Evan Hunter - Every Little Crook and Nanny

“It was really exciting, Martin,” he said aloud. “ Vraiment émouvant , if you take my meaning.”

In fact (and he had to admit this because if there was one thing Luther admired about himself, it was his uncompromising honesty), the Ganucci grounds and house had been the most exciting part of the entire adventure. He had never been to a place as exuberantly gauche as the Ganucci homestead, but then what could one expect of a man who had made his fortune bottling and selling soft drinks in the Midwest? To each his own, certainly, but there was hardly anything creative about such a pursuit, and Luther should not have been surprised to find the millionaire’s mansion a baroque monstrosity that dominated acres of rolling green lawn and...

“How would you put that, John?” Luther asked aloud. “Virid mead? Hát nézd, tulajdonképp nem számít, John,” he said, lapsing into Hungarian. “ A stilusod kifogástalan, a képeid érzékletesek, a kritikai érzéked megtámadhatatlan. ”

But the amazing thing about his response to the ugly old house was that he had been overwhelmed by the sheer luxury of it, the heady scent of moneyed exclusivity almost causing him to become dizzy as he pried open the sleeping lad’s window. All during the abduction, he experienced this same sort of giddy awareness of immense wealth, heightened by the knowledge that at least some of that wealth would soon accrue to him. Before he had stolen onto the grounds past the dozens of maples that stood like leafy sentinels (Nice, he thought, well put, Luther) on the lawn in front of Ganucci’s architectural horror, he had thought of asking no more than ten thousand dollars for the safe return of the boy. But on the way back to Manhattan, he had been unable to dispel the scent, the stink, the stench of millions and millions of dollars earned, for Christ’s sake, by bottling soft drinks when a truly creative person like himself strained so hard to earn the meanest living. It was then that he decided to raise the ante to twenty thousand dollars; his weeks of careful research were at least worth that much. By the time he got back to the West End Avenue apartment, however, the smell of money was so overpowering that he had to revise his note three more times, escalating the demand in ten-thousand-dollar jumps until he reached his final draft, wherein he set the ransom at $50,000.

His approach had been unorthodox, to say the least. He had first looked for an estate that appeared as though it might support the kind of family he hoped to victimize. (Well, victimize was perhaps too strong a word. It had never entered his head until this moment, as a matter of fact, and he rejected it at once. He intended no harm to the boy. All he expected was some reasonable recompense for his labor.) He had found Many Maples quite by chance, having drawn on an Esso map a circle with a radius of twenty-five miles, its center being New York City. He had explored Lower Westchester like a latter-day Richbell. Many Maples seemed perfect. Moreover, his discreet inquiries in town, at shops and gasoline stations, restaurants and cocktail lounges, boutiques and haberdasheries, garnered for him the information that Carmine Ganucci was one of the wealthiest men in the small community, a respected member of the school board and head of the Lions Club Ambulance Corps. But what interested Luther most was the fact that Carmine Ganucci had a ten-year-old son named Lewis.

The thing to do now (well perhaps not this instant, but certainly after lunch sometime — if he could get through soup) was to call the Ganucci mansion and ask them if they had got the money together. He would then say they would be contacted again to let them know when and where he wished the money delivered.

Luther was feeling good.

“I think I’ll have a drink, John, Martin, what do you say?” he asked aloud. He went to the bar opposite the bookcase and began mixing himself a very strong martini. The way he looked at it (and this was what made him feel so good), if he couldn’t be as successful a critic as Simon or Levin, he could certainly be a successful kidnaper instead.

And that was most assuredly the next best thing.

It was almost three P.M. before Benny got downtown to Forty-second Street.

He had left Many Maples at noon, and then had driven to Harlem to pick up the work, which had taken longer than he’d expected because a man insisted he had put fifty cents on number 311 yesterday and that was the number that had come in, whereas Benny had the word of the collector himself that the number played was 307, not 311, a common enough mistake, seven-eleven being the ritual chant of dice players and gamblers everywhere.

The number, of course, had only been written down a half-hour after the bet was placed, it being the habit of policemen (suspicious by nature) to assume automatically that if a man had several dozen policy slips in his pocket, he was engaged in the policy or numbers racket. The bet had been placed by Walter Anziano, a nice enough old man in his seventies, who had been playing the numbers since he first arrived in America from Palermo fifty-three years ago, fifty cents a day every day of the week, and who had hit only once in all that time, for the amazing sum of three hundred dollars.

Benny did not like to lose a steady customer like Walter Anziano. So he told the old man that there had apparently been some mixup, but that a check of yesterday’s work had revealed a slip of paper in the collector’s handwriting with the numerals 307-50 on it, meaning that Anziano had bet fifty cents on 307, not 311. The collector claimed he had written down the number as soon as he’d got off the street, and that he was certain Anziano had said 307, so it was now a matter of the collector’s word against Anziano’s. In any event, Benny informed the old man that they could not pay off. However, Benny was willing to give Anziano a free fifty-cent ride every day for the next week, if only to show the good will of himself and his fellows, an offer the old man grudgingly accepted only after having been plied with four shots of Four Roses in a local bar. It had been the entertainment of Walter Anziano that had occupied most of the afternoon, while little Lewis was in the hands of some cheap hoods who were undoubtedly maniacs or worse. Benny could not think of anyone but maniacs kidnaping the son of Carmine Ganucci.

He had agreed with Nanny that the matter should not come to Ganooch’s attention in any way, manner, or form, because whereas it was nice weather for swimming, it would be difficult indeed to effect a splendid crawl while wearing cement blocks. The best way to keep the matter from Ganooch was to make certain that none of the fellows higher up found out about it. And the best way to make certain of that was to pay those crazy maniacs the fifty grand at once. Which was why Benny was so anxious to talk to the Corsican Brothers.

Vinny and Alfred were just beginning their famous amazing dancing doll act when Benny finally caught up with them. Alfred, the younger of the twins by fourteen hours, winked at him as he approached, and then launched into his monologue, the prelude to a choreographic masterpiece.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I know you are all hurrying home to your loved ones after a hard day’s work, but if you’ll grant me just a minute of your time, I think I can show you something wonderful to bring home to the wife or kiddies. I have here in this carton you see here at my feet, a limited amount of amazing dancing dolls which cost only fifty cents each and which when you see them perform I am sure you will agree are worth ten times that amount. There are no mechanical parts on these dolls, they are easily folded for carrying in pocket or purse, and they will continue to delight your loved ones, friends, neighbors, and all and sundry who witness their remarkable performance. If I can have one moment more of your valuable time, I am going to take one of these amazing dancing dolls out of the box here and show you what it can do.”