The Kidnappers Read online

  I didn’t think he’d seen me yet. I started to sweat, and then I noticed a delivery truck pulling up, double-parking right in front of me.

  The driver jumped out, carrying a good-size carton, heading for the nearest door. He jabbed the bell set into the brick wall, waited a few seconds, and then turned the knob when the lock was released.

  I didn’t have time to think, and I didn’t hesitate. Before the door swung shut behind the deliveryman, I got my foot in front of it and shoved my way inside.

  It was just a tiny foyer, with mailboxes on one side and an elevator on the back wall. I watched the indicator rise; the deliveryman had gone up to the fourth floor, and the elevator was staying there for the moment.

  There was nowhere for me to go from where I was, not until the elevator came back down.

  Through the smudged window in the door I could see the line of cars edging along toward the front of the school, picking up dozens of boys in gray slacks and navy blue sweaters. I’d never especially liked wearing a uniform to school, but it was an advantage in a situation like this. It made it harder to identify any individual. As long as Willie couldn’t see my face, he wouldn’t know which of all those boys was his target.

  How long could I hide in the foyer of the apartment house? What if I’d already missed Ernie when he pulled into the line of cars?

  Whether anybody else called me a coward or not, I felt like one. This was a far cry from the heroes in my stories, who always fought and won, or, better yet, outsmarted the enemy with guile and cleverness.

  None of the heroes in my imagination ever had been in quite these circumstances, though. I hadn’t figured out how this story was supposed to have a happy ending.

  The cars slid past in a long line. There was Pink’s mom, a nice lady with hair the same color as his, in her station wagon. And Tony Albertoni’s mother, in a white Lincoln. And chauffeurs, some in uniform, some not, picking up the string of boys until almost no one was left, except Willie.

  Come on, Ernie, I urged silently, but he didn’t come.

  I heard the elevator behind me and turned around as if I’d just come in, as if I belonged there, to face the deliveryman as he came through the sliding doors.

  He didn’t pay any attention to me, but went out into the street, dodging between cars to get back into the delivery truck.

  And there, just before the door closed to hide me again, was Willie.

  I drew a deep breath, but he wasn’t looking toward me. He was scowling, his face angry and determined. Through the dirty window I saw that his hands were clenched into fists.

  He probably wouldn’t hit me more than a couple of times, I thought, trying to slow down my racing heart. And then he’d forget it, he’d be even with me.

  The lane of cars beyond him came to an end, and for a moment there were no more in my line of vision. Where the heck was Ernie? Where was Willie’s own ride, to take him away from here for a long cooling-off weekend?

  How long would Willie stand out there, blocking my escape?

  I didn’t think he could see me, here in the dimly lighted foyer, but I could see him all right.

  And then something even wilder than one of my stories took place.

  I saw the emblem as the car crept into view. It was like a family crest or something, in bright colored enamel with gold trim, on a gleaming black door. The car was a Chrysler New Yorker like my grandma Louise’s.

  The car had very dark windows, so I couldn’t make out the driver very well. But just as it came abreast of Willie, the car stopped and the back door opened.

  A man jumped out, grabbed Willie from behind, and dragged him into the back of the car. The door slammed, and immediately the Chrysler leaped forward and disappeared from sight.

  Afterward I knew I should have jerked open the door and gotten the license number, but I was so stunned I couldn’t believe what I’d seen.

  Blood thundered in my ears. I could hardly breathe. After a few seconds I threw open the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  Half a block away I saw the Chrysler moving rapidly away, too distant for me to identify anything about it.

  I might have thought I’d dreamed it except that Willie’s books were still lying on the sidewalk, papers spilling out of them. One lined page, with a big red A– written on the top of it, blew into the gutter as I watched.

  I swallowed, trying to get more air into my lungs.

  Hadn’t anybody else seen anything?

  There was only one pedestrian, an old man walking with a cane, carrying groceries in a mesh bag. He lifted his head when I spoke to him.

  “Did you see it? Did you see them pull him into that car?”

  His eyes were blank. He didn’t answer, but moved closer to the curb.

  “Mister? Somebody just kidnapped that kid!”

  The man looked away and scurried on past, leaving me wondering in a panic what to do.

  I didn’t like Willie Groves, but I didn’t hate him enough to want someone to kidnap him.

  A horn blared, making me jump. It was only a driver objecting to somebody cutting him off, and I saw to my relief that it was Ernie, at last.

  I ran around the front of the car and fell into the seat beside him. “Ernie, we’ve got to call the police! Willie was just kidnapped!”

  He put the car in gear and eased into traffic. “Well, that settles the little problem you had yesterday, don’t it?”

  “No, seriously, Ernie, it really happened! This big black Chrysler pulled up beside Willie, and a guy jumped out and hauled him into the backseat, and they drove away before I could get the license number!”

  “The cops ain’t gonna like it that you didn’t get the number,” Ernie said, making the corner to head for home. “What kind of a detective are you going to make, Joey?”

  I jerked desperately on his arm. “I’m not kidding, honest! He’s really been kidnapped!”

  “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer kid, right? Listen, your mom asked me to stop and pick up some stuff for tomorrow’s party, okay? Sit tight while I run in and get it.”

  I stared at him incredulously. He wasn’t taking me seriously at all. “Give me the phone,” I said.

  The cellular bag was usually right there beside him on the seat, but it wasn’t there now. “Where is it?” I demanded.

  “The phone? Had a slight mishap with it,” Eddie said. “Dropped it and somebody ran over it before I could retrieve it. Gonna have to get a new one. What do you need a phone for? You’ll be home in a few minutes.”

  “I need to call the police.”

  “You better reconsider that, maybe,” Ernie advised. “The cops don’t like practical jokes. Friend of mine made a call reporting a nonexistent crime, once, and they threw him in the clink. Missed his own birthday party. The rest of us had fun, though.”

  He swung the car into a left turn, double-parked outside the place where my mom got her party decorations, and bailed out with the motor running to dash inside.

  There wasn’t a pay phone in sight. I wondered wildly if I could run home faster than I’d get there by waiting for Ernie, but I didn’t think so. He was back in a few minutes with an armload of boxes, which he threw in the trunk, then went back for more before he finally slid into the driver’s seat again.

  “Listen,” I said desperately, “this isn’t a story, it’s real. We’ve got to tell the police!”

  “Bad thinking, Joey. Listen, I’m having a bad day. Got into a fender bender and got to school late, and then I had to get this stuff for your mom, and I just don’t have what it takes to listen to dinosaurs on the roof or a fire in the Dumpster, okay?”

  “There was a fire in the Dumpster,” I said, half angrily, “and I was only six when I told about the dinosaurs. I didn’t make this up, I swear!”

  “If you’ll carry half this stuff, I won’t have to make two trips,” Ernie said, then yelled out the open window, “Watch it, buddy, I’m already using this lane!”

  It was no use. He was
n’t going to take me seriously. Why hadn’t I picked up Willie’s books? Just because Ernie came then and I was scared? The books would have proved something, wouldn’t they? Would anybody find them? Would Willie get in trouble if they were lost?

  What was I thinking? Willie was already in worse trouble than losing a few books and papers. He’d been kidnapped! I should have left Ernie sitting in the car and run back into the school to report it.

  And then I remembered Mr. Sciotti’s reaction to my hoax about the rat in the bathroom the day school started, and decided maybe it would be safer to leave the school out of it.

  As soon as we pulled up in front of the Upton Towers, I bolted out of the car, but Ernie caught me by the back of the neck before I got very far.

  “Slow down, cowboy. You’re helping me with this stuff, remember? You take the two little boxes, and I’ll get the rest of it.”

  “Ernie, please, this isn’t one of my tall stories, I promise! I really do have to call the cops!”

  “Well, it’s your hide, not mine. You can call them as soon as we get this stuff upstairs. Thank you, Sherman. Nice day, isn’t it?”

  “Indeed. Beautiful October.” Sherman was smiling, but I couldn’t smile back. I didn’t think it was worth telling him my story, but Ernie had paused when Sherman held the door open.

  “Joey’s in fine form today. Witnessed a kidnapping of the kid who was going to kill him this afternoon.”

  “Well, well.” Sherman was beaming. “That’s a good solution, isn’t it? Mrs. Bishop just called down to see if you had arrived yet, said you were running late.”

  “Had a fender bender. Some cretin scratched my right front. Mr. Bishop’s not going to be very happy with me, but the guy who caused it had more damage than I did. Don’t know why I want to make a living driving in this town.”

  I wanted to smash them both. Why couldn’t they see that this time I wasn’t playing jokes? I stormed on past Sherman, stepped into the waiting elevator, and punched the button. I didn’t care if Ernie made it on this trip or not.

  He got a foot into the opening before the doors closed. “You mad at me, Joey?” he asked, getting a better grip on the boxes he carried.

  “You won’t listen to me,” I said. “It’s real. It’s serious.”

  This time he didn’t crack a grin. “Okay. I’ll listen on the way up. Somebody snatched this little punk . . . where? Right in front of the school with everybody watching? And nobody else noticed?”

  “Everybody else was already gone.” I still didn’t think he was giving me the benefit of the doubt, but I felt compelled to tell him anyway. “I had ducked into the foyer of that apartment house right next to the school, and I could see out the window. Willie was looking around to see where I’d gone, and this car drove up real slow—a black Chrysler with a fancy emblem on the door, like royalty—and a guy jumped out and dragged Willie into the backseat.”

  “You see the driver? What did he look like?” Ernie sounded half convinced.

  “The windows were black glass. I couldn’t see through them. But,” I added in a spurt of words I hadn’t known I was going to say until they came out, “I did get a look at the guy who grabbed him.”

  “Yeah?” We stopped at the sixth floor, and a woman carrying a briefcase got on. “We’re going up, ma’am.”

  “So am I. Eighth floor,” she said pleasantly, and we didn’t say any more until she got off a few moments later. Then Ernie asked, “What did he look like?”

  It was funny. I could see the face really plain, but there wasn’t anything particularly distinctive about it. “I don’t know. Youngish. Older than Mark, but younger than you. Twenty-four, twenty-five, maybe?”

  “Dark? Blond? Identifying tattoos?”

  I screwed up my face, trying to remember. “Dark. Yeah, dark hair, like mine and yours. Just an ordinary face. No scars or tattoos.”

  “Makes a better story if he had a unique tattoo. Like, a serpent running up his arm, or a shapely lady on his biceps.”

  He didn’t believe me after all, I thought angrily. He was starting to smile again.

  “Build? The cops always want to know the perp’s build. Big? Little? Fat? Skinny?”

  I had to think again. “He moved fast, and I never saw him standing up straight. Average height, I guess. Not big, but he had muscles. He was wearing a white T-shirt, and he had strong arms.”

  “Well, they ought to be able to narrow it down from that description,” Ernie said, stepping forward as the elevator doors slid open. “Can’t apply to more than half the men in the city. Get that door, will you?”

  Anxious and frustrated, I followed him into our apartment, wondering if I’d have any better luck with the police than I was having with Ernie.

  A part of me was sort of glad Willie was getting what he deserved instead of pounding on me. But I was uneasy, speculating on what was going to happen to Willie if I didn’t report the kidnapping to the cops right away. I didn’t think I hated him enough to want to see on the six o’clock news that somebody’d found his body in an alley.

  The sooner I reported this the better.

  Chapter Three

  Usually our apartment is like a tomb except for the music. If Mom or Sophie is home, there is classical music, either on the piano or on CDs. If Mark is home by himself, there is rock or jazz or rap. If there is only me, I prefer books and silence. Father objects to Mark’s music if it penetrates as far as the room where he’s working or reading. He never comments on anything else.

  That day we were assaulted by noise the minute we walked in.

  It was Junie’s day to clean, and she was running the vacuum cleaner. Sophie was practicing, something loud and fast that I’d never heard before. Ernie came as far in as the dining room, where he unloaded his packages alongside the ones that were already there.

  He gave me a pat on the shoulder. “Keep up the good work, Joey. You’ll banish all the demons and dragons yet.”

  I didn’t answer him. The heck with him. He’d be talking out the other side of his mouth when he read in the paper that Willie had been rescued from the foulest of kidnappers because of evidence provided by Joel Bishop, age eleven.

  It was impossible to talk on the living room phone because of Junie’s vacuum cleaner. I dumped my own load of packages and headed for the kitchen.

  The dishwasher was running, and my mother was standing at the phone, covering one ear with a hand to screen out the worst of the racket.

  “But Mr. DeForest promised them to me by tomorrow morning!” she exclaimed as I walked in. “The party is tomorrow evening at eight, and it will take at least an hour to arrange them all. I can’t be doing flowers at the last split second. There are too many other last-minute things to do.”

  She glanced around, acknowledging me with a nod.

  Silently, I mouthed the words, I need to use the phone.

  She shook her head and mouthed back, Not now.

  Mark had his own phone. I headed for his bedroom.

  Unfortunately, he was there. Sprawled on the bed with the phone screwed into his ear.

  He stared at me with annoyance.

  “Can I use your phone?” I asked. “I need to call the police.”

  His eyebrows went up. “I’ll call you back, Tracy,” he said into the receiver, and then hung up. But he didn’t hand the phone to me.

  “What in heck for?”

  I swallowed and willed him to believe me. “I saw a kidnapping take place. I need to report it.”

  My brother groaned. “Not now, Joe. I’m having an important conversation, and I don’t have time for this. I thought you were serious.”

  “I am serious. I saw a kidnapping, Mark.”

  “Who got kidnapped?” He didn’t bother to conceal his skepticism.

  “Willie Groves. This black New Yorker stopped, and a guy got out and grabbed Willie and threw him in the car, and they roared away before I could get the license number, and—”

  Mark scowled. “Joey, you’r
e so full of crap I wouldn’t believe you if you said the house was on fire and I could smell the smoke. Get out of here.” He started dialing and turned his back on me.

  For a few seconds I considered jumping on top of him and wrestling the phone away from him. Better judgment changed my mind. He’s even bigger than Willie, and the last time I had wrestled with him he sprained my wrist and we knocked over a lamp and were both grounded for a week.

  There was yet a third telephone line in the place, but I’d never used it. It was in Father’s study, and nobody was supposed to touch it but him.

  There was no reason to think Father would be home for another couple of hours.

  This was urgent. The cops were probably going to be mad that it had taken me this long to make a report.

  I walked past Mom, still arguing with someone on the kitchen phone. Past Sophie thundering on the piano. Past Junie in her white ankle socks and athletic shoes with her black uniform encasing her like an overstuffed sausage.

  She gave me a smile but didn’t try to talk over the racket. For once I couldn’t smile back.

  The minute I walked into the study I felt like a trespasser. Well, I was. The only times I’d ever been in it before had been when I was delivering something or getting dressed down for something.

  I closed the door behind me and crossed the deep green carpet to the impressive desk. There was nothing on it except the phone, a pen and pencil set, and a notepad with nothing written on it.

  Now that I was ready to call, I was almost paralyzed. My fingers were cold as I dialed 9-1-1.

  I was so panicky that I didn’t even hear the words spoken by the calm voice, but I knew it had to be the emergency operator.

  “I . . . I need to talk to someone about a kidnapping,” I said, thankful that I didn’t squeak.

  “A kidnapping? Your name, please.”

  “Uh . . . Joe Bishop,” I said, sounding as if I wasn’t sure about it. “There’s this kid from my school. I saw a car stop and drag him inside. I didn’t get the license number, but it was a black Chrysler New Yorker, this year’s model, I’m pretty sure.”