Tony shoved him over to where Sammy and Clarence were sitting at a rickety card table, which was piled with containers of coffee and objects that resembled abandoned Egg McMuffin cartons. Clarence nodded to the folding chair next to Sammy. “Sit there.” Then he whirled. “Shut that damn door,” he ordered Tony. “That stinking dripping is driving me nuts. Kept me awake half the night.”
A thought came to Willy. He tried to sound casual. “I guess we’ll be here a couple of days. If you pick up a few tools for me, I can fix that for you.” He reached for a container. “I’m the best plumber you ever kidnapped.”
* * *
Alvirah was learning that it was much easier to put money in a bank than to get it out. When she presented her withdrawal slip at Chase Manhattan, the teller’s eyes bulged. Then he asked her to step over to an assistant manager’s desk.
Fifteen minutes later, Alvirah was still adamantly insisting that, no, she wasn’t unhappy with the service. Yes, she was sure she wanted the money in cash. Yes, she understood what a certified check was. Finally she demanded emphatically, “Is it my money or isn’t it?”
“Of course. Of course.” They would have to ask her to fill out some forms—government regulations for cash withdrawals of over ten thousand dollars.
Then they had to count the money. Eyes popped when Alvirah told them she wanted five hundred hundred-dollar bills and one thousand fifty-dollar bills. That took a lot of counting.
It was nearly noon when Alvirah hailed a cab to cover the three blocks to the apartment, dump the money in a dresser drawer and start out again for the Chemical Bank on Eighth Avenue.
By the end of the day she’d managed to get only three hundred thousand of the two million she needed. Then she sat in the apartment, staring at the phone. There was a way to move quicker. In the morning she’d call the rest of the banks and tell them to expect her withdrawals. Start counting now, fellows.
At six-thirty the phone rang. Alvirah grabbed it as a phone number appeared on the recording machine. A familiar number. Alvirah realized the caller was the formidable Sister Cordelia.
Willy had seven sisters. Six of them had gone into the convent. The seventh, now deceased, was the mother of Brian, whom Alvirah and Willy loved as a son. Brian, a playwright, was in London now. Alvirah would have turned to him for help if he’d been in New York.
But she wasn’t about to tell Cordelia about Willy’s abduction. Cordelia would have the White House on the phone, demanding that the President dispatch the standing army to rescue her brother.
Cordelia sounded a little peeved. “Alvirah, Willy was supposed to come over this afternoon. One of the old girls we visit needs to have her toilet fixed. It’s not like him to forget. Let me talk to him.”
Alvirah managed a he-har-har laugh that sounded even to her ears like the canned stuff you hear on lousy television shows. “Cordelia, it must have gone out of his mind,” she said. “Willy is . . . he’s . . . ” She had a burst of inspiration. “Willy’s in Washington to testify about the cheapest way to fix plumbing in the tenements the government is restoring. You know how he can do miracles to make things work. The President read that Willy is a genius at that and sent for him.”
“The President!” Cordelia’s incredulous tone made Alvirah wish she’d named Senator Moynihan or maybe some congressman. I never lie, she fretted. I don’t know how.
“Willy would never go to Washington without you,” Cordelia snorted.
“They sent a car for him.” Well, at least that’s true, Alvirah thought.
She heard the “hrrump” on the other end of the line. Cordelia was nobody’s fool. “Well, when he gets back, tell him to get right over here.”
Two minutes later the phone rang again. This time the number that came up was not familiar. It’s them, Alvirah thought. She realized her hand was shaking. Forcing herself to think of the sixth-grade drama medal, she reached for the receiver.
Her hello was hardy and confident.
“We hope you’ve been banking, Mrs. Meehan.”
“Yes, I have. Put Willy on.”
“You can talk to him in a minute. We want the money by Friday night.”
“Friday night! It’s Tuesday now. That only gives me three days. It takes a long time to get all that together.”
“Just do it. Say hello to Willy.”
“Hi, honey.” Willy’s voice sounded subdued. Then he said, “Hey, let me talk.”
Alvirah heard the sound of the receiver dropping. “Okay, Alvirah,” the whispery voice said. “We’re not going to call you again until Friday night at seven o’clock. We’ll let you talk to Willy then and we’ll tell you where to meet us. Remember, any funny business and in the future you’ll have to pay to have your plumbing fixed. Willy won’t be around to take care of it.”
The receiver clicked in her ear. Willy. Willy. Her hand still gripping the phone, Alvirah stared at the number listed on the machine: 555-7000. Should she call back? But suppose one of them answered. They’d know she was tracing them. Instead she called the Globe. As she expected, her editor, Charley, was still at his desk. She explained what she needed.
“Sure, I can get it for you, Alvirah. You sound kind of mysterious. Are you working on a case you can write up for us?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
Ten minutes later he called back. “Hey, Alvirah, that’s some dump you’re looking up. It’s the Lincoln Arms Hotel on Ninth Avenue, near the Lincoln Tunnel. It’s one step down from a flophouse.”
The Lincoln Arms Hotel. Alvirah managed to thank Charley before she slammed down the receiver and headed out the door.
Just in case she was being watched she left the apartment house through the garage and hailed a cab. She started to tell the driver to take her to the hotel, then thought better of it. Suppose one of Willy’s kidnappers spotted her? Instead she had him drop her at the bus terminal. That was only a block away.
Her kerchief covering her head, her coat collar turned up, Alvirah walked past the Lincoln Arms Hotel. Dismayed, she realized it was a pretty big place. She glanced up at the windows. Was Willy behind one of them? The building looked as though it had been built before the Civil War, but it was at least ten or twelve stories high. How could she ever find him in that place? Once again she wondered if she should call the cops and then remembered again the time some wife did call and the cops were spotted at the ransom drop and the kidnappers sped away. They found the body three weeks later.
No. She couldn’t risk it. She had to get Willy back.
Alvirah stood in the shadows at the side of the hotel and prayed to St. Jude, the saint of lost causes. And then she spotted it. A sign in the window. HELP WANTED—Room service. 4:00 to 12:00 P.M. shift. She had to get that job, but not looking like this.
Ignoring the trucks and cars and buses that were barreling toward the tunnel entrance, Alvirah dashed into the street, grabbed a cab, and rattled off the address of the apartment in Flushing. Her brain was working overtime.
The old apartment had been their home for nearly forty years and looked exactly the same as it had the day they’d won the lottery. The dark gray over stuffed velour couch and matching chair, the green and-orange rug the lady she cleaned for on Tuesdays had been throwing out, the mahogany-veneer bedroom set that had been Willy’s mother’s bridal furniture.
In the closet were all the clothes she’d worn in those days. Splashy print dresses from Alexander’s. Polyester slacks and sweatshirts, sneakers and high-heeled shoes purchased at outlets. In the mirror cabinet in the bathroom she found the henna rinse that made her hair the color of the rising sun on the Japanese flag.
An hour later there was no vestige left of the gentrified lottery winner. Bright red hair wisped around a face now startling with the makeup she used to love before Baroness Min taught her that less is better. Her old lipstick exactly matched her flaming hair. Her eyelids were emblazoned with purple shadow. Jeans too tight across the seat, ankles hidden by thick socks and feet stuffed into
well-worn sneakers, a fleece-lined sweatshirt with the skyline of Manhattan stenciled across the front finished the transformation.
Alvirah surveyed the overall result with satisfaction. I look like someone who’d apply for a job in that crummy hotel, she decided. Reluctantly she left her sunburst pin in a drawer. It just didn’t look right on the sweatshirt, and she had the backup pin Charley had given her at the other apartment if she needed it. When she pulled on her old all-weather coat she remembered to switch her money and keys to the voluminous black-and-green tote bag that she’d always carried to her cleaning jobs.
Forty minutes later she was in the Lincoln Arms Hotel. The grimy lobby contained a battered desk in front of a wall of mailboxes and four black Naugahyde chairs in advanced stages of disrepair. The stained brown carpet was pocked with gaping holes that revealed ancient linoleum flooring.
Never mind room service, they ought to look for a cleaning woman, Alvirah thought as she approached the desk.
The sallow-complexioned, bleary-eyed clerk looked up.
“Whaddaya want?”
“A job. I’m a good waitress.”
Something that was more sneer than smile moved the clerk’s lips. “You don’t need to be good, just fast. How old are ya?”
“Fifty,” Alvirah lied.
“You’re fifty, I’m twelve. Go home.”
“I need a job,” Alvirah persisted, her heart pounding. She could feel Willy’s presence. She’d have taken an oath that he was hidden somewhere in this hotel. “Give me a chance. I’ll work free for three or four days. If you don’t think I’m the best worker you ever had by, let’s say Saturday, you can fire me.”
The clerk shrugged. “So whadda I got to lose? Be here tomorrow at four sharp. Whaddaya say your name was?”
“Tessie,” Alvirah said firmly. “Tessie Magink.”
* * *
Wednesday morning Willy could sense the growing tension among his captors. Clarence flatly refused to allow Sammy to step outside the room. When Sammy complained, Clarence snapped, “After twelve years in a cell you shouldn’t have no trouble staying put.”
There was no sign of a chambermaid beating down the door to clean, but Willy decided the room probably hadn’t been cleaned in a year anyhow. The three cotlike beds were lined up together, heads against the bathroom wall. A narrow dresser covered with peeling sheets of Con-Tact paper, a black-and-white television, and a round table with four chairs completed the decor.
On Tuesday night Willy had persuaded his captors to allow him to sleep on the bathroom floor. It was bigger than the closet, and, as he pointed out, if he stretched out that extra bit he would be able to walk when they exchanged him for the ransom. He did not miss the glances they exchanged at the suggestion. They had no intention of letting him go free to talk about them. That meant he had about fortyeight hours to figure out a way of being rescued from this fleabag.
At three in the morning, when he’d heard Sammy and Tony snoring in harmony and Clarence’s irritated but regular gasps, Willy had managed to sit up, get to his feet and hop over to the toilet. The rope that tethered him to the bathtub faucet allowed him just enough room to touch the lid of the water tank. With his manacled hands, he lifted it, laid it on the sink and reached into the grimy, rust-colored water of the tank. The result was that a few minutes later the dripping had become louder, more frequent and more insistent.
That was why Clarence had awakened to the distressing sound of constantly bubbling water. Willy smiled a grim, inner smile as Clarence barked, “I’m gonna go nuts. Sounds like a camel peeing.”
When the room-service breakfast was being delivered, Willy was again securely tied and gagged in the closet, this time with Sammy’s gun at his temple. From the hall outside the room, Willy could hear the faint croak of the obviously old man who was apparently the sole room-service employee. It was useless to even think about attracting his attention.
That afternoon, Clarence began stuffing towels around the bathroom door, but nothing could block out the sound of running water. “I’m getting one of my bad headaches,” he snarled, settling down on the unmade bed. A few minutes later Tony began to whistle. Sammy shut him up immediately. Willy heard him whisper, “When Clarence gets one of his headaches, watch out.”
Tony was clearly bored. His beady eyes glazed over as he sat watching television, the sound barely turned on. Willy sat next to him, tied to a chair, the gag loosened enough that he could talk through almost closed lips.
At the table, Sammy played endless games of solitaire. In late afternoon, Tony got bored with the television and snapped it off. “You got any kids?” he asked Willy.
Willy knew that if he had any hope of getting out of this dump alive, Tony would be his ticket. Trying to ignore the combination of cramps and numbness in his arms and legs, he told Tony that he and Alvirah had never been blessed with kids, but they thought of his nephew, Brian, as their own child, especially since Brian’s mother—Willy’s sister—had been called to her eternal reward. “I have six other sisters,” he said. “They’re all nuns. Cordelia is the oldest. She’s sixty-eight going on twentyone.”
Tony’s jaw dropped. “No foolin’. When I was a kid and kind of on the streets and picking up a few bucks separating women from their pocketbooks, if you know what I mean, I never once hit on a nun, even when they wuz heading for the supermarket, meaning they had cash. When I had a good hit I left a coupla bucks in the convent mailbox, sort of an expression of gratitude.”
Willy tried to look impressed at Tony’s largess.
“Will you shut up?” Clarence barked from the bed. “My head’s splitting.”
Willy breathed a silent prayer as he said, “You know, I could fix that leak if I just had a monkey wrench and a screwdriver.”
If he could just get his hands on that tank, he thought. He could flood the joint. They couldn’t very well shoot him if people were rushing in to stop the cascade of water he could loose.
* * *
Sister Cordelia knew something was wrong. Much as she loved Willy, she could not imagine the President sending for him in a private car. Something else; Alvirah was always so open you could read her like the headline of the New York Post. But when Cordelia tried to phone Alvirah Wednesday morning there was no answer. Then, when she did reach her at three-thirty, Alvirah sounded out of breath. She was just running out, she explained, but didn’t say where. Of course Willy was fine. Why wouldn’t he be? He’d be home by the weekend.
The convent was an apartment in an old building on Amsterdam Avenue and 100th Street. Sister Cordelia lived there with four elderly sisters and the one novice, twenty-seven-year-old Maeve Marie, who had been a policewoman for three years before realizing she had a vocation.
When Cordelia hung up after speaking to Alvirah she sat down heavily on a sturdy kitchen chair. “Maeve,” she said, “something is wrong with Willy. I feel it in my bones.”
The phone rang. It was Arturo Morales, the manager of the Flushing bank around the corner from Willy and Alvirah’s old apartment.
“Sister,” he began, sounding distressed, “I hate to bother you, but I’m worried.”
Cordelia’s heart sank as Arturo explained that Alvirah had tried to withdraw one hundred thousand dollars from the bank. They were able to give her only twenty thousand but had promised to have the rest of the cash Friday morning; she’d told them she absolutely had to have it by then.
Cordelia thanked him for the information, promised never to hint that he’d violated bank confidentiality, hung up and snapped to Maeve Marie, “Come on. We’re going to see Alvirah.”
* * *
Alvirah reported to the Lincoln Arms Hotel promptly at four o’clock. She’d changed her clothes in the Port Authority. Now, standing in front of the desk clerk, she felt secure in her disguise. The clerk jerked his head to indicate that she was to go down the corridor to the door marked Stay Out.
It led to the kitchen. The chef, a bony seventy-year-old who bore a startling re
semblance to forties cowboy star Gabby Hayes, was preparing hamburgers. Clouds of smoke rose from the spatters of grease on the grill. He looked up. “You Tessie?”
Alvirah nodded.
“Okay. I’m Hank. Start delivering.”
There were no subtleties in the room-service department. Service consisted of the kind of brown plastic tray that was found in hospital cafeterias, coarse paper napkins, plastic utensils, sample-sized packets of mustard, ketchup and relish. Hank shoveled limp hamburgers onto buns. “Pour the coffee. Don’t fill the cups too much. Dish out the french fries.”
Alvirah obeyed. “How many rooms in this place?” she asked as she set up trays.
“Hundred.”
“That many!”
Hank grinned, revealing tobacco-stained false teeth. “Only forty rented overnight. The by-the-hour trade ain’t looking for room service.”
Alvirah considered. Forty wasn’t too bad. She figured there had to be at least two men involved in the kidnapping. One to drive the car, one to keep Willy from bopping him. Maybe even one more to make that first phone call. She needed to watch for big orders. At least it was a start.
She began delivering with Hank’s firm reminder to collect on the spot. The hamburgers went to the bar, which was inhabited by a dozen or so roughlooking guys you wouldn’t want to meet on a dark night. The second order she brought to the room clerk and hotel manager, who presided over the premises from an airless room behind the desk. Their heros were on the house. Her next tray, containing cornflakes and a double boilermaker, was for a disheveled, bleary-eyed senior citizen. Alvirah was sure the cornflakes were an afterthought.
Next she was sent with a heavy tray to four men playing cards on the ninth floor. Another card-game group on the seventh floor ordered pizzas. On the eighth floor, she was met at the door by a husky guy who said, “Oh. You’re new. I’ll take it. When you knock on the door, don’t bang. My brother’s got a bad headache.” Behind him Alvirah could see a man lying on a bed, a cloth over his eyes. The persistent dripping sound from the bathroom reminded her overwhelmingly of Willy. He’d have that leak fixed in no time flat. There was clearly no one else in the room, and the guy at the door looked as though he could have cleaned the contents of the tray on his own.