This, at least, Greenlease had allowed to be the handiwork of the FBI — the duffel bag had been marked in some undisclosed manner for easy identification. $400,000 was in twenties, $200,000 was in tens, as requested by M days before my arrival (this duffel had gone on several wild goose chases already, due to the incompetent directions of the kidnappers). Seventy employees of President Eisenhower’s brother Arthur at Commerce Trust had recorded the serial numbers, all forty-thousand bills were photographed, and FBI agent West Grapp had pressed his thumb print to the wrapper of each packet of bills.
The bag of money weighed eighty-five pounds.
This represented the biggest kidnap ransom to date in the United States. Maybe the world, but nobody had seemed to have checked on that. And my presence here was in part connected to that money.
While we’d waited the couple of hours between the last call and the next one, Bob Greenlease in his study had said, “Nate, with no police or FBI tailing us, the possibility some interloper might be watching can’t be discounted.”
The press hadn’t been told the exact amount of the ransom, but it was generally known to be a substantial sum — rumor had it a little low ($500,000) but that was high enough.
“We’ll park the car right in front of the hotel,” I said, “where it’s well-lighted. I’ll stay with the money and Will can take M’s next call. A Kansas City boy like Will can do better with the instructions than I would.”
“I haven’t done great so far,” Letterman said glumly.
“You’ll do fine. But I’m the one who needs to guard that money.” I opened my suitcoat and shared the holstered Browning with them. “There’s the possibility that M or others he’s working with are waiting to snatch this from us right then and there.”
Particularly if the boy is already dead — a thought I did not share with Greenlease, though I could sense Letterman was thinking along similar lines.
No doorman was on duty at the Berkshire but the entry with canopy was, as expected, well-lighted. Letterman went in at 11:20. With the motor running, I stayed behind in the loaner Caddy, sliding over behind the wheel, sitting there with my nine mil in my lap like a getaway man waiting for the bank robbery to wrap up. Twenty minutes or so later, Letterman came quickly out. I unlocked the driver’s-side door and slid back into the passenger seat.
Greenlease’s man got behind the wheel and into gear and swung out. He filled me in as we went.
“Our 11:30 call came in at 11:31,” Letterman said. “The longest minute of my life.”
“Tell me about it.” I holstered the nine mil. “Get anywhere?”
“I think so. We’re to head east on Highway 40 until it intersects with County Highway Road 10E — which used to be called Lee’s Summit Road. Turn right at something called Stephenson’s Restaurant and go for about a mile to a covered wooden bridge. There we throw the bag out on the left side of the road at the north end of the bridge. M told me they wouldn’t be far behind us.”
“This is an area you know?”
“Well enough. The restaurant doesn’t ring a bell, but I think I’ve been over that bridge before.”
“How did he sound?”
“Drunk.”
It wasn’t much of a drive — southeast of the city about five miles from Swope Park into a rural area where the only hitch was the dark night making us miss the junction of 40 and 10E; we had to backtrack and try again — no sign of anyone following, at least not yet. This time we turned south on the county road and soon came to a covered wooden bridge. Midnight now... midnight on a lonely country road....
I told Letterman to pull over.
He did, then nodded toward the bridge. “Should I leave the headlights on?”
“No. It’d just make a target of me.”
He shut off the beams and the bridge’s mouth turned black and unwelcoming. I got the nine millimeter out again and slipped from the car into the night.
I entered the sheltered structure slowly, cautiously, wood groaning under my feet, sparse moonlight filtering in between slats, my back to a creaky wall, edging along like I was expecting the Headless Horseman at any moment. But no ghost on horseback came charging and no one was lying in wait — there was really nowhere to do that. I went all the way to the north end and stayed low, gun ready, as I came out. I looked around the low brush on either side of the road, going down the slope on both sides to the narrow gurgling stream.
Nobody.
I climbed back up. There were trees on both sides but anyone who emerged would have shown himself even under that stingy slice of moon.
I returned to the car and got in. “No sign of a soul,” I said. “Not L, M, N or P. But go slow.”
We rumbled through the rickety bridge and then pulled off to the left as we exited the north end. From the back seat I yanked out the duffel and then the two of us, like gangsters in fedoras and topcoats dragging a dead body, lugged the eighty-five pounds of money — thirty pounds heavier than Bobby Greenlease — to the underbrush just past the north end of the bridge, concealing the duffel just a little, not wanting to attract anyone’s attention but M’s.
“All right,” I said. “Now you head back.”
He blinked at me. “You mean we head back.”
“No. I’m waiting for these bastards.” I lifted the nine mil and lowered it, to make a point.
He shook his head — really shook it. “No. We’re not taking that kind of chance.”
“I’m not asking you to. Don’t worry about me getting back, Will. They’ll have a car.”
He pointed to the Caddy, which sat purring. “Get in, Heller. You heard what Bob said. This is my call.”
I thought about my options. What could I do, slug him? He was twenty years older than me, and if I knocked him out, who’d drive the car back? It might even kill him, and that only complicated matters.
Well, shit.
We headed back to the Greenlease place.
We were again in the study with the dogs and hunters looking on from their mural. Back in our same seats with the two phones staring at us and us staring at them. Letterman didn’t mention our little confrontation to Greenlease and neither did I. We drank a while. I was on my second rum and Coke since our return and Greenlease was behind me, pacing again, but more like trudging now, bourbon sloshing in his glass, when the phones came alive, their doubled ring alarmingly loud.
I’d been appointed phone man again. After the third ring, as arranged, Greenlease was back on the couch next to Letterman, who picked up as I did.
As before, silence.
“You there, M?” I asked.
“Speaking.”
“Everything all right with the money?”
The response came in a rush of words: “We haven’t had time to count it yet. But I’m sure it’s all there. Rest assured the kid will be back with his mother as promised within twenty-four hours.”
M didn’t sound drunk to me now — more like high....
“How long are we going to have to wait down there before we pick him up?”
By “down there” I meant Pittsburg, Kansas.
M said, “You’ll hear in the morning and be told where and when.”
“We’ll have him tomorrow?”
“Definitely.”
“He’s alive and well?”
“Yeah, and as full of piss and vinegar as any kid I’ve ever seen.”
This seemed to try a little too hard to make the boy sound... alive. “I can quote you on that, can I?”
“You can quote me.”
The phone clicked dead.
I hung up. I looked at Greenlease. I looked at Letterman.
“Well,” Letterman said to me, poised to stand, “you and I need to head to Pittsburg.”