Alice in Jeopardy: A Novel by Ed McBain Read Free Book Online Page A

Alice can only think her children’s fate is in the hands of Keystone Kops.
    Sloate is putting on the earphones.
    “I don’t think it’s her again, so early,” he says. “But if it is, just let her talk, hear what she has to say.”
    The phone is still ringing.
    “Shall I pick up?” Alice asks.
    Sloate hits some buttons on his recording equipment. Reels begin spinning.
    “Go ahead,” he says.
    Alice picks up the phone.
    “Hello?”
    “Alice?”
    A woman’s voice. She recognizes it at once. Aggie Barrows, her assistant.
    “Yes, Aggie,” she says.
    “Did you forget your nine o’clock?”
    “My…?”
    “With Mr. Webster.”
    “Oh Je—”
    “He’s here now. What shall I tell him? Are you coming in?”
    “Let me talk to him, Agg.”
    She waits.
    “Hello?”
    “Mr. Webster, hi, I’m so sorry.”
    “That’s all right,” he says. “What happened?”
    “I broke my ankle.”
    “Well, that’s a new one,” he says.
    “I really did,” she says. “I got knocked down by a car yesterday afternoon.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says.
    “I’m in a cast. I should have called you, I know, but what with the hospital and all…”
    “Hey, that’s all right, we can do it another time.”
    “I hope so.”
    There is a silence on the line.
    “Is… everything else all right?” he asks.
    Sloate glances up from his recording equipment.
    “Yes, I’m fine, thanks,” Alice says. “I really am very sorry about this.”
    “Long as it wasn’t anything I said yesterday.”
    “No, no, I really did have an accident.”
    “I thought maybe I’d been out of line.”
    “No, no, not at all.”
    “None of my business, after all.”
    “That’s okay, really. I took no offense.”
    “I hope not. So how shall we leave this? Will you call me? Shall I look for another broker?”
    “I wish you wouldn’t do that, Mr. Webster…”
    “Webb.”
    “I’d love to find a home for you here on the Cape, I really would. But it may be a few days before…”
    “I have some other business to take care of down here, anyway. Why don’t we just play it by ear? Just call me when you think you’ll be up and around again.”
    “Well, I’m able to walk now,” she says. “It’s just…”
    It’s just my children have been kidnapped, you see. It’s just I have two detectives here in the house with me right now, one of them listening to every word you and I are saying. It’s just that in less than three hours, a woman is going to call here again to tell me what I have to do next if I ever want to see my kids alive again. It’s just all that, Mr. Webster, Webb, it’s just I am going out of my mind with fear and anxiety, that’s all it is, Webb.
    “I have your number,” she says. “I’ll call you.”
    “Please do,” he says, and hangs up.
    She looks at the receiver. She places it back on its cradle.
    “Sounds like a nice fellow,” Sloate comments.
    “Yes,” she says.
    “How you doing with that?” he asks Marcia.
    “Getting there,” she says.
    Sloate looks at his watch.
    “You’ve got two and twenty-five,” he says.
    “Thanks a lot,” she says dryly.
    “Just thought I’d remind you.”
    There is between them the easy banter of two people who have worked together for a very long time. It is almost like a good marriage, Alice realizes. Sloate isn’t going to start yelling at her if she doesn’t have her equipment set up in the next two hours and twenty-five minutes, and Marcia is not going to have a hysterical hissy fit if she doesn’t come in under that deadline. Sloate seems confident that she will have the job done in that time. And she seems confident that she will not fail him. As he takes off the earphones, he nods assurance to Marcia, and she looks up from where her rather delicate hands—Alice notices for the first time—are twirling dials and throwing switches, and she winks at him to let him know the situation is completely under control here.
    Alice wonders if it really