As to who they were, and how they might have done it, there were some clues, beginning with that studio audience. In normal movie studio fashion, Triple S was under controlled access, with high walls or fences all around the property and only two usable gates, both manned by private guards. The minute the alarm had reached Cayzer’s office, he had ordered the lot sealed; no one off, no matter who they were or what their reason, and only police and other authorized officials on. The result was, the studio audience that had come to see Koo Davis was still here, undergoing a kind of thrilled boredom. They’d been told what had happened and that they wouldn’t be permitted to leave just yet, so they knew they were involved in a very dramatic moment, but on the other hand they were just sitting there on those bleachers, with nothing to do and nothing to see.
And they were two short. “They keep a headcount,” Cayzer explained. “They get a mob comes to these things, but they only let in the first two hundred and fifty, that’s final, no more and no less. I’ve had three of these studio fellas swear to me up and down and sideways there was exactly two hundred fifty people let in today, and we done our own headcount, and now there’s two hundred forty-eight.”
“So that’s how they got in,” Mike agreed. “The next question is, how’d they get out?”
“I do believe we got a hint on that,” Cayzer said. “Two of my men talked to the fellas on the main gate, asking who come in and out during the ten minutes between Davis disappearing and us closing the place down, and we got one good-looking prospect. A Ford Econoline van, belongs to one of the girls works in the studio offices. The fella on the gate remembered it because she only brings it in on Fridays and she usually leaves later in the day. Girl’s name is Janet Grey, she’s been working here less than two months, she didn’t ask her boss’ permission before she took off early.”
“Sounds good,” Mike said. “You got an address?”
“Down in West L.A. County boys looking into it now.”
“She won’t be there,” Mike said.
Cayzer grinned, making another thousand creases in his face. His eyes were meant for seeing across open miles, they seemed too powerful for small rooms, small concerns. “I’ll be surprised, there’s even such an address,” he said.
Mike said, “What about the family?”
“Well, that’s sort of a problem,” Cayzer said. “Seems Davis’s separated from his wife, she’s out in Palm Beach, Florida. Then he’s got two sons, both grown up, one of them in the television business in New York, the other one lives in London. Your boss said—”
“Webster Redburn.”
“That’s him; Chief of Station. He said his people would see about notification of the family. We got no relatives around this part of the world at all. The closest we can come is Davis’ agent, a woman called Lynsey Rayne. She’s waiting in my office right now for news.”
“We could all use some news,” Mike said. “What’s your next move?”
“I have men searching this whole lot,” Cayzer said. “Indoors and out. Don’t expect they’ll come up with anything.”
“Probably not. These people hit and run.”
“That’s right. Then there’s that audience. I think I might’s well let them go, unless you want them.”
“This is your show,” Mike said. “I’m just an observer.”
“Oh, I think we could work together right from now,” Cayzer said. His grin, it seemed, could develop a sly twist at the left corner. “Less you’d rather wait till tomorrow.”
“Anything I can do to help,” Mike promised, “just let me know.”
“Fine. Think I oughta let that audience go home?”
“Did you talk to them about pictures?”
Cayzer looked blank. “Pictures?”
“Snapshots.”
“Well, god damn it,” Cayzer said. “Sometimes I don’t know if I was stupid all my life or if I’m just getting stupid with old age. Come on along, you can ask them yourself.”
Mike followed Cayzer to a large soundstage full of sets and cameras, with an audience-full line of bleachers along one side. A technician gave him a hand mike, and he stepped out into the floodlights, where forty minutes ago Koo Davis had been making people laugh. Now his absence was making the same people wide-eyed with anticipation, and Mike was strongly aware of all those eyes glittering at him out of the semi-dark. He was also strongly aware of the floodlights; they were making his headache worse. His eyes felt as though the pressure behind them would make them pop out onto the floor; and good riddance.
With the bleachers so broad and shallow, the audience was much closer to the stage than in a normal theater, and Mike immediately had the sense that these people were still an audience, still spectators rather than participants. They were waiting for him to amuse them, thrill them, capture their interest.
He did the latter merely by introducing himself: “Ladies and gentleman, my name is Michael Wiskiel. I’m an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, here to assist Chief Inspector Cayzer in his inquiry.” His inquiry; the social niceties are important everywhere. “Now, I imagine some of you nice people are tourists in this area, and all of you have your own lives you want to get on with, so we’ll try not to hold you up very much longer. I suppose some of you brought cameras along today, I wonder if any of you have Polaroids. Anybody?”
A scattering of hands was raised; Mike counted six.
“Fine. So any pictures you folks took today, you’ve already got them in your pocket or purse, all developed and ready to be looked at. I wonder, did any of you people happen to take any pictures while you were out on line, before you got in here, and would those pictures show anybody else in the line?”
A stir in the audience, as two hundred forty-two people turned in their seats to watch six people self-consciously leaf through little clusters of photographs. Four of them eventually turned out to have pictures of the sort Mike had in mind, and ushers brought these photographs to the stage.
Seven snaps. Mike looked at the first, and saw four more-or-less distinguishable people behind the smiling squinting foreground lady who was the obvious subject of the photograph. He called out, “Could we have some light on the audience?” and immediately a bank of overhead spots came up, lighting the audience as though it had become the stage.
“Let’s see now,” Mike said. “Here’s a young man in a pale blue sweater, black hair, wearing sunglasses. Anybody?”
The young man was found, and when he stood and put on his sunglasses Mike matched him to the photograph. Also the lady wearing the white scarf and green polka dots. And also the elderly couple in matching white turtleneck shirts.
And so on through the seven Polaroids. Every identifiable face was still among the two hundred forty-eight. Either the two kidnappers had been very careful or very lucky.
“Well, it was worth a try,” Mike told the audience, when the pictures had been returned to their owners. “So now let me ask about other cameras, where you’ve still got the film inside. Anybody?”