Ernie saw now that there were bruised areas under Ben’s right eye and on his jawbone.
“Funny thing,” Kratich said. “He never fought back. He just sort of fell into that chair and stayed there.”
Ernie went over and stood in front of Ben. “Ben,” he said quietly.
Ben looked up at him.
“Do you know me, Ben?”
Ben said, in a strange flat far-off voice, “Hello, Ernie.”
“Good. I wasn’t sure. All right, Ben. Do you want to tell me about it now?”
Ben continued to stare at him.
“About Carolyn,” Ernie said. “Tell me about Carolyn.”
Tears came in Ben’s eyes. “I tried,” he said. “I tried every way I knew. I thought I could find him. But it isn’t any use and Lorene won’t help. I knew she wouldn’t. So that’s my last hope gone, Ernie.”
“But you still haven’t told me about Carolyn,” Ernie said patiently. “About Carolyn and Al Guthrie.”
Ben’s body tensed. He half rose in the chair. “You know about Al Guthrie?”
Ernie nodded. “I know.”
He was not prepared for what happened. Ben became possessed of a fury so sudden and wild that Ernie had no time even to step back. The first thing he knew Ben had sprung up and caught him in a throttling grip and was shaking him and crying out:
“You knew and you didn’t do anything? You just sat there and didn’t even try to save her? God damn you, Ernie—”
Bill Drumm sprang swiftly to Ernie’s side. He chopped down with the edge of his hand on Ben’s neck. Within seconds Ben was doubled up on the chair and Bill Drumm was holding his wrist high between his shoulder blades.
Ben sobbed. “I didn’t tell you because he said he’d kill her if I did. But if you knew you should have done something.”
Ernie, somewhat shaken, looked at Bill Drumm over Ben’s head. He said:
“Is Carolyn alive?”
“He swore she was. He swore he wouldn’t touch her for five days.”
“Al Guthrie swore?”
“Al Guthrie, of course, who the hell else?” Ben leaned in against Bill Drumm’s grip, getting his head up. He looked at Lorene. “He wants Lorene back. He thinks it’s my fault she got the divorce. So he took Carolyn. He’s holding her to make me find some way of getting Lorene back to him. He gave me five days.”
“Jesus,” said Ernie half aloud. It was the only sound in the room. Then Lorene cried shrilly:
“Is that what you were trying to do to me?”
“It was crazy,” Ben said. “I told Guthrie it was, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“When did you talk to him?” Ernie asked.
“Friday night. He called on the phone just before you came.” Ben looked around the room, regarding them all with a weary hate. “If he doesn’t get Lorene back he’ll kill Carolyn. Then he’ll kill Lorene. He doesn’t know about you yet, Kratich, but when he does he’ll kill you too. Then probably me. After that he doesn’t care.”
Lorene’s face crumpled and sagged. “I don’t believe you. You’re making it up. Your wife’s in Pittsburgh with her folks. You said so.”
Kratich moved over to her and put his hand on her shoulder. Suddenly he looked very grave and not angry any more.
Ernie said, “No, she’s not in Pittsburgh.”
Lorene looked at Ben as though he had brought some horrible thing into the room with him. Then she whispered, “Al?” on a thin rising note. She began to tremble.
Mary Catherine Brewer got to her feet and said, “That settles it. I’m moving. I’ve read about these estranged husbands. They come looking for their wives, and if they aren’t there they shoot whoever’s handy.”
She ran into the bedroom and slammed the door.
Kratich said to Ernie, “Is what he says true?”
Ernie didn’t answer. He went to the phone and got Packer out of bed. Then he told Lorene to get her coat. “You’d better come too, Mr. Kratich. We can discuss this better downtown.”
He leaned over and got Ben by the arm. “Come on.”
Ben had slipped away from him again into the shades of his private hell.
“I was so close,” he said. “I could almost put my hand on him. But I failed.”
“Where were you close to him?” Ernie asked.
And Ben answered, “In South Flat. But I failed.”
Ernie said, “It’s up to me now, Ben. We won’t fail. You should have told us before.”
“He’ll kill her,” Ben said. “I did all I could. It just wasn’t enough.”
He walked out of the apartment, not quite leaning on Bill Drumm. Lorene followed, hanging on to Kratich. Ernie went over and knocked on the bedroom door. When Mary Catherine opened it he said, “We’ll want your new address. And Miss Brewer—I can’t impress on you too strongly how important this is—don’t talk about this to anyone. You understand? Not to your boyfriend, your mother, anyone. If you do, you could be responsible for Mrs. Forbes’ death.”
She seemed sufficiently impressed. “I understand.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry I thought what I did about Mr. Forbes. Poor guy, no wonder he acted crazy.”
“Yeah,” said Ernie. “Me, too.”
He followed the others downstairs, feeling as though he ought to be doing it slithering on his belly rather than walking upright. But, Jesus, he thought, what else was I supposed to think? Who would figure a setup like that? And Ben, the poor sap, why didn’t he tell me?
Then he thought what he would have done if it had been Ivy, and he wasn’t sure he would have been any smarter.
That was about one o’clock on Tuesday morning.
At a quarter to two Packer, after talking to Ben Forbes and Ernie MacGrath, decided to get Chief of Police Harbacher out of bed. Captain Stepanak and Lieutenant Snyder joined them. At three-thirty Ben Forbes was still answering questions for them. They no longer doubted the truth of his story. They were trying to straighten out and evaluate the chain of evidence and reasoning that had led Ben to believe that Al Guthrie was holding Carolyn somewhere in South Flat.
At twenty minutes to four Vernon Kratich asked if he might take Lorene home. They had been for some time in Packer’s office, alternately questioned and deserted, and Lorene was now in a state of dumb hysteria. Arrangements had been discussed and it had been decided that Lorene would stay with the Kratich family for the present.
Kratich said, “Do you think you’ll be able to catch him?”
“We don’t doubt that,” Packer said. “We can’t just be sure when. And of course Mrs. Forbes complicates things. Our first job is to try and get her back unharmed.”
Kratich shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry for Forbes. If I’d known—”
“It’s a pity we didn’t know,” said Packer. “We’d have had more time.”
“I still can’t quite believe it,” Kratich said, looking at Lorene. “How would Guthrie think such a crazy plan would work?”
“In this business,” Packer said, “you learn pretty early that you only have one thing to go by—not what makes sense to you, but what makes sense to the guy who’s doing it. You or I, Mr. Kratich, would know better. But Guthrie thinks he’s done something really clever.”
“It looks to me like he has,” said Ernie, who was standing by. “He gets Lorene, or he gets revenge, and either way he’s made everybody sweat. From his standpoint, how can he lose?”
“Yes,” said Kratich, “but look. If he kills Mrs. Forbes he’s a murderer. All right. But even if he got Lorene back and returned Mrs. Forbes unhurt, he’d still be a kidnaper. Does he think they don’t punish you for that?”
“If,” said Packer, “everybody was capable of thinking a thing though to its logical conclusion, we wouldn’t have crimes, business failures, or a lot of marriages.”
He said good night to Kratich, who went out carrying Lorene like a great floppy rag doll in the bend of his arm.
Ernie said sourly, “You wouldn’t think she was worth all this, would you?”
“I don’t know,” said Packer. “She’s a damn sight better-looking than most of the bags these guys go kill-crazy over. Matter of fact, I don’t think looks have got much to do with it. I think it’s a matter of psychology. They can’t stand the shock of having a woman tell them to go to hell and really mean it.”
Ernie grunted. He followed Packer back down the hall to Harbacher’s office, where Ben Forbes was sitting like a zombie, making his mouth open and shut and bring forth words.
Harbacher had a big map of Woodley on his wall. He was standing in front of it with Stepanak and Snyder. Ernie and Packer joined them.
“Well,” said Packer, “What do you think?”
Harbacher, who looked like an older, heavier, and even more disillusioned Packer, said, “I think maybe Forbes has made a pretty good guess. Guthrie called from a local number. Assuming from that and from what he said about a house that he is hiding out in town, South Flat seems like the most probable area.”
“Uh-huh,” said Packer. “So where does that leave us? If we throw a bunch of cops in there he’d be almost bound to see them.”
Ben sprang up suddenly. “No,” he said, “you can’t do it. He’ll kill her.” He caught hold of Packer’s arm.
Ernie said, “Take it easy, Ben. We’re not going to do anything to endanger her.”
“That’s right,” said Harbacher, sitting down at his desk. He motioned Ben to relax. “I want you to understand this, Mr. Forbes. In kidnaping cases the safety of the victim is the first concern. This holds for the FBI, it holds for us. We will take no action without your approval and consent until your wife is either released or we’re convinced she’s dead. After that we, and probably the FBI too, will go all out to catch Guthrie.”
Ben listened to him, struggling painfully for comprehension.
“However,” said Harbacher, “this isn’t an ordinary case of kidnaping for ransom by a person or persons unknown. We know who the man is and we have an idea where he is. This gives us an advantage. Are you following me, Mr. Forbes?”
Ben said, “Yes.”
“Good. Now, I believe that we can locate Guthrie, if he is in South Flat, without giving an alarm. The Bureau of Motor Vehicles will give us the license number and description of his car. A couple of teams of detectives, like MacGrath, can ask around the neighborhood quietly, and get the answers you couldn’t get. The patrolman on the beat and the men in the radio cars can keep their eyes open. And once we have him tagged we can watch him. The minute he leaves your wife to go out for food or cigarettes or a phone call, we can grab him. I do not believe that these measures would endanger your wife in any way, and I do believe they would give us a very good chance of saving her.”
He let Ben think that over.
“I don’t know,” said Ben after a while. “I’m afraid for Carolyn.”
Ernie said, “You might as well let us try, Ben.”
Ben looked up. “Why?”
“Well,” said Ernie, “like the Chief said, this isn’t an ordinary kidnaping for ransom. If it was you could pay the money. But Guthrie doesn’t want money, he wants Lorene. How are you going to pay her?”
Ben looked at him a moment longer. Then he turned away. “I can’t. But this other thing—the newspapers would find out about it. Guthrie is watching the papers. He’d see—”
“No,” said Harbacher, “There won’t be anything about it in the newspapers. They’ll co-operate with us one hundred per cent. I’ve already made sure of that.”
Ben still hesitated. Then:
“All right,” he said. “Do what you can.”
At a quarter past eleven on Monday night, in the bars along Trumbull Avenue, they were still talking about the creep. Everybody had noticed him. Remember that dude that kept drifting in and out all evening? Well, all of a sudden in the Right Spot he jumps this guy, see, and wants to know where his wife is, only the guy never saw him before. And boy, the guy would of killed him, but old Louie run him out of there so fast his tail was burning.
In the Tip-Top the bitter-faced man said, “So that’s what he was up to, huh?”
The weedy young man in the greasy cap, who was drinking his final beer of the evening, said, “That’s what Charlie told me. He was there.”
The bartender grunted. “I knew the bastard was primed. I threw him out of here, and he must of gone right down the street and started something. Somebody stole his wife, huh?”
“That’s what Charlie said he said. Must be his woman likes muscles or something. That’s all ol’ Sam Borchert has got, any way—just muscles.” The weedy young man laughed. “Way the girls go for him I guess it’s enough.”
“Sam Borchert?” said the bartender. “Is that who he tackled?”
“Yup.”
“Uh-huh,” said the bartender. “It figures. He was looking for a big blond guy.” He turned and spoke to Al Guthrie, who was a little way down the bar and listening with his mouth open. “It’s a good thing you didn’t come in here about then, mac. He’d probably have gone for you.”
Al Guthrie said, “What’s all this?”
The weedy young man repeated what he had heard from Charlie. The bartender continued to look curiously at Al.
“Kind of a tall fellow,” he said. “Kind of brown hair and eyes, wore his hair real short, real fancy dresser. Give me a real good description of the fellow he was looking for. Could of been you.”
“Naw,” said Al. “It couldn’t of been me. I don’t know anybody like that.” He pushed his glass across the bar. “Gimme another double.”
The bartender poured a double shot. Al drank it in one big gulp. His hand shook so he almost spilled some of it getting it up to his mouth. “It wasn’t me,” he said, giving the bartender an ugly look. “I’m no wife-stealer. But I know some bastards that are.”
He paid for the drink and went out. The bartender and the young man looked after him.
“Who’s that?” asked the young man.
The bartender shrugged. “He’s been coming in here off and on for a couple weeks. Ill-looking son of a bitch. I’ve been waiting for him to start trouble.”
“Do you think he’s the one the guy was looking for?”
“I don’t know,” said the bartender, “but if he is he won’t be back. And that’s just the way I want it.”
Out on the street, Al was in a cold sweat. It sounded like Ben Forbes had got right on him somehow. If it was Ben Forbes, and if he had walked into the bar at the wrong time, Ben would have jumped him and screamed for the cops and that would have been the end of him. He wouldn’t even have had the woman to bargain with. Christ. And they’d make it tough for him. They’d give him the shaft just as hard as they could and never think of what they’d done themselves. Justice, hell. A man like him was a sap if he expected it. Justice was for the fat-asses who could pay for it, not for the working-man. They’d clobber him, and Lorene could dance around and laugh at him and lay every guy in town if she wanted to.