The Penny Ferry da-2 Page 23

  "I can't wait for the trip," she said, resting her head down on her forearms. "When do we leave? The third?"

  "Yep. Day before the Fourth of July. The Flight to Milan is out of New York, and I've heard the Tall Ships will be in the harbor…".

  "Good. Jeeez, I can't wait to get out of here for a while."

  I opened the swing-out, lead-pane windows and let the spring breeze in. Mary sighed.

  "At least it's just about over… this thing."

  "Yep," I said, and went to get a magazine. On the hall table I spotted a manila envelope with no writing on it. I opened it. Inside were some police circulars on Carmen DeLucca and some glossy photos of him. He had black eyes like a Gila monster. He did not look like a nice guy. Joe had left the envelope with us, probably by mistake. I pulled one of the big glossy prints out of the envelope and took it in to Mary. It would be interesting to see if she could recognize a mad-dog killer just by his face and eyes.

  She was slumped against the table, playing idly with her earring. She looked tired. I slid the photo in front of her. She glanced at it and looked up. -

  "Where'd you get that?"

  "Joe left it here. What do you think of it?"

  "It's a good photo. It's him all right. Joe works pretty fast."

  "What are you talking about? What do you mean, it's him?"

  "The guy who came to fix our furnace. I remember he had a bandaged hand, too."

  "Oh," I said, putting the photo away. Danny, our yellow Lab, raced into the room, his toenails clicking on the linoleum, and jumped up to the window, paws on the sill. He sniffed and began a low growl, the fur on his back rising in a dark patch.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I never left the house the next morning. He came in through the front door wearing a green jumpsuit. Mary thought he was the UPS man.

  "Charlie…?" I heard her call to me in a high, thin voice that wavered. I came around the hallway to see her standing straight up, as if stretching back, with a green arm around her neck and a small black gun pointing at the side of her head. But I wasn't looking at the gun; I was staring at the four-inch blade that extended down from the right fist of the green sleeve. The tip of the blade was pressed into the material of Mary's nightgown right over her left breast. The fist twitched. The knifepoint dipped into the soft fabric.

  Mary gave a yelp and a high, whining shudder.

  My knees began to shake and my mouth and throat felt numb and full of electric currents. My hair was moving.

  And from around in back of Mary's head of long black hair crept a face.

  I was expecting the black Gila-monster eyes, the black hair and wide face. But the face that glared at me with animal hate was not that one. And I was still rational enough to realize why: Mary would have recognized it. A blondish baby's face sat round and pink under the driver's cap.

  "Listen real good," it said quietly. "We see three dogs out back. Two big ones and a little one. Any more in here?"

  "No."

  We. He'd said we…

  "Now: anybody else in the house? Any kids, old folks? Anybody?"

  "No. We're alone."

  "Now you don't wanta lie."

  "We're alone I said."

  "Okay. Now where's the switch for those lights at the front door? Walk over to it but don't touch it."

  I did, and he walked Mary along until he was directly opposite me. She was looking at me and at the ceiling. Her eyes weren't focused, and her breath was coming in little whiny pants, like a dog crying.

  "Charlie? Ohhh…"

  He silenced her by a short, hard rap on the head with the barrel of the pistol. It must have hurt terribly. She clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. Tears rolled down her face. I wanted to kill the man. But I knew better than to move a muscle.

  "Now you flip it on while I count three, then you turn it off, hear?"

  I nodded, and flashed the light on for three seconds. Almost immediately afterward I heard a distant car door slam. Then footsteps on the gravel walk, and two men dressed in street clothes came in. The door had been left open, and they were inside in a hurry, shutting the door behind them.

  "Good morning everyone!" said the man with the wide hat. His right hand held an automatic. I couldn't see his face. Then his left hand went up and grabbed the hat brim. The hand was bandaged. The hat came off and we could all see him now.

  It was Carmen DeLucca. He stared at me, smiling. Then suddenly the smile dropped. The lizard eyes bored into mine.

  "Hear you been looking for me, Doctor Adams. Well, I saved you the trouble. You both do exactly as we tell you or you'll die."

  He walked farther into the hall, and motioned the third man to bring the large carton that had been the ruse for Mary to unfasten the chain bolt. He turned and looked at both of us again.

  "Matter of fact, you might just die anyway."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  It was now almost nine; an hour and a half had passed since the three hoods had forced their way into the house. It felt like a century and a half. Mary had become hysterical and Babyface had led her into the downstairs john, seated her on the toilet, and handcuffed her left wrist to the radiator pipe in there. The door was left open a few inches so we could all hear her. They had me in the living room, my right wrist handcuffed to the arm of a heavy desk chair.

  In the hour and a half I had phoned Susan Petri and announced that I was not coming in to the office. There was a two-second hesitation on the other end of the line- a pause that I'm sure was noticed by DeLucca, who listened in on the kitchen phone extension. But finally she had said fine and the conversation closed. Had she guessed that something was amiss? I did not think so. Damn.

  Through it all I sleepwalked as if in a dream, the trembling and electric buzzing clouding my senses and thinking. What was I happening was happening to someone else, not Charles and Mary Adams.

  The men had helped themselves to coffee and eggs. They rifled through the place- for a second time- and took clothes that fit them. Babyface slid outside fast to make sure our dogs were locked in their runs. The men put their tan Chevy in my garage and locked the doors, but only after they backed out our cars and switched their plates. The plates they took out of the big carton that Babyface had carried with him up to our door an hour and a half earlier. They took out the handcuffs first, then the license plates. They were New Jersey issue, and I knew they were what hoodlums call cold plates. Joe had told me cold plates were stolen but not used for several months so that their descriptions would not appear on police hot sheets.

  They were going to take our cars someplace. They were on the run.

  What about us? If pursuit was immediate, they would take us as hostages. If not, they would leave us tied up in our house and take off, buying themselves probably ten or twelve hours' time. Enough time to get to another big city and take a plane far, far away. Or they could decide not to leave us tied up.

  They could instead decide to kill us.

  And knowing Carmen DeLucca, who had killed so often he had nothing to lose, I knew this last possibility was real. And I didn't like it. Mary, seated in the semidark john and looking up through the red-print curtains, knew it too, and did not like it either. That's why she was crying and hysterical.

  It was not knowing what course they would take, and the complete powerlessness over it, that was so frightening. It was not only scary, it was exhausting. I was scared to death and weak and tired, all at once.

  And then DeLucca came into the room where I was handcuffed and asked me what I had done wish the strip of photo negatives.

  At quarter to ten I came to and looked down at the wires taped to my left forearm. DeLucca was good with wires and juice; he could set off gas bombs with them and make people unconscious from pain. I smelled singed hair and skin. Mine. And all because I couldn't answer his question.

  Then DeLucca and his gang said they were going to work on Mary until they got an answer. I could hear her saying "Don't- please don't," over and over a
gain. I knew if I ever got a chance to kill any one of the three I would do it. They came back and sat down and told me Mary was not injured.

  "Marty just got a little fresh with her, didn't you?"

  Babyface leered at me. I tried to lunge at him but was now tied into the chair with a strap. I felt like a marionette. I swore at him until he cracked me across the mouth with the back of his list. I didn't mind the pain; it seemed to wake me up.

  "Okay," said DeLucca. "So you don't have it and don't know where it is. I didn't think you did, but I hadda make sure." Then he sat on the sofa, hunched over, and clapped his hands slowly together, thinking. He turned to his confederates.

  "We got nowhere to go now, except away. We can't go back to Lynn now. We can't go to Andover. The Doc ain't got it; we can't get it. The whole Mob's after us. We can only get lost."

  The third man, a tall, thin, and morose lout with pale skin and bad teeth, stood up and paced.

  "Don't forget the money, Carmen," he said. "We got the cars; now we need the loot."

  Carmen DeLucca looked at me and said they needed five thousand bucks in cash, and it gave me a little hope. Because I knew that as long as I was in the process of getting him the money, Mary and I were safe.

  "I can get that for you, but it won't be before this afternoon, even if I started now. We've got very little money in savings and checking accounts; it's mostly tied up in investments and term accounts that take some time to free."

  "How soon?"

  I shrugged. As used to big money as a guy like DeLucca was, he probably had no experience with or knowledge of the ways in which straight people keep money. A thug gets a bankroll and spends big bills until the roll is gone, then works at getting another.

  "There are a lot of papers to sign. I'd have to see two bankers and my tax lawyer to free most, of it. About eighteen hundred you can have in twenty minutes."

  "Not enough," said DeLucca. He did not bridle at the fictitious red tape I spewed about bankers and lawyers. There would be penalties for tapping the term accounts, but no red tape. I told him I could furnish the deposit contracts and explain them to show I was telling the truth, but he shook his head. He believed me. He knew only street money and bad checks; anything else was beyond him.

  Then the tall one called Carmen out of the room for a talk, and I didn't like that at all. They could just decide to put both of us on ice now and get moving. I heard arguing in low voices, both urgent. The men were cornered and scared, and very mean to begin with. That spelled danger. But by the time they came back I had a better idea.

  "I know where you can get twenty thousand in small bills. In a sack, ready to go, unmarked. Twenty thou. And I can have it delivered."

  It was some time before DeLucca answered. He sensed a trick.

  "How soon? And how many people you gotta visit?"

  "One phone call and it's on its way. I don't have to see anybody, DeLucca, so you don't have to worry about me blowing it. But the deal is, you get the cash and we go free."

  "The deal is like it was planned: we get the dough and Marty and Vince and your wife hole up in a motel room we've rented near here. You and me, we take the red car and drive away. Someplace deserted I let you out of the car and keep going… and you remember that your lovely wife is still in that motel room. They are not to touch her unless I say otherwise or unless the law comes in. Then she dies. But I get where I'm going safe, and I figure you haven't called any law, and if when I call this motel room everything is cool there, then, but only then, they tie your wife inna chair and wrap a hanky around her mouth and turn the TV up loud and leave. Got it?"

  I nodded. So this was not a last-minute effort on their part.

  They had planned it pretty carefully, perhaps arriving in town the night before and staying in the rented motel room, wherever it was. After I was released it would be perhaps an hour before I could reach a phone. Even then I would know that Mary wouldn't be left alone in the room until DeLucca gave the word to his confederates over the phone from God knows where. And he might not call them until late. In a way the plan made me breathe a little easier; it indicated that they did not want violence, only escape. For this they needed another car and cash- and they knew that I had both.

  "Now where's this twenty grand? What bank?"

  "No bank. It's at Dependable Messenger Service in Cambridge, in the safe."

  "No it ain't. I know it ain't."

  "Oh yes it is. When you burned that safe the money was out, sitting inside another strongbox. I had a hunch the place was going to get hit. But there's a new safe there now, and the money's back."

  "Let's get to a phone," said Vince, "and see."

  Before I went I demanded to see Mary, who looked fine, considering. I didn't know what Marty had done to her and for the time being didn't want to- I was afraid I would lose control and lunge at him and both Mary and I would get shot. They gave me definite instructions for the phone conversation, which I followed to the letter. It was rather brief. I told Sam I had a private problem. Private. He was to tell nobody about it, or else the problem would get a lot bigger immediately.

  "You've got to believe me, Sam."

  "I believe, Doc- I believe. Come by and get it. I'll have it ready and nobody'll know."

  "No. Can you bring it to the Minute Man Park off Route 2A? Bring it alone- to the park at eleven-fifteen. Walk in the park, which should be empty, until you see my red-and-white International Scout. It looks like a jeep. Nobody will be inside but the door will be unlocked. Put the sack inside on the back seat, close the front driver's door so it locks, then go back to the office. Okay?"

  "I got it."

  "Sain? Don't call anybody after we hang up. It'll go bad for us if you do."

  "I won't. I'll do just like you say."

  "How much is in the sack?" said DeLucca, who was listening in on the extension.

  There was a slight pause, and Sam asked me if he should speak to the strange voice. I told him yes.

  "Just about eighteen thousand seven hundred dollars in bills. Nothing larger than fifties."

  "It all better be there. And remember what the man said: don't mention this to anyone. Go right back to your office and be cool until the doctor calls you. Got it?"

  "I'm hip. Well, I'm startin' now."

  In five minutes we were ready too. Vince was to stay behind with Mary while I drove DeLucca in the Audi, and Marty the baby-faced psycho was to drive the Scout. Apparently even DeLucca was anxious about leaving the punk alone with Mary. I don't think she even knew when we left. We went out to the cars. Something was wrong with Marty. I could tell by the way he walked.

  We were waiting at Minute Man National Park at eleven. I was sitting at the wheel of the Audi, my left hand cuffed to the rim of the steering wheel, while DeLucca sat in the front passenger seat watching me and the Scout, which was parked way over on the other side of the big lot. There weren't many visitors at the park this early in the year. There were only two other cars and a couple riding ten-speed bikes, who'd stopped to look around and drink from their plastic water bottles. Marty, who'd driven the Scout, was leaning into a public phone alcove up near the park building. From this vantage point he could see everything. DeLucca had instructed him to phone Vince at the first sign of trouble so he could put a bullet into Mary.

  My palms were sweaty and my heart was going like a jackhammer.

  "Stay cool," purred DeLucca, drawing on a cigarette, "and nobody gets hurt. Keep telling yourself that all we want is the car, the cash, and a head start. You get us those and you're all set."

  He grinned at me as his mouth dribbled smoke. On the seat, cradled in his right hand, was his little pocket auto pistol. The grin was wide but the eyes black and cold. I did not trust him even a little. And like an ice-cold serpent crawling up my spine, a thought that entered my mind dropped the bottom out of any slight hope and optimism I'd allowed myself to have.

  The thought was simple, and devastatingly logical. DeLucca and his two sleazy side
kicks had absolutely nothing to lose at this point. With the police of the entire Eastern seaboard, the Mob, and practically everybody else after them for murder and betrayal, they faced certain capture and death if they remained in the area now that word of their presence in Boston was out. As DeLucca had said, they needed a head start. And the longer that head start was, the better their chances. With Mary and me alive there was a ceiling on that lead; with us dead there wasn't.

  They might kill us in the house, hide our corpses in the attic or basement, and leave. They might kill us in the motel room, but that seemed unlikely. Today was Friday. If friends saw nobody home and the cars missing, they would assume we'd gone down to the cottage on the Cape for the weekend. Our two sons weren't due back from school for another three days.

  They would have plenty of lead time that way. Plenty. Enough to drive the stolen cars with the cold plates clear across the country.

  Maybe they wouldn't kill us right away. Perhaps they would begin the plan as DeLucca had outlined it to me. When he and I were far away in the Audi, he would have me pull off the road near some woods or scrub, do me in, and dump me in a green tangle. Then they'd kill Mary and leave her in the motel bed, naked and violated. When the local authorities found her, Brian would proceed with caution, sensing a possible scandal. Or would he? Would he "Hey! Snap out of it!" snarled DeLucca. I turned my attention back to the red-and-white vehicle sitting all alone at the far end of the huge lot. Was Sam going to show? Or was he bringing in help to get us off the hook? An hour ago I would have hoped more than anything he would do what they wanted. But not now. As soon as I realized how much more getaway time they'd have with us on ice, I was sure we were done for. I looked back at DeLucca. The lizard eyes glowed and darted in the wide, dark face.