In the hour and a half I had phoned Susan Petri and announced that I was not coming in to the office. There was a two-second hesitation on the other end of the line- a pause that I'm sure was noticed by DeLucca, who listened in on the kitchen phone extension. But finally she had said fine and the conversation closed. Had she guessed that something was amiss? I did not think so. Damn.
Through it all I sleepwalked as if in a dream, the trembling and electric buzzing clouding my senses and thinking. What was I happening was happening to someone else, not Charles and Mary Adams.
The men had helped themselves to coffee and eggs. They rifled through the place- for a second time- and took clothes that fit them. Babyface slid outside fast to make sure our dogs were locked in their runs. The men put their tan Chevy in my garage and locked the doors, but only after they backed out our cars and switched their plates. The plates they took out of the big carton that Babyface had carried with him up to our door an hour and a half earlier. They took out the handcuffs first, then the license plates. They were New Jersey issue, and I knew they were what hoodlums call cold plates. Joe had told me cold plates were stolen but not used for several months so that their descriptions would not appear on police hot sheets.
They were going to take our cars someplace. They were on the run.
What about us? If pursuit was immediate, they would take us as hostages. If not, they would leave us tied up in our house and take off, buying themselves probably ten or twelve hours' time. Enough time to get to another big city and take a plane far, far away. Or they could decide not to leave us tied up.
They could instead decide to kill us.
And knowing Carmen DeLucca, who had killed so often he had nothing to lose, I knew this last possibility was real. And I didn't like it. Mary, seated in the semidark john and looking up through the red-print curtains, knew it too, and did not like it either. That's why she was crying and hysterical.
It was not knowing what course they would take, and the complete powerlessness over it, that was so frightening. It was not only scary, it was exhausting. I was scared to death and weak and tired, all at once.
And then DeLucca came into the room where I was handcuffed and asked me what I had done wish the strip of photo negatives.
At quarter to ten I came to and looked down at the wires taped to my left forearm. DeLucca was good with wires and juice; he could set off gas bombs with them and make people unconscious from pain. I smelled singed hair and skin. Mine. And all because I couldn't answer his question.
Then DeLucca and his gang said they were going to work on Mary until they got an answer. I could hear her saying "Don't- please don't," over and over again. I knew if I ever got a chance to kill any one of the three I would do it. They came back and sat down and told me Mary was not injured.
"Marty just got a little fresh with her, didn't you?"
Babyface leered at me. I tried to lunge at him but was now tied into the chair with a strap. I felt like a marionette. I swore at him until he cracked me across the mouth with the back of his list. I didn't mind the pain; it seemed to wake me up.
"Okay," said DeLucca. "So you don't have it and don't know where it is. I didn't think you did, but I hadda make sure." Then he sat on the sofa, hunched over, and clapped his hands slowly together, thinking. He turned to his confederates.
"We got nowhere to go now, except away. We can't go back to Lynn now. We can't go to Andover. The Doc ain't got it; we can't get it. The whole Mob's after us. We can only get lost."
The third man, a tall, thin, and morose lout with pale skin and bad teeth, stood up and paced.
"Don't forget the money, Carmen," he said. "We got the cars; now we need the loot."
Carmen DeLucca looked at me and said they needed five thousand bucks in cash, and it gave me a little hope. Because I knew that as long as I was in the process of getting him the money, Mary and I were safe.
"I can get that for you, but it won't be before this afternoon, even if I started now. We've got very little money in savings and checking accounts; it's mostly tied up in investments and term accounts that take some time to free."
"How soon?"
I shrugged. As used to big money as a guy like DeLucca was, he probably had no experience with or knowledge of the ways in which straight people keep money. A thug gets a bankroll and spends big bills until the roll is gone, then works at getting another.
"There are a lot of papers to sign. I'd have to see two bankers and my tax lawyer to free most, of it. About eighteen hundred you can have in twenty minutes."
"Not enough," said DeLucca. He did not bridle at the fictitious red tape I spewed about bankers and lawyers. There would be penalties for tapping the term accounts, but no red tape. I told him I could furnish the deposit contracts and explain them to show I was telling the truth, but he shook his head. He believed me. He knew only street money and bad checks; anything else was beyond him.
Then the tall one called Carmen out of the room for a talk, and I didn't like that at all. They could just decide to put both of us on ice now and get moving. I heard arguing in low voices, both urgent. The men were cornered and scared, and very mean to begin with. That spelled danger. But by the time they came back I had a better idea.
"I know where you can get twenty thousand in small bills. In a sack, ready to go, unmarked. Twenty thou. And I can have it delivered."
It was some time before DeLucca answered. He sensed a trick.
"How soon? And how many people you gotta visit?"
"One phone call and it's on its way. I don't have to see anybody, DeLucca, so you don't have to worry about me blowing it. But the deal is, you get the cash and we go free."
"The deal is like it was planned: we get the dough and Marty and Vince and your wife hole up in a motel room we've rented near here. You and me, we take the red car and drive away. Someplace deserted I let you out of the car and keep going… and you remember that your lovely wife is still in that motel room. They are not to touch her unless I say otherwise or unless the law comes in. Then she dies. But I get where I'm going safe, and I figure you haven't called any law, and if when I call this motel room everything is cool there, then, but only then, they tie your wife inna chair and wrap a hanky around her mouth and turn the TV up loud and leave. Got it?"
I nodded. So this was not a last-minute effort on their part.
They had planned it pretty carefully, perhaps arriving in town the night before and staying in the rented motel room, wherever it was. After I was released it would be perhaps an hour before I could reach a phone. Even then I would know that Mary wouldn't be left alone in the room until DeLucca gave the word to his confederates over the phone from God knows where. And he might not call them until late. In a way the plan made me breathe a little easier; it indicated that they did not want violence, only escape. For this they needed another car and cash- and they knew that I had both.
"Now where's this twenty grand? What bank?"
"No bank. It's at Dependable Messenger Service in Cambridge, in the safe."
"No it ain't. I know it ain't."
"Oh yes it is. When you burned that safe the money was out, sitting inside another strongbox. I had a hunch the place was going to get hit. But there's a new safe there now, and the money's back."
"Let's get to a phone," said Vince, "and see."
Before I went I demanded to see Mary, who looked fine, considering. I didn't know what Marty had done to her and for the time being didn't want to- I was afraid I would lose control and lunge at him and both Mary and I would get shot. They gave me definite instructions for the phone conversation, which I followed to the letter. It was rather brief. I told Sam I had a private problem. Private. He was to tell nobody about it, or else the problem would get a lot bigger immediately.