I had spoken earlier to Lorenzo about the possibility of a wedding. Seasoned intriguer that he already was, he had offered no comments and asked no questions but had obligingly set in motion some necessary arrangements. All I need do now was to get Helen out of the Boccalini house and to some place of safety, without overt Medici help.
While my unknowing bride-to-be prudently consumed the last crumbs of food from the silver plate, I wondered silently what would be the reactions of my adopted cousins if I simply strolled downstairs with her and asked to have the front door unlocked. Opening that door would not be something that we could do casually for ourselves; I had seen how they barred and chained the place up like a fortress for the night. And if Sandro should decide that he did not want me to take the woman away . . . well, I would not be able to manage either violence or bribery on the scale required to gain my way.
I stood up and stretched as well as I could under that low roof, then looked out into the corridor. All was dark and I thought there were no listeners nearby. Doubtless none who could speak Hungarian, anyway.
"Can you still walk, Helen?"
"Yes." She got to her feet, stretching too, but not as I had. Her movements were furtive and sinuous.
"Can you run?"
Still holding the wretched shift together with one hand, she tried walking for a few limping steps, then paused to look at me. "If I must, I can. Then all has not been neatly arranged? I am willing to try anything to get out of here, but I must know."
"Arrangements have been made. Perhaps not neatly, however, and not with the people of this house. These people we are going to have to surprise. Bend your knees, swing your legs, loosen them up."
She did as I bade her, exercising as well as the tiny space allowed. "I can run."
"Excellent. Now, I am going to chain your hands together—that is, I will wrap the chain around your wrists, but so you can shed it at will. After that we will go downstairs, and, I hope, out into the street. If there is any argument about our going out, pretend you are reluctant to do so. And move slowly, as if you can hardly walk—yes, that's fine. Then when we are outside, as soon as I tug twice on the chain, slip it and run hard. Right into the darkness, in the direction I will have you facing. Helpers should be waiting for us." So I hoped it would be; so it had been tentatively planned. "Run, run till you are caught, and pray Jesus it will be a friend who has you then."
Chapter Nine
The bored male midwestern voice at the other end of the long-distance line informed Mr. Thorn that Lieutenant Keogh was busy right now on another phone, and would he like to hang on? When Thorn submitted that he would, he was left to do so with a minimum of courtesy and a mutter of subdued office noise to keep him entertained. During this lengthy interval it crossed Thorn's mind that he might have made this call last night, and caught the good lieutenant at home instead of during business hours; but then, last night Thorn had himself been quite busy.
At last the receiver in Chicago was picked up again. "Lieutenant Keogh." The voice was familiar to Thorn, but at the moment it carried a load of official boredom he had not heard in it before.
"Yes, Lieutenant. This is Jonathan Thorn, calling from Phoenix, Arizona. Regarding that merchandise you were trying to trace, I believe I will have the information you need very soon now. If you could call me back, at your convenience, here at my hotel?"
At the other end there was a silent pause, concluding in a sigh and followed by a muttered vulgarity. After this a footstep, and then the shutting of a door which effectively cut off the office background.
When the lieutenant's voice returned it sounded no happier than before, but at least all traces of boredom had been effectively expunged. "We can talk now. This is something really important, I take it?"
"Of course, Joe, of course." Thorn smiled and lay back on the bed, letting his lean frame relax. A white plastic bag as long as a mattress and as narrow as a cot had been unfolded on the rich green spread. This bag was thin enough to be folded into a suitcase, and it was sparsely stuffed with something that crunched faintly as Thorn's weight came onto it, sounding for all the world like dried earth.
"Of course," he repeated into the phone. "Neither of us would call upon the other in a merely trivial matter, is it not so? Your wife's family did not summon Dr. Corday from London, after all, until the situation warranted. By the way, how is the lovely Kate? And how are her fine parents?"
"Fine, fine." The distant voice remained wary. "Her brother and sister are okay, too. By the way, if you're looking for Judy, she's away at school. But I guess you must know that." The comment was tinged with a certain fatalistic disapproval.
Thorn made his own voice soothing. "Say hello to Kate for me. No, Joe, I am not looking for Judy. Nor do I want anything from you that might be embarrassing to you officially. My dearest Mina would be unhappy if I did anything like that with anyone in the family. By the way, I am somewhat surprised—pleasantly, of course—that you continue on the force."
"I like to work, and I'm too young to retire." Joe's voice showed no sign of relaxing yet. "Anyway, Kate's busy a lot with volunteer work, and her old man respects me more for being self-supporting . . . so, tell me what you want."
"I would like whatever information you can give me about two people. The first is Mary Rogers." Thorn recited a brief description. "Mary tells me that she was a nun, or at least a postulant, in the Chicago area, where she did charitable work with runaway youth. She—"
"Wait a minute, wait a minute. Mary Rogers rings a bell. Wasn't she a kidnap victim, a hostage, in the double Seabright killing out there in Phoenix?"
"Yes. I was about to add that."
"Ho. Wait a minute. Ho, ho, ho. You're mixed up in that?"
"My present concern is not with that sordid crime directly. Of course if I should come upon anything that might aid in its solution, then you in turn shall hear it from me. As from an anonymous and confidential source. Is that to your liking?"
"Well, yeah, of course I'd appreciate any kind of a tip. If you'd rather send it my way than tell it to the locals, and it worked out, it wouldn't do my career any harm. Who's your second person?"
"A young man. Patrick O'Grandison." Thorn gave the spelling that seemed to him most likely. "As I understand it, this youth is somehow involved in making films, quite possibly pornographic ones. Probably in Chicago during the last few months. I should like to find and talk to him."
"What about?"
"A personal matter."
"I know what some of your personal talks can be like. Listen, I wouldn't want to help you find this guy, assuming that I can, and then hear later that he's missing some parts or something."
"Joe." Thorn sounded reproachful, almost hurt, a wounded uncle. "I have said that I mean only to talk to him. Of course what he tells me may conceivably change my attitude. But at the moment I bear him no ill-will."
"On your honor?"
The question had sounded grimly serious. And it was taken seriously, as Joe Keogh must have known it would be. Lithely but slowly Thorn arose from his crackling bed of rest, to stand with squinted eyes fixed on some point in the burning sky outside his tinted window. "Yes, on my honor, Joseph."
"All right." The distant voice reluctantly gave in. The scratch of some writing implement told that Lieutenant Keogh was making notes. "I'll see what I can find out. Give me your number and when I have something I'll call you back."
"I shall be waiting for your call. Oh, Joe, one more thing. You might try to learn whether the young lady has ever been in Idaho."