“We’ll take them off when you’ve come to the proper decision,” George said, and his faint smile was back. “And I’m afraid that sofa isn’t as comfortable as it looks. Besides,” he added, “there’s nothing to handcuff you to there, you see. And I’m sure you can understand that we’d hate to lose you after all the trouble we had arranging your coming. No, we have a nice clean bedroom for you...”
He reached into the top drawer of his desk, withdrew a revolver, checked it carefully, and came to his feet, gesturing toward the door.
“After you, please.”
Dondero shrugged and shoved the door open to walk into the corridor. He hadn’t exactly expected them to give him a car for a getaway, but he had gained a little time, at least, which he had a sad feeling he was going to waste actually sleeping. True, he had found out what the whole case was all about, but the question was, would he live long enough to pass the information along to the department? At the moment it looked doubtful. If he turned George’s extremely generous offer down in the morning, he had a feeling George could turn nasty. And if he accepted it, how could he pretend to know where the stuff was stashed? It was a pretty problem.
Still, he was alive at the moment, which was a giant step in the right direction, and the bluff was working on all twelve cylinders. He wondered idly what decision he would have made if he really had two and a half kilos of Turkish pure hidden someplace. Probably go along with George’s proposition, although it was highly doubtful that old George had much intention of allowing a confederate to live long enough to enjoy Lincoln Park, let alone Rio, or Hong Kong, or Sydney. It was what happened when you dealt with crooks; you couldn’t trust them.
“Right here.” George had stopped before a door. He opened it and stepped back for Dondero to enter. Dondero walked into the darkness and stood still while George reached in a hand and flipped on the light switch. Light flooded the room.
A gray-haired man was lying on one of the twin beds in the room. He looked up through feverish eyes. One hand was heavily and clumsily bandaged; his other was handcuffed to the bedstead.
“Hello, Don,” he said weakly, and tried to sit up. “So you guys finally got here, huh...?”
Chapter 12
Tuesday — 9:00 A.M.
The rain had finally won the battle with the fog, and magnanimous in victory had swept off to the east, leaving the morning clear and cool. Lieutenant Reardon, pushing through the heavy glass doors of the Hall of Justice, glanced in the direction of the corner desk hoping for some message, received a negative shake of the head from the sergeant there, and continued on his way to the elevators. He walked into a waiting car, punched the button for the fourth floor, and rubbed his face wearily as the cab dutifully began its silent climb. He had slept not at all, lying in bed fully dressed, instead, waiting for the telephone to ring and to hear that sardonic voice, no longer smiling, inform him that their little ploy had failed, and that if they didn’t stop fooling around and put the real Vito Patrone on the bridge at two the next morning, there would be two dead cops, and not one.
But there had been no call, and the elaborate equipment that had been hurriedly installed to trace any such call had apparently been wasted. Either Dondero was getting away with the bluff, at least for the time being, or the sardonic man had become a bit leery of a trap, which was not surprising. The kidnapper, whoever he was, was far from stupid; and he never seemed to contact the police with his messages twice at the same place.
The elevator stopped, the doors moved obediently back, and Reardon stared blankly out into the corridor, remembering where he was only when the doors began to close. He reached out in time to send them sliding back with a reproving hiss, and walked from the car shaking his head. Man, he thought, I’d better wake up before I step into an open manhole!
Stan Lundahl was shrugging himself into his jacket, happy that his extended graveyard shift was finally over, when Reardon walked into the office. Stan pulled his jacket straight, tugged his necktie into a semblance of respectability, and nodded.
“Hi, Lieutenant. How’s it going?”
“Don’t ask,” Reardon said, and yawned deeply. He finished by stretching elaborately and considered Lundahl. “What’s new around here? No meeting scheduled for this morning?”
“Not that I heard of. Nothing to meet about, I guess.” Stan dug into a jacket pocket for cigarettes, pulled a pad of matches from his shirt pocket, and put the two of them together. “My guess is that the brass figure Pop is long gone, and more meetings won’t bring him back. They’d just interfere with the work of getting the bastard who did it.” He picked a shred of tobacco from his lip with a fingernail and looked at Reardon speculatively.
Reardon frowned. “What’s the long look supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” Lundahl changed his look to one of curiosity. “Aren’t you going to ask me about Dondero?”
Reardon woke up. “Oh. That’s right. Anybody hear anything?”
Lundahl quit playing games. He had been waiting for the lieutenant to arrive in order to spring his news, and had just about given up when his superior had entered the office. He sank back into the chair behind his desk, prepared to spend a little bit more of his overtime.
“He had a boat, did you know that?” He went on before Reardon could perjure himself. “Yeah. A small fisherman he must have bought cheap and fixed up. Kept it down in Burlingame.”
Reardon merely grunted. He walked over and sat down behind his desk.
“Yeah. Way we heard about it,” Lundahl went on expansively, “the guy who sold it to him has a brother-in-law on the force. Patrol officer named Garrity, works out of Park Station. Anyway, Garrity mentioned it to the guy when the two met about four this morning to go fishing, because the chief has cut out time-off until we get somewhere on this case, and Garrity was supposed to be off today, but instead he’s got to be back on at nine, but he still wanted to get in some fishing...” He paused and frowned in a puzzled manner. “Can you imagine getting up at four o’clock in the morning just to catch a lousy fish?”
“Some guys do, I guess.”
“Yeah. Anyway, this guy remembers about Dondero and the boat. Garrity called it in around five this morning. Said he hadn’t been near a phone before. Probably waited until he caught his first swordfish, or whatever.”
“And?”
“Well, anyway, it never occurred to this jughead Garrity that he was a police officer and maybe he should go down to Burlingame to check it out — hell no, he had to go fishing!” Lundahl shook his head at the idiocy of some people. “So, anyway, it filtered down to me a little after six this morning. Nobody else around, so I took a drive down there. Just got back, matter of fact.”
Reardon tried to sound curious. “What did you find?”
“Well” — Lundahl paused to light a fresh cigarette from the old butt before continuing — “somebody’s been using the boat mighty recently, and it stands to reason it was Don. He wasn’t there, but he had to hang out someplace, didn’t he?”
“I guess.”
“Yeah, And the hatchway was locked with a padlock, and no sign of any break-in,” Lundahl went on, “that is, until I pried the hasp off to get in, of course. It’s his boat, all right — owner’s certificate in the cabin, framed on the wall, fishing license tucked in the corner of the frame. Anyway, to get back to this morning, there were wet footprints on the hatchway steps, and the same wet prints down in the cabin. They had to be from last night because it hasn’t rained in a week, and they would have dried up by now if they were old ones, don’t you think?”