Well, shit.

We headed back to the Greenlease place.

* * *

We were again in the study with the dogs and hunters looking on from their mural. Back in our same seats with the two phones staring at us and us staring at them. Letterman didn’t mention our little confrontation to Greenlease and neither did I. We drank a while. I was on my second rum and Coke since our return and Greenlease was behind me, pacing again, but more like trudging now, bourbon sloshing in his glass, when the phones came alive, their doubled ring alarmingly loud.

I’d been appointed phone man again. After the third ring, as arranged, Greenlease was back on the couch next to Letterman, who picked up as I did.

As before, silence.

“You there, M?” I asked.

“Speaking.”

“Everything all right with the money?”

The response came in a rush of words: “We haven’t had time to count it yet. But I’m sure it’s all there. Rest assured the kid will be back with his mother as promised within twenty-four hours.”

M didn’t sound drunk to me now—more like high.…

“How long are we going to have to wait down there before we pick him up?”

By “down there” I meant Pittsburg, Kansas.

M said, “You’ll hear in the morning and be told where and when.”

“We’ll have him tomorrow?”

“Definitely.”

“He’s alive and well?”

“Yeah, and as full of piss and vinegar as any kid I’ve ever seen.”

This seemed to try a little too hard to make the boy sound… alive. “I can quote you on that, can I?”

“You can quote me.”

The phone clicked dead.

I hung up. I looked at Greenlease. I looked at Letterman.

“Well,” Letterman said to me, poised to stand, “you and I need to head to Pittsburg.”

I shook my head. “No.”

Greenlease frowned at me. “No?”

I said to Letterman, “Collect your pal, what’s his name? Stew O’Neill? He’s had enough time with his family. You two go down to Kansas and have an adventure. You don’t need me for that.”

Besides, it sounded like a dodge to me. Another snipe hunt.

I rose. “I’ll stick around on this end a while in case I’m needed, if you like, Bob. Should our buddy M throw us a curve.”

“Well,” Letterman said, vaguely offended, “I’m going to head out as soon as I can round up Stew.”

“Do that,” I said. “I’m going back to my hotel, gentlemen—I’m beat. See you in the morning, Bob. Good luck, Will.”

I almost returned Greenlease’s check, but something told me I might still earn it.

CHAPTER THREE

I got pulled over briefly at the FBI checkpoint, where Agent Grapp asked me to fill him in, which I did. It was a little after two A.M.

“This little trip Letterman and O’Neill are taking to south Missouri,” I said from behind the wheel, “means a state line’s been crossed. Surely you can wade in now.”

He was leaning in my window like a carhop again; it was cold enough for his breath to smoke and he peered at me above fogged hornrims. “Not unless the kidnappers actually take the kid there. It sounds like the runaround to me.”