“All them.”
“Okey. Broadcast to cars 36 and 38 in the Fourth Precinct to investigate every house in Jockey, Havemeyer and Luke Streets. Vacant houses also. Question residents and report. Broadcast to all cars: Search blind alleys, stop all speeding cars and investigate. Investigate any suspicious character.”
He returned to his pipe.
A knock sounded on the door.
“Come in,” MacBride said.
Carl Davenport loomed in the doorway. “Glad I found you, Captain.”
“Hello, Mr. Davenport. Sit down.”
They shook and Davenport took a straight-backed chair, laid one hand on the other atop a silver-knobbed walking stick. He was in evening clothes. A great rock of a man nearing seventy, the rock was crystallizing at the edges. A mane of hair, white and flowing like white silk, swept back from a broad impressive forehead. White thatching for eyebrows. A jaw that still defied loose jowls. Blue eyes like a glacial lake, deep-set and penetrating.
“No word, I understand.”
“No,” MacBride said. “They found the car.”
“Where?”
“Luke Street. Abandoned.”
The blue eyes had a touch of frost. “What do you make of it, Captain?”
MacBride puffed. Puffed again. Said: “Offhand, I’d say it’s a kidnap. We’ll get the shake-down in the morning.”
“We?”
“Mrs. Wayne, of course.”
Davenport cleared his throat. Latent power was evident in his voice when he said: “I came here to ask you, Captain, in no shape, manner or form to attempt to interfere.”
“I don’t get you.”
“I mean insofar as the safe return of Cortland is concerned. Mrs. Wayne has money. We, his aides, have plenty and we intend putting forth any amount to insure his safe return. This gubernatorial campaign was a stiff one. Cortland won by a fair margin. His inauguration will mark an epic in the history of the state. We who have stood beside him do not want this to have been all in vain. As a boy, I held Cortland on my knee. I saw him grow to be the youngest governor-elect this state has ever known. I coached him. I might say I have been his mentor. Anything I could have done, anything I can do, was and is not too much.”
MacBride said, pointing his pipe-stem: “I know. I get you. Well, I’ve known him too — ten years. I knew him when he was Assistant State’s Attorney. I tell you I think he’ll be the swellest governor this state’s ever had or ever will. Take it from me, I’m just as anxious as you are to get him back safely. When that’s done — if it is a kidnap—”
“You don’t think it might not be?”
“There’s no telling. The Rittenmoore Bill will make carrying a gun without a license a penal offense carrying a minimum sentence of fifteen years. He’s sworn to put that bill through. If it is a kidnap, and when he’s back safe, I’ll go after the guys. My word of honor that there’ll be no police interference beforehand.”
Davenport stood up. “Captain...” His hand was extended.
MacBride rose and gripped it.
Davenport said: “I am infinitely happy that we both realize in Cortland Wayne the man of the hour. I am glad that through the years I have been his guiding light, willing to sacrifice anything in order to put him one notch upward, always. I am not bragging. Forgive me my elation.”
“Any idea who’s behind this kidnap — if it is a kidnap?”
“None,” Davenport said. “You?”
“No-o.”
“You say that peculiarly.”
MacBride straightened. “I was just thinking. It’s nothing. Be seeing you, sir.”
Davenport’s keen eyes flicked MacBride’s spare-boned face. He started to say something. Cleared his throat instead. He went out with a slow sedate step.
MacBride reached for a phone. “Moriarity or Cohen around?... Send him up.”
It was Cohen. Dapper, well-dressed, one-time a fast lad in the prize ring. “And me holding four kings.”
MacBride said, looking at his pipe-bowl, “Name of Manuel Figueroa. Friend of Mrs. Wayne. Find out what he does, where he goes, who he knows. And keep it to yourself until you tell me. Start now.”
“Where should I start?”
“That’s your job, Ike.”
Indefatigable in his haphazard way, Kennedy drifted in at a quarter to one, found MacBride in shirt sleeves over a bowl of chili and a mug of coffee. Kennedy looked refreshed, though weariness was still in his eyes, around his mouth; a droll weariness that seemed more of the soul than of the body.
“Thanks for the bath, skipper.”
“Don’t mention it. Boy-oh-boy, were you crocked!”
Kennedy expired into a chair, his weathered hat lopped over one ear. “Please omit the post mortems. It was from Othello: ‘O God, that men should put an enemy into their mouths to steal away their brains.’ Remember?”
“How the hell would I remember something I’ve never read?”
“Ah... that leads around to something else again. Something Spanish this time.”
“Huh?”
“You read it once. You should remember.”
MacBride finished the chili. “Go on, go on.”
“Manuel Figueroa.”
MacBride choked on a mouthful of coffee, spattered the desk.
Kennedy went on drowsily: “A year ago. A play called Spanish Bayonet put on by the Amateur Art Theatre. The feminine lead was played by Corinne Wayne; the male by — you guessed it the first time — Manuel Figueroa. Quite a lot of pawing on the part of the male in the third act. Recollect?”
“No.”
“You should.”
“All right, then. Now what’s the connection?”
“Well, I was pretty whoofled tonight, but not so whoofled that I didn’t recognize Manuel hot-foot into the Wayne casa. You were there. Must have seen him.”
“I did.”
“Two and two make — what?” He laughed. “Or rather, one and one — make what?”
MacBride scowled. “All right. What?”
“Love’s a funny thing,” Kennedy sighed.
“Are you still drunk?”
Kennedy pushed his hat down over his eyes, bent his head so that only his mouth was visible. His mouth began wearing a droll smile.
MacBride swiveled his chair. His voice dropped to a hard, blunt tone. “Whatever you think, Kennedy, you keep it to your sweet self.”
“A crack like that indicates that you think similarly.”
“You heard me!”
“Could I help hearing you?”
MacBride glared at the mouth that was wicked and wise — and gentle — and a little weak.
A steam radiator began clanking and went on clanking while neither MacBride nor Kennedy said anything.
The morning papers cut loose. It was something to shout about, the disappearance of a governor-elect. Newsmen arrived from other cities by train, bus, car and plane. They hit Headquarters like a deluge and circulated throughout its chambers. They practically took over two rooms in the building, robbed other offices of chairs and tables.
High pressure special correspondents arrived in baggy coats and carrying portable typewriters. A bootlegger succeeded in delivering a case of gin through a back entrance. Two Boston newshawks drove up with two cases of ginger ale and a gunnysack of ice. An enterprising New York correspondent tried to get the local electric company to wire the room and then tried to get a special wire directly from the room to his home office. MacBride sat on that idea like a ton of brick.
He was pointed, saying to the gang: “Now pipe this, you eggs. I’m on this job — me personally. What I say around this scatter pretty much goes and I’m telling you now, one and all of you, that I’ll not stand for any lousy shenanigans. It’s only through a kind-hearted commissioner that you’re being allowed to stay in these rooms. I don’t want any prowling around halls. I don’t want to hear raps on doors. I don’t want any spitting on the floor or see any bright cartoons on the walls. When there’s any news — you’ll get it. In the meantime, no monkey shines or you’ll get slid on to the pavement.”