else, as well. It was optimistic, and so he preferred to concentrate on that. All that baby stuff suggested they meant to keep the kid alive, at least for awhile.
Granger was still looking at him, waiting for an answer.
So Sterling said, “Who knows why these mopes do anything? Come on, let’s go.”
The all-but-positive ID of Blaisdell as one of the kidnappers went out to state and local law enforcement agencies at 8:05 PM. At 8:20, Sterling received a call from State Trooper Paul Hanscom, at the Portland barracks. Hanscom reported that a 1970 Mustang had been stolen from the same mall where Georgia Kingsbury had seen Blaisdell, and at approximately the same time. He wanted to know if the FBI would like that added to the APB. Sterling said the FBI would like that very much.
Now Sterling decided that he knew the answer to Agent Granger’s question. It was really simple. The brains of the operation was brighter than Blaisdell — bright enough to hang back, especially with the added excuse of a baby to take care of — but not
And now it was really just a matter of waiting for the net to tighten. And hoping –
But Albert Sterling decided he could do more than just hope. At 10:15 that evening, he went down the hall to the men’s and checked the stalls and urinals. The place was empty. That didn’t surprise him. This was just a small office, really just a provincial bump on the FBI’s ass. Also, it was getting late.
He went into one of the stalls, dropped to his knees, and folded his hands just as he had as a child. “God, this is Albert. If that baby is still alive, watch over him, would you? And if I get near the man who murdered Norma Gerard, please let him do something that will give me cause to kill the sonofabitch. Thank you. I pray in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ.”
And because the men’s room was still empty, he threw in a Hail Mary for good measure.
Chapter 17
THE BABY WOKE HIM UP at quarter to four in the morning, and a bottle didn’t comfort him. When the crying continued, Blaze began to be a little scared. He put a hand on Joe’s forehead. The skin felt cool, but the screams he was producing were frightening in their intensity. Blaze was afraid he’d bust a blood vessel, or something.
He put Joe on the changing table. He took off his diapers and didn’t see how they could be the problem, either. They were dewy but not pooey. Blaze powdered the kid’s bottom and put on fresh didies. The screams continued. Blaze began to feel desperate as well as frightened.
Blaze hoisted the shrieking infant onto his shoulder. He began to walk him in large circles around the kitchen. “Hushabye,” he said. “You’re all right. You’re okay. You’re
Maybe it was the walking. Maybe it was the sound of Blaze’s voice. In any case, Joe’s screams shortened, then stopped. A few more turns around the shack’s kitchen and the baby’s head fell against the side of Blaze’s neck. His breathing lengthened into the long slow strokes of sleep.
Blaze put him carefully down in the cradle and began to rock it. Joe stirred but did not wake. One small hand found its way into his mouth, and he began to chew furiously. Blaze started feeling better. Maybe there was nothing wrong, after all. The book said they chewed their hands that way when they were teething or hungry, and he was pretty sure Joe wasn’t hungry.
He looked down at the baby and thought, more consciously this time, that Joe was sort of nice. Cute, too. Anybody could see that. It would be interesting to see him grow through all the stages the doctor talked about in
Then he’d
The thought was unsettling. Blaze couldn’t sleep anymore. He got up and turned on the radio, keeping the volume low. He searched through the before-sunrise chatter of a thousand competing stations until he found the strong signal of WLOB.
The four AM news had nothing fresh about the kidnapping. That seemed all right; the Gerards wouldn’t be getting his letter until later today. Maybe not even until tomorrow, depending on when the mail got picked up from the mall. Besides, he couldn’t see why they should have any leads. He’d been careful, and except for that guy at Oakwood (Blaze had already forgotten his name), he thought this was what George would have called “a real clean gag.”
Sometimes, after they pulled a good con, he and George would buy a bottle of Four Roses. Then they would go to a movie and chase the Roses with Coke they bought from the theater’s refreshment stand. If the movie was a long one, George would sometimes be almost too drunk to walk by the time the final credits rolled. He was smaller, and the booze got to him quicker. They had been good times. They made Blaze think about the times when him and old Johnny Cheltzman had palled around, snickering at those old movies the Nordica showed.
Music came back on the radio. Joe was sleeping easily. Blaze thought he should go back to bed himself. There was a lot to do tomorrow. Or maybe even today. He wanted to send the Gerards another ransom note. He’d had a good idea for collecting the swag. It had come to him in a dream — a crazy one — he’d had the night before. He hadn’t been able to make head or tail of it then, but the sweet, heavy, dreamless sleep from which the baby’s crying had just roused him seemed to have clarified it. He’d tell them to drop the ransom from a plane. A small one that didn’t fly very high. In the letter he would say that the plane should fly south along Route 1 from Portland to the Massachusetts border, looking for a red signal light.
Blaze knew just how to do it: road-flares. He would buy half a dozen from the hardware store in town, and set them out in a little bunch at the place he picked. They would make a good hard light. He knew just the place, too: a logging road south of Ogunquit. There was a clearing on that road where the truckers sometimes pulled over to eat their lunches or catch a snooze in the sleepers they had behind their cabs. The clearing was close to Route 1, and a pilot flying down the highway couldn’t miss road-flares there, bunched close and shooting up like a big red flashlight. Blaze knew he still wouldn’t have much time, but he thought he’d have enough. That first logging road led to a network of unmarked rambles with names like Boggy Stream Road and Bumpnose Road. Blaze knew them all. One of them led to Route 41 and from there he could turn back north. Find a place to hide out until the heat cooled down. He had even considered Hetton House. It was empty and boarded up now, with a FOR SALE sign in front of it. Blaze had been by there several times in the last few years, drawn back like a little kid who’s had a scare in the neighborhood’s supposedly haunted house.
Only for him, HH really
Anyway, it was going to be all right, that was the main thing. It had been scary for awhile, and he was sorry about the old lady (whose first name he had also forgotten), but now it was turned into a real clean g –
“Blaze.”
He glanced toward the bathroom. It was George, all right. The bathroom door was ajar, the way George always left it when he wanted to talk while he took a dump. “Crap coming out at both ends,” he’d said once when he was doing that, and both of them laughed. He could be funny when he wanted to, but he didn’t sound like he was in a funny mood this morning. Also, Blaze thought he had closed that door when he came out of the bathroom himself the last time. He supposed a draft could have blown it open again, but he didn’t feel any dra –
“They’ve almost got you, Blaze,” George said. Then, in a kind of despairing growl: “Dumb shit.”
“Who does?” Blaze asked.
“The cops. Who did you think I meant, the Republican National Committee? The FBI. The State Police. Even the local humps in blue.”
“No they ain’t. I been doin real good, George. Honest. It’s a clean gag. I’ll tell you what I did, how careful I w—”
“If you don’t blow this shack, they’ll have you by noon tomorrow.”
“How — what—”
