Stolen Away

“Nothing, dear,” she said, touching the lawyer’s hand. “You and Mr. Heller just sit quietly and watch. It would help if you would use our initial moments of meditation to turn your own thoughts inward.”

That was me. I was one reflective son of a bitch.

Miss Davis settled her sweet frame into the schoolboy desk chair near the couch, where Cayce had stretched out, his hands on his forehead, palms up; what was he going to do, wiggle his fingers and pretend he was a bunny rabbit?

Gertrude Cayce took the chair near her husband’s head. He looked at her lovingly, and she looked at him the same way, and stroked his cheek lightly. It was a moment between them that seemed very real to me—suddenly the dishy secretary seemed just a secretary.

He closed his eyes, slowly moved his hands down from his forehead until his palms were flat against his stomach. He began breathing deeply, rhythmically.

Then the secretary and the wife bowed their heads and began to pray or meditate or something. This was our cue to turn our own thoughts inward, I supposed. Breckinridge looked at me blankly and I shrugged and he shrugged, and we looked toward the now apparently slumbering Cayce.

He sighed deeply. Then his breathing became light and soft, as if he were taking a quiet nap.

Mrs. Cayce repeated something, which Breckinridge and I could not hear, but took to be the hypnotic suggestion that would trigger the “reading.”

I got out my pencil and notebook; what the hell—I was here.

Cayce began to mumble. He seemed to be repeating his wife’s incantation.

Then he damn near shouted, and both Breckinridge and I jumped, a little, in our hardwood chairs. Tough on the tailbone.

“Can you give us the exact location of the missing child,” Mrs. Cayce asked him gently, “at the present hour—and can you describe the surest way to restore the child unharmed to his parents?”

“There are many channels through which contacting may be done,” he said, in a clear, normal voice. “These are the channels that are acquainted best with the nature of racketeering. These individuals are part new, partly not new to such rackets—see? That is, one who has been in the employ of such—the others, entirely new.”

In that gibberish, it struck me, was what might be a grain of truth: experienced racketeers working with somebody recruited from the inside at the Lindbergh house.

Mrs. Cayce tried again. “What means should be used to communicate with the kidnappers?”

“There are already many in motion. Someone who may make arrangements or agreements, for the release or return without injury to the baby, would be best.”

That was brilliant.

“Is it possible to get the names of these people?”

“The leader of authority of the group is Maglio.”

Maglio? I knew of a Maglio: Paul Maglio, sometimes known as Paul Ricca, one of Capone’s cronies! I wrote the name down. I underlined it three times.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Cayce,” I said, softly. Worried I might spoil things by interrupting.

But she only looked back with a gentle, Madonna-like smile. “Yes, Mr. Heller?”

“Would it be possible for me to ask Mr. Cayce a few questions?”

Without hesitation, she said, “Certainly,” and rose from the chair and gestured me toward it.

Hating myself for getting sucked into this swami’s act, I went to the chair and sat.

“Can you tell me about the kidnapping itself?” I asked. “How did it happen?”

“The baby was removed from the room, about eight-thirty P.M., carried by a man,” he said. “Another man was waiting below.”

I didn’t want to prompt him unduly, so I just said, “Below?”

Cayce nodded; his eyes remained closed. He looked peacefully asleep. “The child was lowered to the ground and taken to a car. Now we find there are changes in the manner of transportation….”

That did make sense, of course; changing cars made sense, But you didn’t have to be psychic to figure that one out.

“Another car is used,” he said. “They moved northward, toward Jersey City, through a tunnel and across New York City into Connecticut, into the region of Cordova.”

I was writing this stuff down; God knew why, but I was.

“On the east side of New Haven,” he said, “following a route along Adams Street, they took the child to a two-story shingled house, numbered Seventy-Three. Two tenths of a mile from the end of Adams Street is a brown house, formerly painted green, the third house from the corner. There is red dirt on the pavement. The child is in a house on Scharten Street.”

I felt like a fool, writing this prattle down, but part of me was caught up in it. Cayce, like any good faker, had a certain presence.

“Is the baby still at this address?”

“Yes.”

Breckinridge was standing, next to me, now. He said to Cayce, “Was Red Johnson involved?”

“Involved, as seen.”

“Was the nurse, Betty Gow, involved?”

“Not directly.”

“Who else?”

“A woman named Belliance.”

That name rang no bells with me.

I took over for Breckinridge. “Who guards the baby now?”

“The woman and two men who are now at home.”

“Where?”

“Follow my instructions,” he said testily, “and you will be led to the child.”