Stolen Away

“I can do that ably,” he said cheerily. Then, turning suddenly somber, he said, “I trust, despite our differences, we can join forces in this just cause.”

“We’ll do fine, Professor. I’m just here to back you up.”

Placated, Condon folded his hands on his lap and I pulled away from the curb, heading west.

Eight solitary blocks later, he said, “Turn north on Jerome Avenue—just up ahead.”

I turned onto the all-but-deserted thoroughfare, gloomy and gray under the subdued glow of the street lights. Condon pointed out the last subway station on Jerome Avenue, and I slowed.

“There’s the hot-dog stand,” I said.

On the left side of the street was the sagging, deteriorating shack, a summertime operation that had missed a couple summers. The sad little booth was fronted by an equally sad, sagging porch. I pulled a U-turn and stopped before it.

“Allow me,” Condon said, and got out.

He climbed several steps to the porch, each step giving and groaning under his weight. In the middle of the porch was a big flat rock, which I could see Condon stoop to lift. He returned quickly, an envelope in hand.

We were almost directly under a street lamp. He tore the envelope open and read the note aloud to me: “‘Cross the street and follow the fence from the cemetery direction to Two Hundred Thirty-Third Street. I will meet you.’”

“How far is that, Professor?”

“About a mile. The fence mentioned is the one enclosing Woodlawn Cemetery to the north—Two Hundred Thirty-Third Street runs east-west and intersects Jerome Avenue about a mile north of this frankfurter stand. It forms the northern border of the cemetery.”

“Which means?”

“You’ll have to swing the car around again.”

I pulled another U-turn. We couldn’t have had less traffic if the world ended yesterday. On our one side was the rolling wooded acreage of a park, on the other a sprawling, iron-fenced cemetery.

“That’s Woodlawn,” Condon explained. “And that park is Van Cortlandt.”

“You’d be better off if that cab driver had driven you.”

“Perhaps, Detective Heller—but if pressed I’ll admit I like having you, and your gun, around.”

We kept going along Jerome, parallel to the cemetery, stopping about fifty feet short of the 233rd Street intersection. Ahead was a triangular plaza that was the entrance to Woodlawn Cemetery, with heavy iron gates, shut and undoubtedly locked.

I pulled over. “Go on up and stand by that gate.”

“You think that’s the location the kidnappers meant?”

“Yes. Go on. I’ll cover you.”

“I suppose that’s wise. They’ll not contact me unless I’m alone.”

“I’m here if you need me.”

He nodded and strode over to the plaza, looking around brazenly. Inconspicuous he was not.

But that was okay. We wanted the kidnappers to see him.

He paced. He dug the note out of his pocket and read and reread it—in an apparent attempt to signal any representative of the kidnap gang who might be watching. Nothing. He paced some more.

Ten minutes of this went by before he came marching back to the car. He got in.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” he said. “There’s no one out there. Were we on time?”

“It’s nine-fifteen,” I said. “Maybe we’re early. It’s warmer in here. Sit for a few minutes.”

We sat. The wind out there did all the talking.

Then Condon said, “There’s someone!”

A short, swarthy man in a cap and with a handkerchief covering his face was walking toward us along Jerome Avenue.

Condon got out of the car, quickly. He walked toward the man. The man walked toward him.

And passed the professor by.

Condon turned and stood in the middle of the sidewalk, scratching his head, watching the guy walk away. The old man looked in my direction, shrugged, and headed back for the area by the iron gates, where he again began to pace.

At nine-thirty, I was getting restless. I was beginning to think nothing was going to happen—perhaps because I was along. I was also wondering where Wilson’s man was hiding himself; I assumed Wilson had put a man, or men, on Condon’s house, and that we’d been trailed here. But the shadow man must have been goddamn good. Because I felt alone. Just me, Condon, the night, the wind and half the corpses in the Bronx.

Condon, rocking on his heels, was standing, with his back to the iron gate.

And, now, like something in a haunted-house movie, a hand was extending itself through the iron gates toward the professor.

I sat forward, about to call out, but the professor began to pace again. He moved well away from the extending ghostlike hand, looking everywhere but in that direction.

And now the hand withdrew, only to return seconds later, with something white in it. The white thing began to flutter like a bird. A handkerchief, waving. Whoever it was, in the cemetery, was trying desperately to signal the professor, without calling out to him.

Finally Condon noticed it, and moved quickly to the gates, where he began to speak to somebody on the other side. I rolled my window down, and the window on the other side, as well, but I could hear nothing but the wind.