Dent slammed the door closed as he backed into the room.
“Pearl, snap out of it and see how bad Red is. Fats, you and Gino get at those windows. I’ll be right back.”
Running into the other room, he saw that Terry had regained consciousness and was sitting on the edge of one of the cots, holding her head in both hands.
“Take care of the kid,” he said. “And you better both lie on the floor. There may be shooting.” He left the door to the room open as he returned to the others.
Red was sitting up and shaking his head and Pearl had torn his jacket and bloody shirt off. She was wiping his side with a wet towel. Red looked up at him and half-smiled.
“I’ll be all right,” he said.
Dent nodded curtly. “Can you move?”
Red started to get to his feet and Pearl pushed him back.
“I’m all right,” Red said again. “Guess I lost a little blood. I’ll be all right, though.” He jerked suddenly as Pearl pressed the rag too hard against the open wound.
Fats turned from the window. “They’re staying well out of gunshot,” he said.
“O.K.” Dent said. “This will be our only chance. We’ll have to make a run for it. They know about the kid, and that’ll stop them for a few minutes. Right now they’re not sure what to do. Get yourselves set.”
Pearl looked up, fright deep in her eyes.
“They’ll kill us,” she said. “They’ll kill us sure.”
Red pushed her away. “Shut up,” he said. “We got only one chance— we gotta take it.”
Dent walked to the window and pulled the curtain to one side. Several hundred yards away he saw a line of cars, their headlights trained on the house. He motioned to Gino.
“This is the way we’ll do it,” he said. “Get loaded up and set. I’ll start picking off the headlights. That’ll make them turn them off. The minute they do, we open the door and run for the car. They won’t know whether we got the kid with us or not and won’t dare shoot in the dark.”
“So we’ll take the kid,” Gino said.
“No,” Dent said. “We don’t take the kid. There’s five of us and we’ll have enough trouble getting out without the kid along. They won’t know in any case. Our only hope is to try to make it to the main road while they’re still confused and don’t know what the score is.”
“They’ll have the road blocked off,” Fats said.
“If they do,” Dent said, “we have to take our chances across the dunes. It’s the only out.”
“I still say take the kid,” Fats said. “They put a spotlight on the car and we can always show them the kid.”
Dent looked thoughtful for a moment.
“All right,” he said, “get the kid.”
“What about the girl?” Gino said.
“Get her too.”
Gino carried the submachine gun, and Cal Dent had the rifle with the telescopic sight. Fats had a sawed-off shotgun under one arm. His pockets bulged with shells. Red had pulled a sweat shirt over the bandages that bound his side. His face was pale but he seemed to have regained some of his strength. He also carried a shotgun.
Pearl, holding Janie tightly by the arm, stood at the door with Terry as Dent turned off the light.
He edged the door open and, lifting the rifle, took careful aim. One headlight on the nearest car went out as the gun spoke. He shot twice more in quick succession.
“Hold your fire,” he snapped at Gino as he saw the cars quickly go dark. “They got the idea.”
“Come on,” Red said, “let’s go.”
Pearl and Janie and Terry were the first out of the door. Dent followed the other three men as they approached the car.
“Fats and Gino in the front with me,” he whispered hoarsely as he opened the car door. “The rest in the back.”
He reached for the starter button and the sound of the motor shattered the dead stillness of the night. Dent put the car in gear.
It was just as they began to move that the powerful spotlight flashed on and caught them full in its shimmering beam.
“Get it!” Dent yelled.
But a split second before Gino had lifted the Tommy gun, two shots cracked out in swift succession. Dent felt the thud and then heard the third explosion under the car as the front right tire went.
Gino pressed the trigger and the spotlight went off.
Dent cursed. “Got the tire,” he said. “We’ll never make it now. Get back to the house quick before they turn on another light.”
He swung open the door of the car and then reached in back and took Janie Wilton from Pearl’s arms.
“Run for it,” he yelled.
He heard Red stumble and curse in back of him as he reached the porch.
There were no further shots and Dent realized that the police were taking no unnecessary chances of shooting the child.
Fats was the last one to make it back to the hideout. He had to move slowly, as he carried the two suitcases with the money. He tossed them on the couch when he entered and one of them flew open.
Dent turned on the shaded light in time to see package after package of tightly packed bills roll off the couch to the floor.
Red staggered across the room and half fell on top of the loose money lying on the couch. The effort had been too much for him in his weakened condition and he dropped back into semi-consciousness.
Pearl looked over at him and began to laugh hysterically. “Look at him,” she said, her voice high and thin. “Look at him. Lying on half a million bucks and he can’t buy a short beer.”
The spotlight from the police car had picked out the child in the getaway car at exactly twenty-three minutes after two on Saturday morning.
By two-thirty every police department on Long Island had been alerted. By two-forty FBI agents, as well as New York and Connecticut detectives, were racing toward Land’s End. The radio announcer on an all-night disk-jockey show got the news at two-forty-five. Extra editions of the morning newspapers hit the streets less than an hour later.
By four o’clock on Saturday morning, there was hardly a person in the continental United States—at least a person who was awake and who could read or hear—who wasn’t aware of what had happened.
An internationally known Broadway columnist who had picked up the first flash on his special police radio in the back of his Cadillac ordered his chauffeur to desert the night spots and head east on Long Island. His car crashed into a taxi on the Queensborough Bridge and he was virtually decapitated. Normally this news would have rated an eight-column banner, even in the opposition newspapers. It was relegated to the second page.
Janie’s mother pacing the floor of her Riverside, Connecticut, home, and almost as worried about her husband as she was about her missing child, collapsed when they gave her the news.
Gregory Wilton himself was in a hospital in Smithtown and had regained consciousness. One of Fats’ bullets had creased the side of his head during the battle at the tavern. He had barely finished identifying himself to the incredulous state troopers when news reached him that his daughter was barricaded in the hideout with the kidnapers.
For those first few hours, no one was quite sure who was really in charge. The shock of the sudden disclosures had been too great for any real organization. State police had been the first to reach the scene. It was, in fact, a trooper’s car from the local barracks that Dent had first sighted bearing down on the cabin. The car had been attracted from the warehouse fire by the gunfire in town. Later, the sergeant at the wheel had talked to Patrolman Fanwell. Fanwell had tipped him off about the beach cottage.
Land’s End Tavern had been left a shambles. Ed, the bartender, had been struck twice in the chest, as well as in the head. He’d gone down firing blindly. Later; when additional police arrived on the scene, they had traced a trail of blood from the spot where Red had been shot and knew that at least one of the bandits had been hit.
Reporters from news services and New York papers were on the scene well before dawn. By this time a public-address system was on its way and floodlights were being temporarily set up some three hundred yards from the cottage.
No attempts to fire on the hideaway or close in on it had been made. Strict orders had been received from both the FBI and the head of the state police to that effect, with the discovery that the Wilton child was trapped in the cabin. It wasn’t until well after dawn, on Saturday morning, that it was learned that the Ballin girl was still alive and also in the custody of the mob.
The police had arrested Dunleavy after Wilton had told about his trip out to the Island. The announcement of this arrest came at four-thirty to the minute, at the exact time he was supposed to be landing on the beach in front of the hideout. Dunleavy himself had by that time already heard of the siege at the cabin; he was driving to Smithtown to take a train and get out of the neighborhood when they got him.
By this time there was a New York City police boat cruising a half mile offshore, two police helicopters circled far overhead, and an army of detectives and government men had converged on Land’s End. Every highway from the city leading out toward Montauk was blocked by the curious. Police had thrown up a half-dozen roadblocks in an attempt to keep the morbid away, but they were ineffectual. The greatest crime story of modern times had burst wide open.
Of all those in the hideout, Cal Dent had the only clear conception of the magnitude of the event.
Long before dawn, he realized that no effort would be made to bother them so long as it was dark. He knew full well that only the safety of the child prevented the police from making a full-scale raid with tear gas and machine guns. It was Janie Wilton’s life that stood between them and sudden attack.
He ordered Fats to take his position at a window in the front of the house, facing the driveway to the east. He sent Gino into Terry and Janie’s room, where he would be able to watch the south and west. The north wall was blank and would have to take care of itself.
Terry had bandaged her head where Gino had used the barrel of his gun. She sat in the center of the living room, Janie on her lap. The child had finally fallen asleep in her arms.
Dent turned the lights on and drew the shades. He began to take inventory.
One submachine gun had been left at the tavern, but they had almost a thousand rounds of ammunition for the other one. Gino had the rifle with the telescopic sight. There were two sawed-off shotguns, but few shells for them. And all four men carried either revolvers or automatics and all had plenty of ammunition.
Dent had less than a half bottle of whisky left. He had given them each a drink and then he had used a little extra in bringing Red around. Food was short. There was enough for about one full meal.
Money? Spilling out of two opened suitcases on the table in front of the fireplace was half a million dollars. Dent’s lips twisted in a wry grin as he looked over at the money. Several bills had fallen to the floor and lay there neglected.
Red was sprawled out on the couch. He had lost a lot of blood, but the main load from the shotgun had missed him. He felt a lot better.
Twice Red had suggested making another break for it while it was still dark. Each time Dent had carefully explained to him that they wouldn’t have a chance.
“You gotta see it, Red,” Dent said. “There’s no way out now. You could never shoot yourself past the roadblocks. And even if you did, how far do you think you’d get?”
“But it’s still dark,” Red said.
Dent had reasoned with him much as he would have reasoned with a child. Finally he said, “Look, Red. Leave it to me. We can still beat the game, but from now on, it’s going to take brains, not muscle.”
Red shrugged his heavy shoulders and lay back.
“Your brainwork hasn’t been so good so far,” Fats said. “We should have blown when we had the chance.”
“We’d never have made it,” Dent said. “We got a bad break, that’s all. Who the hell could have figured on that cop busting in on the party?”
Pearl sat next to Red on the couch and said nothing. There was a peculiarly dazed look about her eyes and she seemed to be suffering a sort of aftereffect of shock. It wasn’t quite clear in her mind exactly what had happened.
Gradually one idea was beginning to emerge, crystal clear, in Pearl’s mind. The idea of getting away. Pearl was no longer interested in the kidnaping, or the possible ransom money. The gunplay and violence of the last few hours had utterly destroyed her morale. She wanted nothing more than to leave the hideout. Even the thought of arrest and prosecution came to her as a relief.
Her desire for Cal Dent, her old longing for freedom and money and luxuries—everything was submerged in this one intense longing to escape the terror and bloodshed that she had now convinced herself would be the ultimate and inevitable end of the siege. From the very moment that their plans had gone wrong, when Fanwell interrupted the stickup at Land’s End Tavern, Pearl had been convinced that every hope was over. Lack of sleep, a bad hangover, and a terrible, paralyzing fear had combined to shatter her.
Dent was quick to sense her condition and shortly before dawn he told Fats to take her upstairs and try to make her sleep. Fats shrugged but obeyed. He had to carry her. Red limped up after them.
Once they had put Pearl on top of the bed and she had turned her face to the wall, quietly sobbing, Red went into the other room and threw himself down on Dent’s cot. He stretched out with one arm under his head. He yawned and dozed off, his mouth wide open and his expression placid.
Pure physical and emotional exhaustion should have brought Pearl sleep, but the sound of Red’s snoring served to irritate her enough to make sleep impossible. As she lay with her face to the wall, muscles tense and quivering, a plan gradually began to form in her mind; a plan to solve the one essential problem that had become the climax of all her problems, the problem of getting away from the hideout.
Back downstairs, Fats sat peering out between a crack made where the curtain failed to close the space at the side of the window. His tiny eyes were puckered and alert; he watched for any possible movement. But his mind was busy with other problems.
Gino, kept an alert eye on the dark shadows beyond the window and his mind was a caldron of bitterness and hatred as he waited for the dawn. He wished that Dent had let him have the submachine gun instead of the rifle. With the Tommy gun he would have been able to make a clean sweep of it.
Cal Dent had first arranged his defenses and then, noticing Terry and the child, told the girl to lie down on the couch in the living room. Terry placed Janie between herself and the wall.
“I want you both in this room,” he said, “in case I need you in a hurry.”
Terry stared at him, wide-eyed, but followed his orders without a word. Janie had awakened as she was being moved, and then returned to sleep almost at once. Terry held the child tightly in her arms, trying not to think.
Later Dent stood next to the radio. Bulletins were being released on an average of every ten minutes. Most of the news was erroneous in detail, but right in its broad over-all coverage: Dent kept the set turned very low and after a while he only half listened. He was busy reviewing the entire situation in his own mind; busy evaluating every factor, figuring every possibility.
He realized that his main problem lay outside of the cottage, but that that problem was something over which he had only limited control. He was smart enough to understand that the people within the cottage constituted a problem almost as involved as the one without. Pearl, he knew at once, could be discounted as far as assistance was concerned. Her only value, from this point on, lay in the fact that she was a neutral quality. But while he would not be able to count on her for help, she wouldn’t be in the way. She would be on no one’s side.
Of the others he was happiest about Red. Red would do what he was told to do. Red would obey. Red would follow him with a blind, unreasoning loyalty. Dent knew full well that his sole hope for turning the situation into a success lay only in his ability to protect Janie Wilton and keep her alive. He reasoned from the standpoint of logic, not desperation and defeat.
Gino was the most dangerous. The moment things began to look re-
ally bad—the very second when Gino decided that their chances were hopeless—that’s when he’d blow his top. And Gino would try to take as many with him as he could. From the very beginning he had hated the child and the girl. He blamed the child in particular for his fight with Red. Gino could, at any moment, go berserk.
That was one reason that Dent had given him the rifle. A man with a rifle, at close quarters, isn’t too difficult to take.
Gino presented a second potential danger. Dent had the fullest intentions of negotiating with the police. They would probably be at close range. If Gino blew up and started shooting, it could wreck everything. Cal knew that he would have to watch the little mobster constantly. Fats Morn was, in a sense, a fairly safe bet. Fats would play along, at least for the time being. Fats was a gambler and he knew what he had to win and what he had to lose. He’d try everything before he gave up. But Fats, like Gino, was trigger-happy. Fats had courage. From now on, Dent realized, physical courage would be a drug on the market. What was needed now was moral courage. If they were forced into a waiting game, and it was inevitable that it would come to that, they would need more than sheer guts. They’d have to be smart.
Dent began to formulate plans for his ultimate breakout. True, they had an ace in the hole in the youngster. But they would still, sooner or later, have to figure a plan for their final escape. He didn’t doubt for a moment that police would hold off as long as it was a matter of protecting the child. And he believed firmly that a deal could be worked out so that they would be given some sort of head start, probably with the ransom money. The trick wasn’t so much in making the first step toward freedom; the trick was in ensuring that they made a clean getaway.
For a moment Dent entertained the idea of bargaining to take the child and the money both on their first leg. But his intelligence told him that the police, and probably the youngster’s family as well, would never take that sort of gamble. From Wilton’s point of view, they had double-crossed him at the time of the first contact, when they had stuck up the Land’s End Tavern. Wilton would never believe that it had been Dent’s intention to free the child once he had his hands on the dough.
No, it was going to be a tricky deal, negotiating with them from now on.
The shooting at the tavern had had one other disastrous effect, Dent realized. It wasn’t only that they were backed into a dead end. For the first time the entire nation was in on the act. From now on there was public opinion to contend with. Every man and woman in the country had automatically become a man-hunter. Things were completely in the open.
It would no longer be a case of dickering with a grief-stricken and worried family, whose one single thought was the safe return of their child. It was, Cal Dent suddenly realized, himself against the whole country.
Well, Dent reflected, he was a criminal, wasn’t he? It had always been him against society. The only difference was that now the other side realized the identity and the location of its enemy.
Dent’s mouth was a hard straight line as he thought about it. He was more determined than ever to win.
At five-thirty Saturday morning, the first direct appeal over the radio was made to the kidnap gang.
Colonel W. F. Newbold, in charge of the Connecticut State Police, in whose jurisdiction the kidnaping had taken place, acted as the spokesman. For fifteen minutes before he came on the air, radio announcers on all major metropolitan stations had requested that the kidnapers stand by, in case they were listening in.
When Colonel Newbold himself went on the air, he first asked that the kidnapers signal by flashing the house lights on and off if they were listening.
Fats had been against making any sort of answer; figuring a possible trap, but Dent had ignored him and at once turned the light switch.
It must have taken several minutes for the Colonel to be reached by those watching the house.
When he went back on the air he said:
“I understand you are listening in to this broadcast. We want you to know that your hideout is completely surrounded and that any hope of escape is impossible. No one will be able to get six feet from the house and still live. Every road for miles around Land’s End has been blockaded. Your cause is hopeless.
“Release the Wilton child and the Ballin girl and I will personally guarantee you safe custody and a fair and impartial trial. You will be given every possible consideration.
“This is your only chance. You are being given until eight o’clock this morning to reach a decision. At that time, open the front door and come out of the house in single file. Keep your hands above your heads. No shots will be fired and you will be taken into safe custody and at once transferred to a place where you will be given the opportunity of con-suiting attorneys.
“Any other course than this will lead to disaster. For your benefit as well as the benefit of the persons you hold prisoner, I plead with you to follow these instructions.
“You have until eight o’clock this morning to reach a decision.”
Fats turned from the window and laughed.
“Yeah—safe custody. Opportunity to consult our lawyers. Why, goddamn it, they’d tear us limb from limb. We wouldn’t have a chance in hell.”
Dent nodded. “They want to dicker,” he said. “That’s good. At least they know the spot they’re in, as well as the spot we’re in. One thing, you notice he didn’t say what they’d do if we didn’t give up. That’s the kicker in the whole thing. That’s what’s got ‘em stopped. They’d threaten if they dared to threaten. But by God, if we can’t get out, at least they can’t get in!”
Gino put his head around the door. “They can starve us out,” he said.
Dent laughed. “Don’t be a damn fool. They can’t starve us without starving the kid. You think they’re going to let her suffer?”
“Cops,” Gino said. “Cops! Sure they’d let her suffer. They’d let her die. They don’t care, just so they get us.”
“You’re a fool,” Dent said. “You might, but they wouldn’t. Remember, everybody in the country is in on this one. This time the cops got to act human. Don’t forget, the Wilton family carries a little weight, too.”
“Cal’s right,” Fats said. “Whatever they do to us they’re doing to the kid. Shoot at us, and they’re shooting at the kid. Use tear gas on us, they also use it on the kid.”
“It isn’t only that,” Dent said. “They could use the gas on us and figure to revive the kid once they broke in. Except for one thing: They’d be afraid we’d kill the kid before they ever got here.”
“Afraid?” Gino said. “They could bet on it!”
Dent looked at him coldly. “Better get back to the window,” he said.
At five-forty-five they turned on the floodlights.
The suddenness of it brought Dent whirling from where he was standing, by the fireplace. A sawed-off shotgun was in his hand as he reached Fats’ side.
There must have been at least two dozen of them, and apparently the police had sneaked around on all sides of the cabin to place them in the dark.
The concentrated light was blinding in its intensity. It was as though the beach cottage had suddenly been transplanted to the center of Yankee Stadium during the middle of a night ball game. Outside the cottage, and for a distance of a hundred yards in every direction, it was as light as though the sun were at its zenith. Beyond the lights was the gloom, sparkled with hundreds of pin points of light where cars had drawn up a mile or so away from the cottage.
Gino rushed in from the other room. “Hell,” he said, “what’s this?”
“Floodlights,” Cal said. He was quick to recover his wits. “Nothing to worry about.”
“I can get ‘em,” Gino said. “I can pick ‘em off, one by one.” He lifted the rifle with the telescopic sight.
Quickly Dent pushed the barrel toward the floor.
“Don’t be a fool. So you pick them off and what good is that? It’ll soon be daylight anyway. Let them have their lights. It’s better for us, anyway. At least no one can come within shooting distance without being seen. So what difference does it make? It changes nothing. We couldn’t get away anyhow, and they still can’t get in here.”
Gino turned and went back to the other room. As he went his eyes fell on Terry and Janie, lying under a blanket on the couch. There was a mean look about his mouth.
Terry had dozed off in a fitful sleep and the sudden flash of lights had brought her wide awake. Janie stirred restlessly in her sleep. Terry tightened her arm about the child and lay still. She listened as the others talked.
Upstairs, Red leaped off the bed as though he had been shot. He shook his head like a fighter who had taken a left jab to the jaw. And then, without looking out the window, he staggered toward the stairway and started down.
Pearl, too, came wide awake. She had only just fallen asleep, but as the room was suddenly bathed in illumination, her large blue eyes opened wide and she lay dead still, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. It took her a minute or so to realize where she was. And then, believing only that she had been sleeping and had awakened after sunup, she turned restlessly and put one arm over her face. A few moments later she was gently snoring. One stocking was torn and she hadn’t bothered to remove her high-heeled shoes.
Gino was back at the window by the time Red lumbered into the room. Red yawned deeply and said, “What the hell?”
Fats turned and stared at him.
Dent shrugged his shoulders. “Floodlights.” He said it quietly.
“Yeah,” Red said. “My side hurts,” he added. “I should have a doc.”
“You’re lucky to be alive,” Dent told him. “You lost some blood, but I don’t think you have to worry. Anyway, there won’t be any doctors for anyone. You’re more likely to need an undertaker. We’ll make up some breakfast and you’ll feel better.”
Fats talked over his shoulder and told Red about the broadcast. Red nodded, but he wasn’t quite sure what it was all about.
“Cal,” he said, after looking out the window intently for several minutes, “how the hell we gonna get outa this one?”
“Leave it to me,” Dent said. “Peel some spuds and I’ll get the coffee going.”
“Whyn’t we have the dames do it?” Red asked.
“Leave ‘em sleep,” Dent said. “I don’t want ‘em around till we need ‘em.”
He went over to the sink and washed out the coffeepot.
The sun came up just after seven o’clock and quickly burned off the mist. The floodlights were extinguished and Dent went to the window with the field glasses. His breath came fast as he looked.
The police had done a swift and efficient job of it. There must have been at least fifty patrol cars that he was able to see. Sandbag barricades had been placed at strategic points. Dent noticed two men, several hundred yards off, stringing wire. He figured they were putting up a loud-speaker system. Far off across the dunes Dent saw what looked at first like a black cloud. He readjusted the glasses.
“My God,” he said. “There must be fifty thousand people out there.”
Fats, at his side, laughed. “They’ll be putting up hot-dog stands next.”
“They’re keeping ‘em well away,” Dent said. “I guess they figure there can still be a little gunplay.”
“There still will be,” Fats said, “if they start moving in.”
Gino looked in from the other room. “So what happens at eight o’clock?” he asked. “What happens then, when we don’t give up the kid?”
“I start negotiating,” Dent said. “The first thing I want is some food.
I want some more medical supplies. I want some whisky.”
Red looked at him with his mouth open. “What for, for God’s sake?” he said. “We want out, don’t we?”
“Yeah, we want out. But we got to plan it. It isn’t going to be good enough to get out. I got to figure some way to get out and get at least a running start.”
“They ain’t gonna give you no start at all,” Gino said.
“Yes, they will,” Dent said. “As soon as they’re sure we won’t give up and that we won’t give up the kid, they’ll start listening to reason. You’ll see.
“Let’s have the breakfast,” Gino said. “Better bring mine back here.”
It was during the seven-thirty news broadcast that the police released the information that they knew the identity of Cal Dent. They had found his fingerprints on the submachine gun abandoned at Land’s End Tavern. They correctly guessed that he was the ringleader. Eyewitness descriptions of Fats tallied with the officials’ original suspicions and they properly tagged him as a definite member of the gang.
Pearl and Red were still being referred to as Mr. and Mrs. Mason. Up to this point, they had no idea how many more persons constituted the mob. The fact that Pearl had mentioned a brother-in-law convinced them that there was at least one more person involved.
“They know everything,” Gino sneered as the broadcast finished. “The only thing they don’t know is how to get the kid back.”
As soon as Red had finished his breakfast, Dent sent him into the back room to take Gino’s place. He walked over then to Terry and shook her by the shoulder. Terry looked up at him. Her face was very pale.
“Take the kid and get in the other room,” he said.
Terry nodded and stood up. She awakened Janie, who had slept through the last few hours as quietly as though she were in her own bed at home.
Terry started to shut the door, but Dent ordered her to leave it open. A few minutes later he heard Red and the child talking in whispers.
As the hour hand approached eight, everyone in the room felt an increased sense of nervousness. Even Dent wasn’t sure. Eight had been set as the deadline. He wondered what the next step would be.
At five minutes before the hour, Pearl came downstairs. Her lipstick was smeared and there were blue smudges under her eyes. The flesh of her cheeks was tight and without colon She looked more dead than alive.
Dent, wanting to prepare her for whatever was to happen, quickly told her about the broadcast.
As Pearl drank a cup of coffee, Dent watched the police cars through the field glasses. He noticed sudden activity up and down the line. Most of the policemen and officials were carefully keeping out of sight. Activity seemed to center around a large truck with a pair of loud-speakers on its roof.
They had all been expecting it, but when the sounds suddenly burst on the clear morning air, everyone in the room jumped. The voice came from the sound truck.
“It is three minutes to eight, Dent,” the voice said. “In exactly three minutes we want you to start coming out of that door. Come out in single file with your hands in the air.”
Red was still in the back room with Terry and Janie, but Gino and Fats and Pearl stared at Dent. Dent himself walked over to the mantle. He
took out a pen and a piece of scratch paper. Carefully he wrote:
“We want six more hours. The child and the girl are unharmed. If you want to keep them that way, don’t rush us and don’t make a wrong move.”
He folded the paper several times and inserted it in the neck of an empty Coca-Cola bottle.
“Bring the kid in,” he said.
No one moved.
“Fats,” Dent said. “Get the kid in here.”
Fats went to the back room and a moment later returned with Janie Wilton.
Janie looked frightened.
“Listen,” Dent said. “You are going to walk out on the porch with me. Then I am going to throw this bottle. Then we’re coming back in. Don’t cry and don’t call out to anyone.”
He took Janie by the arm and for a second tears started to come to her eyes. Terry stood in the doorway watching, fright heavy in her face.
“Don’t take her,” she said suddenly. “Don’t. God, haven’t you done enough?”
“Shut up,” Dent said. “She won’t be hurt unless someone fires—and they won’t.”
Janie was wide-eyed as Dent opened the front door. Fats and Gino each sat at a front window, guns tucked under their arms. Pearl and Terry stood together near the center of the room, breathlessly watching. Red stood in the doorway between the two rooms. He muttered under his breath.
Dent leaned low and held the child in front of him as he opened the door. He pushed Janie out and stood directly in back of her.
“I’m throwing a message,” he yelled. “Have one man come and get it. We won’t shoot.”
A second later his arm came up and he flung the bottle away from him.
“One man, unarmed,” he called. “More than one and we shoot.”
He quickly backed into the room, pulling Janie after him.
Both Pearl and Terry let out a long, deep sigh. Janie suddenly began to cry, and Terry hurried her into the back room. Red followed them.
There was no movement for several minutes, and then a lone man carefully stepped from behind one of the police cars. He had stripped off his jacket and was in his rolled-up shirt sleeves. Carefully holding his arms well out from his sides, he walked toward the house. Watching him through the field glasses, Dent could see the beads of sweat on his forehead as he came up to the point where the bottle had landed in the sand.
The man reached down and picked it up. He was half running as he returned to the police line.
“What good is that?” Fats asked. “So what, we got a little time.”
Dent swung on him, anger in his voice. “Listen,” he said. “We need time. We gotta have time. We gotta figure some safe way out of this. We must plan every last detail. Another thing, I wanted to see just how far we could go. What they’d do once they had me in their sights. I proved one thing, if nothing else. They’re not going to take any chance on the kid’s getting hurt. That’s what I wanted to find out and I found out. We’re holding the cards in this game; the trick now is how well we play them, For that I need time.”
“Time!” Pearl screamed the word. “Time to die, that’s what you’ll get. That’s what we’ll all get. I want to get out of here. I don’t care what they do to me. I don’t want to be shot.”
She sat down suddenly on the couch and started to cry.
“For God’s sake, somebody get her upstairs,” Dent said. “I’m trying to think.”
They had talked it over for hours, but they still hadn’t got anywhere.
Fats still held out for what he considered the simplest and safest plan. He wanted to use Janie and Terry as hostages, get into the Packard, which still stood some fifteen feet from the front door, and make a run for it.
“One thing would be sure,” he said. “They’d never dare shoot so long as we had the girl and the kid with us. At least we’d have a chance to get away from here.”
“What, with a flat tire, for God’s sake?” Dent said. “You think they’re going to just sit there and watch us change it?”
“It would get us out of here and we can jack the first car we come to,” Fats said. There was no conviction in his voice.
“No,” Dent said. “No, we wouldn’t even get a good start. Do you see that mob out there? Do you realize that they’re more dangerous than all the police in the country? The cops will stay clear of us as long as we have the kid. But once let that mob start running wild and nothing on God’s earth would be able to stop them.”
“There’s no answer,” Gino said. “For me, the best answer is to stay right here and shoot it out. We can’t get away, so let’s take as many of
‘ern with us as we can.”
Pearl, sitting on the couch and staring at the floor, looked up at Gino, fear deep in her eyes.
“Give up and take our chances,” she said. “Give up, while we’re still alive.”
“And spend the rest of our lives behind bars? The hell with that,” Red said. “We’d be lucky to get life. I think Fats has the right idea.”
“None of you are thinking,” Dent said. “There must be an out if we can only figure it. Let’s break it down this way: Getting out by car is fine, up to a point. But it’s too big a gamble. There is also the sea and there is the air as possibilities.”
“You expect them to supply us a boat?” Gino asked. “Don’t make me laugh.”
“They could,” Dent said. “Only trouble is, there’s no way a boat could land in this surf. No, a boat is out.”
“And where do we get another plane?” Fats asked.
Gino sneered. “Dent,” he said, “you’re crazy. You think those cops are going to help you make a break? You think—”
“Listen,” Dent interrupted. “Right there I think you got it. I think that’s the very angle we have to play. So we can’t figure an out—well, let’s let them figure an out. Let’s put it up to them for a change. We got the kid and they want the kid—unhurt. We want to make a clean getaway—also unhurt. All right, we’ll just send them a note and tell them to figure out the angle.”
“They’ll never play ball,” Fats said.
“What have we got to lose?” Dent asked. “Nothing. If it don’t work, we can always try your idea. We can always try for a getaway using the kid as a shield.”
“And we can always shoot it out,” Gino said, “when that don’t work.”
“We’ll try it my way,” Dent said. “I’ll get a note ready.”
Pearl had been watching the men as they talked and she suddenly stood up. She walked over toward Dent.
“Cal,” she said. “Cal, let me take the note over. I can’t help here any more. I want to give up. I want to get out of here. I don’t care what they do with me. I can’t take any more of this.”
“You’re nuts, Pearl,” Red said, speaking from the doorway leading into the other room. “For God’s sake, sit down. Ain’t nobody gonna leave here.”
Dent looked at the girl thoughtfully. He was thinking, Why not? What harm could it do, letting her go? God knows, it was going to be hard enough for the rest of them to make the break. If she wanted to give up, what difference would it make? He stood up and started toward Red.
“So what?” he said. “So maybe...”
Suddenly Pearl realized that every eye in the room was on Dent. In that split second, her nerves finally gave way completely. There was an insane look on her face as she quickly turned and reached for the latch to the front door. She pulled it open. She was half crying and half screaming as she started running.
Red was the first to realize that she was making a break for it. He pushed Dent aside and was out of the door like a streak.
“Pearl! Come back, Pearl!” he yelled as he stumbled across the porch, his hand out to grab her.
Fear, hysteria, whatever it was gave her a sudden insane strength. In a burst of energy, she ran like some wild thing.
Dent had reached the door and stopped. As he watched he saw that Pearl was going to outdistance Red. But Red wasn’t turning back. It was as Dent swung the door closed and turned back into the room that the crash of the Tommy gun cut the sudden silence.
He looked up to see Gino take the weapon from his shoulder.
Dent was cursing under his breath as he reached the window and tore the gun from the man’s hands. And then, looking out, he saw Pearl’s body lying crumpled some two feet in front of the Packard. Red had fallen a couple of yards closer to the house.
Fats stared open-mouthed.
Dent turned back from the window and carefully pulled the revolver from his shoulder holster.
Gino stood near the center of the room. “Nobody’s getting out of here unless I go with 'em,” he said. “Nobody.”
For a long second Dent stared at him. He lifted the gun in his hand slowly.
“You’re crazy,” he said.
His index finger pressed the trigger as the words left his mouth.