And Pam Cassidy, I thought. What did she do that provoked you?
But what I said was, 'We won't argue the price.'
'You'll pay the million.'
'For the girl, alive and well.'
'I assure you she's both.'
'And I still need more than your word. Put her on the phone, let her father talk to her.'
'I'm afraid that won't—' he began, and the recorded voice of a NYNEX announcer cut in to ask for more money. 'I'll call you back,' he said.
'Out of quarters? Give me your number, I'll call you.'
He laughed and broke the connection.
I WAS alone in the apartment with Yuri when the next call came.
Kenan and Peter were out with one of the two guards from downstairs, looking to raise what cash they could. Yuri had given them a list of names and phone numbers, and they had some sources of their own. It would have been simpler if we could have made the calls from the penthouse, but we only had the two phone lines and I wanted to keep both of them open.
'You're not in the business,' Yuri said. 'You're some kind of cop, yes?'
'Private.'
'Private, so you been working for Kenan. Now you're working for me, right?'
'I'm just working. I'm not looking to be on the payroll, if that's what you mean.'
He waved the issue aside. 'This is a good business,' he said, 'but also it's no good. You know?'
'I think so.'
'I want to be out of it. That's one reason I got no cash. I make lots of money, but I don't want it in cash and I don't want it in goods. I own parking lots, I own a restaurant, I spread it out, you know? In a little while I'm out of the dope business altogether. A lot of Americans start out as gangsters, yes? And wind up legitimate businessmen.'
'Sometimes.'
'Some are gangsters forever. But not all. Wasn't for Devorah, I'd be out of it already.'
'Your wife?'
'The hospital bills, the doctors, my God, what it cost. No insurance. We were greenhorns, what did we know from Blue Cross?
Doesn't matter. Whatever it cost I paid. I was glad to pay it. I would have paid more to keep her alive, I would have paid anything. I would have sold the fillings out of my teeth if I could have bought her another day. I paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and she had every day the doctors could give her, and what days they were, the poor woman, what she suffered through. But she wanted all the life she could get, you know?' He wiped a broad hand across his forehead. He was about to say something else but the phone rang. Wordless, he pointed at it.
I picked it up.
The same man said, 'Shall we try again? I'm afraid the girl cannot come to the phone. That's out of the question. How else can we reassure you of her well-being?'
I covered the mouthpiece. 'Something your daughter would know.'
He shrugged. 'The dog's name?'
Into the phone I said, 'Have her tell you— no, wait a minute.' I covered the phone and said, 'They could know that. They've been shadowing her for a week or more, they know your schedule, they've undoubtedly seen her walking the dog, heard her call him by name.
Think of something else.'
'We had a dog before this one,' he said. 'A little black-and-white one, it got hit by a car. She was just a small thing herself when we had that dog.'
'But she would remember it?'
'Who could forget? She loved the dog.'
'The dog's name,' I said into the phone, 'and the name of the dog before this one. Have her describe both dogs and furnish their names.'
He was amused. 'One dog won't do. It has to be two.'
'Yes.'
'So that you may be doubly reassured. I'll humor you, my friend.'
I WONDERED what he would do.
He'd have called from a pay phone. I was certain of that. He hadn't stayed on the line long enough for his quarter to run out, but he wasn't going to change the pattern now, not when it had worked so well for him. He was at a pay phone, and now he had to find out the name and description of two dogs, and then he would have to call me back.
Assume for the moment that he wasn't calling from the laundromat phone. Assume he was at some phone on the street, far enough from his house that he'd taken a car. Now he would drive back to the house, park, go inside,
