“It’s Cotton,” he said softly, and looked into her eyes.
“Cotton, please tell your partner,” she said, returning his gaze, “that I’m sitting on the biggest scoop I’ve ever had in my life, a live tape of a kidnapping in progress, and if he doesn’t let me go in the next five minutes, Channel Four will bring suit against the city,” she said, and smiled sweetly.
“We’ll slap a court order on the tape,” Carella said.
“I don’t care what you do after we air it.”
“I’ll seize it as evidence right this minute.”
“My crew won’t let you have it.”
“Then I’ll arrest them as accessories to the crime of kidnapping.”
“Aswhat ? You’llwhat ?”
“For withholding vital evidence,” Hawes explained.
Honey gave him a curt, dismissive look.
“Am I still bleeding?” Jonah asked.
“Will you go put on some clothes?” Loomis said.
“How’d I look on camera?” Jonah asked Honey.
“Gorgeous, darling.”
Jonah beamed and went off toward the changing room. The natives were beginning to get extremely restless, milling and seething and whiffling all around the ballroom deck as McIntosh and his crew continued taking names, addresses, and telephone numbers.
“So whowill be handling this?” Loomis asked Carella. “You or the FBI?”
“For now, it’s us,” Carella said. “We caught it, we’ll finish up here, and then go do the paperwork. I’ll talk to my lieutenant as soon as we get back to the squadroom, see what he advises. I’m sure this’ll go to them, don’t worry. Meanwhile, we’ll want to contact the girl’s parents. Do you know where we can…?”
“Forget it,” Loomis said, “they’re divorced. Her father’s living in Mexico with his second wife, her mother’s in Europe someplace.”
“Are they people of means, would you know?”
“He used to sell vacuum cleaners, Christ knows what he’s doing now. Her mother’s a hairdresser. I’m sure neither of them is wealthy.”
“Then why would anyone want to kidnap her?” Hawes asked.
“Maybe because Tamar Valparaiso…”
Valparaiso, Carella thought.Not Valentino.
“…is under contract to Bison Records,” Loomis said, and nodded in sudden understanding. “Of course,” he said. “That’s got to be it. I’m CEO and sole shareholder in the company. They’re going to askme for the goddamn money.”
“Then you better sit by the phone,” Hawes suggested.
BY FOUR A.M., McIntosh and his HPU team had gathered all the vitals from the passengers, crew, and caterers, had passed the list on to the detectives from the Eight-Seven, and had gone tootling off on their thirty-six footer into an early morning mist. The Mobile Crime Unit had arrived some two hours earlier and were examining the primary access routes. Half a dozen male and female technicians were still dusting and vacuuming the salon stairway and the small dance floor where most of the action had taken place. Another three were doing the same thing outside on the loading platform and boarding ladder, concentrating especially on latent footprints. And yet another three were searching for evidence on the second level cocktail lounge, where it was presumed the perps had entered before moving down to the lower deck.
Disembarked and disoriented after their nocturnal ordeal, the weary voyagers dispersed in various directions, Captain Reeves—as befitted his role as commander—being the last to leave his vessel.
(“CaptainPeeved, ” Hawes called him behind his back but within earshot of Honey Blair, who, he noticed with satisfaction, acknowledged the sarcastic sobriquet with a reluctant smile of approval.)
The fog gathering around them, the detectives and the television people walked together in silence to where they’d parked in the AUTHORIZEDPERSONNELzone dockside. Carella had indeed seized the tape as evidence. Honey was indeed intending to bring suit against the city. Hawes did not think this was such a good start for a relationship.
Honey and her crew climbed into the Channel Four van; the two detectives got into their unmarked Chevy sedan. The streets were empty at this early hour of the morning. Carella and Hawes made it back to the squadroom in less than ten minutes.
There was still a lot of work to do before the shift ended.
“YOU SHOULDN’T HAVEhit her so hard,” Avery was telling Cal.
“Come on, it was only a slap,” Cal said.
“You knocked her down. That was more than a slap.”
“She was making a run for it.”
Tamar Valparaiso was still unconscious and draped alongside Kellie Morgan on the back seat of the Ford Explorer, her head on Kellie’s shoulder, her hands and feet bound, a blindfold over her eyes.
Kellie, to tell the truth, was sort of overwhelmed to be in such close proximity to someone she perceived to be a rock star even though she’d only seen her perform once at a club over in the next state, and that was at least nine months ago, before Tamar had got her recording contract.
They had left the Rinker at the Fairfield Street dock, all the way downtown in the Old Quarter of the city, taking with them only any personal items, and the masks, and the weapons, transferring all and sundry into the Ford. Avery was now driving. Cal was sitting beside him. They were moving slowly through the fog and the deserted streets, observing the speed limit, stopping at any red traffic light or full stop sign, but not traveling so slowly as to attract police attention. That was the last thing they needed at this stage of the game.
The tendrils of the fog embraced the car as if to crush it. Fog frightened Kellie. You never knew what might come at you out of a fog.
“When they pay the ransom,” Avery said, still on the case, “we’re supposed…”
“Ifthey pay the ransom,” Cal corrected.
“They’ll pay it, don’t worry. But then we’re supposed to return her safe and sound. If we send her back with her face all bruised…”
“Ain’t no bruises on her face,” Cal said.
“Girl’s face is her fortune,” Kellie said from the back seat.
“Ours, too,” Avery reminded her.
“Tits ain’t so bad, neither,” Cal said and grinned.
“Hey, cool that shit,” Kellie said.
“The way you hit her,” Avery said, refusing to let go, “her face is gonna swell up like a balloon.”
“Black and blue already,” Kellie said, looking over at Tamar and nodding.
“How’s she doing otherwise?” Avery asked.
“Still out like a light,” Kellie said. “We got a blanket or something? She’s half-naked here.”
“That ain’t our fault,” Cal said. “She stripped her own self buck ass naked. They can’t blame us for that.”
“They can blame you for swatting her,” Avery insisted.
“How’d you like my swatting the monster, huh?” Cal asked, grinning, turning to look at Avery. “Or didn’t you like that, either? Him crouched and ready to spring for our throats, how comeyou didn’t swat him, Ave? You were standing right there in front of him. How comeyou didn’t take a swing?”
“Because we agreed no violence.”
“That was our agreement, yes,” Kellie said.
“You go in with 47s,” Cal said, “you got to expect violence.”
“Not if we agreed beforehand.”
“That was before I knew anybody was gonna go for my throat.”
“I don’t think he was about to go for you,” Avery said reasonably. “He was just assessing the situation. He heard you yelling, he naturally wondered what was going on, him being on the floor and all, where he couldn’t see. So he lifted himself up to take a look. You shouldn’t’ve hit him and youcertainly shouldn’t’ve hit the girl. I don’t want you hitting her again, Cal, you hear me?”