Silent Night

13

All that was left of the snack Jimmy had purchased when they stopped for gas were the empty Coca-Cola cans and the crumpled bags that had held potato chips. Jimmy had thrown his on the floor in front of Brian, while Brian had placed his in the plastic wastebasket attached under the dashboard. He couldn’t even remember what the chips had tasted like. He was so hungry that, scared as he felt, being hungry was all he could think about.

He knew that Jimmy was really mad at him. And ever since the time they’d nearly crashed and Jimmy realized that he had been planning to try to jump out of the car, he’d seemed real nervous. He kept opening and closing his fingers on the steering wheel, making a scary snapping sound. The first time he did it, Brian had flinched and jumped, and Jimmy had grabbed him by the shoulder, snarling at him to stay away from the door.

The snow was coming down faster now. Ahead of them someone braked. The car swung around in a circle, then kept going. Brian realized that it hadn’t slammed into another car only because all the drivers on the road were trying to keep from getting too close to other cars.

Even so, Jimmy began to swear, a low steady stream of words, most of which Brian had never heard, even from Skeet, the kid in his class who knew all the good swear words.

The spinning car confirmed Jimmy’s growing sense that near as he was to escaping the country something could still go wrong any minute. It didn’t sound as though that prison guard he shot was going to make it. If the guard died… Jimmy had meant it when he told Cally that they wouldn’t take him alive.

Then Jimmy tried to reassure himself. He had a car that probably nobody even realized was missing yet. He had decent clothes and money. If they’d been stuck back there when that crazy fool caused the accident, the kid might have managed to jump out of the car. If that jerk who just spun around had hit the Toyota, I might have been hurt, Jimmy thought. On my own, maybe I could’ve bluffed it, but not with the kid along. On the other hand, nobody knew he had the kid, and in a million years no cop was on the lookout for a guy in a nice car with a bunch of toys in the backseat and a little boy beside him.

They were near Syracuse now. In three or four hours he’d be across the border with Paige.

There was a McDonald’s sign on the right. Jimmy was hungry, and this would be a good place to get something to eat. It would have to last him until he reached Canada. He’d pull up to the drive-in window, order for the two of them, then get back on the road fast.

“What’s your favorite food, kid?” he asked, his tone almost genial.

Brian had spotted the McDonald’s sign and held his breath, hoping that this meant they were going to get something to eat. “A hamburger and french fries, and a Coke,” he said timidly.

“If I stop at McDonald’s, can you look like you’re sleeping?”

“Yes, I promise.”

“Do it then. Lean against me with your eyes closed.”

“Okay.” Obediently Brian slumped against Jimmy and squeezed his eyes shut. He tried not to show how scared he was.

“Let’s see what kind of actor you are,” Jimmy said. “And you’d better be good.”

The St. Christopher medal had slipped to the side. Brian straightened it so that he could feel it, heavy and comforting against his chest.

It was scary to be so close to this guy, not like being sleepy when he was driving with Dad and curling up against him and feeling Dad’s hand patting his shoulder.

Jimmy pulled off the highway. They had to wait on line at the drive-in window. Jimmy froze when he saw a state trooper pull in behind them, but had no choice except to stay put and not draw attention to himself. When it was their turn and he placed the order and paid, the attendant didn’t even glance into the car. But at the pickup spot, the woman looked over the counter to where the light from behind her shone on Brian.

“I guess he just can’t wait to see what Santa Claus is going to bring him, can he?”

Jimmy nodded and tried to smile in agreement as he reached for the bag.

She leaned way forward and peered into the car. “My goodness, is he wearing a St. Christopher medal? My dad was named after him and used to try to make a big deal of it, but my mom always jokes about St. Christopher being dropped from the calendar of saints. My dad says it’s too bad Mom wasn’t named Philomena. She’s another saint the Vatican said didn’t exist.” With a hearty laugh the young woman handed over the bag.

As they drove back onto the highway, Brian opened his eyes. He could smell the hamburgers and the french fries. He sat up slowly.

Jimmy looked at him, his eyes steely, his face rigid. Through lips that barely parted, he quietly ordered, “Get that goddamn medal off your neck.”

Cally had to talk to him about her brother and the missing child. After promising to be right over, Mort Levy hung up the phone, stunned. What possible connection could there be between Jimmy Siddons and the little boy who disappeared on Fifth Avenue?

He dialed the lookout van. “You recorded that call?”

“Is she crazy, Mort? She can’t be talking about the Dornan kid, can she? Want us to pick her up for questioning?”

“That’s just what I don’t want you to do!” Levy exploded. “She’s scared to death as it is. Sit tight until I get there.”

He had to inform his superiors, starting with Jack Shore, about Cally Hunter’s call. Mort spotted Shore leaving the chief of detectives’ private office, was out of his chair and across the room in seconds. He grabbed Shore’s arm. “Come back inside.”

“I told you to take a break.” Shore tried to shake off his hand. “We just heard from Logan in Detroit again. Two days ago a woman whose description matches Siddons’s girlfriend got a ride from a private car service over the border to Windsor. Logan ’s guys think that Laronde told her girlfriend about California and Mexico to throw them off her trail. The girlfriend was questioned again. This time it occurred to her to mention that she offered to buy Laronde’s fur coat because it wouldn’t be needed in Mexico. Laronde refused.”

I never bought that Mexico story, Mort Levy thought. He didn’t relinquish his grip on Shore’s arm as he shoved open the chief’s door.

Five minutes later, a squad car was racing up the East Side Drive to Avenue B and Tenth Street. A bitterly frustrated Jack Shore had been ordered to wait in the lookout van while Mort and the chief, Bud Folney, went upstairs to talk to Cally.

Mort knew that Shore would not forgive him for insisting that he stay out of it. “Jack, when we were there earlier, I knew there was something she was holding back. You’ve scared her to death. She thinks you’d do anything to see her back behind bars. For God’s sake, can’t you look at her as a human being? She’s got a four- year-old child, her husband is dead, and she got the book thrown at her when she made the mistake of helping the brother she’d practically raised.”

Now Mort turned to Folney. “I don’t know how Jimmy Siddons ties into that missing child, but I do know that Cally has been too frightened to talk. If she tells us now whatever she knows, it will be because she feels that the department… you… aren’t out to get her.”

Folney nodded. He was a soft-spoken, lean man in his late forties, with a scholarly face. He had in fact spent three years as a high school teacher before realizing his passion was law enforcement. It was widely believed among the ranks that one day he’d be police commissioner. Already he was one of the most powerful men in the department.

Mort Levy knew that if there was anyone who could help Cally, assuming she had in some way been forced to cover for Jimmy again, it was Folney. But the missing child-how could Siddons be involved in this?

It was a question they were all frantic to ask.

When the squad car pulled up behind the surveillance van, Shore made one last appeal. “If I keep my mouth shut…”

Folney answered, “I suggest you start right now Jack. Get in the van.”