I had the filet medium rare, hash browns, buttered lima beans and salad, and a rum and Coke. But I only ate half of everything and limited myself to the one drink. I would be working tonight and even now I was in the tailored Richard Bennett with the nine millimeter under my arm. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone over the photostats of the ransom notes before I came down to eat.

You’d have lost your appetite, too.

If do exactly as we say an try no tricks, advised the first missive in what looked to be a feminine hand, your boy will be back safe withen 24 hrs after we check money. The second said, Don’t try to stop us on pick-up or boy dies you will hear from us later. More notes followed, with instructions like: Tie a white rag on your radio aerial. Proceed north on highway No. 169 past the junction with highway No. 69 about there miles where you will come to Henry’s place. And: Go west to first rd heading south across from lum reek farm sign. None of this gibberish had panned out, of course. Phone call instructions had been even worse.

These were people who thought stealing a six-year-old boy was a good way to get ahead—stupid people who’d spent almost a week botching their ransom delivery instructions. When I asked myself if this boy could still be alive, the food I’d eaten roiled in my belly like storm clouds.

Back in my hotel room I put a long-distance call in to my ex-wife in Beverly Hills. Peggy was married to a film director who’d had his ups and downs, currently up. We maintained a truce for Sam’s sake, but she not surprisingly never seemed glad to hear from me when I phoned.

“Sam’s at a pool party at the Lewises,” she said.

He and Jerry’s son Gary were longtime pals, longtime for six-year-olds anyway.

“And you’re not with him?”

“I think he’ll be safe with a dozen other kids and more than enough parents. What did you want with him?”

“Just to see how he’s doing. I’m his father, or did that slip your mind?”

A tense truce, admittedly.

“Well,” Peg said, “he’s fine. You’ll see him soon enough.”

I got him during his Christmas vacation. He was in the first grade.

“Would you tell him…”

“What?”

Tell him his daddy loves him.

“Nothing,” I said.

* * *

At seven on this chilly but not quite cold night, I left the loaner Caddy in the driveway outside the four-car garage and walked around to the front door, where I was let in by a tall, white-haired, bald-on-top Sunday school teacher type in a tie under a sweater vest. Somewhat hunch-shouldered, probably nearly as old as Greenlease, he introduced himself as Will Letterman from the Tulsa branch. I had missed Stew O’Neill, the local Greenlease Motors crony who’d been released to spend the evening with his family.

Anyway, that was the story. The real reason for O’Neill’s night off, I figured, was my arrival on the scene. For a lot of good reasons—including staying close to his wife and not making a second kidnap target out of himself—Greenlease would likely maintain his executive position here and send his people to make the ransom drop. In this case, that was Letterman and me.