“Let me get this straight, Mr. King,” he said. “The boy who was kidnapped is not your son, is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“But the ransom demand was made to you, is that also right?”
“Yes.”
“Then, when the demand was made, the kidnaper thought he was in possession of your son.”
“It would seem so, yes.”
“Were there any further calls?”
“No.”
“Then he may still believe he has your son?”
“I don’t know what he believes,” King said angrily. “Is there really any necessity for all these questions? I am not the boy’s father, and I—”
“No, but you’re the one who spoke to the kidnaper.”
“That’s true.”
“And he asked for five hundred thousand dollars, is that right, Mr. King?”
“Yes, yes, yes, Mr. Caretta, that’s right.”
“Carella.”
“I’m sorry. Carella.”
“This was a man? The person who called.”
“It was a man.”
“When he spoke to you, did he say ‘I have your son’ or ‘We have your son’? Would you remember?”
“I don’t remember. And I don’t see why it’s important. Somebody has Reynolds’ boy, and all this damn semantic—”
“That’s exactly it, Mr. King,” Carella said. “Somebody has the boy, and we’d like to find out who that somebody is. You see, we have to find out if we’re to get the boy back safely. Now that’s pretty important to us. Getting the boy back safely, I mean. I’m sure it’s just as important to you.”
“Of course it is,” King snapped. “Why don’t you call in the F.B.I., for God’s sake? You people aren’t equipped to deal with something like this! A boy is kidnaped and…”
“Seven days have to elapse before the F.B.I, can enter the case,” Carella said. “We’ll notify them at once, of course, but they can’t step in before then. In the meantime, we’ll do our best to—”
“Why can’t they come in sooner? I thought kidnaping was a Federal offense. Instead of a bunch of local Keystone cops, we could—”
“It’s a Federal offense because after seven days have elapsed they can automatically assume a state line has been crossed. Up until that time, it remains in the jurisdiction of the state in which the crime was committed. And in this state, in this city, the local precinct handles the crime. That goes for kidnaping, assault, murder, or what have you.”
“Am I to understand then,” King said, that we’re going to treat a kidnaping, where a boy’s life is in danger, the same way we’d treat a… a… a fifty-cent item stolen from Woolworth’s?”
“Not exactly, Mr. King. We’ve already phoned back to the squad. Lieutenant Byrnes himself is on the way over. As soon as we know a little bit more about—”
“Excuse me, Steve,” Meyer said. “If we’re gonna get a teletype out, I’d better get a description from the boy’s father.”
“Yeah,” Carella said. “Where is Mr. Reynolds, Mr. King?”
“In his apartment. Over the garage. He’s taking this pretty badly.”
“Want me to handle it, Meyer?”
“No, no, that’s all right.” Meyer glanced significantly at King. “You seem to have your hands full right here. Where’s the garage, Mr. King?”
“On the side of the house. You can’t miss it.”
“I’ll be there if you need me, Steve.”
“Okay,” Carella answered. He turned his attention back to King as Meyer went out of the house. “Did you notice anything peculiar about this man’s voice, Mr. King? A lisp, a noticeable accent, a dialect, or…”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Caretta,” King said, “but I refuse to play this little game any longer. I honestly don’t see what—”
“It’s Carella, and what little game were you referring to, Mr. King?”
“This cops-and-robbers nonsense. Now what the hell difference could it possibly make whether or not the man lisped or spoke in beautifully cultured English or babbled like a moron? How is that going to get Jeff Reynolds back to his father?”
Carella did not raise his eyes from his notebook. He kept staring at the page upon which he’d been writing, and he kept telling himself it would not seem fitting for a police officer to get up and punch Mr. Douglas King in the mouth. Softly, evenly, he said, “What do you do for a living, Mr. King?”
“I run a shoe factory,” King said. “Is this another one of your very pertinent questions?”
“Yes, Mr. King. It is one of my very pertinent questions. I don’t know a thing about shoes, Mr. King, except I have to wear them so I won’t get tacks in my feet. I wouldn’t dream of going into your factory and telling your employees how to nail a shoe or glue a heel or sew whatever it is they sew.”
“I get your message,” King said dryly.
“You only get part of it, Mr. King. You only get the part that’s warning you…”
“Warning me!”
“… warning you to cut out what might be misinterpreted as resisting an officer or impeding the progress of an investigation. That’s the part you get, and now I’m going to tell you the other part, and I hope both parts penetrate, Mr. King, because I’m here to do a job and intend to do it with or without your help. I’m assuming you know how to run a shoe factory or you wouldn’t be living here in Smoke Rise with a chauffeur whose son can be mistaken for yours in a kidnaping. Okay. You have no reason to assume I’m a good cop or a bad cop or even an indifferent cop. Most of all, you have no reason to assume I’m a silly cop.”
“I never—”
“To clear up any doubts which may be lingering in your mind, Mr. King, I’ll tell you now flatly and immodestly that I am a good cop, I am a damn good cop. I know my job, and I do it well, and any questions I ask you are not asked because I’m auditioning for Dragnet. They’re all asked with a reason and a purpose, and you’ll make things a hell of a lot easier if you answer them without offering any of your opinions on how the investigation should be conducted. Do you think we understand each other, Mr. King?”
“I think we understand each other, Mr. Caretta.”
“My name is Carella,” Carella said flatly. “Did the man who called you have any accent?”
* * * *
Reynolds sat on the edge of the bed, weeping unashamedly, shaking his head over and over again. Meyer watched him, and he bit his lower lip, and he wanted to put his arm around the man’s shoulders, comfort him, tell him that everything would be all right. He could not do this because he knew how unpredictable all kidnapings were, the boy could be killed before the kidnapers had carried him five miles from the house. And this particular kidnaping had the added danger of error attached to it. How would the louses react when they discovered they had the wrong boy? And so he could not reassure Reynolds, he could only ask the questions he knew by rote, and he could only hope they did not sound absurd to the man who was torn by grief.