Stolen Away

She inhaled smoke; let it out. “After he’d searched the house, the Fox asked if he might have a look around the grounds; I consented, sent him off alone. When he returned, he told Means that he was satisfied I was playing it straight with the gang. Then the Fox turned to me and said that within forty-eight hours, the ‘book’ would be handed over to me, personally, on a side street not far from the cottage.”

“Yet somehow it never happened.”

She smiled ruefully. “The arrangements were typically Means-baroque. Four automobiles would be waiting, two on one side of the street, two on the other, the child would be handed over in the middle, with machine guns trained on me from every car.”

I had to smile. “Means does like his melodrama.”

“I do wish you’d been there, Nate. I wish you’d stayed with me through all this.”

“So do I. I would’ve grabbed that goddamn Fox and skinned him. Then we’d be somewhere.”

She nodded, putting out one cigarette, getting another going. “Well, the Fox may have spoken like an educated man, but he was as big a scoundrel as Means. Before he left, the blackguard made a veiled threat about my children, should I ‘cross’ him. Then he left, and Means left with him.”

“And what happened, to prevent the ‘drop’ from taking place, machine guns and all?”

“Means arrived the next day, and said it was all off. Things were in an awful mess, he said. The gang members were quarreling amongst themselves. Lindbergh had apparently paid ‘fifty grand’ through that other negotiator…”

I sat up. “What? What’s this?”

She raised both eyebrows in casual surprise. “Didn’t I ever mention that? Means said, oh, weeks ago, that Lindbergh was working through another negotiator, when of course Gaston Means was the only appropriate negotiator….”

Jesus. Had Means known about Jafsie, weeks ago? And had he known about the ransom payment in St. Raymond’s Cemetery, before the papers guessed it?

Her expression sharpened, now, in response to my reaction. “From, what I’m seeing in the press,” she said, “about lists of marked bills, that much of his story is true, isn’t it? There was a ransom payment, through another negotiator?”

I nodded.

“Means claims the gang was arguing about whether to turn the baby over to Lindbergh, through this other negotiator, or to me, through Means. Making matters worse, they were squabbling over how exactly to divide the spoils.”

“Where was the baby supposed to be, at this point? Aiken?”

“Not specifically. The boy could have been brought there, easily enough, Means said. He said the child was now being kept on a boat, at sea.”

“A boat? At sea?”

“Yes. Means claimed a fast launch was keeping the kidnappers informed as to what was going on, on land. He felt the boat was in the vicinity of Norfolk. Nate—what’s wrong? You’re white as a ghost.”

I was shaking my head. “Means knows too much. He knows about things he should have no way of knowing.”

Was there really a “boad Nelly”? Was Commodore Curtis, of Norfolk, really in touch with the kidnap gang, via the rumrunner “Sam”?

“All I know,” she said, “is that Means told me that the Aiken delivery was off—that the child was being taken by water and land to a point near Juarez, Mexico.”

“Mexico?” My head was reeling.

“He said the gang felt safer out of the country. They felt if they were ever caught, that they’d be torn limb from limb.”

“That much is the truth, anyway.” I gulped down the rest of the Bacardi. I could’ve used another, but I didn’t get myself one; Evalyn’s words were making me woozy enough. “And that’s what you meant by, ‘to hell and Texas’?”

She nodded. “Means said if I went to El Paso, just across the border from Juarez, he could arrange that the gang would bring the baby to me.”

“And you went.”

“Inga and I, yes. To the Paso Del Norte Hotel in El Paso, where Means met us, at four in the afternoon. He assured us the ‘book’ was ‘across the river,’ as he always referred to Mexico. He went across the border and returned that night with bad news: the gang was still quarreling over the division of the spoils. This went on for another day, with Means going ‘across the river,’ and returning, with nothing developing; he even brought the Fox back around—who seemed nervous, kept saying he had to protect his gang, couldn’t take a chance on turning the baby over unless they were ‘protected on every angle.’ I blew up at them both, stormed out, took the next train home.”

“Did Means try to stop you from going?”

“He did, until I told him that any prolonged, unexplained absence on my part would make my lawyers and friends suspicious, and that the first thing they’d think of would be to go straight to J. Edgar Hoover.”

“And you returned home.”

“Yes. Arrived late the night before last.”

“Have you heard from Means, since?”

“Oh yes. He called this afternoon. Claimed he’d flown from El Paso to Chicago, with the Fox, shortly after I’d taken my leave from them. That he had just returned to his home, at Chevy Chase, from the airport, and would call on me soon.”