Bill Pronzini: The Snatch

“Completely.”

“Was there anything distinctive about it?”

“How do you mean?”

“Did he have an impediment, an accent, like that?”

“No, it was just an average voice.”

“Would you say the caller was educated?”

“I suppose so. His grammar seemed correct.”

“Did he let you talk to your son?”

“Just for a moment, yes.”

“Was the boy all right?”

“Yes, considering. He was frightened, of course.”

I sat back a little, pulling at the lobe of my ear. All of this could have meant something favorable, or it could have meant nothing at all. There are a lot of psychopathic personalities who are adequately educated, and who can be polite and imperative when it behooves them. But I liked it better with that kind of guy than I would have if he had been abusive or obscene, if he had twisted the boy’s arm, say, while he was talking on the phone, to let Martinetti know he meant business-that kind of thing.

I got slowly to my feet. “I don’t think there’s anything else I’ll need to know, Mr. Martinetti. If it’s all right with you, I’ll be down in the morning sometime to wait for the call with you.”

“I’d appreciate that, thank you.”

I got my wallet from my coat pocket and took out one of the plain white business cards with my home and office telephone numbers embossed on it. I put the card on the desk in front of him, next to the refolded kidnap note. “If anything happens,” I said, “or if you want to get in touch with me for any reason, call one of those two numbers. If I go anywhere else, I’ll leave word with the answering service that takes care of my office while I’m away.”

He nodded, touched the card with one squarely manicured forefinger, and quickly opened the center desk drawer again. He swept the card and the note into it, and extracted a large leather-bound checkbook. “Let me give you a retainer before you go,” he said. “Would five hundred dollars be all right for now?”

“Whatever you like,” I said.

He wrote quickly with a pen from the marble set, tore the check out, looked at it, and handed it across to me.

I put it in my wallet. We shook hands. Channing was on his feet, too, and I shook hands with him again. He hadn’t said a word since his firm disinclination to have anything to do with the ransom drop, and I wondered what kind of things were going around inside that large and ingenious head of his. I did not think I would care for them, whatever they were.

Martinetti motioned to Proxmire, looked at me, and said, “Dean will show you out.”

“Fine.”

“I’ll expect you in the morning, then.”

I nodded, watched him sit heavily in the executive’s chair and stare with brooding intensity at the glass of liquor on his desk, and then I turned and went over to where Proxmire was waiting by the double-doored entrance.

We went out, and he closed the door. I took a couple of steps along the hall, and he caught my arm lightly and looked at me with eyes that were filled with a liquid fervency. He wanted to say something, but he didn’t quite know how to go about it. He bulged his lower lip with his tongue, getting the words arranged. Finally he said, “You’ll be very careful, won’t you? When you deliver the money? You’ll do exactly what you’re supposed to do?”

“Did you expect me to start a running gun battle with whoever comes after it?” I said mildly.

He looked a little shocked. “I didn’t mean … Well, you have a very fine reputation, of course. I just thought that … oh God, I don’t know what I thought. I’m sorry. Listen, I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

“I’m upset, that’s all,” Proxmire said. “The boy and I are very close, you see. He’s almost like-well, we’re very close.”

“I understand.”

“I don’t want anything to happen to him.”

“He’ll come home okay,” I said, putting more assurance in my voice than I felt. “You have to count on that.”

“I don’t like the idea of paying a ransom,” Proxmire said. “We’re placing our complete trust in a kidnapper, somebody who preys on children, for God’s sake! I told Martinetti that the police should be notified. I still think they should.”

“It’s his son,” I said quietly. “And his decision.”

“Yes. Yes, I … I know.”

We went along the hallway and I took my hat off the table, turning toward the door. In that moment I saw the woman standing in the doorway leading to the living room. There were lights on in there now, diffused and amber, and she had a glass in her hand that was half filled with some colorless liquid that might have been water or something considerably stronger. She was leaning against the jamb, as if her legs were too weak to support the full weight of her.

She was maybe thirty, with good breasts and strong hips and the kind of hourglass waist that a big man would have taken pride in spanning with both his hands. Her hair was blond, worn shoulder-length and flipped under at the bottom the way Doris Day used to have hers in those movies with Rock Hudson. Sensuous would be the proper descriptive adjective for her mouth, even void of lipstick as it was at the moment, and tiny dimples attractively centered each of her cheeks. At some other time she might have been almost beautiful, but there was an unhealthy gray pallor to her face now, a glazed, little-girl-lost quality to the azure-blue eyes. She wore a thin paisley-print dress, and her legs and feet were bare.

Proxmire said, “Karyn!” and went to her and touched her shoulder timorously, solicitously. He took the glass out of her hand, looked at it, wet his lips, and carried it a few steps into the living room and put it down on an end table next to a long couch. She made no protest. Her eyes were on me, with a kind of dull comprehension in them.

Proxmire came back and said, “You ought to be in bed, Karyn. The sedative-”

“Oh, damn the sedative,” she said dully, and left the doorway and walked unsteadily over to where I stood. She was not drunk; it was pain and fear that caused her shakiness, and the two emotions were alive and volatile inside her.

She stopped a foot away from me, and her tormented eyes roamed my face. “You’re the detective Louis called, aren’t you?” she asked in a flat, toneless voice.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m Karyn Martinetti, Gary’s mother.”

I did not know what to say to her. I shifted my feet awkwardly, nervously. I had never been any good in a situation like this, facing misery and grief, and that was just one of the dozen or so reasons which had made up my long-range decision to leave the cops. If I could have done it in the least charitably, I would have pushed past her to the door and gotten out of there. I thought: If she starts to cry, I’ll do it anyway.

She said, “Will you help us get my son back?”

Proxmire came to my aid then, and I felt better toward him than I had a few moments earlier. He put his arm tenderly around Karyn Martinetti’s shoulders, and she seemed to lean against him as she had leaned against the doorjamb.

Proxmire said, “He’s agreed to deliver the ransom money for us, Karyn. He’ll come again tomorrow to wait with Louis for the call.”

She nodded numbly. “Thank you,” she said, and her eyes were still restless on my face.

I had the disquieting, ridiculous feeling that she wanted to kiss my cheek or my hand. I edged toward the door. “I’d better be going now,” I said.

“Of course, goodbye,” Proxmire said, and his expression added that he knew how I felt. I wondered if he really did. He turned the woman gently away and led her toward the stairs, his head dipped toward her, whispering against her ear. I watched him start her up the stairs, with her moving like an automaton, and then I got the door open and stepped quickly outside.