The five day nightmare, p.3
The Five-Day Nightmare, page 3
I had no idea how often I’d be watched, or my house would be watched, for the next five days, so the only safe thing to do was to assume that it would be all the time and take no chances. Not go near a policeman or give one the slightest reason or excuse to speak to me.
So I got back in the car and put it in the garage after all, right beside and dwarfing Ellen’s little Volkswagen. If I’d happened to go to the garage when I’d dropped in to pick up Joe’s golf clubs, I’d have started wondering about Ellen sooner, maybe looked for a note from her then. She disliked walking and never went anywhere without the Volks.
I went to the house and let myself in the kitchen door and turned on the light. And stood there in the middle of the kitchen wondering what I was doing there, why I’d come home at all. Then I realized that it was because there was nothing else to do, no place else to go.
A sudden sound made me jump and whirl to the kitchen door. But it was only Cheetah coming in through the tiny cat-door I’d rigged for her. Wherever she’d been outside she’d seen the kitchen light go on and had come to investigate. I stared down at her, wondering if she’d been in the house, and had seen the kidnaper when he had come. Damn, why hadn’t I bought a dog, a watch-dog that would have barked at the knock on the door and just possibly have given the kidnaper pause?
“Cheetah, you bitch,” I said, hating her for the moment because she wasn’t a bitch. She sat just inside the door and stared up at me with slightly crossed china-blue eyes, her dark brown tail coiled around her dark brown forepaws. Then the tail twitched and she suddenly ran around me and into the dark living room.
Was she trying to lead me to something? I knew it was silly to think so; cats just don’t do things like that. But I went to the entrance to the living room and turned on the lights there. Cheetah had jumped onto the sofa, was curled up to sleep there. I should have known.
I knew it was silly, but I decided to search the house for Ellen. Everywhere, under beds, in closets, even in cupboards and other unlikely places, everywhere remotely large enough to hide a drugged or tied up and gagged person. I even went out to the garage and looked there, under the workbench, behind and in the Volkswagen. Even, against all reason, in the back seat and luggage compartment of the Buick, which had been downtown on a parking lot at the time she had been taken.
But Ellen was nowhere. And I was back in the kitchen. I told myself I should eat something, at least a sandwich. I went to the refrigerator and the moment I opened the door I had company. Cheetah can hear the sound of that door opening no matter where she is in the house.
The cold cuts looked no more unappetizing than anything else, so I got them out, and the bread, and made myself a sandwich. I gave Cheetah a slice of ham loaf, intact, to work on. I sat down at the kitchen table and doggedly munched at the sandwich till I finished it. Then I gave Cheetah another piece and put things away, straightened up, even washed the plate I’d used, and Cheetah’s dish. That was one thing I could do for the next five days, keep the house in order.
It was in good order to start with; yesterday, Thursday, our weekly cleaning woman had been here. Things were in good shape and I’d keep them that way by replacing my divots. If everything went well, I’d have Ellen back Wednesday night—or, rather, have her in a hospital. So Mrs. Frisby could come again her regular day next Thursday and do a thorough cleaning again. Of course if—but I choked off that thought. The only way I could stay sane for the next five days was to assume, to make myself feel confident, that at the end of that time I’d have Ellen back. Alive, even though she’d probably have to be hospitalized at least as long as Mrs. Early had been. Maybe a little longer. Damn him, damn him, why had he taken her just before a weekend so he had, or thought he had, to give me five days instead of the three he’d given Early?
What kind of drug did he use? Something habit-forming, like morphine? I hadn’t thought to ask Early, and he hadn’t brought it up. Maybe that was good; if it had been a problem, a serious problem, he’d almost certainly have mentioned it. Well, learning that was another thing that could wait. Everything could wait until I had her back. Everything except getting together the money. Maybe I should start figuring how much of it I could raise myself, how much of it I would have to borrow, and from whom.
I went into my study, avoided looking again at the ransom note in my typewriter—since I knew every word of it from memory, why torture myself by reading it again?—and got some paper to figure on and a pencil. I went back to the kitchen and put down a figure or two, and then threw down the pencil. No, not tonight. Tomorrow, when my mind was clearer.
But what to do tonight, when my mind was numb? I looked at the kitchen clock and was horrified to discover that the time was only eight-thirty. It had been not much over two hours since I’d found that damned note.
And I was numb, but not sleepy. Would I ever sleep tonight?
I’ll have to get a little drunk, I thought. Just tonight, to get me over the first night of this. Tomorrow it’ll be a duller pain. After tonight I’ll work so hard, think so hard, that I’ll manage to tire myself. But tonight—
I went to the cupboard where we kept the liquor and checked it. Yes, there was half a bottle of whiskey, most of a bottle of gin, and two kinds of vermouth. Ellen and I usually had a cocktail or two before dinner.
But I wasn’t in a cocktail mood so I took down only the whiskey, and a glass. I put a few ounces of whiskey into the glass and filled it with tap water. I didn’t want to mess with ice cubes and I didn’t give a damn how it tasted; I just wanted to slug myself so I could get sleepy as soon as possible.
I went back to the kitchen table and sat with it, not exactly gulping it but not sipping it either. After a while I made myself another, and then a third. And about halfway through the third drink I found the real reason why I’d felt the compulsion to drink that way. Suddenly I was crying—and crying was something I could never have done sober. And it was something I needed to do, once and once only.
Partly numbed, I could let my mind go. I could think about Ellen as she must be at this moment, and I could think of the possibility of never getting her back alive, even though I paid the ransom in full and followed every instruction.
After a while, with a fourth, last, and even stronger drink in my hand I went into the living room, almost but not quite staggering, and turned the light on there. I sat down on the sofa and picked up, from the end table, the photograph album that held, among other pictures, all the ones I’d ever taken of Ellen.
And let myself look at them, part of the time through a blur of tears, until that blur changed to a different kind of blur, one that was of thought and not of vision, and while I was blurrily wondering whether I should and could make it to the kitchen for one more drink to make the job a thorough one, my body took care of the question for me and I passed out cold.
Chapter Five
I woke to darkness and to a confusion which gradually cleared as one thing after another came back to me. The big thing first and then all the rest of it. Or almost all the rest of it; the last I remembered the living room light had been on and I’d been sitting on the sofa. Now the light was off, I was lying down, and as I sat up and put my feet on the floor I discovered that my shoes were off. But considering the amount I’d drunk—at least twelve ounces of whiskey in four drinks—there was no mystery about those little things. Either I’d done them, without remembering now, just before I’d passed out, or I’d done them sometime subsequently to make myself more comfortable, without fully awakening.
I felt all right physically, or as near all right as anyone feels in the first seconds of waking up, except for a bad taste in my mouth.
I groped and found the light switch and turned it on. My wrist watch told me that it was five o’clock in the morning. Good, now it was Saturday morning and I could start by straightening myself out first and then doing the figuring that would tell me how much I could raise myself toward twenty-five thousand dollars, how much I’d have to borrow and where would be the best place or places to borrow it.
I shaved, showered, and put on fresh clothes, then went back to the living room for my shoes. I remembered my decision to keep things orderly and not let the house turn into a hurrah’s nest, but I went to the kitchen first and put on the coffee. Then I straightened things up in the other rooms. The coffee was perking by the time I got back to the kitchen. The windowpanes were still black but it would be getting light soon.
Cheetah, who had been out doing whatever it is cats do out at night—we’d had her spayed so we could let her run free without worrying about her—came back in and I felt a little less alone. She miaouwed up at me almost as though asking a question and I said, “I’m working on it, pal. I’ll get her back.” But that was a mistake because saying it brought up that lump in my throat again, and I’d had my emotional binge. Now I was through crying.
I poured myself black coffee and sat down at the table, slid over the paper and pencil I’d brought from my study last night. I decided to start fresh and crumpled up the top sheet on which I’d put down a couple of figures. I wanted to start my thinking from scratch. I started.
Cash on hand, negligible. It was probably between twenty and thirty bucks but I didn’t bother to take out my wallet to count it. And no use looking for and in Ellen’s purse. There would be even less in it than I had; she used charge accounts and wrote checks for things she bought, kept only pin money in cash. Not carrying much cash and not having much around the house was almost a fetish with Ellen.
Checking account, at the moment a few dollars under four hundred. I mentally added a few dollars cash if necessary and wrote it down as that, four hundred. A start.
Savings, investments, should run between five and six thousand. I’d been drawing a thousand a month out of the partnership, as had Joe, and—of course it hadn’t been that after taxes, but still I’d been salting away a reasonable share of it. In stocks, mostly, as behooves an investment counselor who takes his own counsel. They were in my lock box at the bank and I didn’t know the exact total and wouldn’t until I could get into the box Monday and, of course compared them with the Monday market quotations. But I thought they’d run closer to six thousand than to five. I called it five thousand six hundred so I could add that to the four hundred in the checking account and get an even six thousand.
The house, I’d paid twenty-five thousand and had got a good deal on it at that price; it was still worth at least that. Improvements I’d put in more than made up for depreciation. But you can’t sell a house and get your equity out of it in cash within a few days and usually not within a few weeks. The best I could do was to refinance—and even that would take some doing; but I had a friend who specialized in real estate financing and I thought I could do it with his help. Or maybe, instead of refinancing, a second mortgage would be quicker and simpler. On second thought, it would be. And I should be able to get a second mortgage for at least five thousand, possibly as high as ten if the mortgagee agreed with me that the house was now worth more than I’d paid for it.
I split the difference between five and ten thousand, and put down seven thousand five hundred. I made it eight thousand by figuring a loan of five hundred on the furniture, which was all paid for. Fourteen thousand, with the six from savings.
The Buick could go. It was two years old and perfect, should bring fifteen hundred if I had time to find a private buyer, but with all the other things I had to do, I’d probably have to sell it to a dealer and he’d probably give me a thousand. I put that down and had fifteen thousand. I wouldn’t be able to sell the Volkswagen, not because I couldn’t get by without a car for a while, but because it was registered in Ellen’s name. On second thought, I would be able to get about five hundred out of it by forging Ellen’s name on the bill of sale. She wouldn’t sue me. But I’d put that in the last resort category, along with writing bad checks. Meanwhile, luckily I had keys to it and could drive it after I sold the Buick. Which, come to think of it, was something I could do today or tomorrow; unlike banks, used car lots are usually open on weekends.
What other tangible assets did I have that could be sold or borrowed against? Well, there was the joint business checking account of Johnson & Sitwell. At the moment there was a little over three thousand in it and half of it was mine; if I wanted to draw fifteen hundred it would be equivalent to my drawing salary a month and a half in advance. The business would survive unless Joe did the same thing.
And that, if I counted in the Volkswagen, made it seventeen thousand dollars and left eight thousand to go. Eight thousand to borrow, because that was it on my tangible assets. I carried no life insurance; Ellen and I had agreed that, as an investment counselor, I should invest our savings in ways where they would appreciate in value.
And that led me to the next big question. How much could Joe come up with? The whole eight thousand? Or even more if it turned out I’d overestimated somewhere the amount I could raise myself? He ought to be at least as solvent as I was; he’d been making approximately as much as I and for about as many years before we went into partnership, exactly as much since then. And he was a bachelor so his living expenses weren’t as high as mine, or at least shouldn’t be. He had a nice three-room bachelor apartment but its rent couldn’t be as much as payments and upkeep on my house. His Chrysler convertible had cost less than my Buick and the Volkswagen put together. His hobby was hi-fi and though he probably had a couple of thousand sunk in electronics equipment and tapes and records, he had bought them gradually. He had to have some salted. Of course I couldn’t expect him to strip himself down to nothing the way I was going to have to do. But surely he’d come up with everything he had that was negotiable, salable without a loss. Once he knew …
And suddenly I realized that Joe Sitwell would have to know. I could keep this from the police; I’d have to. Other people I’d need help from would have to know that I was in sudden and urgent need of money but they wouldn’t have to know the real reason. I’d be doing some tall lying within the next few days.
But not to Joe. Joe would have to know the truth, to share the secret, or I couldn’t possibly expect the degree of help I’d need from him. No lie I could make up could possibly convince him of the urgency, especially the fact that the money had to be in hand, and in cash, within a few days. Yes, Joe was one person—the one person aside from Randolph Early—whom I’d have to trust with the truth.
And the sooner I could talk with him and learn how much of the total he could come up with, the better.
I had to talk to Joe right away.
Not on the phone, of course. I didn’t think my own phone was tapped, but a long-distance call to Las Vegas would have to go through too many operators besides a hotel switchboard, too much of a chance of a leak. I could call him, of course, to tell him an emergency had come up and ask him to take the next plane back; that much would mean nothing to anyone who happened to overhear. And wouldn’t get me in trouble even if—although I thought the chance was one in a thousand—my phone was tapped and the kidnaper heard the call. He’d know I’d have to be making calls like that to raise that much money in so short a time.
Suddenly I had another idea. Instead of phoning Joe, I could fly to Vegas and see him there. The plane fare wouldn’t matter, because I could put it on a credit card and not have to worry about it till next month. And at least I’d be doing something.
I went to the phone and dialed the airport, checked my watch while the number was being rung. It was half past six, and the windows were turning gray now instead of black.
The plane times were fine. I could catch a plane for Vegas at eight-forty A.M. and it would get me there a little before noon. I could catch one back at two-ten, which would give me two hours there. Plenty of time to talk to Joe, even to talk out details, especially if he met me at the airport so we’d have the full time together. I told the airline to reserve seats for me on both those planes.
Despite the early hour, it took me some time to get through first to Las Vegas, then the Paragon, and finally I got Joe’s voice, sleepy and a little annoyed. But the delay gave me time to figure out a story; no use making him worry and wonder till I got there.
“Lloyd, Joe,” I said. “Sorry as hell to wake you up this early but I wanted to reach you before I take a plane. Changed my mind, and I’m coming there today.”
“Swell. Ellen coming with you?”
“No. Last night Ellen made up her mind to visit her sister in San Francisco for the weekend. I just put her on a plane a few minutes ago. Decided I might as well kill time and have breakfast here at the airport till it’s time for the next Las Vegas flight. The office can take care of itself for one Saturday morning. I’ll call Marjorie and tell her to hold the fort.”
“Good boy. We’re making too much money anyway. When do you get in?”
“Flight three-oh-four. Due in at eleven fifty-five. If you can meet me. we’ll have lunch some place,”
“Sure. See you there.”
I considered whether to call Marjorie now or to wait till I got to the airport, by which time she’d probably be awake anyway, and then I realized I couldn’t call now if I wanted. I didn’t have her home telephone number, and she roomed somewhere; there’d be no listing in her name. I’d have to go to the office first—and that was good in a way because it meant I had less time to kill before I could take off to start the day.
I straightened up after myself, even rinsing and wiping the cup I’d used for coffee. I put a couple of slices of cold cuts in Cheetah’s dish for a snack. She must have been outside somewhere because she didn’t hear me open and close the refrigerator door.
I locked up, wondering why I bothered, and drove to the office, found and copied down Marjorie’s phone number and drove to the airport. It was half past seven when I got there and picked up my round trip ticket. The man behind the airline counter told me a breakfast would be served on the plane so I was at leisure for a little over an hour.
