“The Farmer’s dead? Is this on the level?”
“Uncle Al, I don’t have much time. Yes, the Farmer’s dead. His bodyguard and chauffeur think I did it, but I didn’t. I’ve got his daughter for a hostage, and now I’ve got to—”
“Charlie!” He just stared at me, about the way Artie stared at me when I came out of the barn back at Agricola’s farm. “What’s come over you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe it’s self-preservation. Now, be quiet a minute and listen to me. I found out the name of the man above Mr. Agricola is Mr. Gross. Now, Mr. Gross is the man I got to talk to, and you’re the one has to tell me where I find him.”
“Me! Charlie, you don’t know, you can’t—” He sputtered, and gestured, and carried on, and finally got a complete sentence out: “I’d get gunned down in a minute if I told you that.”
“If you won’t tell me,” I said, “you’ll tell Aunt Florence. I know she’ll help me.” I backed toward the door, still aiming the pistol at him.
He said, “Charlie, you wouldn’t. Charlie, for the love of God don’t tell your Aunt Florence!”
“Either you tell me right now where I find Mr. Gross, or I call for Aunt Florence. And if I call for Aunt Florence, I tell her everything.”
Times have changed since my Uncle Al told my Aunt Florence he’d leave her if she got pregnant. That was twenty years ago or more, and my Aunt Florence has learned since then how to control her lunk of a husband. Until last night I’d been under the impression my Uncle Al was afraid of nothing in this world with the exception of Aunt Florence. Of course, now I knew better, and Aunt Florence’s accomplishment in housebreaking Uncle Al no longer seemed quite so incredible, but the accomplishment still remained in effect.
I could see Uncle Al thinking madly. He gnawed on his lower lip, stared in torment at the floor, rubbed his hands nervously together. Which he was more afraid of — the organization or Aunt Florence?
To help him decide, I said, “Nobody knows I came here, and nobody has to know. Nobody has to know I got the address from you. I got to Agricola’s farm out on Staten Island, and you didn’t tell me that.”
“If they ever found out,” he said, “I’d be done for.”
“They won’t find out from me.”
“Charlie, you don’t know what you’re asking.”
“So I’ll ask Aunt Florence,” I said, and reached for the doorknob.
“Nonono, wait!”
I hesitated.
“All right,” he said. “All right. But don’t get me in a jam, whatever you do. You know I’d help you if I could, if you say you didn’t do nothing to earn the spot I believe you, I know you wouldn’t lie to me, boy, but my hands are tied. You can see that. They know you’re my nephew, they figure I’m prejudiced in your favor, so what could I do?”
“The address,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah. Wait, I’ll write it down.”
He hurried over to the desk and I said, “Don’t open any drawers, Uncle Al.”
He looked at me. His feelings were hurt. “My own nephew?”
“Just don’t open any drawers.”
Wounded, he said nothing. But he didn’t open any drawers. There was a memo pad on the desk, with “From the desk of Albert P. Gatling” at the top of each sheet, and an ornate penholder set with a marble base and two fountain pens. Using these, he wrote the address and handed me the paper.
I said, “If this is a false address, Uncle Al, I’ll come back here, you can count on it. And I’ll go straight to Aunt Florence.”
“Charlie, I’m giving you the goods, I swear I am. I can’t help you, I told you that, but you’re like my own son, my own flesh and blood, and the least I can—”
“Sure,” I said. “But don’t call Mr. Gross after I’m gone.”
“Call him? Are you nuts? Call him and tell him I gave his private address to a kid with a grudge and a gun? Charlie, the minute you leave here your Aunt Florence and I go straight to Florida.”
“No, you don’t. You stay here in town. If I have to phone you in Florida, it’s Aunt Florence I talk to.”
“Charlie, let me build up an alibi!”
“No. I may need to know something else before this is done.”
He looked very gloomy when I left, and he didn’t walk me to the front door.
Chapter 12
The Packard was still parked next to the fire hydrant, but now Artie was in the back seat with Miss Althea. I slid into the front seat next to Chloe, and Artie explained, “She tried to duck out again.”
She was being silent and grim at the moment, sitting hunched into the corner, staring straight ahead and ignoring everybody.
I said, “She’s more trouble than she’s worth. Maybe we ought to get rid of her.”
“She’s insurance, Charlie,” Artie said. “She’s our hostage.”
I wasn’t all that sure a hostage would stop Mr. Gross and his organization, particularly when the hostage’s father was already dead and couldn’t complain, but if it made Artie feel safer it was worth it. I’d already come to depend on Artie’s presence, not to do anything in particular to help me but just to be there to talk to, and I wouldn’t want to see him scared away. So I said, “All right, we’ll keep her.”
Chloe said, “Did you get the address?”
“Right.” I took the paper from my pocket and read the address aloud: “One twenty-two Colonial Road, Hewlett Bay Park, Long Island.”
Chloe said, “Hewlett Bay Park. Where’s that?”
“On Long Island, I guess,” I said. “Have you got a map?”
“I don’t know. Look in the glove compartment.”
There was nothing in the glove compartment but a pair of ladies’ black gloves and the automatic I’d taken from Miss Althea.
From the back seat, Artie said, “We need gas anyway. Get a road map at the gas station.”
“Fine,” said Chloe. The motor was already running, purring away as though it were brand-new and born to be in a getaway car. Chloe turned the wheel, ignored the traffic coming down 65th Street from behind us, and pulled away from the curb. She was a very individualistic driver, Chloe, and I wasn’t at all surprised when I learned, some time later, that the State of New York refused to give her a driver’s license.
We were already on the East Side, so we decided to drive on over to the 59th Street Bridge, go over to Queens, and find a gas station there, which we did. Miss Althea told the attendant we were kidnapping her, but we were used to that sort of thing from her by then, so we all laughed it off and the attendant got a chuckle out of it, too. He wasn’t a sourpuss like the toll taker at the George Washington Bridge. Artie bent Miss Althea’s thumb back, to make her stop yelling, and then everything was fine. I got a road map of Long Island, paid for the gas, and we drove away from there.
Hewlett Bay Park turned out to be on the south shore of Long Island, in the midst of a little flurry of places named Hewlett. There was Hewlett Harbor and Hewlett Neck, Hewlett Bay and Hewlett Point, and even a town just called Hewlett.
From where we were there didn’t seem to be any sensible way at all to get to Hewlett Bay Park, or any other Hewlett. With all of us but Miss Althea studying the map and making suggestions, we finally decided on what looked to be the simplest route of all. By a complex series of local streets, we got from Queens Boulevard, on which we were now situated, to the Long Island Expressway, which we took to Grand Central Parkway, which we took to the Van Wyck Expressway, which we took to the Belt Parkway (at this point for some reason called Southern Parkway), which we took to Sunrise Highway, which we took to Central Avenue in Valley Stream, which we took to the general vicinity of the Hewletts, at which point we would ask directions.