Fever City by Tim Baker Page B

Schiller behind as I race up the stairs. Mrs. Bannister’s standing at the top. She’s wearing black Capri pants and a white blouse tied in a knot at the waist. Gold glimmers around her ears and neckline, and there is the ostentatious glitter of a diamond and emerald chain tracing an orbit about a slender ankle. Her hair is tied in a short ponytail with a red silk scarf. The outfit is more for the beach houses of Rio or the Riviera than for a mansion in the grip of fear. I realize it’s the first time I’ve actually seen her dressed. I’m about to make a crack but she cuts in first. ‘He’s going to pay them.’
    Of course he is. What choice does a father have—especially a very wealthy father. ‘How much are they asking?’
    â€˜A million . . . ’
    A good round figure. Substantial enough to cause pain, but not too excessive for an old crook like Bannister. I go to step around her but she gets in the way. For a moment, I feel her breasts against my chest. Their warmth. Their promise. ‘Mr. Alston, you’re not going to actually let him pay the ransom, are you?’
    â€˜You don’t really think he’s going to miss the money?’
    â€˜It’s more the principle of the matter . . . ’
    â€˜When a kid’s been snatched, your principles get reduced to basics, Mrs. Bannister. Will he or won’t he?’
    â€˜Pay?’
    â€˜Come back alive . . . ’
    Inside the room, the lawyer called Granston is standing over Old Man Bannister’s wheelchair, arguing with a sour look on his face—you’d think it was his cash that was being put on the line. ‘Jesus, Rex, we can’t pull that kind of money out of thin air.’
    â€˜They said one million and by God they will have it!’
    Granston exchanges looks with Betty Bannister as he storms out. Sam’s still manning the tape machine, holding one earphone to his head. ‘They’re sure about the trace?’ He looks up with fear in his eyes and nods. Schiller comes in, heaving painfully from his slow trot up the stairs.
    â€˜How is that possible?’ Schiller roars. ‘There’s no one else here, the servants are all away.’
    â€˜Not only that,’ Sam nods to a table. Seven phones are sitting there. ‘The one Mr. Bannister is using is the only remaining functioning phone in the place.’
    â€˜Jesus, Mary and Joseph.’
    â€˜Maybe they’re sending your signal back to you, like an echo, masking where they’re really calling from?’
    Sam stares at me. He doesn’t know what the hell I’m talking about. He’s not a rocket scientist, he’s just a kid in a police uniform put in charge of a goddamn telephone.
    â€˜That’s not possible,’ Schiller says.
    I pull him aside. ‘It’s possible if it’s the FBI making the call . . . ’
    â€˜What are you, nuts?’
    â€˜They tried to snatch a suspect, why not a kid?’
    He throws my arm off, speaking in a violent whisper. ‘Keep your opinions to yourself, will you? The walls have ears.’
    He’s afraid. Maybe he knows for a fact the place is wired. How would Schiller know? The FBI would never tell him. They hated Schiller almost as much as they hated Parker.
    Police Chief Parker . . . Of course. He had never valued his surveillance as evidence but as intelligence. It was the illicit skinny Parker was after, not the legal weight of proof. He just wanted to know who Sinatra was fucking that week. Parker was as bad as J. Edgar: two crippled figures of authority jerking off to the sounds of spinning 7-inch reels. But why bug Old Man Bannister’s joint? Parker was a racist who hated gangsters and unions, but who always had a soft spot for the rich.
    I can smell Mrs. Bannister’s perfume suddenly swelling behind us, like the Sundowner Winds moving across Santa Barbara in April: strong and troubling,