after ? of a houer be
on the place, bring the mony with you.
“May I read that?” Condon asked, and I handed it to him. It was his mail, after all.
He read it over several times and looked at me with worry in his watery blue eyes. “Bring the money?”
“That’s what it says.”
We joined Breckinridge in the living room. Mrs. Condon had left the room and the cabbie was seated on the couch between Gaglio and Rosenhain. Breckinridge was pacing. He grabbed for the note like a starving man for a crust of bread.
“Bring the money!” he read. “Judas Priest! We haven’t
“What do we do?” Condon asked desperately. “I assumed we would work out the details for the ransom exchange, but now…”
“What’s important now is to make contact,” I said. “Explain that the money really will be ready soon. Make the best of it.”
Condon was shaking his head; he seemed confused, disoriented.
Hell with him. I turned to the cabbie, bookended on the couch by Condon’s two cronies.
“What was your name again?” I asked him.
“Joe Perrone. Joseph.”
“Where did you get that letter?”
“Guy hailed me and handed it to me over on Gun Hill Road at Knox Place.”
“How far is that from here?”
“Don’t you know?” the cabbie asked.
“No,” I said. “I’m not from here. I’m a tourist. With a gun.”
“It’s about a mile from here.”
“What did the guy say? What did he look like?”
The little cabbie shrugged. “He asked me if I knew where Decatur Avenue was, where twenty-nine seventy- four would be. I said sure, I know that neighborhood. Then he looked around, over this shoulder and that shoulder, and stuck his hand in his pocket and gave me this envelope and a buck.”
“What did he look like?”
“I don’t know. He was wearing a brown topcoat and a brown felt hat.”
“Any physical characteristics about the guy that were noticeable?”
“No. I didn’t pay any attention.”
“Nothing about the man that fixes itself in your mind?”
“No.”
“You wouldn’t know him again if you saw him?”
“No. I was looking at the buck he gave me. George Washington, him I can identify. What’s this all about, anyway?”
Breckinridge chimed in. “I’m afraid we can’t tell you that just now, Mr. Perrone. Rest assured it’s most important.”
“Let me see your badge,” I said.
“Sure.” He unpinned it from his uniform coat.
I wrote the number down in my notebook. Then I wrote it down on a separate page which I tore out and handed to Gaglio.
“Make yourself useful,” I said. “Go out to that cab parked in front and check this number against the ID card in the backseat. Then write down the license plate number, too.”
Gaglio, glad to be of help, nodded, got up, took the sheet of paper and scurried out.
“What now?” Breckinridge asked.
“The professor keeps his appointment,” I said. “I’ll drive.”
“There were to be no police,” Condon said.
“I’m not a cop in New York State,” I said. “Just a patriotic concerned citizen.”
“With a gun,” the cabbie said.
“Right,” I said. “We’ll take my flivver.”
By “my flivver,” of course, I meant the one Lindy loaned me.
Gaglio came back in and said, “It checks out.”
“Good,” I said. I turned to Perrone. “You go on about your business. You may be hearing from the cops.”
