learned that there are exceptions in life.”
I looked at my watch. Five minutes to go.
“Sorry, guess I’m boring you.”
“Oh, no, Bear! Not at all. The call. I’m just worried about the call.”
“What call?” Mike asked.
“Hocus — the ones who have Frank. They told me they’d call me here at five.”
Bradshaw lost all color in his face. For an awful moment I thought he was going to pass out. Mike rushed over to him, but just as suddenly the Bear seemed to pull himself together. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, still shaken. “Damn, you don’t need that, Irene…. Bea — I’ve got to talk to Bea….” He began to lever himself up from the chair.
Over Bradshaw’s growling protests, Mike helped him to his feet, but before he could move forward, Bea and Cassidy came back into the room. Voices rose together. Cassidy calling my name; Bea saying, “Oh, Greg!” and Bradshaw saying, “Here, now,” as he reached out to her with his free hand; Mike trying to respond to his wife’s, “What’s wrong?” as she came into the room carrying coffee.
The phone rang. We reacted in the way a man walking through the desert alone reacts when he hears a rattle. We all stood stock still, silent.
It rang again, and Cassidy said, “Irene, come with me. The rest of you stay out here.”
I followed him as he all but ran to one of the bedrooms, where he had set up the recorder and a telephone headset that would allow him to listen in. Between us were two pads of paper and pens for scribbling notes.
On the third ring, as Cassidy nodded and turned on the recorder, I picked up the phone.
“What happened, Ms. Kelly?” the voice on the other end teased. “Did Detective Cassidy run out of tape cassettes?”
“You know I’m at my mother-in-law’s house,” I answered.
I scribbled a note to Cassidy: “Different caller.”
Cassidy nodded.
“Oh, there is no privacy for people in our position,” the caller said.
“Your position?”
“Hocus is quite famous now. We’re almost as famous now as we were when we were little. Our fathers’ murders bought us our first fifteen minutes of fame.”
“Good! You did your homework. We’re very pleased.”
“Am I speaking to Samuel or Bret?”
“Samuel, at the moment. Our fathers enjoyed stories about the Old West. Bret is named for Bret Harte. I’m named for Samuel Clemens. Detective Cassidy, you do know Samuel Clemens was the man who wrote as Mark Twain, don’t you?”
Cassidy pulled the small microphone on the headset down to his mouth. “Well, Samuel, contrary to Yankee propaganda, there are a few literate folks living south of the Mason-Dixon line.”
Samuel Ryan laughed; a false, nervous laugh. “What a wit, Thomas! You don’t mind if I call you Thomas, do you?”
“Not at all. Tom would be better. You prefer Samuel or Sam?”
“Samuel, please. And Ms. Kelly, would it seem disrespectful if I addressed you as Irene?”
“I’d prefer it to Ms. Kelly.”
“Fine. We really think the two of you are well suited for the task we have in mind. Tom is a virtual tower of equanimity. You are so lucky to have him along for the ride, aren’t you, Irene?”
“Forgive me if I say I’d rather not be on the ride in the first place.”
Cassidy shot me a warning look, but Samuel laughed again.
“Well, I’d love to sit here and chat,” Samuel said, “but that would lead to Detective Harriman being even more uncomfortable than he is now.”
“Uncomfortable?” Cassidy asked.
“The drugs, the restraints. Being without his own clothes. And of course, as the drugs wear off, there is pain.”
My eyes widened. Cassidy held up a hand, motioning me not to talk, obviously aware that I couldn’t speak with anything resembling composure. But in the same tone of voice in which anyone else might have said, “Read the funny papers yet?” Cassidy said, “Last time, Bret did mention that Frank was injured.”
“You didn’t expect him to come along peacefully, did you?” Samuel said defensively. “It’s his own fault. He fought us, and he got hurt. But he has received medical attention.”
“He has?”
“Yes. I stitched up his head myself.”
