Ed McBain - Alice in Jeopardy

“What is this man’s name?” the Avis lady asks.

“Woman. It’s a woman. A blonde woman. Hair about to here,” Charlie says, and with his finger shows her the length on his neck. “She’s supposed to pick up four of my paintings,” he says. “I sure wish you could help me, miss,” once again flashing his Come-Hither Lieutenant B. F. Pinkerton smile.

“What’s her name, this woman?”

“I have no idea,” Charlie says. “She’s just an independent contractor the gallery sent down.”

“Don’t they know her name?”

“It was arranged down here.”

“Where down here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, where’d they send her from? If she rented a car here at the airport, she had to be coming in on a plane, am I right?”

“I would guess so. Yes, you’re absolutely right.”

“Well, where was she coming from ? How can I locate a rental if I don’t have her name, which besides I’m not supposed to give out such information, anyway.”

“I know that, and it’s very kind of you to give me all this time. But if you could check your records for any blue Impalas you may have rented yesterday or the day before, anytime recently…”

“You know how many blue Impalas we rent every day?”

“How many?” Charlie asks.

“Plenty,” she says. “Also, these look like very big paintings here on these postcards. I doubt—”

“You can keep those if you like.”

“Thank you, they’re very pretty. But I doubt if they’d even fit in an Impala,” she says. “Four of them, no less. Are you sure she rented an Impala?”

“That’s what they told me. Miss, I’m gonna lose this sale unless I can locate her.”

“Don’t know how I can help you,” the Avis lady says.

Just try a little harder, Charlie thinks, but she has already turned away and is starting to talk to the next customer in line.

Rafe comes out of the bedroom at three-thirty.

“Don’t believe we’ve met,” he tells Sally, his glance idly coveting her chest.

“Who’s this?” she asks Sloate.

“The brother-in-law,” Sloate says.

“Rafe Matthews, nice to meet you.”

Sally merely nods. “What’s your plan?” she asks Sloate.

Sloate tells her. Show her the money. Send her for the kids. Make the exchange. Kids for money.

“She won’t go for it,” Sally says. “She’ll take the money and tell you they’ll let the kids go later, such and such a time, such and such a place. That’s the way they work it.”

“Well, we’ve worked it this way before,” Marcia tells her.

“When?”

“The Henley case. Three years back.”

Rafe is listening to all this.

“Must’ve been before our time,” Forbes tells Sally.

“One-on-one exchange,” Sloate says. “Money for the kids, kids for—”

“You sending Mrs. Glendenning out there alone?” Sally asks.

“We’ll be covering her.”

“You really going to hand over the ransom?”

“A cool two-fifty large,” Sloate says. “Supers,” he explains.

“They’ll tip,” Sally says.

“They didn’t three years ago.”

“That was three years ago. What if they tip now?”

The telephone rings.

“Keep her on,” Sloate says.

“Hello?”

“No deal,” the woman says. “Your kids die.”

And hangs up. “She’ll call back in a minute,” Marcia says.

But she doesn’t.

She does not call back until four-thirty.

“Do you want to see your kids alive ever again?” she asks.

“Yes. But please…”

“Then don’t try to make deals with me!”

“I’m not. I’m just trying to set up a reasonable exchange.”

“Who told you to say that?”

“Nobody.”

“Who gave you those words to say?”

“Nobody.”

“Who’s there with you?”

“Nobody, I swear.”

“I hear movement there.”

“No, you—”

“You’re lying!” the woman says, and hangs up.

“Shit!” Marcia yells.

The woman calls back again at five minutes past five.

“I’m getting confused,” Alice tells her. “If you keep hanging up, I can’t follow—”

“Because you’re trying to trace my calls!”

“No.”

“I hear clicking.”

Marcia shakes her head. No. There’s no clicking she can possibly hear. No.

“No one’s here with me,” Alice says. “No one’s trying to trace your calls. I have the money you asked for. I want my children back. Now let’s arrange a reasonable—”

“You’re on too long,” the woman says, and hangs up again.

Alice is on the edge of tears.

“You should never let a vic negotiate,” Sally says.

“They threatened to kill her children,” Sloate says.

“They always do,” Forbes says.

“But they hardly ever,” Sally adds.

Hardly ever, Alice thinks.

“These are not your children!” she shouts. “Nobody invited you into this house. You have no right—”

The phone rings again.

“Ask her to work out the exchange,” Sally says. “See what she has to suggest.”

Alice looks at her.

“Put the whole thing on her,” Sally says. “She’s the one wants the money.”

Their eyes meet.

“Believe me,” Sally says.

Alice picks up the phone.

“Will you be there at ten tomorrow or what?” the woman asks at once.

“How do I know I’ll get my children back?”

“You’ve got to take that chance.”

“Give me some way to trust you.”

“What do you want, girlfriend? A written guarantee?”

“Tell me what you’d suggest.”

“I suggest you leave the goddamn money in that stall!”

“Please help me,” Alice says. “I think you can understand why I can’t just hand over that kind of money without some sort of—”

“Then you want them dead, is that it?”

“I want them alive !” Alice screams.

But the woman has hung up again.

The backup from downtown arrives some twenty minutes later, driving directly into the garage and then coming into the house with a small black airline carry-on bag.

He is a soft-spoken black man who introduces himself as “Detective George Cooper, ma’am, excuse the intrusion.” He is carrying $250,000 in counterfeit money, and he asks her at once if she has her own bag to which he can transfer the bogus bills.

“What do you mean, bogus?” Rafe asks him.

“Who’s this?” Cooper asks Sloate.

“The brother-in-law,” Sloate says.

“Bogus, phony, false,” Cooper says. “Super-bills. Counterfeit.”

“I’ll be damned,” Rafe says.

Alice is back with a Louis Vuitton bag Eddie bought her for Christmas one year. Cooper is beginning to transfer the bills when someone knocks at the back door.

“Who the hell is that ?” Sloate asks, and looks at his watch.

“Is the captain sending another backup?” Marcia asks.

Cooper shakes his head no. He is busy moving bills from one bag to the other.

“I don’t want any more policemen here,” Alice says. “Tell them to go away.”

Sloate is already in the kitchen, unlocking the back door. A uniformed man is standing there.

“Sheriff’s Department,” he says. “Got a call from a neighbor saw the garage door going up and down, strange car pulling in, big truck parked outside. Everything all right here?”

“No problem, Sheriff,” Sloate says, and takes a leather fob from his pocket, and opens it to show his detective’s shield.

“What is it that’s happening?” the sheriff asks, puzzled, trying to peek into the living room, where there seems to be a lot of activity and some kind of electronic equipment set up.