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“
Breen,”
the dragging voice said. “This is the general speaking. How did
your charming daughter enjoy my company? You won’t see me next
time I take her driving. Nor her either. Not for a long time, if at
all. But that’s up to you.”

“
Use
your head,” I said. “How can I, give you something I
haven’t got?”

“
Is
that your answer?”

“
I
can’t give you any other. Please . . .”

The
line went dead.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

Scavuzzo’s
spine rested on the edge of a tilted chair and his heels on the edge
of a desk. He and another plain-clothes man I had seen in my house
the night of the murder were listening to racing results barked out
of a tiny table radio.

Scavuzzo
grinned at me over his left shoulder when I asked for Lieutenant
Woodfinch. “If you want a cop, Mr. Breen, I happen to be one
too.”

I
closed the door behind me. “Somebody tried to kidnap my
daughter.”

“
Tried?”
Scavuzzo sounded as if he wished I would go away and let him listen
to the racing results. “You mean a strange man gave her candy
and patted her head?” He switched his grin to the other
detective. “It’s a funny thing about strange men, Perc.
They like to give little girls candy and pat their heads. Downstairs
they get a complaint a day about guys like that.”

“
Once
I stopped to talk to a little girl,” Perc said reflectively.
“All I did was ask her her name and her old lady charged out at
me with a carving knife and yelled for the cops. The only thing that
saved my life was I proved to her I was a cop myself.”

I
said in cold rage: “It was ice cream and he bought her a doll.
He wasn’t a stranger, although I’ve never seen him. He’s
the man who phoned me about the bag Monday night, the man who said he
was Raymond Teacher’s brother.”

Scavuzzo’s
feet thumped off the desk. “Is this on the level, Mr. Breen?”

“
What
the hell do you think I came here for? He didn’t only try. He
actually did kidnap her, for about an hour and a half. Then he let
her off at the corner. A little while later he phoned me and said the
next time he wouldn’t bring her home.”

“
Wait
a minute.” Scavuzzo reached over to click off the radio. “He
told you more than that. He told you why.”

I
wet my lips. “He said he wanted the bag.”

“
So?”
He looked at the other detective, then turned back to me. His mouth
was tight, his eyes hard. “This is the guy you claimed killed
Vital and took the bag.”

“
It
seems I was wrong. For some reason, he thinks I have it.”

Scavuzzo
stood up and started past me. He stopped. “Hell, Mr. Breen, I
thought at first you were handing me the usual gag to throw suspicion
away from yourself. I wouldn’t kid man about his daughter being
snatched.”

He
left the office. Perc turned on the radio. Music had replaced the
staccato voice. He clicked the switch, restoring silence, and picked
up a newspaper.

“
Where
did he go?” I burst out. “Isn’t anything going to
be done?”

“
Hank
is handling it.”

“
Hank?”

“
Hank
Scavuzzo. Sit down. You make me nervous.”

I
couldn’t sit. I couldn’t stand. I prowled the office and
ate cigarettes.

Scavuzzo
returned after a couple of eternities. “The lieutenant wants
you to wait for him. He’s eating his supper.”

“
Is
he crazy?” I said. “My wife and daughter are home alone.”

“
I
sent a man to watch your house. They’ll be safe. How about
coming along with me for a bite to eat, Mr. Breen?”

“
I’d
rather go home and come back in an hour.”

“
That’ll
take too long. There’s a restaurant next block.”

There
were probably ways of keeping me in the police station for a few
hours at least, so I didn’t protest again. Before we left, I
called Esther on one of the office phones. I told her that the house
was being guarded and that I would hang around the police station
because the police thought they knew who the kidnaper was and were
going to arrest him. The lie would make it easier for her to be alone
at home with Carol until I returned.

In
the restaurant I found that Scavuzzo wasn’t a bad sort of guy
when he stopped being a cop, except that after a while I realized
that he hadn’t stopped. He was applying technique to put me on
amiable terms with him, in the hope that during the companionship of
a meal I’d say something I’d be on guard to hold back in
the police station. When that got him nowhere, he started- to talk
about kidnapings.

“
Remember
the Cantor case a couple of years ago?” he said. “For a
week it practically took the war news off the front pages.”

“
I
was overseas.”

“
Well,
then, let me tell you about it. This Cantor was a dress manufacturer
who lived over in Borough Park. Still does for all I know. One day he
got an extortion letter in the mail. The usual thing. Shell out
twenty grand if you don’t want your son hurt. How old is your
daughter?”

“
Almost
seven.”

“
That’s
about what Cantor’s boy would be now. He was five then. Most of
those extortion letters come from crackpots who are bluffing, but
Cantor didn’t take a chance. He was rich enough to hire guards,
so he did. For six weeks they watched the kid day and night. But
there was never a second extortion letter and a kid can’t be
watched all his life, so he pulled the private detectives off the
job. Two nights later the kid was snatched.”

The
pie I was eating turned to straw in my mouth. “While he was
coming home from school?”

“
Right
out of his bedroom at night. Like the Lindbergh snatch. The kid slept
in the nursery on the ground floor. In the morning he wasn’t
there. All Cantor found was a note telling where to leave twenty
grand. Cantor had the dough. He didn’t say a word to the
police. He left the twenty grand where he was supposed to and went
home to wait for his son. He waited a day and a night and then went
to the police.”

“
Was
any trace of the boy ever found?”

Scavuzzo
took a hearty drink of coffee and smacked his lips. “Nobody
ever saw him again. The whole country was in on the hunt, but it got
nowhere. My idea is that the kid was killed even before the money was
collected so the snatcher wouldn’t be bothered with him. He
vanished along with the money and the kidnaper. That’s where it
ended two years ago and that’s where it still is.” He
sighed. “Let’s go back.”

Lieutenant
Woodfinch arrived twenty minutes after we returned to the Homicide
Squad office. He split a nod between Scavuzzo and me, hung his hat on
the coat-tree, sat down behind his desk, unfolded his tobacco pouch,
started carefully and methodically to load his pipe.

I
couldn’t stand it. “What the hell do you care about me
and my family?” I yelled at him. “You’ve got to eat
your supper first. You’ve got to fill your pipe first.”

Woodfinch
struck a match and leaned back, his face in repose. “I’m
listening, Mr. Breen.”

While
I told him, he puffed placidly on his pipe.

“
You
ought to be able to identify him without trouble,” I said.
“That slow voice of his and his height. My daughter described
him as being a lot taller than my six-two. She said eight feet, but
even considering the exaggeration of a child

“
She
didn’t exaggerate by so much,” Woodfinch broke in mildly.
“I’d judge him at around six-seven.”

“
You
know who he is?”

Scavuzzo,
perched on the corner of a desk, said: “George Moon.”

I
spun toward him. “So you’ve known all along?”

“
Sure,”
Scavuzzo said, grinning. “Raymond Teacher was one of George
Moon’s boys.”

I
turned back to Woodfinch. “Then why isn’t he here? Why
hasn’t he been arrested?”

“
Take
it easy, Mr. Breen.” Woodfinch seemed to find his pipe
suddenly’ distasteful. He held it away from him. “What
did he do? Buy your daughter ice cream and a doll. That’s no
crime in any book.”

“
You
could at least have brought him here. You brought me here yesterday
without any charge against me.”

“
I’ll
have a talk with him, but what do you think he’ll say?”

“
Who
is he?”

“
A
crook like Raymond Teacher, only he’s a big shot.” He
flung the pipe angrily into the ashtray — coming from him, a
startling sign of emotion; “He’s been operating out of
Brooklyn for a long time.”

“
With
no convictions, I bet,” I said sourly.

“
With
a couple of suspended sentences. He’s poison for a lot bigger
men than you.”

I
dropped down into a chair and took out cigarettes. “Yesterday
I’d described his voice to you — it’s not a usual
voice — and. you knew all about Teacher, so you must have known
that it was George Moon who’d phoned me Monday night and
pretended to be Teacher’s brother and was after the bag.”

“
I
went to see Moon yesterday, and he—”

“
Went
to see him! I guess he’s too important a crook to be brought to
a police station like an average citizen.”

“
I
went to see him,” Woodfinch said patiently. “He denied
that he’d ever heard of you or was interested in Teacher’s
bag or had even known that he had one. Whether or not I believed him
has nothing to do with it. I’m helpless without evidence. And
now it’s clear that he hasn’t got the; bag, which means
he didn’t murder Vital.” And he stared at me.

“
Which
leaves me,” I said bitterly. “Only it doesn’t. Why
do you insist on overlooking Crooked Nose?”

“
According
to your own story, he was tailing you and the man you call Larry when
Vital was murdered.”

“
How
do you know just when Vital was murdered?” I argued, “It
could have been right after Larry and I had left Vital alone in the
garage. Crooked Nose was hanging around. Say when he saw us drive
away he went into the garage and murdered Vital and took the bag. He
knew about the Coney Island place Larry was taking me to, and after
he had the bag he rushed after us. I was driving slowly; he could
catch up to us without trouble. Or it could have happened after I
knocked Larry out on McDonald Avenue. I told you I took a long way
back home. Say Crooked Nose beat me back to the garage and found
Vital about to leave with the bag and murdered him only a few minutes
before I returned.”

“
Don’t
be silly,” Woodfinch said.

“
What’s
silly about it? It’s conceivable.”

“
I’m
talking about you being silly. Or thinking I am. I’m not a
dope, and I know George Moon isn’t. He’s a shrewd and
careful operator. He doesn’t make mistakes, especially not if
he’s being driven to something as serious as kidnaping. There’s
a reason why he’s so dead sure you have the bag.”

“
I
haven’t got it.” I was beginning to sound like a cracked
phonograph even to myself.

Woodfinch
said without looking at me: “Remember the Cantor kidnapping?”

“
Scavuzzo
told me about it.”

“
Yes.”
Woodfinch started to unroll his pouch and suddenly dropped it and
leaped to his feet. His face was livid.

I
gaped at him. “Damn it, Breen, what’s the matter with
you? I’ve got two daughters of my own. I wouldn’t put one
of them in that kind of danger for ten pigskin bags filled with
gold.”

“
Neither
would I.”

He
sank back into his chair in sudden embarrassment at his outburst and.
picked up his pouch and pipe. His voice was quiet when he spoke
again. “Give us the bag. That’ll take Moon’s heat
off you.”

“
Wouldn’t
I give it to you, now if I had it? Or to Moon? Or sell it to him if
I’d been holding out for money?”

He
studied me for a long time. He looked tired, but not nearly as tired
as I felt.

“
I
don’t know, Mr. Breen,” he said presently. “Yesterday
I couldn’t make up my mind about you, but I can’t see
Moon acting without being sure.”

“
I
ought to be surprised that you don’t doubt that Moon threatens
to kidnap my daughter.”

“
It
could have been another one of your red herrings. I didn’t have
a leisurely meal, as you think, Mr. Breen. Before I came here I was
at your house, talking to your wife and daughter. Your daughter
especially. Children that age don’t lie convincingly.”

I
slammed my fist down on his desk, making the ashtray jump. “Then
why don’t you do something about Moon? Or is he too important a
crook? I’ve lived, in Brooklyn long enough to know how big shot
crooks are treated, even when they don’t own the administration
and the local political club. You didn’t bring Moon to your
office the way you did me. Not even now you don’t. You called
on him with your hat in your hand. You said: ‘Please, Mr. Moon,
begging your pardon, but if you have a few minutes to spare, would
you be terribly offended if your humble servant asked you — ’”