Stolen Away

“Yeah,” I said sarcastically, “but where’s your receipt?”

The professor ignored that. He went on to say that John had said he would have to go and get a note ready; he’d be gone a few minutes, during which time Jafsie could go to the car and come back with the seventy thousand dollars.

“And here,” Condon said, regally, “was my masterstroke—I talked him out of twenty thousand dollars.”

“You what?” Irey said; his eyes popped behind the black-rimmed lenses.

Condon beamed, in his apple-cheecked way, saying, “I told him, ‘John, Colonel Lindbergh is not so rich. These are depression times—he couldn’t raise that extra twenty thousand. But I can walk up to that auto right now and get you fifty.’”

Wilson was slumped over his notebook, covering his eyes with one hand. Irey’s face remained stony, but red was rising out of his neck like a metal poker getting hotter. Slim, who seemed to sense a major blunder had been pulled, was shifting uneasily in his chair.

Condon didn’t read any of this; he was wrapped up in his own wonderfulness. “And John said, ‘All right—I suppose if we can’t get seventy, we take fifty.’”

“Do you know what you’ve done?” Irey said.

“Why, yes. I’ve saved Colonel Lindbergh twenty thousand dollars.”

“I could shoot your head off,” Irey said.

Condon blinked; his expression was as innocent as it was stupid. “Have I done something wrong?”

“The little package you left behind,” I said, “was full of fifty-dollar gold certificates. Big bills—easy to trace. The largest bills in the ballot box were twenties—not near as conspicuous.”

Condon thought that over. Then, summoning his dignity, he said, “I would do it again if I had the chance—I would save Colonel Lindbergh every possible penny.” And he smiled at Lindy, who smiled back, wanly.

Approximately fifteen minutes after Condon had headed back to the car for the money, while Cemetery John headed wherever for some notepaper and a pencil(!), the two men met again at the same spot in “the city of the dead.” Condon passed John the ballot box of money, and John passed the professor a sealed envelope, instructing him not to open it for six hours. John, looked at the money, pronounced it satisfactory; Condon pledged to John that if this were a “double cross” he, Condon, would pursue the gang to the ends of the earth, if necessary!

That must have scared shit out of him.

“While the professor was in the cemetery,” Lindbergh told us, Wilson taking notes fast and furious, “that same fellow in the brown suit we’d seen before came running down the other side of the street, from the direction of Whittemore. He covered his face again, with his handkerchief, as he passed by the car—and blew his nose so loudly that it could’ve been heard a block away.”

“Did you see his face?” Irey asked.

“Not directly,” Lindbergh said. “He ran to a spot some distance away, but I saw him drop the handkerchief—like a signal of some kind.”

“Colonel, you heard Cemetery John’s voice,” Wilson said, looking up from his note-taking. “Could you identify him by it, do you think?”

Without hesitation Slim shook his head, no. “Oh, I remember the voice clearly enough. But to say I could pick a man out by that voice…I really couldn’t.”

“Well, I could,” Condon said, slapping his hand on the table. “My hearing and night vision are excellent. I can describe him to a T…a hatchet-faced individual with almond-shaped eyes….”

“Get a sketch artist over here,” Irey told Wilson, who nodded, pocketed his notebook and went out. Irey began questioning Condon about various details; Slim got up and moved around and sat next to me.

“Nate,” he said, “are you going with us?”

“To search for the Boat Nelly? Sure, if you want me to.”

“I want you to. Maybe you should grab a nap on a couch. It’s after one A.M., now. We’ll be leaving at dawn.”

“Okay,” I said, yawning, stretching as I pushed away from the table. I got up. “You know, one thing surprises me.”

“Oh?” Lindbergh said.

“Yeah.” I grinned. “The way you been playing fair, playing by the rules, I’m halfway surprised you didn’t wait six hours, like you were told, before you opened that envelope.”

“Oh, I was going to,” Slim said. “But Dr. Condon talked me out of it.”

21

It was still dark when we reached the airstrip. We’d left Manhattan around 2:00 A.M., bound for Bridgeport, Connecticut, Lindbergh driving, Breckinridge in the front, Condon, Irey and me in back. Wilson stayed behind “coordinating,” whatever that was. I fell quickly asleep against the locked door as Jafsie, sitting between Irey and me like an oversize child, his cow eyes glazed, alternated between chortling over his triumph of depriving the kidnappers of four hundred fifty-dollar gold certificates, and spouting Shakespeare.