Stolen Away

“I mean, if the initial idea was, ‘Snatch Lindy’s kid and deal myself outa stir,’ Capone knew weeks ago he failed. So none of these so-called kidnap gangs—not Jafsie’s, or the Commodore’s, or goddamn Gaston Means’s—may have your kid. All Jafsie’s ‘kidnappers’ most likely have is somebody on the inside—some servant who’s feeding them information, a sleeping suit, a copy of the first note that Capone’s kidnappers left behind…which gave ’em something to pattern the later notes on, and which got ’em fifty grand from you. And now Jafsie’s ‘kidnappers’ are as gone as your dough.”

“I don’t believe any of that.”

I shrugged. “It’s just a theory. But it’s as good as any.”

“If you’re right, Charlie is…” He couldn’t say it.

I patted the air, gently. “He could be. He could be. On the other hand, suppose Capone had Charlie snatched, then faded when he saw his get-outa-jail plan go south. He’s not going to…excuse me for even bringing this up…but he’s not going to murder your boy and have a capital rap hanging over him.”

“So where would that leave Charlie?”

“Well, maybe with the people Capone contracted to do the kidnapping. Some bootleg bunch really might have the boy. They might be playing out the ransom hand, too.”

“In that case,” Lindbergh said, perking up, “maybe the real gang is trying to contact me…through Commodore Curtis, or even Means!”

I swigged the beer. “Anything’s possible in this crazy enterprise.”

He nodded, raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’ve been in contact with Commodore Curtis. And he says he’s in contact with his bootlegger friend, ‘Sam.’”

“You want me to check Curtis out? Not to mention Sam.”

He shook his head curtly. “No. I’ll follow that lead myself. All I’d like from you is to get a bead on this son-of-a-bitch Means. What about Mrs. McLean?”

“I’ve been calling her home. She’s away on a trip somewhere—due back late tonight or early tomorrow. The butler wouldn’t say, of course, but my hunch is Means has her chasing her tail.”

“I feel terrible about her hundred thousand dollars.”

“How do you feel about your fifty?”

He smiled a little, like a mischievous kid. “Worse than I do about her hundred thousand. Would you go down and see her?”

So here I was again, in Washington, D.C., in the pleasant if quirky company of Evalyn Walsh McLean.

“I know I look like hell,” she said, sitting up. She lit herself a cigarette from a gold box on a nearby glass-and-mahogany coffee table; she used a matching gold decorative lighter. Exhaling smoke grandly, she said, “Forgive the robe. Even though I was expecting you—and you know how pleased I am to see you again—I just couldn’t make myself spruce up, somehow. Nate, I’ve been through the mill.”

“What mill, exactly?” I sipped a Bacardi I’d made myself. “Where have you been, Evalyn?”

Her smile was self-mockingly thin. “To hell and Texas, and various purgatories between. After Far View was deemed inappropriate by the ‘kidnap gang’—as I’m sure you’ll recall, darling—Means arranged for a new ‘drop point,’ at Aiken.”

“Aiken?”

“It’s not a condition, dear. It’s a town in South Carolina. I have a place down there—it’s where my son Ned is in school. Means told me the gang was willing to attempt a delivery of the ‘book’ there, so I went down with Inga and, not wanting my son to walk in on this Gaston Means-directed tragicomedy, rented a little cottage. Means came down and had a look around, seemed to approve of the setup, said he’d let the gang know I was there. The next morning he reappeared, and informed me dramatically that one of the kidnappers wanted to meet with me—that very afternoon!”

I had gotten up and gone to the liquor cart and was pouring her some sherry. “Face-to-face with one of the kidnappers, huh?”

She arched an eyebrow ironically. “Not just any kidnapper—the mastermind himself: the ‘Fox.’ At two o’clock that afternoon, a car stopped in front of the cottage—Means walked in, all smiles, followed by a stranger right out of Little Caesar.”

I gave her the sherry. “How so?”

She painted an image in the air. “He was tall, thin, wore his hat low over his forehead, wore an expensive-looking camel-hair overcoat. He kept that coat on all the while—hands jammed in his pockets, as if he had a gun in either pocket. But he spoke well—he seemed to be an individual of some polish and education.” Her face looked angular and lovely in the fire’s shadowy flickering. “The Fox said he wanted to look through the place, make sure there were no hidden microphones. Means and Inga stayed in the living room, while I showed our guest around. He looked in closets, under beds, wiping off everything he touched with a handkerchief. Odd.”

“What made that odd?”

“He was wearing thick gray suede gloves at that time.”

“Oh.”