Ross Thomas: No Questions Asked

“I’ve noticed,” I said.

“Yeah, well, it’s not mine. And that’s why Marsh is gonna come out of this okay, because he doesn’t know what we look like or talk like or even where he is. So let’s stop worrying about him and start worrying about doing some business.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m ready to start worrying when you are.”

“You know where Haines Point is?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I think so.”

“It’s at the end of that long, skinny park that goes out into the Potomac just sort of south and east of the tidal basin. On one side’s the Potomac. On the other side’s the Washington Channel.”

“Okay. I’ve got it.”

“At midnight we want you to drive to the very tip of Haines Point in a Ford sedan. You can rent one.”

“All right.”

“Over to the right will be either a green or a blue Chevy Impala, and don’t worry about memorizing its license because we haven’t stolen it yet.”

“I won’t bother then.”

“Good. Now we want you to go past the Chevy about fifty feet and park. All you have to do is just sit there, except that you gotta get out once and go around and unlock your trunk because that’s where the money’s gonna be. Then you get back in your car. You got it?”

“You’re doing fine.”

“Somebody will get out of the Chevy, go over to your car, put the book in the trunk, and take the money out. Then they’ll go back to the Chevy. You can get out and check that the book’s there. Then we just want you to get back in your car again and sort of wander away. How do you like it?”

“I can see that you’ve put a lot of thought into it,” I said. “But there’re a couple of little things that bother me.

“Such as?”

“Such as I’m buying, not selling. That means I’d like to inspect the merchandise before I part with the money. So why don’t we just reverse the procedure? You leave your trunk open with the book in it. I’ll park fifty feet behind you and make sure it’s the book I want and not just some old copy of Wind in the Willows . If it’s what I want, I’ll put the money in your trunk and then go back to my car. I’ll be fifty feet away and it’ll be dark. I won’t be able to see who gets out of your car and goes around to make sure that I’ve left the money. After that, I’ll take your suggestion. I’ll just sort of wander away.”

There was a silence on the telephone, and finally the high voice said, “All right, we’ll do it your way. There’s not much difference anyhow.”

“I’ve got one more little problem,” I said.

“What?”

“Jack Marsh. I’d like to get him back along with the book.”

“Yeah, well, I’m afraid Jack’s gonna have to be our ace. If everything goes just like we talked about, well, we’ll turn Jack loose someplace and make sure he’s got cab fare, and he’ll show up about one or maybe two tomorrow morning. But we’ve gotta keep Jack around just to make sure that you don’t try anything cute, or the cops don’t, or even the FBI like you were talking about. If everything cracks out like it’s supposed to, then Jack’s gonna be okay. If it doesn’t and you try something funny, well, maybe you get one of us, but Jack’s gonna be in real bad trouble. You got it?”

“I’ve got it,” I said.

“Swell,” the voice said. “Midnight tonight.” After that, the phone went dead, and I hung up.

Before I could tell Spivey what had been said there was a knock on the door. I went over and opened it. It was the room service waiter with the coffee. He came in with a cheery good morning, put the tray on the desk, and presented me with the bill. I signed it and added a tip, and the waiter left.

“How do you like your coffee?”

“Black.”

I poured two cups and handed Spivey one of them. “They’re going to keep Marsh as insurance,” I said. “When they get the money, they’ll turn him loose. They say.”

“What do you think?”

I put a spoonful of sugar into my coffee and stirred it. “I don’t know. They said that he doesn’t know what they look like. That means that they’re two of them, I suppose. Maybe three. We don’t know much about any of it really. For instance, we don’t know how they got Marsh. Maybe they jumped him from behind and banged him over the head before he got a look at them. After that maybe they blindfolded him, or put a sack over his head, and stuck him away in a room someplace, and the only time they talked in front of him was when they changed their voices.”

Spivey didn’t say anything for a moment. He seemed to be thinking. “They wouldn’t have to talk to him, would they? I mean all they’d have to say is, ‘Here,’ when they gave him some food. Or, ‘There,’ when they let him go to the John.” The thought seemed to cheer Spivey up. “What I mean is that maybe it’s just as they say. Maybe they can afford to let him go because he knows fuck all about what they look like or sound like or who they are.”

“Or maybe that’s just what they want us to think,” I said.

Spivey stared at me and then nodded. “You mean just to make us go ahead with the deal?”

“That’s right. Kidnappers are weird. They’re not like other thieves. Kidnappers steal people, which means that they’re usually more emotionally and mentally screwed up than your ordinary thief. When your ordinary thief steals something — especially money — then that’s the end of it. If it’s not money, then he has to fence it, but he does that through somebody who’s just as crooked as he is. Or sometimes he’ll sell it back to the owner, working through somebody like me. The owner’s very attached to whatever’s been stolen, or the insurance company wants to cut its losses, so they’re willing to pay to get it back and no questions asked. But a kidnap victim, unless it’s an infant, can remember what he saw, and he can tell about what he remembers. So, as often as not, the kidnap victim winds up dead.”

“So you still think Marsh has about a fifty-fifty chance?” Spivey said.

“About that. Unless we’re dealing with a new variety of kidnapper.”

“Well, are we?” he said. “I mean how do they seem to stack up with the ones you’ve dealt with before?”

I thought about it for a moment. “About average,” I said. “The switch they’ve suggested is simple. Sometimes they dream up extremely complicated ones that call for a dozen moves. The less experienced the thief, the more complicated the switch. So I think whoever we’re dealing with has had some experience and maybe that’s in Marsh’s favor. It probably is.”

Spivey finished his coffee. He held out his cup, and I poured him some more. “It could be really simple, couldn’t it?” he said. “I mean maybe it’ll be so simple that all you’ll have to do to earn your twenty-five thousand is take a little drive at midnight. Then you can come back here, and we can sit up and have a few drinks and wait for Marsh to drop by and join us. If that’s the way it’ll go, I can see why you’re in the business.”

“That’s how I have to think it will go,” I said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t do it.”

“But it doesn’t always go like that?”

“No.”

“Things happen, huh?”

“Sometimes,” I said. “Not often, but sometimes. They happen often enough to make what I do not an overly crowded field.”

“You carry a gun?”

“No.”

“I think if I were doing what you do, I’d carry one.”

“If you carry a gun, it should mean that you’re willing to shoot somebody.”

“And you’re not?”

“Not over money,” I said.

After finishing his second cup of coffee Spivey said he had to go back to his room to call his office and bring them up to date. After he left I finished reading the copy of Time that I had bought the night before. I even read the column that listed the editors and the writers and the researchers to see whether anyone I knew was still working for it. Nobody was, and I wondered why they had quit or if they had been fired and where they were working now.