I gave him chapter and verse. He didn’t need some of the more salacious details, like Sandy O’Day’s wee hours visit to my room, or the quiet horror of “Steve” throwing around ransom money on suits, socks and shoes. But I didn’t stint on what I knew about Bobby’s demise. I kept it understated, but then so had been Carl’s telling of it and that didn’t help soften the blows any. The boy’s father sat expressionless, eyes unblinking and blue, in an eerie reminder of the kidnapper’s dull glazed look.

I said, “I have no idea when you’ll get an official call. Sometime in the morning, I assume. The questioning of those two will go on through the night. Their stories are shifting in pathetic attempts to lessen their roles.”

“This fellow Marsh?” he said, the first he’d spoken in a while.

“Yes. I believe he exists, but doubt he had anything to do with this. Just a name that the real perpetrator pulled out of his past. Be secure in the belief that I got the truth out of Carl Hall—he had the threat of Chicago hanging over him. The police will have to work at him for a while to catch up with me. And the woman was drunk out of her mind through most of it.”

His sigh started high and stair-stepped down. “I appreciate what you’ve done, Nate. It’s a great help. I want you to accept that five thousand dollars. I’ll write you a new check…”

“No. I’ll invoice you for my time and expenses. It won’t run anywhere near that.”

“If you get pulled back into this—”

“I’ll let you know and we’ll discuss it. And of course I’ll cooperate if either the police or FBI need me. But the details of how I came to identify Carl and Bonnie as the kidnappers, and turn them both over, are unlikely to go on the record.”

“Why is that?”

“Frankly, I was working with a cop and a crook—this Lt. Shoulders, a bent copper if I ever saw one, and Joe Costello, a known racketeer. They suspected Hall was the kidnapper but were prepared not to turn him in if he proved instead to be an embezzler or bank robber. In that case they were ready to do business with him.”

He shivered though the room was quite warm. “It’s appalling. And they thought you’d go along with that?”

“I have a reputation for being, as they say, ‘connected’ to the Chicago mob…the Outfit. When I started out, frankly, there was some truth to it. Years later, that assumption on the part of some people can come in handy. It was in this instance.”

He was shaking his head. “What kind of world are we living in, Nate?”

“A world where men like us can get ahead, Bob. Can make a nice life for ourselves and our families. But it’s also one where men of envy and greed and stupidity and flat-out evil are ready and willing to take everything away.”