It would all work out. It had to. So much was at stake. He had held onto the painting for over ten years now, after daring to take it himself from a museum in Palermo. In Italy, the statute of limitations for art theft was ten years, so he was out of the woods as far as prosecution there was concerned. He’d finally decided a few months ago that it was time to begin searching for a buyer.
But it wasn’t his style to do it himself. He liked to stay detached from the particulars of such exchanges, so that if any of his deals went sour, they couldn’t be traced back to him. Dubose had been the perfect liaison. With his contacts in the art world, and his legitimate role as owner of several small galleries, he was in a good position to find a buyer. Of all the art thefts Nelson Chamberlain had been involved in, this was by far of the greatest value. It was the coup de gras, the one that would make world news—though his name would never be mentioned in connection with it. The fact that it would make him a fortune was enough.
But once the contact had been established, Dubose had gotten greedy. He had demanded half of what Chamberlain would be paid for the painting, though Dubose had not been involved in the theft in any way. Because Dubose already had the painting and because he needed Dubose to make the exchange with the buyer, Nelson reluctantly agreed—until he realized that Dubose was not being honest with him about the price the dealer was willing to pay. He was getting more for it than he had reported to Chamberlain, and was keeping the bigger portion for himself.
That was bad enough, but when Ben Robinson discovered the canvas, Chamberlain’s concerns had grown even more inflamed. What kind of fool hid something worth millions in a wooden compartment of a cold, damp attic, where anyone could stumble upon it? There was nothing to do, he thought, except to get the middleman out of the way, and handle things himself. He had to do away with Dubose to ensure that his own interests weren’t violated. What a shock, he reminded himself ruefully, after he’d gotten rid of Dubose, to discover that the painting wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
There was no doubt in his mind that Ben Robinson had it; Ben was the only other person who had known that it was there. What he couldn’t understand was why the man hadn’t agreed to turn it over to him after the first phone call. Maybe the police were trying to make him play cat-and-mouse games with him to draw him out. He only hoped that taking his children had made Ben think better of it.
He heard a loud round of cackling laughter, and looked up to see a woman dressed in a tight red sweater and tight black jeans with four-inch heels, flirting with a group of men half her age. She was obviously in her fifties, yet here she was competing with women in their twenties.
“You are just too much!” she was saying in a deep Texas drawl to one of the men standing beside her. Her voice carried over the crowd, as if to draw attention to herself. “For heaven’s sake, you have to eat!”
Was she hitting on that man who was young enough to be her son? Chamberlain wondered, amused. There was no telling, he thought. He watched her as she pretended to pout, then pranced over to the bar, pushing between two patrons, and got the bartender’s attention. “Excuse me. You over there. Yes, you.”
The bartender finished mixing the drinks he was mixing, and leaned toward her. “Can I help you?”
“Doris Stevens here,” she said, holding out her hand with inch-long fake nails. The man shook halfheartedly. “I came in here to see if you’d let me put these posters up of those little kidnapped girls.” As she spoke, she dug through her huge purse, and brought out a few copies of the posters. “Bless their hearts, they’re friends of mine. Little Chrissy and Judy. The sweetest little girls you ever laid eyes on. And now somebody’s kidnapped them, and well, I’m doing everything in my power to help find them.”
The bartender took one of the posters. “A $25,000 reward, huh?”
Doris waved that off. “Their safe return would be payment enough.”
“But the reward money wouldn’t hurt, would it?”
She shrugged. “I guess I’d take it, if they insisted. Heck, if I find those kids, I’d deserve the money. And how much is that really, when you consider the value of these two beautiful little girls? Can I put ’em up or what?”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
She took the posters back and clicked around the room, tacking and taping the posters, while simultaneously flirting with anyone nearby.
Chamberlain felt his body go tense as the faces of the girls stared out at him. Quickly, he turned away. No one suspected him. His plan was flawless. He was going to get the painting tonight, and he’d be out of town before anyone knew what had hit them. This was one crime the police would never solve.
But the painting was the key, and he had to have it tonight. There simply was no choice. If he didn’t deliver it to Eric by tomorrow, he would have to wait another year or two before he could safely approach another buyer. This time he had no middleman. His own hands had gotten dirty for the first time, but it was worth it—as long as the deal went through.
Chamberlain downed his drink and ordered another.
A telephone rang somewhere close to him, and he watched as the man sitting on the stool next to his reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small cellular flip phone. He answered it, and Chamberlain listened, half-interested, as the man took care of business from his bar stool.
When he hung the phone up, the man set it on the counter next to his drink, and resumed reading the stock market page of the newspaper.
The waiter brought Chamberlain his scotch, and he sipped it as he listened to conversations around him. The news was playing on a television screen up in the corner of the room, and he saw the pictures of the two Robinson girls flash across it. He tried to listen to what was being said, but it was difficult over the voices in the crowd. Nothing new, he surmised from what he could hear. They didn’t have any leads yet.
He smiled. The Keystone cops of St. Clair, Florida, were going to have to get their act together if they wanted to figure him out.
Feeling almost an ecstatic energy after his two doubles and the news report that said virtually nothing, he glanced at the pay phone on the wall and wondered if he dared call Ben Robinson from here. No, he thought, someone might overhear. And if they traced the call, he might not be able to get out of the parking lot fast enough before the cops showed up to find him.
Besides, he really needed to get one of the kids to talk to their father tonight, just to drive home his point that time was running out. Robinson needed to know that he wasn’t playing games. Either he turned over the painting tonight, or the kids were history.
The cellular phone rang again, and the man next to him snapped it up and answered. As he spoke, three of his colleagues came in the door, and he waved toward them. They clustered behind his stool, crowding Chamberlain as well. The man took care of the call, then hung up and set the phone back on the bar. He turned his back to Chamberlain to talk to his friends in a conspiratorial huddle.
Nelson stared at the cellular phone, unattended on the bar. He couldn’t use his own cellular phone, for fear that the call would be traced, but he could use someone else’s!
He looked up at the television, pretending to be absorbed in the news, and quickly put his hand over the flip phone. In one swift motion, he slipped it into his pocket. Quickly, he dropped a couple of bills onto the counter and headed for the door.
He was out of the parking lot when the phone rang again, and Chamberlain began to laugh. He wondered if the man had even noticed yet that his phone was missing. He let it ring as he headed for the building where the children were. After a moment, it stopped.
Another perfect twist in a perfect crime, he thought. All he had to do now was figure out where to have Ben Robinson drop the painting.
He headed for the old abandoned store, but before he reached the road heading toward it, a train stopped him. It was slowing, and he watched as boxcar after boxcar passed, traveling no faster than twenty miles per hour. Slow enough to jump on, retrieve somethin
g, and get back off a few miles down the tracks.
Perfect. If Robinson put the painting on a boxcar when it was stopped, Chamberlain could be waiting a significant distance down the tracks, jump on, then jump off, and no one would ever be able to catch him.
He picked up the flip phone, called information, and asked for the number of the railroad office. Quickly, he dialed it and asked for information about when the next few trains would come through today. He was told that one was due to come through around ten o’clock. It would remain for two hours to reload, then would depart again at 12:30.
Elated and anxious, he drove the rest of the way to the abandoned store, dropped the phone into his coat pocket, got out of the car, and reached down on the seat for his other flashlight. Then, treading warily, he went back into the dark, eerie building, and headed up the stairs for the children.
He heard their voices as he came inside and went up the creaky steps. Rodents scurried and scratched in the walls and in the dark corners of the room. He kept the flashlight circle in front of him, hoping the sound of his shoes would frighten them away.
The voices hushed as they heard him coming. He reached the bathroom. Grunting from the effort, he moved aside the steel drum, old machinery, and a long, heavy bench that he’d used to block them in.
The door creaked as he pushed it open.
His light shone around the filthy bathroom, until the circle spotlighted the children, hunkered so tightly together that it was difficult to even tell that there were two of them. They both looked up at him with their grimy faces, and he remembered that he hadn’t fed them since morning. He’d have to take care of that later.
“Are you going to let us out of here now, Mister?” the older one asked him in a weak, raspy voice.
“No, not yet,” he said, trying not to look at them. He pulled the phone out of his pocket. “We’re going to make a phone call, to your father. I want you both to talk to him, to let him know you’re okay. If you do as I say, he’ll come to get you tonight, and you can go home with him. But if you don’t do as I say, you’ll never see him again.”
“We’ll do what you say,” the little one, the escape artist, said as her eyes got as round as quarters.
“First, you don’t tell him who I am. If you do, you’ll be dead in five minutes, do you understand me?”
The older one frowned. “I don’t know who you are, anyway.”
But the little one, Emily, piped up. “I do. You’re Mr. Chamberlain. You come to the gallery sometimes and buy my daddy’s paintings.”
He knew that the minute she went back to her father, she’d be able to tell who he was. He couldn’t let that happen. Somehow, the children would just have to disappear from the whole equation. But he needed them long enough to manipulate Ben.
“I’m going to talk to him for a minute,” he said, “and I want absolute silence. When I tell you, you can say hello to your father, and that’s it. You tell him that you want him to hurry and get you home, but you don’t say anything about where you are, or who I am, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. Now, quiet. If you do this right, I’ll bring you some food.”
Both children sat in the corner, still huddled in fear, as he dialed the number.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The phone rang, and Ben bolted for it. He waited until Tony gave him the signal from the other room. Sharon, Anne, and Jenny hurried into the dining room where they could hear the conversation.
“Hello?”
“Are you ready, Ben?” the voice asked.
Ben hesitated. “Yes.”
“Then tonight’s the night.”
In the dining room, Tony waited on the other line for the tracing to be completed.
“What have you done with my daughters?”
“They’re fine, Robinson. You’re lucky I haven’t killed the sniveling little brats.”
“How do I know you haven’t?” Ben asked, his voice cracking.
“Well, you can find out for yourself. It might even give you a little more incentive. You see, if you don’t deliver the painting when and where I tell you, or if you try something foolish, or if you pull what you pulled at the airport, you’ll never see these girls again.”
“So help me, if you hurt them, I’ll find you. I’ll track you down if it takes the rest of my life . . .”
Chamberlain laughed. “I’m trembling, Robinson. Say hello to your daughter.”
There was a muffled sound, a shifting, and then Emily’s weak, high voice on the line. “Daddy?”
Anne dropped to a seat at the table in front of the reel-to-reel tape recorder from which she could hear her child’s voice. In the kitchen, Ben pressed his face against the wall. “Emily, honey, are you all right?”
“Daddy, I want to go home,” she squeaked. “Please, Daddy—”
The phone was jerked from her, and then Christy was on the line. Her lower, raspy voice sounded breathy, weak. “Daddy?”
“Christy.” He caught his breath on a sob. “We’re looking for you, honey. We’re trying to get you back. Can you tell me where you are? Any clue? Just a word?”
She hesitated. “Daddy, we’re scared. It’s dark and old and there are rats . . .”
He closed his eyes. “Honey, we’re going to find you. We’re doing everything we can to get you back tonight. Just hold on, okay? Take care of each other.”
The man’s voice interrupted. “It’s your choice, Robinson. Either deliver, or say good-bye.”
“I’ll deliver,” Ben said, glancing back at Larry who was watching him as he listened to the conversation. “Just tell me where.”
“Midnight,” the man said. “At the railroad station. There will be a train leaving at 12:30. I’ll have a red handkerchief hanging in the opening of one of the boxcars between the Franklin Street and the Alethea Street intersections. Find it and put the painting in there.”
“What about the children?”
“When I have the picture, I’ll let you know where they are. And I’ll know it when I see it. If you try to deceive me, Robinson, the children are dead.”
Tony shook his head, signaling to Ben.
“No,” Ben said. “You’ll have to do better than that. Why should I trust you?”
“Because you have no choice. Midnight, Robinson. I wouldn’t be late, if I were you. And I mean it. If you try to put a fake past me, you’ll regret it. I’ll know at first glance.”
The phone went dead, and Ben stood holding it for a moment, frowning and looking bewildered and despondent. He looked into the dining room where the two cops were still trying to find the source of the call, and he saw his wife slumped down on the table, sobbing into the circle of her arms. He hung up the phone and went toward her. Sharon was sitting at the table, her face in her hands, weeping.
Ben went to Anne and touched her hair. She looked up at him and fell into his arms. He held her for a long time, crying with her.
Tony longed to reach out, to at least touch Sharon’s hand, to comfort her as Ben was comforting Anne. But he held himself back, waiting for Larry to finish the trace.
Larry was on another line, frowning, as though things weren’t working out. “What do you mean? Well, can you get the cellular phone’s number? It’s got to be Chamberlain’s.”
He waited several more moments, then wilted. “All right. So some guy named Stu Miegel owns that phone. Find him and question him. Maybe he’s working with Chamberlain.” His frown got deeper. “You’re kidding. Well, that’s just great.”
He slammed down the phone. “You’re not gonna believe this.”
Tony had heard most of it. “It’s not his phone. So whose is it?”
“Some guy who reported his phone stolen out of a bar about half an hour ago.”
Tony rubbed his forehead. “What bar?”
“Your stomping ground. Steppin’ Out. He said he set it on the bar, and the next thing he knew, it was gone.”
“Did anybody show him
a picture of Chamberlain?”
“He said he didn’t recognize him. But that he hadn’t looked around much, so anybody could have been there.”
Tony was getting tired. He rubbed his eyes and looked at Ben, huddled with his wife, still in tears. “All right, Ben. Looks like we’re going to have to deliver something. He’s got to be bluffing about recognizing it at first glance.”
“He’s not,” Ben said. “If I know him, he’d have memorized every stroke.”
“We’ll just have to take that chance. Is there any place we can quickly get a close reproduction?”
Ben thought for a moment. “What did he say, exactly? Could you rewind it and let me hear?”
“Sure.” Larry flicked a knob, rewound the tape, then played it again.
Ben tried hard to focus his thoughts, though the despair over his terrified daughters lingered in his mind.
He groaned and flopped back. “I can’t believe Dubose was involved with him, but he must have been. That’s why he was so anxious to convince me it was a fake. Then he fired me because he thought I would ruin the deal, or give his secret away! We’ve got to find that painting. Maybe I can give him another painting of the same size . . . and just hope it’s dark enough that he can’t see it right away until they catch him.”
“No!” Sharon cried. “You can’t do that! He’ll kill them. He said so. And what if the police don’t catch him? What if he gets away?”
“Sharon, what choice do we have?” Tony asked.
“I don’t know!” she shouted. “But you have to do better than that!”