I threw my empty skewer in a trash barrel. “Concentrate it all on you, chickie,” I said.
Susan said, “Oh, God.”
“I don’t think I’m going to change,” I said.
“Oh, I hope you don’t. I love you. And I understand you, and you should stay as sweet as you are. But you can see why Rachel Wallace might have reservations about you.”
“Yeah, except I’m so goddamned cute,” I said.
“You certainly are that,” Susan said. “Want to split a yogurt?”
It was three weeks before Christinas, and it was snowing big sporadic flakes outside my office window when I found out that they’d taken Rachel Wallace.
I was sitting with my feet up, drinking black coffee and eating a doughnut and waiting for a guy named Anthony Gonsalves to call me from Fall River when the phone rang. It wasn’t Gonsalves.
A voice said, “Spenser? John Ticknor from Hamilton Black. Could you get over here right now? It appears Rachel Wallace has been kidnaped.”
“Did you call the cops?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Okay, I’m on my way.”
I hung up, put my fleece-lined jacket on over my black turtleneck and shoulder holster, and went. My office that year was on the corner of Mass. Ave. and Boylston Street, on the second floor, in a small three-sided turret over a smokeshop. My car was parked by a sign that said No Parking Bus Stop. I got in and drove straight down Boylston. The snow was melting as it hit the street but collecting on the margins of the road and on the sidewalks and building ledges.
The Christmas tree in the Prudential Center was lit already although it was only three forty-five. I turned left at Charles and right onto Beacon and parked at the top of the hill in front of the State House in a space that said Reserved for Members of the General Court. They meant the legislature, but Massachusetts calls it the Great and General Court for the same reason they call themselves a Commonwealth. It has something to do I think with not voting for Nixon. To my right the Common sloped down to Tremont Street, its trees strung with Christmas lights, a very big Nativity scene stretching out near the Park Street end. The snow was holding on the grass part of the Common and melting on the walkways. Down near the information booth they had some reindeer in pens, and a guy with a sandwich board was standing by the pens handing leaflets to people who were trying to feed popcorn to the deer.
Ticknor’s office was on the top floor looking out over the Common. It was high-ceilinged and big-windowed and cluttered with books and manuscripts. Across from the desk was a low couch, and in front of the couch was a coffee table covered with manila folders. Ticknor was sitting on the couch with his feet on the coffee table looking out at the guy on the Common who was handing out leaflets by the reindeer pens. Frank Belson, who was a detective-sergeant, sat on the couch beside him and sipped some coffee. A young guy with a face from County Mayo and a three-piece suit from Louis was standing behind Ticknor’s desk talking on the phone.
Belson nodded at me as I came in. I looked at the kid with the County Mayo face and said, “DA’s office?”
Belson nodded. “Cronin,” he said. “Assistant prosecutor.”
Ticknor said, “Spenser, I’m glad you could come. You know Sergeant Belson, I gather.”
I nodded.
Ticknor said, “This is Roger Forbes, our attorney.”
I shook hands with a tall gray-haired man with high cheekbones and sunken cheeks who stood—a little uncomfortably, I thought—in the corner between the couch and a book shelf.
Cronin said into the phone, “We haven’t said anything to the media yet.”
I said to Belson, “What have you got?”
He handed me a typewritten sheet of paper. It was neatly typed, double-spaced. No strikeovers, no x-ed out portions. Margins were good. Paragraphs were indented five spaces. It was on a plain sheet of Eaton’s Corrasable Bond. It read:
*Whereas Rachel Wallace has written several books offensive to God and country; whereas she has advocated lesbian love in direct contradiction of the Bible and common decency; whereas she has corrupted and continues to corrupt our nation and our children through the public media, which mindlessly exploits her for greed; and whereas our public officials, content to be the dupes of any radical conspiracy, have taken no action, therefore we have been forced to move.
We have taken her and are holding her. She has not been harmed, and unless you fail to follow our instructions, she will not be. We want no money. We have taken action in the face of a moral imperative higher than any written law, and we shall follow that imperative though it lead to the grave.
Remain alert for further communication. We will submit our demands to you for communication to the appropriate figures. Our demands are not negotiable. If they are not met, the world will be better for the death of Rachel Wallace.
R(estore) A(merican) M(orality) RAM
I read it twice. It said the same thing both times. “Some prose style,” I said to Ticknor.
“If you’d been able to get along with her,” Ticknor said, “perhaps the note would never have been written.” His face was a little flushed.
I said to Belson, “And you’ve checked it out.”
