John Creasey - Send Superintendent West

Still nothing happened.

He clenched his fist and banged again, and when no one answered, he turned the handle and pushed the door. It opened. Would Gissing leave it unfastened? Would he let him walk in, like this? Were the watching eyes and the menacing demons all in his imagination? Was the house empty, and the Shawn child gone?

He stepped straight into a low-ceilinged room. The windows were small, and the light poor. The room was crowded with old furniture, and a spinning-wheel stood in one window with a chair drawn up beside it, as if some old woman had been working there only a few minutes ago.

Doors led to the right and left. He went towards that on the left, with his hands in sight, and his face clear of expression, all his fears held on a tight leash. He was prepared for anything — even for the voice which came from behind him.

“Don’t move,” a man said.

24

TERMS

He heard footsteps behind him, and he steeled himself for whatever would come next. For a moment he heard heavy breathing, as hands touched his sides and ran over his body, feeling for guns in pockets or in a shoulder-holster. He carried none. The breathing was hot on the back of his neck, and then coolness followed as the man backed away.

“Okay, just move forward, up them two steps.”

These steps led into a dining-room, a room almost as crowded with furniture as the first He had been here for five minutes, and Marino wouldn’t give him a second beyond his half hour.

“Turn right, and up the stairs,” the unseen man ordered. It sounded like McMahon.

The stairs led off a small hall, a flight of narrow, steep steps covered with carpet. He steadied himself by the handrail. The stairs creaked, and one tread sagged badly.

“Room on the right.”

He turned right

He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. Ricky lay on a bed in a corner of a narrow room, exactly as he had been at Webster’s house — only more frightened, much more frightened. But at least he was alive.

Roger paused, steadied, then went into the room. He forced himself to smile without strain, raised a hand to the boy, and spoke in a voice that surprised him by its calmness.

“Hallo, Ricky. Glad to see you again.”

The child lay staring, without moving a muscle, but his eyes, his father’s eyes, seemed to burn as savagely as his father’s, with an animal fear.

“We’ll soon have you free,” Roger said.

“That’s right,” Gissing said. “You will.”

He was behind Roger, but the voice was unmistakable, he was here in person.

“You will soon have him free,” Gissing said. “It will cost you something, that’s all. It will cost Uncle Sam half a million dollars. It’s cheap at the price. They’ll have the kid’s father back as well as the kid. Half a million dollars, West, I’ll settle for that. Turn round.”

•     •     •

Roger turned slowly.

Half a million dollars. It was only a set of figures, and it meant just one thing: that Gissing was prepared to come to terms. There was a chance to fight for Ricky’s life.

Gissing stood in the doorway. Jaybird leaned against the wall, his mouth working as he chewed, a gun held casually in his big right hand. He seemed to look at Roger through his lashes.

Gissing wore exactly the same clothes and the same cotton gloves. A bruise on his right cheek showed red and swollen, even in the poor light. He held his head up, the narrow, pointed chin thrust forward, and he looked as full of confidence as he had been at Webster’s house.

“You heard me,” he said.

“Only half a million,” Roger said dryly. “You’ve had a hundred thousand from Shawn. Isn’t that enough?”

“Half a million,” Gissing repeated, “or I kill the kid and hang his body out of the window. I know Marino’s got his men round the house, Pullinger didn’t fool him. I know what happened on the road, I’ve had a telephone message. I know Marino has given you a chance to save the kid, and you think you’re so smart that you can do it, but only one thing can do it, West. Half a million dollars.” He opened his thin mouth and laughed in the back of his throat. “I’m holding up Uncle Sam now, Shawn hasn’t got enough for me. Can’t you see the joke?”

Roger didn’t speak.

Gissing changed his tone. “We won’t waste time.” He looked past Roger to the child, could see the terrified eyes, and seemed to wring sadistic satisfaction out of repeating: “If Marino doesn’t persuade Uncle Sam to pay, I’ll hang the kid out of the window, by the neck. Once that happens Marino can say goodbye to Shawn. It depends how badly he needs the man. Go and tell him, West. You can be useful that way. You ought to be dead!”

“Why did you leave me alive?”

“Jaybird thought I’d finished you off. I thought he had. But it was too late at Webster’s place.” How clearly that betrayed the panic they had been in. Even now, Roger sweated at the hair’s breadth between life and death. “Tell Marino something else,” Gissing went on. “If he moves his men in, he can write the kid and Shawn off. The only chance he’s got is to withdraw the guard and come to terms. There isn’t any other way.”

Roger said: “And I’m to tell him that?”

“You can go back as free as you came, and tell him just that.” Gissing laughed at the back of his throat again. “You came to find out the terms, didn’t you, West? Now you know. Marino will play because he can’t afford to lose Shawn. We needn’t waste any more time.”

After a pause, Roger said slowly: “I’ll tell him, but he’ll want more than Ricky. He’ll want to know if you’re working for anyone, he’ll want to know how you got your information — how you learned I was coming here, how you knew about the gold identity tag. Was it Fischer?”

“After I’ve got the money I’ll tell him everything he wants to know,” said Gissing. The full story of how one decadent Englishman held up the great Uncle Sam.” He laughed, and raised his hands. “Don’t waste any more time.”

Roger moved back, sat on the foot of the boy’s bed and smiled up into Gissing’s face. There was no window near the bed, and little danger, so Roger hoped, of broken glass hurting the child. As Roger had guessed, this move wasn’t at all what Gissing expected, and his show of confidence began to wear thin. At heart, Roger knew, Gissing must realize that the odds were all against him, that his best hope was to get away alive.

“Decadent’s right for you,” Roger said. “And dumb. You haven’t got even any commonsense left. You want Marino to play, but you ought to know that Marino’s big worry is whether there’s a power behind this kidnapping, a power which wants Shawn put out of action. Who’s the money for? If it’s for yourself, then he might play. I don’t say he will, but he might If you can convince him that it’s just a ransom racket, it will take a big load off his mind, but if he thinks that there’s a hostile power in the offing, he’ll worry about breaking up this spy-ring first and worry about Shawn afterwards. Who are you working for, Gissing? Don’t waste any time, because Marino gave me an hour.”

Would Gissing believe that?

Fifteen minutes had passed; at least fifteen.

Gissing said roughly: “So he gave you a time limit.” He tried to laugh, but it didn’t come off. He looked at his wrist-watch swiftly, then moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. “I’ll tell you the size of it,” he went on. “No one’s behind it except me. Just me. The kid was easy. We doped him, and when he came round on the way to the airport, he was helpless with tiredness. McMahon doped him again on the aircraft, he was half asleep when they got off at Ganda. I knew Shawn would pay for him. Then I found out what Washington thought of Shawn. They can pay, too. I was over here on business when I discovered it. I had a spy in Shawn’s household.”

“Who?”

Gissing moistened his lips again, then shrugged the question away. There was no reason why that should jolt Roger’s mind into an idea which grew big, crowding a lot of other things out, but it did. It was an idea he’d had before but not so clearly.

“Who paid you that hundred thousand, Gissing?”

“You’d like to know. I’ll tell you this: Ed Pullinger located me and sold me the idea of holding up Uncle Sam. I did the deal because a spy in the FBI would always be useful, but for this job I raised the ante.

“I had used Americans to work for me because I wanted Marino to believe that he was dealing with renegade Americans. In London, you caught on to the car and on to me quicker than I thought you would. Things took a bad turn. Ed cracked and had to go. But I had the boy, so I could make Shawn do what I wanted. That way I held all the aces, and I’ve still got them in my hand. There isn’t any spy-ring. Ed Pullinger simply needed money, and I’m going to get plenty. I’m still sitting pretty.” He flashed his watch again. “Go and tell Marino what will happen to that kid, West.”

There couldn’t be more than five minutes to go, but even when believing there was thirty-five, Gissing was nervous.

“So you were that clever,” Roger said heavily. “You snatched the son of a man whom Washington would fight like hell for, which would bring out the FBI in force. Brilliant reasoning. Why bring Ricky here? Why take that chance in getting him out of England? Why did you want him in the United States so badly?”

Gissing said harshly: “Haven’t you got a mind? I wanted dollars. Shawn couldn’t pay in dollars in England. I wanted to come over here, things were hotting up for me in Europe. There was a chance to get myself a dollar fortune. I didn’t know how important Shawn was when I started, only that he was rich.”

The story could answer most things, but it left something out; the spy in the Shawn household — one who would help Gissing but hadn’t told him how important Shawn was.

An aeroplane droned, not far away, and was drawing nearer.

Gissing snapped: “That’s all! Go and tell Marino about that half-million.”

He didn’t expect to get it, of course, now he was just fighting for a chance to escape. He should have been satisfied with the money he’d got from Shawn, but greed had trapped him. He must have known he was finished but would not admit it.

The aeroplane seemed directly overhead.

There was another sound, of something coming down, a screeching, threatening whine which spanned the years, took Roger back to moments when he’d crouched or dived for cover. Gissing also knew the sound, and glanced upwards, mouth open. Jaybird looked puzzled. Roger braced himself.

The screech ended in a thunderous roar, the house shook, glass splintered and stabbed across the room, two pieces stuck into Gissing’s face, a piece cut the tip of Jaybird’s nose. That was the moment when Roger sprang. Getting the gun was like taking a toy from a child. He put a bullet through the gunman’s knee and one into Gissing’s chest, too high to kill. Then all he had to do was shield Ricky’s body and watch the door, gun in hand. He kept talking to the boy, trying desperately to calm the tormented mind, and was still trying when Marino’s men came racing up the stairs.

•     •     •

Marino did not miss a thing.

Immediately after the raiding party came an ambulance with two nurses, and the child was taken by the nurses and whisked away, to the balm of sedation. Afterwards there could be peace for him and freedom from torment and reunion. Or there could be more distress.

The news about Lissa was good; she was no longer in danger.

Marino sat in the Lincoln, watching his men come out with their prisoners; three, as well as Gissing, Jaybird and McMahon. The bomb had landed twenty yards away from the house. One corner had been shattered by blast, and there wasn’t a whole window left. A small fire had started from an oil-stove in the kitchen, but it was out already. The boy had gone, and Gissing was being carried on a stretcher towards a second ambulance. Marino looked away from the house towards the man, then up at Roger.

He’d heard the story; he didn’t know about Roger’s idea — his guess, his theory.

“And you believed Gissing,” he said, thoughtfully.

“It could be true,” Roger said. “If Pullinger has a voice left, you can check with him. It would answer most things, wouldn’t it? You don’t want a spy angle, do you? You know where the leakage was in your department, and the only worry you have is about the leakage in the household, because that will matter to Shawn.”

Marino fingered his chin; his knuckles were bruised. Gissing was in the ambulance and the engine started.

“Meaning Carl Fischer? I’ve known Carl a long time.”

“You’d known Pullinger a long time,” argued Roger. “Don’t forget your big worry will be convincing David Shawn that it won’t happen again.”

“We could convince David,” Marino said, “but it won’t be so easy with Belle.”

Roger looked at him levelly, and knew that they hadn’t been thinking along parallel lines; if his guess were right, it would take Marino completely by surprise. Was it a guess? It was all circumstantial evidence, but he’d begun many a successful murder hunt on less. He could think more clearly now, but he hadn’t much time.

“Do we have to stay here?” he asked.

“No, I’ll come back and have a look later,” said Marino. “We’ll go into Trenton. I’ve had a man call David, he and Belle will be at Trenton as fast as an aeroplane can bring them. Get in, Roger.”

Roger got into the back of the car, and the driver, who seemed never to say a word, started off. Several men waved. A crowd had gathered near the creek, thirty or forty people whose ranks were swelling every minute. Marino seemed hardly to notice them, and did not speak until they were on the road and driving past the restaurant. Then he turned his head as far as he could turn it with comfort

“You don’t talk enough,” he said. “I know how you feel about Lissa. I also know you for a man who won’t make a fool of himself. You suspected Lissa once, in spite of the way you felt, but you can’t suspect her now. We know there was someone besides Pullinger, we know it wasn’t Lissa, so we shall have to have a talk with Carl Fischer, and I’m not going to like it You agree?” He was almost aggressive.

“You could talk with someone else.” mo?”

“Someone who knew about that damaged corner of the gold identity tag. Someone who once had a fortune and lost it Someone who could torment a man she was supposed to love, who stayed married to him because of his money, and whom money would have set free. Someone who did her devilish best to make her husband turn against her, because if he gave her freedom he’d give her money to make it real But he wanted her too much. Someone who could fly into a rage and shout and scream and claw at her husband’s face — and then calm down as if a tap had been turned off. Someone who could pick up that money and pass part of it on, keeping the rest for herself — to live on when she left her husband.”

Marino strained his neck to look round, opened his mouth as if to cry: “No!” but didn’t speak.

“The one woman who could influence Shawn enough to make him turn his back on working for you and all it meant,” Roger went on. “Who was already making life hell for him, and would listen to anyone else who would help her get free. Someone she didn’t love, but hated.”