Ed Mcbain: The Frumious Bandersnatch

“Here’s what we’re looking for,” Carella told a woman named Miss Young. She had no first name. Just Miss Young. “We’ve got an Avery Hanes living at 8412 Winston Road in Calm’s Point, for the year prior to this April first. And we’ve got…”

“Was that Winston as in Winston cigarettes?” Miss Young asked.

“As in Winston Churchill, yes,” Carella said. “And we’ve got a man named Calvin Wilkins, living at 379 Parrish Place in Calm’s Point, from just before Thanksgiving to around the same time, April first. That’s Parrish with a double-R.”

“And what is it you’re seeking, Detective?”

“List of phone calls made from each of those numbers in March. I want phone numbers, names and addresses.”

“You’ll need a court order for that.”

“That’s not my understanding. We’re not looking to put a pen register on those lines. In fact, the numbers are probably no longer in service. All I want is the numbers called and the names and addresses of the parties called. I’m sure you have those. If for billing purposes alone.”

“It’s my understanding that a court order…”

“Miss, we’re dealing with a kidnapping here. Any assistance you can give us…”

“One moment, please,” Miss Young said.

Carella waited.

“Miss Cole,” another voice said. “How may I help you, sir?”

Carella told her how she might help him.

“We’ll need a court order for that,” she said.

“There’s a certain urgency here,” Carella said.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“I’ll get back to you,” he said, and hung up.

It was now five minutes past eight. It would take him forty minutes to get downtown and another forty minutes to shake a judge out of a tree at that hour. By then, Tamar Valparaiso might be dead. He picked up the phone and dialed the number he had for the Joint Task Force downtown.

“Task Force,” a voice said.

“This is Carella,” he said. “Who’s this?”

“Special Agent Jakes.”

“I need some help, Jakes.”

THEY PULLED THELincoln in alongside and slightly to the rear of the Grand Cherokee Laredo they’d parked there earlier today. Cal threw up the hood of the Jeep and jump-started the vehicle. They were on their way again in three minutes flat, leaving the Lincoln with the key in the ignition in a neighborhood where “Your Money or Your Life” was a nursery rhyme. Avery figured if they had a little luck with traffic, they’d be at the beach house in half an hour or so. Then they’d return the girl and that was that.

End of story.

They never once considered the fact that an armed and dangerous person was in that house, and she was only twenty-four years old, and she had never in her life fired an AK-47.

“DETECTIVECarella?”

“Yes?”

“This is Miss Cole again.”

Carella looked at the clock on the squadroom wall. The time was eight-fifteen.

“I just got a call from an FBI agent named Randall Jakes,” Miss Cole said. “He faxed me a copy of a court order that would seem to cover the request you made. Do you have a fax machine there?”

He gave her the fax number.

Five minutes later, he had on his desk two separate lists of the calls Avery Hanes and Calvin Wilkins had made from their respective telephones during the month of March. Not surprisingly, many of the calls had been from Hanes to Wilkins or vice versa. From Wilkins’ number, there were half a dozen calls to Air Jamaica and American Airlines. From Hanes’ number there were a dozen or more calls to American, British Air, Virgin Atlantic, Delta, and Air France. There were calls to Capshaw Boats, the marina from which they’d rented the Rinker presumably used in the kidnapping. There were calls to a person named Benjamin Lu, whoever he might turn out to be. Almost every day in March, Hanes had called a party listed only as “Unpublished.” An asterisk at the top of the page explained: “AT THE CUSTOMER’S REQUEST, THIS NUMBER IS UNPUBLISHED.” In the month of March, Hanes had also made seven calls to a real estate agent in Russell County.

Carella pulled the phone to him and began dialing again.

BY EIGHT-TWENTY-SEVEN, he had dialed the number for Margaret Holmes Realty twice, on the off chance she’d been down the hall the first time. Concluding that she was closed for business at this hour, he dialed Information and told the operator he wanted a residential listing for a Margaret Holmes, as in Sherlock Holmes, in the town of South Beach, which was where the real estate office was located. The operator came back to say she had no listing under that name. He asked her to try all the towns in Russell County, and she said she couldn’t do that, she needed a specific town. He told her he was a police officer investigating a kidnapping, and she asked him to wait while she put a supervisor on the line. The supervisor told him he had to have a specific town, did he know how many towns there were in Russell County? It was eighty-thirty-three when Carella once again dialed the number he had for Special Assistance and asked for Miss Cole.

“I already faxed you those numbers,” she said. “Didn’t you get them?”

“Yes, I got them, Miss Cole,” he said, “and thank you so much for your assistance,” turning on the charm and wondering if he should read a little T. S. Eliot to her. “Miss Cole, I wonder if you can help me here again,” he said. “I need a home number for a Margaret Holmes, as in Sherlock Holmes, somewhere in Russell County, I don’t have a specific town, do you think you can help me? I would so appreciate it.”

“Hmm,” Miss Cole said.

But then she said, “One moment, please.”

THE NUMBERMiss Cole gave him rang four times before someone picked up.

“Hello?” a woman said.

“Miss Holmes?”

“ Mrs. Holmes, yes?”

“This is Detective Carella of the Eighty-seventh Squad? In the city?”

“Yes, Detective?”

“Are you the Margaret Holmes who runs Margaret Holmes Realty in South Beach?”

“I am,” she said.

“Mrs. Holmes, we have an Avery Hanes calling you some six times this past month. Is that name familiar to you?”

“It is.”

Carella took a deep breath.

“Did you rent or sell anything to him?” he asked.

“I rented him a house on the beach,” she said. “Why? What’s he done?”

THE PLAN WASto drop the girl off just anyplace. Give her some change to make a phone call, let her find her own way home, she was a big girl now. That was the way Ave had explained the plan to her.

They’d drop the girl off just anywhere on their way to the airport. Cal was supposed to be going to Jamaica, but they didn’t care where he went, they didn’t care if they ever saw him again as long as they lived. Ave was heading for London first, while Kellie herself flew to Paris where he would meet her later. It was a swell plan. Paris. Lah-dee-dah.

There was only one problem.

The girl had seen Kellie’s face.

Tamar Valparaiso still didn’t know who was behind those Saddam Hussein and Yasir Arafat masks, but she sure as hell knew that George W. Bush was a redheaded Irish girl with green eyes and freckles.

“You know,” Kellie confided now, “we’re supposed to set you free as soon as they get back.”

“Promises, promises,” Tamar said.

“No, really. That’s the plan. We leave here and drop you off someplace.”

“That would be nice,” Tamar said.

“Well, that’s the plan.”

“Good,” Tamar said.

She ached all over. Her face, her body, everywhere he’d hit her, but especially below, where he’d brutally entered her. Cal, she thought. His name is Cal. And the other one is Ave. You’ll pay, boys.

“You saw my face,” Kellie said out of the blue.