tell me to stay there. Cheap bastids.

  “MARCO!”

  Spike figured the game the kids were playing had something to do with people who couldn’t see so well. They’d grope around the pool for each other, in turn, as if blind. All the kids who had their eyes open would tease and taunt the person with his eyes closed—call to him loudly from close up, then swim away quickly and quietly.

  Little bastids. Think it’s funny bein’ short of sight. Think it’s funny never knowin’ what’s goin’ on outa the left side of your head….

  “POLO!”

  Spike’s head lowered to the cushion. Nice. Nice bein’ out. Nice havin’ a job to do, and doin’ it. Nice bein’ in the sun. Nice havin’ a beer just ’cause you want it….

  But where the hell is Dubrowski?

  * * *

  “Come on,” the boy said. “Want a Coke? Who wants a Coke?”

  Standing in the pool, Toby looked at Spike asleep in the chair.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

  “Haven’t you got any money?” The boy looked at Spike. “Oh, your dad’s asleep. That’s okay.” He started walking out of the pool. “Maybe my mom will buy you one.”

  By the time Toby got to the lady under the umbrella, she had picked up her purse and was counting out change.

  “There’s a Coke machine by the door to the ladies’ room,” she said. “I saw it.”

  She looked into Toby’s eyes and smiled.

  All the kids ran to the Coke machine, coins in hand, yelling, “Yeaaa!”

  On the way, one of the girls dropped her towel. Toby jumped over it. After they got their Cokes and wandered back, the lady said, “Why don’t you all sit in the shade now while you’re drinking your Cokes? Relax a minute. That was quite a game!”

  “And we’re going to play again!” her son announced.

  Toby sat cross-legged on the pool deck, drinking his Coke.

  The rest of the kids were teasing a girl who never had succeeded in catching anyone during the game.

  Toby said to the lady, “Thank you. Thank you for the Coke.”

  “You’re welcome. Are you staying at the motel?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I haven’t seen you before. What’s your name?”

  “I’m Dink,” her son said.

  “Toby.”

  Toby saw a shadow fall over his body. It extended to the shade of the lady’s feet.

  “Toby Rinaldi.”

  The lady looked up.

  Toby looked around and up.

  Standing over him, fists clenched, face red, one eye gleaming furiously, was Spike.

  “Get outa here,” he said. “Get over there!” He pointed across the pool to his long chair. “Get your towel. You hear me? Get goin’!”

  Toby lowered the Coke bottle from his mouth and swallowed.

  Clearly, he had done something terribly wrong.

  He didn’t know what to do with the bottle. It wasn’t empty. He shouldn’t leave it on the pool deck.

  The lady put out her hand. “That’s all right. I’ll take it. You’d better go with your father.”

  Toby stood up.

  Spike hit him in the back of the head, making him fall forward a step or two, then grabbed him, nearly lifting him off the pool deck, and hurried him along.

  Twenty-Two

  Teddy’s voice answering the phone was subdued.

  “Teddy! Any news?”

  “Not really,” he said slowly. “Did you get any sleep?”

  “I just keep thinking, Teddy—”

  “It’s not thinking. It’s worrying.” His voice fell lower. “It’s agony.”

  “I don’t know what—we must—”

  “Did Turnbull or any of his henchmen show up there last night?”

  “Yes. Colonel Turnbull spent the night sleeping on my couch. He’s very nice.”

  “He didn’t strike me as very nice,” Teddy said.

  “And a couple of men in a yellow Toyota followed me here to the airport. I guess they’re his men.”

  “You’re at the airport? In San Francisco?”

  “I didn’t know what else to do. I came here thinking there just must be some mistake—he got lost, or—”

  “There’s no mistake, Christina.”

  “Turnbull belongs to the boss’s secret intelligence force, doesn’t he?”

  Teddy hesitated. “Something like that. Maybe.”

  “Teddy, you’ve always known such a thing exists.”

  “Have I?”

  “Well, I have.”

  “Frankly, Christina, he struck me as sort of vicious.”

  “Maybe what we need here is ‘vicious.’”

  “Maybe.”

  “Oh, Teddy, where is Toby?” Christina held her breath a moment to prevent her crying. “Oh, God, where is Toby? Hasn’t there be
en any word—any ransom demand? Anything?”

  There was a long pause before Teddy answered. “No, Christina. There’s been no ransom demand.”

  “Maybe this morning. Most likely this morning,” she said. “You’ll call the hotel—I mean, the tennis camp—as soon as such a message comes….”

  “I’ll keep in close touch. Let you know anything we hear. Immediately…. What do you think you should do, Christina?”

  “I don’t know. I guess stay here. At least another twenty-four hours. I keep thinking there must be some terrible mistake. It isn’t real. Suddenly Toby will just show up. We don’t know what’s happening, Teddy. You’re there. I should be here….I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know, either. I’ll call the minute we have any news.”

  Twenty-Three

  “I heard you were on your way.” Turnbull was sitting on the couch, his feet on the coffee table. On the end table next to him was a bottle of bourbon and a half-empty glass.

  “Those men who have been following me all day, do they work for you?” Christina asked.

  “For us, dear lady, for us. They are there solely for your protection.”

  “They—whoever—have got Toby. Why would anyone hurt me?”

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “No,” Christina said. “I’m afraid it would knock me over. Do you have any news for me?”

  “Actually, I have.” He put his feet on the floor and sat forward. “Not much, but something. Perhaps we should go have dinner. I expect you haven’t been treating yourself very well.”

  “Maybe later.” Christina sat in a wicker chair. “Please tell me.”

  “As I say,” Turnbull said, picking up his glass and drinking from it. “Not much. Your little boy’s suitcase was found in the airport in New York. Airport maintenance found it in a men’s room and brought it to Lost and Found.”

  “You mean, he’s in New York? You know he’s in New York?”

  “We don’t know anything,” Turnbull said. “We know his suitcase was found.”

  Christina swallowed hard. “Makes it sound—I mean, if they dumped his suitcase—as if they didn’t expect him to need a change of clothes, or anything….”

  “Now, now, Christina. Mustn’t think that way.” An odd smile came on Turnbull’s face. “It might have been left there as a false clue, you know. To make us think Tobias is still in New York.”

  “Oh, I see.” In her lap her fingers were knotted. “I—of course, I don’t understand much about these things.”

  “Of course you don’t, Christina. Just leave everything to me.”

  “It’s been twenty-four hours,” Christina said.

  “Yes, and a lot has been done. People have been working on this all night, all day. The suitcase was turned in at two thirty this morning. Our people identified it at six thirty.”

  She exhaled. “I’m sorry. I can’t…”

  “The other thing I have to tell you is that all flights out of that airport yesterday, all airlines, from noon on, were checked. Children traveling alone, as well as with adults. Mammoth job.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “All children flying out of that airport yesterday have been accounted for. Phone calls to the reference numbers established they were who they said they were—except for four. Two couldn’t be checked because there was no answer at the phone numbers given. But one of those was a girl and the other a fifteen-year-old boy. One kid was a no-show, but her name was Elizabeth. Another child’s phone number must have been given wrong. It didn’t exist. But his name was Ling Pao.”

  Christina was listening intently. “Colonel, why—?”

  “I’m trying to show you how thoroughly my people are working, Christina.”

  “Did they check private airplanes?”

  “Yes. Apparently, they can’t be as sure who’s aboard private aircraft. Just names….”

  “So, Colonel, Toby could be on the East Coast, the West Coast, or anyplace in between. You haven’t narrowed it down much.”

  “Those who kidnapped your child, Christina, have the advantage.” The Colonel stared at her solemnly. “They knew they were going to do it. They were able to plan. You and your husband, I must add, did nothing to prevent it.”

  “Oh…”

  “I know you haven’t much confidence in your Major Mustafa….”

  “I am blaming myself,” Christina said.

  “There, there, Christina.” The Colonel’s smile was kindly. “Why don’t you go change? We’ll have a nice dinner.”

  Twenty-Four

  “Wandering around the airport all day,” Christina said, sitting back in her chair, waiting for her soup, “I felt like one of those shopping bag women, you know? You see them in New York, London. Women with broken shoes, coming from nowhere, going nowhere, going in circles, looking in refuse baskets for God knows what, some evidence of their own existence, some evidence of someone else’s existence.”

  Across from her at the small table in the main dining room of the tennis camp, Colonel Turnbull had his fist firmly around a glass of bourbon and ice.

  “What were you looking for?” he asked.

  It took her a moment to get her face under control.

  “Toby.”

  Colonel Turnbull had prevailed upon her to order a decent dinner: mock turtle soup, a rare steak with salad.

  The soup was placed in front of her.

  “It seemed a senseless thing to do,” Christina said, lifting her spoon. “Wandering around an airport all day. I just didn’t know where else to go, what else to do. I couldn’t sit by the phone all day. I would have gone completely crazy.”

  “You just follow your instincts,” Colonel Turnbull said. “I have great faith in maternal instincts.”

  “I have great faith in rationality,” Christina said. “And I don t see anything here that makes any sense yet. I called Teddy from the airport—I mean, the Ambassador—”

  The Colonel smiled. “You may refer to the Ambassador as Teddy, Christina. I well know who he is.”

  “He said there had been no ransom demand. No one had been in touch with him at all about Toby, why he’s missing, why they took him.”

  Across the table, Turnbull allowed his face to become thoughtful, concerned, hesitant.

  Christina ate most of her soup before their steaks arrived.

  After the waiter left, Colonel Turnbull said, “I’m afraid the Ambassador is being less than frank with you, Christina.” As she stared at him, he repeated his point, almost as if enjoying it: “Less than honest.”

  “There has been a ransom demand? Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “No, not a ransom demand. There’s a great deal more at stake here than the mere exchange of money for human life. Doubtlessly, he felt he was sparing you.”

  Colonel Turnbull shoveled some salad into his mouth.

  Chewing, he said, “Your husband received a call last night. From someone who obviously would not identify himself, or for whom he works. We traced the call to a hamburger stand near Baltimore.”

  “Baltimore? Why Baltimore?”

  “Why anyplace? I think the call coming from Baltimore is a pretty good indication of the size of the team we’re up against. They’re everywhere, nowhere….”

  “Are you going to tell me what the man said?”

  Colonel Turnbull was now chewing a large piece of steak.

  “The man said that if your husband submits Resolution 1176R to the United Nations when he is called upon to do so, your son will be killed.”

  “Oh.” Christina put down her fork. “Oh.” She sat back in her chair. “Oh.”

  “You might as well know everything, Christina. This is the worst kind of political blackmail. You know the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf is slowing down. You know there are people who want the Persian Gulf completely shut. They are willing to go to war over it. His Majesty and your husband drafted this brave little resolution to prevent precisely that happening. It could work.” Despite
what he was saying, the Colonel appeared to be relishing his dinner. “If your husband gives that speech, your son is dead.”

  Listening to him, Christina was having a mad rush of thoughts, feelings.

  This, too, Toby’s kidnapping, has to do with our lives in diplomacy. A little boy who has no more idea of the movement of oil tankers, or concern about it, is kidnapped and facing murder because of the good his father is trying to create….

  Why didn’t Teddy tell me? I couldn’t be worried more or less than I already am….

  Oh, yes: when a crisis appears, the nonprofessional, dear-darling-wife Christina, gets shoved aside….

  “Poor Teddy,” Christina said.

  “I’m sure he thought he was being kind—in not telling you.”

  “He wasn’t, you know. Not a bit kind.”

  “If you’re going to help me find Toby,” Turnbull said, “I think you should know everything—no matter how difficult for you it is.”

  “Yes.”

  “And we must find Toby.”

  “He could be in New York, in Baltimore—”

  “He could be anywhere.”

  “Colonel, I—I would like to return to the bungalow now. I feel a little woozy. Think I should lie down.”

  He looked over at her plate. “You didn’t eat much, did you?”

  “Did the best I could,” she said. “Under the circumstances.” Christina stood up. “You finish your dinner. I’ll be at the bungalow.”

  * * *

  Augustus Turnbull did finish his dinner.

  Christina got up from her bed and went into the living room when she heard him return.

  He had just taken off his coat.

  He was wearing a shoulder holster. The black metal of the gun gleamed in the weak light of the room.

  “Colonel Turnbull,” Christina said. “I want to thank you—for being so honest with me.”

  “Think nothing of it.” Turnbull let himself down heavily on the couch and picked up one of the torn magazines. “Can’t solve the problem if we don’t have all the facts, can we?”

  Twenty-Five

  “Operator? Is this the Information operator, New York City? I’m trying to check a phone number.”