Ransom Read Online Free PDF Page A

driver who knew exactly what pace you had to maintain to catch the traffic lights all the way downtown, glanced at his watch. Nine-forty: time to move. He stepped on the gas pedal as he came to East 70th, then had to brake sharply as a green-and-white police car, badly in need of a wash, pulled out from the kerb right in front of him. He cursed; and cursed again when he saw the lights go red at the corner. He halted behind the police car, bouncing his hands impatiently on the steering wheel of the delivery truck. He was going to miss the lights at East 69th and if he did that it could blow the whole show. He could feel the sweat beginning to break on him and his legs began to tremble. Carole was going to be down there in the garage waiting for him, the Forte woman on her hands, the garage jockey wondering what the hell was going on, and all because a couple of pigs didn’t follow their own rules about pulling out into moving traffic. It would serve them right if he took the gun out of his pocket and shot both the bastards in the back of the head.
    The light turned green and instinctively his hand touched the horn button. The two cops turned round in their seats and for a moment he thought the guy beside the driver was going to get out and come back to him; he took his hand off the wheel, put it in his pocket and clutched the gun; then he smiled and waved the other hand in an apologetic gesture. Neither of the cops smiled back, just stared at him a moment longer, then they faced forward again and the driver unhurriedly set the police car going. Abel, resisting the tempta-

    tion to speed up past them, fell in behind; he didn’t want them following him, for Christ’s sake. He could see the light still green at 69th, but he hadn’t noticed when it had changed and he could not guess when it would turn red. The police car cruised slowly on, the driver and his partner lolling negligently in their seats, and Abel, trembling so much now he could feel his headache coming on again, tried to memorize the number of the car. When this job was over he’d come back here and kill those two pigs.
    Then they were at 69th Street. The police car swung slightly to the right and Abel felt his stomach empty, then tighten; but the police car straightened up and went on down Second Avenue, and he swung the delivery truck on to 69th just as the lights turned. He wanted to stop, sit there for a minute or two and regain his cool. But there wasn’t time …
    Up the street Carole Cox was already turning into the steps that led up into the small garden fronting the building known as Cornwall Gardens. She was dressed in a plain grey suit, wore dark wrapround glasses and a short curly wig that was much darker than her own straight brown hair; she hoped she looked like a thousand other working girls in New York City, felt sure that she did. Over the past four years she had come to accept anonymity, something she had once thought impossible for her: till she had met Roy in her last year at college and fallen so deeply in love with him, she had wanted recognition, to be an actress, a writer, someone. But even after today she would still be anonymous: that was part of the perfection of the plan.
    She paused at the top of the steps, looked down the street and saw Abel driving up in the delivery truck. He had come by here twenty-five minutes ago and she hoped no one had seen them speaking to each other when he had pulled into the kerb across the street; they had exchanged no more than half a dozen words, but it had been necessary to confirm that Sylvia Forte’s appointment with her dentist was still scheduled for ten o’clock. Maybe a signal would have been

    enough, but there was always the chance that a signal could be misunderstood. And nothing must be left to chance in this operation.
    She saw Abel drive up past her, carefully not looking at her, then swing out of sight down the curving ramp that went under the garden to the basement garage. She hoped