"Heh-heh." He hung up.
Next I dialed a number in Latham belonging to a man I'd once helped out. Whitney Tarkington, fearful that his grandmother, a straitlaced Saratoga grand dame, would discover his homosexuality and disinherit him, had hired me five years earlier to take care of a blackmailer.
I'd done the job, discreetly if a little messily, but Whitney's accounts were closely monitored by a committee of bankers and he hadn't been able to pay me an appropriate amount for my fee.
Instead, he had promised me the assistance of his wealthy circle of gay friends if and when I thought they could be useful in a particular way.
"Hel-ooo-ooo."
"Hi, Whitney. It's Don Strachey. The day has come. I have a favor to ask of you beautiful upscale guys. I want to borrow a hundred grand."
"Good-bah-eye."
"Wait, don't hang up, Whitney! You'd have the money back within.. three days. I guarantee it.
And the trustees of your zillions, Whitney, will pin a medal on you. Because-now get this, Whitney-I'd be paying ten percent interest. Ten percent in three days."
"At the sound of the tone, you may repeat that last part. Beep."
"Ten percent in three days. That's what I said, Whitney baby. What a killing you'd be making!
And if you haven't got a hundred grand in your wallet, you just ring up some of your railroad-and-real-estate-heir-type jerk-off buddies and collect, say, twenty grand each from five of 'em. And Tuesday noon, or thereabouts, I repay the hundred, plus an additional ten. In cash. Even a Pac-Man franchisee doesn't rake in that kind of money in three days."
"Donald, my dear, I must confess that you have piqued my interest. But really, Donald, haven't 43 you heard? Wholesaling cocaine is against the law in the State of New York. We'd all be found out, and when word reached Saratoga, what would mother say? I have promised her, you know, that I would never embarrass her in public. And my getting dragged off to Attica in chains by some humpy state trooper in a Gucci chin strap would be a bit of a social blunder, don't you agree? And grandmother! Why, I'd be finito with Grams!"
"I can promise you that there is no dope involved, Whitney."
Except, possibly, me. My palms were sweating, my pulse interestingly elevated and erratic. I explained about the kidnapping, and he listened, uttering occasional little ooohs and ahs.
"Taking a bit of a gamble, aren't you, Donald?"
"Uh-huh. But don't mention the kidnapping to anybody, Whitney. Not yet. Just say it's a sure-fire investment opportunity that came up. Hog bellies from a freight train that derailed on Gram's croquet court or something."
"Well, my dear, this is simply dreadful. And even though, as you well know, I have precious little time for starry-eyed radicals, under the circumstances I suppose I have no choice except to-"
"Could you just hurry it up, Whitney? The banks in the shopping malls close early on Saturday.
Now, here's where you can drop off the hundred…"
I went back to Timmy and Dot, who were attempting to calm McWhirter down with a cup of herb tea.
Timmy said, "Who was that?"
I said, "Manufacturers Hanover Trust. Saratoga branch."
"Oh, swell. They should be helpful. Did you open an account?"
"Nope. Just made a withdrawal." end user
9
Bowman sat scowling at the ransom note for a long tense couple of minutes, as if the mere passage of time might cause the letters on the sheet of paper to rearrange themselves into THIS IS ALL A CRAZY MISTAKE, LIEUTENANT.
YOU CAN GO BACK TO THE GOLF COURSE NOW WHERE YOU BELONG. But it didn't. They didn't.
"This isn't the same handwriting as on the other note, is it?"
"No," I said. "It's different, messier. And the syntax and punctuation are even worse."
"Who here has handled this piece of paper?" he snapped. Four of us raised our hands. "I'll need prints from all four of you. You haven't made matters any easier for me, that's for damn certain. I suppose yours are already on record, Strachey, you being a famous certified pain in the ass and all."
"For sure, Ned."
Glowering, he went to the phone, called his bureau, and asked that two of his assistants be sent out to the Fisher farm.
"Now tell me again," he said, seating himself wearily, "what this Greco fellow was up to yesterday and last night. Take your time, and don't leave anything out. Where, when, who, and what for."
Very slowly, through clenched teeth, McWhirter said, "We have already explained that."
"Ah, so you have, so you have, Mr. McWhirter. And how would you like to run it by me once yet again? Just for old times' sake."
McWhirter was over the tabletop and at Bowman's throat before Timmy could finish shouting,
"Holy mother!" Dot jumped up and yelled, "Now you two stop that right this instant!" as Timmy and I grabbed McWhirter from behind, pried his hands loose from the alarmingly empurpled Ned 44
Bowman's neck, and dragged McWhirter thrashing and kicking out the back door.
"Down there!" I sputtered. "Fast!"
Edith was draped in a lawn chair under a pear tree squinting at the commotion, a frail hand raised to her throat, as we heaved McWhirter into the pond.
"I can't swim!" he gasped, flinging his arms and legs wetly about in a series of random and unproductive patterns.
"Oh, shit," Timmy said.
I said, "I don't think Price Chopper watches are waterproof. Anyhow, it's you who's into swimmers."
He was out of his clothes in a trice, or possibly thrice, and then, plunging, signed the vivid air with his bony ass.
McWhirter was dragged ashore coughing and gagging. He lay for a time on his stomach breathing hard. Then he pounded the earth very forcefully with his fist twice. He began to weep quietly.
I said, "I'm sorry, Fenton. Really. We didn't know you couldn't swim. It's just that strangling a police officer in Albany would cause eyebrows to be raised throughout the department. Among Ned Bowman's fellow officers the world would seem suddenly topsy-turvy, and in their confusion they would come and poke your right clavicle down into the region of your liver. We did you a favor, believe me. And now we're going to get Peter back for you."
McWhirter looked up at me balefully, and I could see his mind working. It was apparent that Ned Bowman's neck had not known the last of Fenton McWhirter's grasp. For the moment, though, McWhirter's rage had been sufficiently dampened. Timmy stayed with him while I made my way back into the house through the lacerating heat. The thermometer by Dot's back door read 99 degrees.
"When this business is finished," Bowman said, "Mr. Fenton McWhirter is going to pay a heavy, heavy price for this, Strachey. As will you yourself. I hold you responsible for what happened to me just now."
Dot was pressing a towel full of ice cubes against Bowman's neck. He looked wan but sounded livid.
I said, "That's an interesting piece of logic."
"For the moment, however, I am simply going to demand that you explain to me what the hell this mare's nest is all about. Is this alleged 'kidnapping' real, or is this some sicko stunt you and your fruit friends cooked up for me to waste my time on? Out with it!"
"Ned, one of the few things I've always admired about you is your Elizabethan felicity of expression. 'Out with it!' That's good. No vulgar street talk from your end of the detective division, and no glib and oily city hall locutions. A plain and forthright 'Out with it!' I like that."
He stood up abruptly and strode toward the door, the ice cubes clattering to Dot's polished oak floor.
"Better not do that, Ned," I said. "This whole ugly business is for real, I'm afraid. The feds will no doubt insist on poking their noses in sooner or later, and my guess is you'll want to have a head start and not end up getting outclassed by a bunch of guys wearing hats. Or were all those fedoras left on Hoover's grave when he died? Or in it?"