Stolen Away

Breckinridge came in, his eyes bugging a bit as he saw me holding the gun on the little cabbie.

“Usher our caller into the living room,” I said. “He seems clean.” To the cabbie, I said, “What’s your name?”

“Perrone,” he said, loudly, almost proudly. His voice was indignant, but his eyes were scared shitless.

“Put your hands down, Mr. Perrone, and behave yourself.”

Wordlessly, Breckinridge led the cabbie into the dining room.

Condon was standing there stupidly with the letter in his hands, looking at the thing as if afraid of it. I took the envelope from him, tore it open and read to myself.

Mr. Condon.

We trust you, but we will note come in your Haus it is to danger, even you cane not know if Police or secret servise is watching you follow this instunction. Take a car and drive to the last supway station from Jerome Ave line. 100 feet from the last station on the left seide is a empty frank-further-stand with a big open Porch around, you will find a notise in senter of the porch underneath a stone, this notise will tell you where to find us.

Here, in the right margin, the by-now familiar interlocking-circles signature appeared, and the note continued:

Act accordingly.

after ¾ of a houer be

on the place, bring the mony with you.

“May I read that?” Condon asked, and I handed it to him. It was his mail, after all.

He read it over several times and looked at me with worry in his watery blue eyes. “Bring the money?”

“That’s what it says.”

We joined Breckinridge in the living room. Mrs. Condon had left the room and the cabbie was seated on the couch between Gaglio and Rosenhain. Breckinridge was pacing. He grabbed for the note like a starving man for a crust of bread.

“Bring the money!” he read. “Judas Priest! We haven’t got the damn money…”

“What do we do?” Condon asked desperately. “I assumed we would work out the details for the ransom exchange, but now…”

“What’s important now is to make contact,” I said. “Explain that the money really will be ready soon. Make the best of it.”

Condon was shaking his head; he seemed confused, disoriented.

Hell with him. I turned to the cabbie, bookended on the couch by Condon’s two cronies.

“What was your name again?” I asked him.

“Joe Perrone. Joseph.”

“Where did you get that letter?”

“Guy hailed me and handed it to me over on Gun Hill Road at Knox Place.”

“How far is that from here?”

“Don’t you know?” the cabbie asked.

“No,” I said. “I’m not from here. I’m a tourist. With a gun.”

“It’s about a mile from here.”

“What did the guy say? What did he look like?”

The little cabbie shrugged. “He asked me if I knew where Decatur Avenue was, where twenty-nine seventy-four would be. I said sure, I know that neighborhood. Then he looked around, over this shoulder and that shoulder, and stuck his hand in his pocket and gave me this envelope and a buck.”

“What did he look like?”

“I don’t know. He was wearing a brown topcoat and a brown felt hat.”

“Any physical characteristics about the guy that were noticeable?”

“No. I didn’t pay any attention.”

“Nothing about the man that fixes itself in your mind?”

“No.”

“You wouldn’t know him again if you saw him?”

“No. I was looking at the buck he gave me. George Washington, him I can identify. What’s this all about, anyway?”

Breckinridge chimed in. “I’m afraid we can’t tell you that just now, Mr. Perrone. Rest assured it’s most important.”

“Let me see your badge,” I said.

“Sure.” He unpinned it from his uniform coat.

I wrote the number down in my notebook. Then I wrote it down on a separate page which I tore out and handed to Gaglio.

“Make yourself useful,” I said. “Go out to that cab parked in front and check this number against the ID card in the backseat. Then write down the license plate number, too.”

Gaglio, glad to be of help, nodded, got up, took the sheet of paper and scurried out.

“What now?” Breckinridge asked.

“The professor keeps his appointment,” I said. “I’ll drive.”

“There were to be no police,” Condon said.

“I’m not a cop in New York State,” I said. “Just a patriotic concerned citizen.”

“With a gun,” the cabbie said.

“Right,” I said. “We’ll take my flivver.”

By “my flivver,” of course, I meant the one Lindy loaned me.

Gaglio came back in and said, “It checks out.”

“Good,” I said. I turned to Perrone. “You go on about your business. You may be hearing from the cops.”

“What should I say?”

Condon covered his heart like a school kid pledging allegiance. “Tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

“Except for my pulling a gun on you,” I said.

“Right,” he said, and he was up and out.

“What about our friends Max and Milton?” Condon asked.

“They stay here,” I said. “And they’re not my fucking friends.”

The night was nobody’s friend. The sky was black and the city was gray. A cold wind blew leaves and rubbish and scraps of paper across the all-but-deserted streets of the most beautiful borough in the world.

As I got behind the wheel, and Condon slid his big frame into the rider’s seat, I said, “I’m a stranger to this part of the world, Professor—you’ll have to navigate.”