"Walsh, Thomas - Nightmare In Manhattan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Walsh Thomas)

УItТs in my mind,Ф Donnelly said, quietly but impressively, Уthat it changes everything. Listen to me. YouТll get the locker key through the mail tomorrow morning Ч thatТs the plan, the schedule, that theyТre figuring on in this thing. Now. That time element is very important to us, Mr. Murchison, and to you, because we know what to do about it. Everything was supposed to start after you got the key tomorrow morning, and not now. All right. Can you take in what it is that IТm trying to tell you? WeТre hoping that one of them might come back here tonight to check the locker. I think that could happen very easily. If it does, weТd like to put the man under observation, and to keep him under observation until he leads us back to wherever it is they have your son. ItТs no great matter, not in itself, and itТs not half as difficult as youТll probably think it. WeТve got men in here waiting for them Ч good men. And I think I can guarantee you right now Ч Ф

УAnd the boy?Ф Murchison said. УYouТll guarantee the boy?Ф

УNo,Ф Donnelly said. He made it a plain statement of fact. УIТm afraid not, sir. IТm afraid nobody can do that for you Ч nobody in GodТs world. Not now, and not five minutes after they got him into their car this afternoon. IТll not lie to you, sir Ч but IТll talk sense. Let the men handle these people who know how to handle them Ч whoТve spent their lives handling them. Let us use what we know, and let us use it now before theyТre ready for us. ThatТs what I want to say to you; and thatТs what I want you to think about. And take your time on it, sir. ThereТs no one here pushing you.Ф

Calhoun, who did not have a six-year-old son, but who understood very well what was going on in back of him, squeezed the fingers inside his overcoat pockets until perspiration came beading out between them. Leave him alone for a minute, Calhoun thought savagely. What the hell was Donnelly throwing it at him like this for? Why didnТt they give him a chance to get hold of himself?

The man standing beside Calhoun cleared his throat, and then suggested reasonably enough:

УTake the contact. Have you thought about that at all? Do you have any idea as to just when theyТll consider it safe to collect their money? Maybe tomorrow Ч we hope that; and then maybe in two or three days; and then maybe never. ThatТs happened before now; and itТll happen again, too.

УThey wonТt risk themselves to protect the child; I think you grasp that much already. So well suppose something; the child cries, or the child gets sick, or somebody happens to get a look at him, and wonder about him. ThatТs why Inspector Donnelly thinks you wonТt get the child back simply by paying out the money for him. ItТs never that simple for some reason. Either they dispose of the child first, since they know youТll have to pay them anyway; or else Ч Ф

Donnelly moved; Donnelly moved very quickly.

УHere,Ф Donnelly murmured. УHere, sir.Ф He sounded concerned, anxious; and then, swinging on the District AttorneyТs man, he exploded in that restrained manner of his. УDonТt let all of us keep after the man,Ф Donnelly said. УLetТs give him a little time and a little room, for GodТs sake. Rousseau. Can you get him a drink of whisky down here?Ф

Rousseau turned. At that moment someone walked out onto the cab platform from the depot passage Ч a small man wearing dark glasses and a gray hat and overcoat. Calhoun, who had never taken his eyes from Locker 572, never once during this conversation, looked out at the man and felt as if a vise had been tightened around his chest. Frances made some sort of meaningless sound at the same moment; but it was Calhoun who announced sideways, without turning his head, and while using a voice which did not seem to have anything important to do with him:

УWait a minute now. Everybody away from that door. We got one of them right outside here Ч the little one. What do we do?Ф

Donnelly came up into position behind him. Twenty yards away, at the lower end of the cab platform, the man in the gray overcoat stopped in front of Locker 572, but without appearing to pay any particular attention to it. He must have been impressed by the fact that everything appeared quite normal out here Ч a line of taxis, a few passengers, and a couple of garage mechanics, two of DonnellyТs men in coveralls, who were racing a cab motor and speaking wisely to each other around the hood. Even if the man had glanced up at the starterТs office Ч and he did, presently Ч it was impossible for him to see anything suspicious up there. There were no lights visible inside it, and also, because of CalhounТs warning, no stir or commotion to indicate human occupancy.

УYouТre sure of him?Ф Donnelly said. But he must have been sure himself; and he grasped something at once which Calhoun came to realize a bit late Ч that the most unfeeling and cowardly action they could take here would be to ask the father to make their decision for them.

УRousseau,Ф he said, in that tone of his that was flat and lucid as standing water. УYouТll phone Jack Egan for me out at the information booth, and youТll tell him to flash everybody on those signal lights you have under your big clock. Now.Ф He moved a step, giving CalhounТs arm a slight tug. УAll right,Ф he said. УLetТs get after him, Calhoun. LetТs get started on it.Ф


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PART TWO
So they had no decision to make the way Donnelly handled it. He acted then without giving the father an opportunity to protest or even discuss the action; and he and Calhoun were outside the starterТs office immediately afterward, as if that was the only sensible thing to do here Ч as indeed it was, in CalhounТs estimation.

The two pseudo mechanics saw them. One of these, after Donnelly nodded, raced up the cab platform and around into the main concourse by way of the train announcerТs room at the north end of the station building. The other ripped off his coverall in two motions, and got a coat and a felt hat out of the repair truck. He followed, at a dozen paces, Donnelly and Calhoun, who had now entered the depot passage after the man in the gray overcoat.

Halfway through that passage, in a very low aside, Donnelly muttered with a good deal of contemptuous scorn:

УDТye know I admire the mentality, Calhoun. Dark glasses Ч thatТs something I wouldnТt have believed possible. ItТs better than we could haveЕ Here. Watch yourself now. HeТs getting ready to pull up at that newsstand on us.Ф

He did; but by this time the beacon lights under the big clock at the information booth had flashed on and off four times, in the prearranged alert signal, and all of DonnellyТs men in this part of Manhattan Depot were ready for him. The one in the dark glasses bought himself a newspaper. He unfolded it, turned, scanned the headlines and looked up boldly from them to Donnelly and Calhoun. When they had gone on into the main concourse, without so much as the briefest glance at the little man in the gray coat, one of the mechanics from the cab platform caught them up.

УI tipped Collins,Ф he said. УSo weТre all set, Inspector. WeТre fine. IТll tell Egan.Ф

In this way, by changing the relay on him three times in the first two minutes Ч Donnelly and Calhoun to begin with, then the mechanic, then Collins Ч there was no chance for the man in the dark glasses to suspect anything. It was now twenty minutes past eleven, a time at which the main concourse, although illuminated as brightly as ever, was nothing like it had been at half past five. There were people moving around in it, but not too many, and hence without the earlier effect of confusion and nervous irritability. Most of the ticket windows were closed and dark, the main ramp was practically deserted, and even the information booth had no more than half a dozen belated customers. Calhoun stopped there as if to get himself a timetable; Donnelly paused, glanced up at the huge golden clock and then behaved as though adjusting his wrist watch to the time indicated.

Behind them, briskly slapping his newspaper against one thigh, the man in the dark glasses started downstairs for the commutersТ level. He must have felt that he had handled everything neatly and carefully; and now, again, there was no reason for him to suspect that there was a headquarters detective named Collins in front of him, and a good-looking young policewoman in back of him. That arrangement, while uncomplicated enough, chalked him off for DonnellyТs men on the main concourse of Manhattan Depot as unmistakably as if he were on a lighted stage during a police line-up.

He went downstairs to the lower level. The policewoman and another detective followed him, apparently just a young married couple on their way home to Westchester, and Donnelly and Calhoun used the stairway on the east side of the concourse, just across from the incoming baggage room. They were downstairs perhaps thirty seconds after the man in the dark glasses; but they were protected from him, and from the entire commutersТ concourse, by a marble partition occupied on their side by a bakery shop, a row of phone booths, and the rear wall of the longest and narrowest newsstand in Manhattan Depot.