Tall, his long, narrow oval face home to a prominent nose and jutting chin, eyebrows heavy on a high forehead, the interloper came over to the window the cabbie was rolling down and leaned in like an officious carhop.

“Local traffic only,” he said, polite but with an edge.

I leaned up and said to the cabbie, “I’ll handle this.”

I got out and said, “Nathan Heller. They’re expecting me at the Greenlease home.”

“Special Agent Wesley Grapp,” he said, stepping away from the cab, holding up ID with his left hand and offering his right with the slightest of smiles. His grip was firm but not showy. “You’re on our list.”

I gave him about half a grin. “I’ve been on the FBI’s list a long time.”

That got a chuckle out of him. “Yes, I’ve seen the file. It’s thicker than Forever Amber and about as juicy. What did you do to get on the Chief’s bad side? It’s not included.”

The Chief, of course, was J. Edgar Hoover.

“Oh,” I said casually, “a long time ago I told him to go fuck himself.”

This chuckle came from somewhere deep. “That’ll do it. Call me Wes.”

“And I’m Nate. So you’ve set up a checkpoint.”

“We have. We’ll take you from here.”

My overnight bag was in the trunk and the cabbie got it out for me. I gave him a sawbuck and made a friend for life.

Grapp walked me around the corner to his ride, a dark blue Ford Crestliner. I tossed the bag in front where a younger agent in suit and fedora sat behind the wheel—slender in horn-rimmed glasses—and Grapp and I got in back.

I said, “I guess you know Bob Greenlease called me in personally. You have no objection?”

“None. I’m all for it, actually.”

That surprised me; the FBI didn’t usually welcome private detectives to the party. “Why’s that?”

“We’ve been pretty well frozen out of this so far. Helping as much as we’re allowed. Mr. Greenlease has kept us pretty much at arm’s length. The guy’s got a lot of clout. He’s working strictly through the K.C. chief of police.”

Greenlease, a major stockholder in General Motors, was one of the wealthiest men in the Midwest. A self-made man from farming stock, he’d started out around the turn of the century making handmade cars and running a repair garage, then landed a franchise to sell Cadillacs; now he was the largest distributor of Caddies in the Southwest. His founding dealership, the Greenlease Motor Car Company, was where I first met him in 1937, when I was brought in to deal with auto parts pilfering by employees. And since just after the war, the A-1 had arranged security for the Annual Chicago Automobile Show, of which Greenlease was always a big part.

“Of course FBI policy in kidnapping cases,” Grapp was saying, “means doing nothing that might jeopardize the victim’s safe return. And Mr. Greenlease insists on no surveillance of any ransom drop…or at least he has so far.”