“DO you have any identification, please,” he said.
I fumbled under my sport coat for my wallet, and as I brought it out, the Magnum.357 was suddenly right up against my neck, and the cop said very seriously, “Put both hands on the top of the car, you sonova bitch.” I put my hands, the wallet still clutched in the left one, on the top of my car and leaned.
“What’s the matter,” I said. “Don’t you like my name?”
With his left hand he reached under my jacket and took my gun from the holster.
“Not bad,” I said. “You must have gotten just a flash of it when I took out my wallet.”
“Now the wallet,” he said.
I handed it to him without ceasing to lean on the car.
“I’ve got a license for that gun,” I said.
“So I see,” he said. The gun barrel still pressed under my left ear. “Got a private cop license too. Stay right where you are.” He backed two steps to the cruiser and, reaching through the window, honked the horn twice. The Magnum stared stolidly at my stomach.
A Smithfield cop came to the back steps. “Hey, Paul, ask Mr. Bartlett if he knows this guy,” the state cop said. Paul disappeared and returned in a minute with Bartlett. Bartlett said, “He’s okay. He’s a private detective. I hired him to find Kevin. He’s okay. Let him come in.”
The state cop put the gun away with a nice neat movement, gave me back my own gun, and nodded me toward the house. I went in.
We were in the kitchen again. Margery Bartlett, her face streaked and teary, Bartlett, Trask, the Smithfield cop, and two men I didn’t know.
Margery Bartlett said, “Kevin’s been kidnapped.”
Her husband said, “We got a ransom note today.”
One of the men I didn’t know said, “I’m Earl Maguire, Spenser,” and put out his hand. “I’m Rog’s attorney. And this is Lieutenant Healy of the State Police. I think you know Chief Trask.” I nodded.
Maguire was small. His grip was hard when he took my hand, and he shook it vigorously. He was dark-skinned with longish black hair carefully layered with a razor cut. Six bucks easy, I thought, for that kind of haircut. I bet the barber wore a black silk coat. He was wearing a form-fitting pale blue denim suit with black stitching along the lapels, blunt-toed, thick-soled black shoes with two-inch heels, a black shirt, and a pale blue figured tie. It must have been his T-Bird outside. BC Law School. Not Harvard, maybe BU, but most likely BC.
“Where’d you go to school?” I said.
“BC,” he said. “Why?”
Ah, Spenser, you can do it all, kid. “No reason,” I said.
“Just wondered.”
Healy I knew of. He was chief investigator for the Essex County DA’s office. There were at least two first-run racketeers I knew who stayed out of Essex County because they didn’t want any truck with him.
Healy said, “Didn’t you work for the Suffolk County DA once?” I said, “Yes.”
“Didn’t they fire you for hot-dogging?”
“I like to call it inner-directed behavior,” I said.
“I’ll bet you do,” Healy said.
He was a medium tall man, maybe five ten, slim, with very square shoulders. His gray hair was cut in a close crew cut, the sideburns trimmed at the top of the ears. The skin on his face looked tight, finely veined on the cheekbones, and his close-shaved cheeks had the faint bluish tinge of heavy beard. He had on a tan seersucker suit and a white shirt and a brown and yellow striped tie. A short-crowned, snap-brimmed straw hat with a flowery hatband lay on the table before him. His hands were folded perfectly still in his lap as he sat with his chair tilted back slightly. He wore a plain gold wedding ring on his left hand.
“What’s hot-dogging?” Marge Bartlett said.
“He’s not too good about regulations,” Healy answered.
Margery Bartlett said, “Can you get my child back, Mr. Spenser?” She was leaning forward, biting down on her lower lip with her upper teeth. Her eyes were wide and fixed on me. Her right hand was open on her breast, approximately above her heart. There were tears on her cheeks. Donna Reed in Ransom, MGM, 1956. “I don’t care about the money; I just want my baby back.”
Trask leaned over and patted her hand.
“Don’t worry, Marge we’ll get him back for you. You got my word on it.” John Wayne, The Searchers, Warner Bros. 1956.
I looked at Healy. He was carefully examining the backs of his hands, his lips pursed, whistling silently to himself.
The Smithfield cop named Paul was looking closely at the copper switchplate on the wall by the back door.
“What have you got?” I asked Healy.
He handed me a sheet of paper inside a transparent plastic folder. It was a ransom note in the form of a comic strip.
The figures were hand-drawn with a red ballpoint pen and showed some skill, like competent graffiti, say. They featured a voluptuous woman in a miniskirt seated on a barstool, leaning on the bar, speaking in voice balloons.
