Kennedy said: “On the up and up, skipper, hasn’t there been any word from Wayne — or about him?”
“Kennedy,” MacBride said, “I told you that when there is any news it’ll be broadcast. Another thing I’d like to know is, who the hell invited you in my office?”
“Pardon me if I seem not to have been made aware of the fact that you were issuing invitations. Are they engraved ’n’ everything?”
“Waltz me around a little more and it’ll be engraved on your nice sweet jaw, my son.”
Kennedy seemed very comfortable in the armchair. “Captain, I like the atmosphere of your office. The warmth, the genial and abounding good-will exuded by the Department’s chiefest exponent of right makes right and wrong, wrong. I carry home with me to my drab hall bedroom a vision of your kindly, smiling face, the tranquil benediction of your smile—”
“Oh, yeah?”
“The feeling of good fellowship, the remembered homilies, the beatific aspect of your profile and, by the way, how is Mrs. Wayne?”
MacBride took his eyes from the clock, which indicated a quarter to nine. “You heard me, sweetheart. Scram.”
“And by the way, what do you think of Manuel Figueroa?”
MacBride stood up, darkening. “Kennedy, I’m in no mood to be monkeyed with.”
“I was just getting around to telling you, O Captain, that I’ve found out things about Figueroa. Three years ago he lived in Boston, was supported by Mrs. K.T.P. Weems-Colbrooke, the wife of the president of the Western Ocean Mercantile. Supported for a year. He has no standing as a sculptor anywhere. He’s never had a piece exhibited, has never sold — well — not even a miniature of the Washington Monument. The lady’s daughter fell for him. He got in Dutch with the girl and lammed. No complaint could be made because he held the whip-hand over mama. This never got in the papers. I remember the name, though — Figueroa. Will Smythe gave me the yarn two years ago. He used to be publicity agent for the Western Ocean Mercantile. I’ve a good memory.
“It recalls another anecdote from the amours of our hero. At a newspaper club in New York three years ago I met Jim Mapes, late of the Indianapolis Star-Express. Love in the midlands. Mrs. Jennifer Carnes, wife of a potent midland banker, had Figueroa under her wing. One day her husband noticed a twenty-thousand dollar rope of pearls missing from her collection. She said she’d lost them. You figure it out. A month later our hero spreads himself in a Boston studio. Cute?”
MacBride drummed on the desk with his fingers and bored Kennedy with a hard stare. “Kennedy, you spring that in your lousy rag and you’re through in this city. You spring that and blow up Cort Wayne’s balloon and I’m on you like hell-fire.”
“I’m just telling you, old tomato. I’m just trying to suggest, possibly, the X quantity behind this abduction. I’m just trying to give you a faint idea of what kind of a crum this greaseball is.”
MacBride sat down. “Thanks, Kennedy. Thanks. I’ve got ideas about that baby myself. But you give me more. You make me begin to—” He cut himself short and snapped a look at Kennedy. One eye narrowed. He unlocked a drawer and hauled out a bottle of Golden Wedding. He uncorked it, set two glasses side by side.
“This calls for a drink, Kennedy.”
“Ah... ‘drink down all unkindness,’ skipper — with the Bard of Avon.”
“I still think you’re going ga-ga, but what the hell.”
They had two more drinks. MacBride rose then, saying, “I’ll be back in a minute.” He left the bottle on the desk. He went out, locked the door, went down the hall and entered another office. He picked up a phone.
“MacBride... Switch all calls for me to extension twenty-one. Pay no attention to any calls coming from eighteen... That’s right. Now try locating Moriarity.”
He sat down at the desk, knocked out his dead pipe, restuffed it and lit up. He looked at his watch. Five minutes to nine. Put the watch away in his vest pocket and puffed furiously on his pipe. He got up and paced the room, back and forth, back and forth.
Moriarity came in saying, “Moved?”
“Listen, Mory. I locked Kennedy up in my office with a bottle of rye. It’s a dirty trick but I don’t want him pulling a tail on me. I’m going places. I may even do things — if I see scenery. Here’s the key to my office. You stay in here and take any calls for me. And don’t let Kennedy out till you hear from me.”
“Oke, Cap.”
“If any of these reporters crowd you tell ’em I’m in the building. I’ll want to borrow your hat and overcoat.”
“Down in my locker. It’s open.”
“Thanks.”
MacBride went downstairs and got into Moriarity’s coat. It fit well enough, but the fedora was a little small. It set quaintly on MacBride’s bony head, but he pulled the brim down all around and that helped. He took the tunnel to the garage and found the mechanic there.
“The Ford touring with the curtains, Jerry.”
“You drivin’?”
“Yeah. But don’t tell anybody. I’m supposed to be in the building.”
“I gotcha.”
The flivver was black, had no police markings. MacBride drove it out of the garage and lit out for the West End. At nine-fifteen he passed Wayne’s house, saw Figueroa’s roadster parked in front. He drove on and parked at the next block. Traffic plowed past continuously. He twisted around in the seat and kept his eyes on the little cowl-lights that marked Figueroa’s roadster.
At exactly nine-thirty the lights moved, were replaced by headlights that swung into westbound traffic. MacBride started the flivver, saw the roadster go by and stop at a red traffic signal beyond. MacBride crawled into the traffic and was the third behind Figueroa when the roadster started again.
Westover Boulevard climbed upward beyond Laurel Street and the traffic ascended like an escalator. It reached a peak, then sloped away westward, going down gradually to the corporation limit, leaving the big houses behind. The flivver ducked around slow moving vehicles, maintained a comparatively equal distance behind the roadster, never approached it too closely.
Traffic thinned out but three cars were still between the roadster and the flivver. Ahead, MacBride saw the white blur of the railroad underpass. He saw the roadster pass beneath it. MacBride passed beneath, and now Westover Boulevard became the Old West Road. Three hundred yards beyond, Riding Pike crossed it north and south.
The roadster made a left turn into Riding Pike. MacBride slapped his foot down on the accelerator, let a southbound sedan head him off and then swung in behind it. He took his gun from its holster and laid it on the seat beside him. A few oaths sizzled on his lips and then his lips clamped tightly shut and he tipped Moriarity’s hat lower on his forehead.
The roadster was picking up speed. MacBride had to pass the sedan, and when he did he saw the roadster taking a turn in the Pike fast. The straightaway ended. The Pike became serpentine and MacBride kept his foot jammed down on the throttle. On a moonlit rise ahead he saw the silhouette of the roadster; then it dropped from sight, and when MacBride topped the rise he saw the roadster sweeping ahead and far below. The flivver roared and shook and the wind hammered the loose curtains.
He saw the roadster make a left turn into Black Horse Road. He followed it and had to go a mile before he picked up the red tail-light again. Houses appeared, then a settlement, then a suburb of the city. The roadster shot beneath a raised grade-crossing, turned sharp left, climbed a short hill.
MacBride was going too fast to make the turn. He jammed on the brake and sat tight while the flivver skidded fifty feet. Then he backed up, shifted and swung left hard. He gave the motor the gun to make the short grade and saw Figueroa hauling a bag from the rumble. He went over the hump, jammed on the brake and raised dust skidding past the roadster. On his left was a suburban station of the main line.