I couldn’t help thinking how quickly the time was passing. Half an hour, Tedesco had said. An hour, tops. Studen was out now, picking up the ransom.
“Maybe the police have laid a trap for him,” I thought aloud. “Maybe when Studen goes to pick up the ransom money, they’ll be waiting for him and arrest him.”
“If that happened, do you think he’d confess? And lead them back here?” Willie speculated. “Or would Tedesco and this other guy, your chauffeur, Ernie, split and run if they knew Studen had been arrested?”
“I doubt if they can afford to go anywhere until they get the ransom. Only a week ago Ernie was talking about how expensive it is to take Alice out. She’s his girlfriend. He likes to take her to his mother’s for dinner because it doesn’t cost him anything.” I gave up on the TV watcher and angled the mirror so it would reflect into the window of the old lady working the puzzle. “Without money, they can’t fly to Mexico or South America or wherever they’re planning to go.”
I heard Willie swallow. “So do you suppose they have to kill us, so we can’t tell what we know about them?”
I didn’t answer that. I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want Ernie to be part of the conspiracy, either, but several things were coming back to me.
It had never occurred to me that Ernie was mixed up in any of this. Now it struck me that he’d kept me from calling the police—something had happened to the cellular he kept in the car, he said—and he didn’t kid along with my story the way he usually did with stuff I made up. Instead he’d refused to take me seriously and kept me from reporting the kidnapping as long as he could.
I hadn’t thought to look at our car when I got out of it, to see if it had marks from an accident. Ernie said he’d been late on Friday afternoon to pick me up because of a fender bender, yet certainly there hadn’t been any obvious damage to the car. I’d been so busy thinking about the kidnapping I never thought that anybody I knew might be mixed up in it.
Ernie hadn’t wanted to stop anywhere so I could use a pubic telephone to call the police. And I’d blabbed about everything, so Ernie and the others had known all the time that I could identify Tedesco. And the car. And he must have known while we were out in the alley that it was the kidnap car. Why had it been there? Not waiting to run over me, because I wouldn’t normally have been out there. But maybe because the driver wanted to talk to Ernie about something?
It began to make sense that Ernie was one of the conspirators. Ernie and Tedesco, another chauffeur, and the man called Studen, who had worked for Mr. Zoulas, could easily have gotten acquainted here in the building or in the back alley. They all wanted more money than they got paid for their jobs.
So they decided to try kidnapping. A kid like Willie whose dad could pay a big ransom. What if they’d snatched me, instead?
I didn’t want to think about that. One of the men, maybe Ernie, had caused a minor accident with the Groveses’ car, so that chauffeur couldn’t pick up Willie from school before the kidnappers got there. That made Ernie late getting me. He couldn’t have known that I’d see the kidnapping, but he could have realized I had when I came running out all excited. He’d had time then to stuff the phone out of sight under the seat so I couldn’t use it. Then he’d stalled as long as possible, to let his cohorts get Willie away. And when we came out into the alley, Ernie had pretended he was going to investigate the car when I recognized it, and was as surprised as we were when the car nearly ran over all of us. They didn’t know Pink and I would come out the back way, so they couldn’t have planned that part.
It made me dizzy thinking about it.
I flipped out the SOS over and over again on the old lady’s window. She glanced up once, and my heart leaped, but then she turned back to her puzzle.
Ernie knew about the police artist and the sketch that looked so much like Tedesco. He’d known everything I knew, the whole time. No wonder he’d maneuvered so slowly around the block when Pink spotted the kidnapper in front of the video store; he didn’t want to catch up to him.
So he’d told Tedesco I was on to him, and the other kidnapper knew what I looked like, either because he’d seen me in the alley or Ernie had described me.
It must have been a shock, finding me in the same elevator with them. Studen was used to using the main elevator, and nobody would be surprised to see him coming in the front door. The doorman had accepted Tedesco as Studen’s visitor and let them go up; he wouldn’t know Willie had been kidnapped and hidden away in Mr. Zoulas’s apartment.
Again the old lady looked up, this time with annoyance, and I concentrated desperately on sending my call for help. The light danced across her face.
Please, please, I begged silently. Figure it out, lady. You must know an SOS when you see one.
She stood up suddenly, and I thought we’d done it.
And then she reached up and pulled down the shade.
Willie was watching, and the significance of this didn’t get past him. He hissed a mild curse word under his breath.
I scanned the opposite building, wondering if it was worthwhile to try any other windows. I couldn’t see into any of the others very well, and most of them were not lighted.
More in desperation than in any real hope of results, I did my SOS on several of the darkened windows on the floor across that would be just above us.
“Hey,” Willie said suddenly. “I think it gave a little bit with the end of this hanger.”
“Will the spoon fit in the crack now?” I swung around to watch.
“Yeah, just barely. Joe, I think it’s loosening up!”
And then he went rigid, forgetting to pry on the bolt in the top hinge.
“They’re back,” he said.
Chapter Fourteen
One of them was laughing.
I joined Willie at the door to listen as they came closer to us, on the way to haul out more luggage, I guessed.
“Nobody’ll recognize you now,” Ernie said.
“I can’t wait to be out of here,” Tedesco responded sourly. “One more load, and we’re set to go. I wish we dared to take Mrs. Civen’s car to get out of the city, but I don’t want to touch it again. That kid and his big mouth. Why didn’t you strangle him while you had a chance?”
“I didn’t think I’d have to. If you hadn’t been stupid enough to come in the front door and up in the same elevator with him, he’d never have known you were in the building. There was no point in shutting him up after he described you to the cops. By that time the damage was done. If you weren’t dumb enough to leave fingerprints in either the car or that junker taxi you swiped, there’s no reason to think they’ll catch up with you. If you’re telling the truth about not having any prints on file.”
“I told you, I don’t have a record. Come on, grab the last load and let’s get it done. The minute Studen gets back with the money, we’re out of here, fast.”
Their voices faded briefly, then we heard them go past us again.
Willie cautiously inserted the tip of the spoon under the head of the bolt in the hinge and applied leverage. I thought it gave a little.
“When they’re gone, I think we can get it out,” I whispered.
Beyond the door, the phone rang. We heard somebody swear, and the ringing was cut off.
Once more the spoken words were too muffled to make out. A few moments later the key scrabbled in the lock and Willie and I had trouble moving back before the door was thrown open.
It was Tedesco, and he looked furious. For a few seconds I didn’t even recognize him. He was wearing a red and gold kerchief around his head, like a pirate or a gypsy, with big gold hoops hanging from both ears, a jumble of gold chains around his neck, an open-necked red and black shirt, and a multicolor vest that was practically blinding.
People would look at him, but they weren’t likely to spot much similarity to the guy in the police sketch, even if they’d seen it. His face didn’t even look the same shape.
He
shoved us ahead of him toward the bed. “Sit down,” he ordered brusquely, and we sank down obediently.
He bent and plugged in the telephone he was carrying, then handed the receiver to Willie. “Talk into it,” he snapped.
Willie, bewildered, took the phone. “Hello?” he said cautiously. Then, with delight and relief sweeping over his face, he cried, “Dad? Did you pay the ransom yet?”
“That’s enough,” Tedesco snarled, and snatched the phone away from him to speak into it himself. “There. You heard the kid. He’s alive and well. Now hand over the money to my partner and stay where you are for an hour.”
He slapped the receiver back into its cradle, hanging up, and jerked the cord out of the phone jack in the wall. He stalked past us, out the doorway, and the key scraped in the lock as if for a final time.
I guess we were both paralyzed for a minute or so. And then I looked up and saw that the bolt in the hinge had been forced upward, ever so slightly, and there was no further sound out in the apartment.
Willie was off the bed and back at his post, working that spoon tip for all it was worth. My mouth was dry. When he got tired, I took a turn prying up on the bolt.
We didn’t talk. We both knew that it was important to get the bolt out, and then the one out of the lower hinge, before the kidnappers came back.
How long did we have? Ten minutes? Less? Maybe only five.
The hinge came loose with a screeching sound, and we laughed breathlessly as our eyes met.
“Now the other one,” Willie said, and we started the process all over again.
I’d imagined circumstances like this many times: escaping from captors, improvising tools, outwitting thugs. I was always the hero, usually rescuing someone else, and I was always brilliant.
This time it was myself I needed to rescue, along with Willie, who had until a short time ago been my worst enemy, and I was feeling far less brilliant than I’d always thought I was. I’d read about things like sending SOS signals with mirrors and taking doors off hinges, but I wasn’t at all sure they would really work.
The bottom bolt was stiffer, and I felt sweat breaking out under my arms and down my back. We both worked on the bolt on opposite sides, me prying with the spoon, Willie working with the coat hanger.
And then it came free, sending Willie sprawling backward from his squatting position, me nursing a lip where the bolt clipped me when it came free.
Willie gasped for breath. “Now what? Will the lock hold?”
“Let’s find out,” I said. I stuck the handle of the spoon into the crack along the back of the door and pried.
Willie was right alongside of me, getting the ends of all his fingers into the widening crack. I dropped the spoon and grabbed the edge of the door, and we both pulled.
For a moment it resisted our efforts, and then we heard it beginning to splinter. We both grew red in the face, pulling for all we were worth. Finally Willie reached out for one of the books in the case beside him and crammed it into the crack.
“Ahh! My fingers are breaking off! I gotta rest,” he said, breathing heavily.
I rested, too, now that the book kept the door from going back into place; my fingertips were stinging. “Is there anything around we could use for a lever to make it open wider?”
“The mirror handle?” Willie asked. We stuck the handle into the crack, but it was plastic, and it snapped off as soon as we pushed against it.
I looked around, then dove for the bed, pushing the mattress and springs sideways onto the floor. “There’re usually metal bed rails to support the springs,” I said, and sure enough, there they were. It only took us a few seconds to get one of them loose, and though we made some noise, nobody came.
Now, to get the end of the rail into that crack, which still wasn’t quite wide enough for us to get out.
We pulled and twisted, and I rammed the rail into the opening.
When we both pushed on our new lever, the door splintered all the way, breaking a strip off the edge of it. We repositioned the bed rail, and tried again. This time the entire lock broke out of the door.
We were free.
Well, free of the bedroom.
We didn’t look back.
We raced toward the front door, only to find that it, too, was locked. They must have used a key, and we didn’t have one.
“They went down the service elevator to the alley,” Willie said, licking his lips apprehensively. “If we go down that way, we’ll run into them coming back.”
“Nine-one-one, then,” I said, and looked around for the phone.
I was halfway across the room when the voice stopped me in my tracks.
“Well, kid, looks like you got yourself a genuine adventure this time,” Ernie said.
My heart seemed to stop. My mouth went so dry that for a few moments I couldn’t speak.
I hadn’t been mistaken. Ernie, the man I had considered a friend as well as my father’s employee, had betrayed me. I was confused and hurt and angry.
I’d never before thought about what a big man Ernie was. There was no chance Willie and I could handle him by ourselves. We were at his mercy.
Sounds came from the area where the service elevator opened into the utility area. All three of us glanced in that direction, paralyzed until Tedesco in his garish outfit emerged from the rear hallway.
He stopped, staring at us.
“I told you this kid was a slick little sucker,” Ernie said. “They got out of the bedroom and were heading for the phone. Lucky I heard them working on that door and stuck around.”
Tedesco swore. His face was so mean I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d whipped out a gun and shot us right then.
“So what do we do with the brats now?” His tone implied that whatever it was, it would be unpleasant.
“If my dad’s paid the ransom, aren’t you going to let us go?” Willie demanded. And then, as even he realized how naive that sounded, his face began to get red.
They didn’t answer that, and I fought against the tremors that started in the pit of my stomach and traveled down my legs. Imaginary heroic adventures had always been entertaining, but a real one like this was no fun at all.
Tedesco had taken two steps toward Willie, the closest to him, when the doorbell rang.
It was like playing statues when we were little kids. Everybody froze.
Ernie finally wet his lips. “That can’t be Studen already.”
The bell rang again, and this time someone was keeping a finger on it so the sound buzzed through the apartment.
“Police! Open up!”
The deep male voice sent a bigger tremor through me, and I nearly fell down. A glance at Willie suggested he was about to collapse, too.
Tedesco jerked convulsively and swore again. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said, and turned toward the elevator that had just brought him up from the alley.
“Police! Open up!” the command came again, more urgently this time.
A moment later, as both Tedesco and Ernie headed away from Willie and me, something hit the front door hard, then again. This time the lock splintered—the second time in a few minutes that I’d seen it happen—and the door was knocked back against the wall.
“They went that way,” Willie gulped, gesturing, and two men with drawn guns ran past us.
I stumbled backward, falling onto a couch, and Willie folded up beside me.
One of the men in plainclothes who had followed the uniformed officers through the doorway was Detective O’Hara. He glanced in our direction with a question. “You kids all right?”
We nodded, unable to speak, and he followed the officers with the guns.
It took a few minutes to get things sorted out. I didn’t care how long it took. There were cops all over the place, and nobody was going to shoot us and throw us in the Dumpster.
“I think I need to go to the bathroom,” Willie said, and I got up with him.
“Me, too.”
By the time we
got back to the living room, Detective O’Hara had returned. There was no sign of Ernie and Tedesco. Willie cleared his throat. “I think they had a car in the alley,” he said.
The hint of a smile touched the detective’s lips. “Our men were waiting for them.”
It was my turn to clear my throat. “Can I call my father?”
“We want to keep the phone open right now. We’ll let your families know you’re both all right.”
“Did my dad pay the ransom? Did they get away with it?” Willie asked.
Before, the police hadn’t answered any questions. Now O’Hara was more cooperative. “We think he paid it. There’s an officer waiting for him to come home. In the meantime we’ll wait for the one who picked up the money. Do you know who he is?”
“His name’s Studen,” Willie blurted. “He’s a secretary for the man who lives here. Mr. Zoulas. He’s in Paris right now.”
I finally was beginning to get my wind again. “How did you know where to find us?”
This time there was definitely a small smile. “We had two phone calls from tenants in the apartment house across the street. They’d seen SOS signals coming from here. Your family had called earlier to say you’d disappeared while running an errand to another apartment in the building, and they were afraid there might be a connection with the kidnapping of Willie Groves. Then they called back five minutes after we heard from the neighbors about the SOS signals. Your brother Mark had noticed the flickering lights against the opposite building. He didn’t remember any Morse code, but he thought your sister might, so he called her to look out, too. She recognized the distress signal. Said you used to send secret messages in code. She couldn’t tell which apartment the signals were coming from, but the neighbors had pinpointed it exactly by counting windows.”
“I bet it ruined my parents’ party,” I said, remembering. “Is my father mad?”
“I suspect he’ll be more relieved than anything else,” Detective O’Hara said. “He’s been quite concerned about your safety.”
“When can we go home?” Willie wanted to know.