I heard a nasty slap that wrung a bleat of pain from Richardson’s throat, and Neil Corbin ducked out of the foyer into the living room.
I grabbed the automatic and snaked along the floor to the archway. Neil Corbin had taken to his heels and was racing toward the kitchen. I went after him and when I got there his head was out of the window and he was pulling his leg through to the fire escape.
“Corbin!” I yelled. “Hold it!”
He swiveled and pumped out two blind shots. The slugs bit viciously into the plaster behind me. I saw the searing venom in his eyes as he sighted more carefully and heard Richardson shout behind me. I turned to see him point the gun at Corbin. The shot caught Corbin in the chest and he tumbled over backward, legs flying awkwardly.
I knew he was finished and I didn’t bother with him. I went back through the living room and found another door and opened it. A small boy was on the bed, trussed hand and foot, a strip of adhesive tape covering his mouth. From the numb, inanimate look in his eyes I knew that he’d been drugged. I untied him and gently removed the tape from his lips.
George Richardson staggered into the room behind me. His gun was in his hand. “Andy!” he said. “Andy, boy!”
We caught hell, both of us, from the Police Department and from the FBI. Lieutenant Nola, especially, went after my hide. It took all morning and most of the afternoon to get the story told and everything cleaned up. George Richardson’s wound was not serious and he was able to navigate under his own power.
When he finally had me alone, the Lieutenant said dourly, “We bust cops from the force for going it alone. You know better than that, Scott. And another thing, you and Richardson left Neil Corbin out on that fire escape wedged between a couple of rungs. Innocent pedestrians can get hurt that way. Don’t ever do it again.”
“How about Steve Ballou?” I said. “Any chance of nailing him?”
“Ballou is out of it. He had permission from his parole officer to leave the state. He works for a plumbing outfit and he’s in Ohio, driving around to see their midwest accounts. Corbin worked this out alone. He must have gotten a lot of information from Lydia Richardson before she was killed.”
“That ties it up then.”
“Just about, except for two items; a Sullivan Law violation against Mr. Richardson for possession of that Mauser automatic he used — although I doubt if the D.A. will press the charge.”
“And the second item?”
“The money. One hundred grand. Corbin hid it somewhere. We took the place apart and couldn’t find it.”
“That’s something to look for. Maybe Richardson can still use my services.”
“Yeah.” Nola shuffled some papers on his desk. “Sorry, lad. Reports to make out. Keep your nose clean.”
My muscles ached with exhaustion. I was saturated with weariness, but I walked anyway, because the past twenty-four hours kept whirling through my brain in brief kaleidoscopic flashes.
The ransom money kept hounding me. And then, quite suddenly, I had a pretty good idea where it was, and I stopped off at a drug store and patronized the phone booth, and put a call through to George Richardson’s apartment. His wife answered, sounding exultant, and she thanked me effusively. Her husband was at his office, working late.
I quit the store and flagged a cab.
A light was burning behind the frosted glass door of Richardson’s office. He glanced up as I entered and flashed me a gleaming white smile, extending his left hand because his right arm was in a sling. This time he remembered his manners and offered me a drink.
I took it, since I did not expect to get any fee for handling the case.
“You did a fine job of work, Jordan. Fine. I’m delighted.”
“How’s Andy?”
“Coming along fine. He was under drugs most of the time and hardly remembers a thing.” Richardson opened a desk drawer and pulled out a check book. He flipped it open and uncapped a fountain pen. “I’d like to show my appreciation, Jordan, by doubling your usual fee.”
“The case isn’t closed yet. I’d like to find the ransom money first.”
“But where can you look?”
“Right here,” I said. “Somewhere in this office.”
The smile slid off his face and he sat up sharply, staring at me with a queer puckered look in his eyes. “I... what do you mean?”
“I mean that you never gave it to Corbin, that he never appeared at the park, that the package you carried last night was a phoney stuffed with worthless paper which you tossed into the bushes somewhere.”
“You must be crazy!”
“Yeah. Like a fox. That whole kidnapping was a sham, conceived and staged by you, a dodge, dust in the eyes, to conceal your true motive.”
“Which was?”
“To murder Neil Corbin. To kill him in front of a witness, apparently in self-defense.”
He bent forward stiffly, the muscles in his face rigid. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? Then let me spell it out. Neil Corbin was blackmailing you. He probably saw you leaving your first wife’s apartment the night she was killed and he guessed that she hadn’t fallen, that you must have pushed her. He may even have found some evidence to prove it, something you struck her over the head with, bearing your fingerprints, which he hid. He never told the cops, oh, no, not Corbin, there’d be no profit in that. But he told you. He told you and made it pay off.”
A strained laugh, short and mirthless. “I don’t understand. Why would I kill Lydia?”
“Because of five hundred dollars a week alimony. Twenty-six grand a year. Add it up over a ten year period. Over a quarter of a million. She had no intention of marrying Corbin and relinquishing her income. There was no way of getting off the nut. You’d have to pay and pay and pay. So you decided to have it out with Lydia and waited at her apartment that night. Maybe you tried to make a cash settlement and she laughed in your face. Maybe you lost your head and struck her with a bookend and then had to cover up by dropping her over the ledge.
“You gained nothing, however, because Corbin saw you as he left the garage, and you started paying again. Then you had a bright idea. You dreamed up a scheme. You offered Corbin a lump sum, and probably told him you’d have to get the money from your wife, and that the only way to work it would be through her son Andy. You said you would lend him your car and call the school. You promised to get the money and deliver it to him and bring Andy back. You told him no one else would be involved, the cops would not be notified. And he believed you because you were personally involved.
“You wrote the ransom note yourself, mailed it yourself, and called me in. You arranged for us to find Corbin with the boy and you shot him when we broke into the apartment. There was a peephole in the door and he would have opened it for no one but you. He was expecting you to bring him the money.”
Beads of moisture had formed along Richardson’s upper lip. “Guesswork,” he said hoarsely. “All guesswork; you said so yourself.”
“Up to that point, yes,” I said. “But the rest of it we can prove.”
The inner edges of his eyebrows drew together questioningly. “How?”
“You gave me the license number of Ballou’s car. But that car is somewhere in Ohio with its owner and couldn’t possibly be in New York. The woman at Andy’s school thought she recognized your voice. She certainly did, because it actually was your voice. And no professional kidnapper would have written a letter first and then taken the boy. But it made no difference to you because you were in control of the situation at all times. You had no intention of calling the FBI or letting anyone else interfere.”
“Look, Jordan. If I wanted to kill Neil Corbin, why didn’t I just do it when nobody was around?”