“The brother-in-law,” Sloate says.
“Rafe Matthews, nice to meet you.”
Sally merely nods. “What’s your plan?” she asks Sloate.
Sloate tells her. Show her the money. Send her for the kids. Make the exchange. Kids for money.
“She won’t go for it,” Sally says. “She’ll take the money and tell you they’ll let the kids go later, such and such a time, such and such a place. That’s the way they work it.”
“Well, we’ve worked it this way before,” Marcia tells her.
“When?”
“The Henley case. Three years back.”
Rafe is listening to all this.
“Must’ve been before our time,” Forbes tells Sally.
“One-on-one exchange,” Sloate says. “Money for the kids, kids for—”
“You sending Mrs. Glendenning out there alone?” Sally asks.
“We’ll be covering her.”
“You really going to hand over the ransom?”
“A cool two-fifty large,” Sloate says. “Supers,” he explains.
“They’ll tip,” Sally says.
“They didn’t three years ago.”
“That was three years ago. What if they tip now?”
The telephone rings.
“Keep her on,” Sloate says.
“Hello?”
“No deal,” the woman says. “Your kids die.”
And hangs up. “She’ll call back in a minute,” Marcia says.
But she doesn’t.
She does not call back until four-thirty.
“Do you want to see your kids alive ever again?” she asks.
“Yes. But please…”
“Then don’t try to make deals with me!”
“I’m not. I’m just trying to set up a reasonable exchange.”
“Who told you to say that?”
“Nobody.”
“Who gave you those words to say?”
“Nobody.”
“Who’s there with you?”
“Nobody, I swear.”
“I hear movement there.”
“No, you—”
“You’re lying!” the woman says, and hangs up.
“Shit!” Marcia yells.
The woman calls back again at five minutes past five.
“I’m getting confused,” Alice tells her. “If you keep hanging up, I can’t follow—”
“Because you’re trying to trace my calls!”
“No.”
“I hear clicking.”
Marcia shakes her head. No. There’s no clicking she can possibly hear. No.
“No one’s here with me,” Alice says. “No one’s trying to trace your calls. I have the money you asked for. I want my children back. Now let’s arrange a reasonable—”
“You’re on too long,” the woman says, and hangs up again.
Alice is on the edge of tears.
“You should never let a vic negotiate,” Sally says.
“They threatened to kill her children,” Sloate says.
“They always do,” Forbes says.
“But they hardly ever,” Sally adds.
Hardly ever, Alice thinks.
“These are not your children!” she shouts. “Nobody invited you into this house. You have no right—”
The phone rings again.
“Ask her to work out the exchange,” Sally says. “See what she has to suggest.”
Alice looks at her.
“Put the whole thing on her,” Sally says. “She’s the one wants the money.”
Their eyes meet.
“Believe me,” Sally says.
Alice picks up the phone.
“Will you be there at ten tomorrow or what?” the woman asks at once.
“How do I know I’ll get my children back?”
“You’ve got to take that chance.”
“Give me some way to trust you.”
“What do you want, girlfriend? A written guarantee?”
“Tell me what you’d suggest.”
“I suggest you leave the goddamn money in that stall!”
“Please help me,” Alice says. “I think you can understand why I can’t just hand over that kind of money without some sort of—”
“Then you want them dead, is that it?”
“I want them alive!” Alice screams.
But the woman has hung up again.
The backup from downtown arrives some twenty minutes later, driving directly into the garage and then coming into the house with a small black airline carry-on bag.
He is a soft-spoken black man who introduces himself as “Detective George Cooper, ma’am, excuse the intrusion.” He is carrying $250,000 in counterfeit money, and he asks her at once if she has her own bag to which he can transfer the bogus bills.
“What do you mean, bogus?” Rafe asks him.
“Who’s this?” Cooper asks Sloate.
“The brother-in-law,” Sloate says.
“Bogus, phony, false,” Cooper says. “Super-bills. Counterfeit.”
“I’ll be damned,” Rafe says.
Alice is back with a Louis Vuitton bag Eddie bought her for Christmas one year. Cooper is beginning to transfer the bills when someone knocks at the back door.
“Who the hell is that?” Sloate asks, and looks at his watch.
“Is the captain sending another backup?” Marcia asks.
Cooper shakes his head no. He is busy moving bills from one bag to the other.
“I don’t want any more policemen here,” Alice says. “Tell them to go away.”
Sloate is already in the kitchen, unlocking the back door. A uniformed man is standing there.
“Sheriff’s Department,” he says. “Got a call from a neighbor saw the garage door going up and down, strange car pulling in, big truck parked outside. Everything all right here?”
“No problem, Sheriff,” Sloate says, and takes a leather fob from his pocket, and opens it to show his detective’s shield.
“What is it that’s happening?” the sheriff asks, puzzled, trying to peek into the living room, where there seems to be a lot of activity and some kind of electronic equipment set up.
“Minor disturbance,” Marcia explains. “No sweat, Sheriff.”
If anyone’s watching the house, Alice thinks, what they’ll see now is a sheriff’s car out there in the drive. They’ll think I’ve notified every damn law enforcement agency in Florida.
“What happened to your leg, lady?” the sheriff asks.
“I got hit by a car.”
“You report the accident?”
“Yes, I did,” she tells him, even though she still hasn’t.
“Well,” the sheriff says, “if everything’s all right here…”
“Everything’s fine,” Sloate assures him. “Thanks for looking in.”
“Just checkin,” the sheriff says. “Like I say, a neighbor saw the garage door goin up, strange car movin in, big truck parked outside, wondered just what was goin on here.”
Everyone in the state of Florida is calling the police on my behalf, Alice thinks. First Rosie sticks her nose into this, and now some neighbor…
“G’day, ma’am,” the sheriff says, and tips his hat to her.
“Good day,” Alice says.
Sloate closes and locks the kitchen door behind him. Alice goes into the living room and peers out through the drapes. Big red dome light flashing on top of his car. People coming out of their houses all up and down the street. He’s alerted half the damn neighborhood. If anyone is watching the house…
They’ll kill the children, she thinks.
Maria Gonzalez was fifteen years old the last time she babysat for Alice and Eddie Glendenning. At the time, she was a somewhat chubby little girl who had come over from Cuba many years ago in a boat with her mother, her father, and her older brother, Juan. Well, fifteen years and three months ago, actually, since Maria was inside her mother’s belly at the time. Agata Gonzalez was six months pregnant with her unborn baby daughter when she and her family undertook the perilous journey from Havana in a rickety boat with thirty-one other brave souls.