Ed McBain - Alice in Jeopardy

“Hello?”

“Get the money by this afternoon at three,” Christine says. “We’ll call then with instructions.”

“Wait!”

“What? Fast!”

“How do I know they’re still alive? Send me a Polaroid picture of the two of them holding today’s Tribune. ”

“What?”

“Send it Fed Ex.”

“You’re dreaming,” Christine says.

The sweep hand on her watch has ticked off twenty seconds.

“I’ll call you at three,” she says.

“Are my children all right? Let me speak to Ashley, ple—”

Christine hangs up.

“Twenty-five seconds this time,” Marcia says.

Sloate is already on the new phone link to the Public Safety Building downtown. Alice listens as he tells his commanding officer that they’ve had no luck with a trace. He tells him the woman is demanding the money by three this afternoon. The big grandfather clock in the hallway now reads twenty minutes to one.

“So what do we do?” he asks. “We’ve got till three o’clock.”

“Let me think on it,” Steele says, and hangs up.

Alice is pacing the room. She whirls on Marcia, where she is sitting behind her equipment. “Why haven’t you been able to trace the calls yet?” she asks.

“She’s never on the line long enough,” Marcia says.

“We can put men on the moon, but you can’t trace a damn call coming from around the corner!”

“I wish it was just around the corner. But we don’t know where she’s—”

“I don’t want you here!” Alice shouts. “I want you all out of here! I’ll handle this alone from now on. Just get out! None of you knows what the hell you’re doing, you’re going to get my children killed!”

“Mrs. Glendenning…”

“No! Just get out of here. Take all your stuff and leave. Now! Please. Get out. Please. I’m sorry. Get out.”

“We’re staying,” Sloate says.

She is ready to punch him.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Glendenning,” he says, “but we’re staying.”

And then, infuriating her because it reminds her again of her father when he used to take a razor strop to her behind, “It’s for your own good.”

When Rafe arrives at a quarter past one that afternoon, Alice has no choice but to tell him what’s going on. He looks as if he doesn’t believe her. Doesn’t believe these are detectives here. Doesn’t believe her kids are missing, either. Thinks this is all some kind of afternoon pantomime staged for his benefit. Stands there like a big man who needs a shave and a drink both, which he tells Alice he really does need if all she’s telling him is true. She pours him some twelve-year-old scotch from a bottle Lane Realty gave her at Christmastime. The other brokers all got bonuses, but she hadn’t sold a house yet. Still hasn’t, for that matter.

“What happened to your foot?” Rafe asks, noticing at last.

“I got hit by a car.”

“Did you report it?” he says.

“Not yet,” she says.

My kids have been kidnapped, she thinks, and everybody wants to know if I reported a goddamn traffic accident.

She takes him into the kitchen, and searches in the fridge for something she can give him to eat.

“You tell Carol about this?” he asks.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“My kids are in danger.”

“She’s your sister.”

“This okay?” she asks, and offers him a loaf of sliced rye, a wedge of cheese, and a large hunk of Genoa salami.

“You got mustard?” he asks.

“Sure.”

“You should call her,” he says.

“Let’s see what happens here, okay?”

“She’s your sister,” he says again.

“When it’s over,” she says.

“You got any wine?”

She takes an opened bottle of Chardonnay from the fridge, hands him a glass. In the living room, Sloate is on the phone again with his captain. She wanders out there to see if she can learn anything, but there is nothing new. Three o’clock seems so very far away. When she comes back into the kitchen, Rafe is just finishing his sandwich.

“You’re out of wine,” he tells her, and shakes the empty bottle in his fist. “Have you got a spare bedroom? I’ve been driving all night.”

She shows Rafe the children’s empty bedroom. Twin beds in it, one on either side of the room. Rafe looks insulted by the size of the beds, big man like him. But he finally climbs into one of them, clothes and all.

Alice goes into her own bedroom, and climbs into bed, thinking she will take a nap before three, be ready for whatever may come next.

In an instant, she is dead asleep.

The nightmare comes the way it always does.

The family is sitting at the dinner table together.

It is seven-thirty P.M. on the night of September twenty-first last year; she will never forget that date as long as she lives.

Eddie is telling her he feels like taking the Jamash out for a little moonlight spin. The Jamash is a 1972 Pearson sloop they bought used when they first moved down here to the Cape. It cost $12,000 at a time when Eddie was still making good money as a stockbroker, before Bush got elected and things went all to hell with the economy. They named it after the two kids, Jamie and Ashley, the Jamash for sure, a trim little thirty-footer that was seaworthy and fast.

But Eddie has never taken her out for a moonlight spin without Alice aboard, and this has always required making babysitter plans in advance.

“Just feel like getting out on the water,” he tells her.

“Well… sure,” she says, “go ahead.”

“You sure you don’t mind?”

“Just don’t take her out on the Gulf,” she says. “Not alone.”

“I promise,” he says.

From the door, as he leaves the house, he yells, “Love ya, babe!”

“Love ya, too,” Alice says.

“Love ya, Daddy!” Ashley yells.

“Love ya,” Jamie echoes.

In the Gulf of Mexico the next morning, an oil tanker spots the boat under sail, moving on an erratic course, tossing aimlessly on the wind.

They hail her, and get no response.

When finally they climb down onto the deck, there is no one aboard.

Alice gets the phone call at ten that morning.

She screams.

And screams.

The telephone is ringing.

She climbs out of bed, rushes into the living room. The grandfather clock reads ten minutes to two. Sloate already has the earphones on.

“She’s early,” he says.

Marcia is behind her tracing gear now.

Sloate nods.

Alice picks up.

“Hello?” she says.

“Listen,” the woman says. “Just listen.” And then, in a stage whisper, “Tell her you and your brother are okay, that’s all. Nothing else.” And then, apparently handing Ashley the phone, she says, “Here.”

“We’re both okay,” Ashley says in a rush. “Mom, I can’t believe it!”

“ What can’t…?”

“Do you remember Mari—?”

The line goes dead.

“Who’s Marie?” Sloate asks at once.

“They’re alive,” Alice says. “My children…”

“Do you know anyone named Marie?”

“No. Did you hear her? They’re both okay!”

“Or Maria?”

“I don’t know. They’re alive !”

“Fifteen seconds this time,” Marcia says.

“Marie? Maria?”

“I don’t know anyone named—”

“A relative?”

“No.”

“A friend?”

“No. My children are alive. How are you going…?”

“Someone who worked for you?”

“…to get them…?”

“Marie,” he insists. “Maria. Think !”

“ You think, damn it! They’re alive! Do something to—”

And suddenly the knowledge breaks on her face.