The Famous Stanley Kidnapping Case Read online

  Gino held the tray, and Pietro took the dishes off one by one and put them on the table. There was a large bowl, a cracked ceramic pitcher, some plates and forks, and a large wine jug that seemed to be full of water. Esther peeked in the bowl.

  “Spaghetti?” she said in a surprised tone of voice.

  The two kidnappers stood over her with their hooded heads tipped down, like two black vultures watching something on the ground beneath their tree. Esther looked up at them and nodded. “Spaghetti,” she said in a politely informative tone of voice, as if they might have been wondering. Then she turned around towards the cot where Blair was just beginning to wake up. “Blair,” she called, “wake up. It’s spaghetti for breakfast.”

  Yawning and rubbing his eyes, Blair padded across the cellar to the table. Standing right in front of the kidnappers, he yawned again so hard that he nearly tipped over backwards; and then, catching his balance, he smiled up at the owlish eyes in the black masks as if they were ordinary faces.

  Somehow Blair’s smile scared David more than anything else. It showed him what a long way Blair and Esther were from realizing just how much danger they were in. Now that no one was running or yelling, they seemed to think that everything was all right and there wasn’t any reason to be frightened anymore. David started for the table, but Janie was there ahead of him.

  “Spaghetti?” Janie was saying in an incredulous tone of voice, peeking into the large bowl. “Spaghetti for breakfast?” And then she started saying other things to the kidnappers in Italian. David didn’t get very many of the words, but her tone of voice was easy to understand. Janie was obviously unhappy about spaghetti for breakfast, and she was telling the two kidnappers all about it.

  “Janie,” David said. “Janie! Janie!” He kept saying it louder and louder, but Janie just got louder in Italian, until David practically yelled, “Janie, will you shut up!”

  She looked up at him in surprise. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “I’m just telling them about balanced diets and vitamin C, and about how I can’t help being a fussy eater because I was born with a very particular stomach.”

  “Well don’t,” David whispered at her. “Don’t tell them anything like that. You mustn’t bother them.”

  “I’m not bothering them, I’m just—”

  Grabbing her by one arm, David pulled her over to where Amanda was still sitting on the cot; and he didn’t turn loose of her until Gino and Pietro were on their way back up the stairs.

  While everyone was eating, David kept wondering just how he could make the kids understand about the danger without upsetting them too much. While he and Blair and Esther were eating, that is. Janie took one look at the spaghetti sauce, which was a greenish color and smelled of garlic, and said, “Yick,” and refused to eat anything except a few bare strands of spaghetti. Amanda took her share on a plate, but she only picked at it as if she were having trouble swallowing. Janie was nothing to worry about since she often went without eating much; but David wondered if Amanda was getting sick, or if she was only too worried and upset to be hungry. He still hadn’t finished deciding what to tell the kids when the kidnappers came back, and this time Red Mask came, too.

  Pietro opened the cellar door and held it open while Red Mask came through and swaggered down the steps. Gino closed and locked the door behind him. Watching them, David noticed that Red Mask was not only taller than the other two but also a lot heavier; when he started to talk there was a difference in his voice, too. It sounded deeper and harsher. When he spoke, everyone, including the other kidnappers, listened very carefully. There was something about the harsh voice, the sharp, quick movements, and the angry-looking eyes staring out the center of the yellow zigzags that made him particularly scary. After Gino and Pietro had cleared away the breakfast things and straightened up the broken table leg, Red Mask sat down and leaned across the table staring at each of his captives in turn. When the dark eyes flashed at David, his heart thundered in his chest.

  After Red Mask had looked at each one of them in turn, his eyes went back to where Janie was sitting on the middle cot. “Venite qui!” he said, motioning with his forefinger.

  David caught his breath. Janie hadn’t seemed particularly afraid of Gino and Pietro that morning, but Red Mask was different. If she decided to throw another screaming fit. . . . But he needn’t have worried—at least not about that. Janie got off the cot and walked slowly towards Red Mask. Partway there, she turned and looked back at David, and he nodded and tried to smile. Behind the table, Red Mask sat stiffly, with the other two kidnappers standing on either side of him. To David it looked like some kind of weird courtroom scene—an evil, hooded judge and jury about to pronounce sentence on. . . . Janie’s head and shoulders barely cleared the top of the table. Her bathrobe belt had come untied and was trailing behind her; her robe was hanging down lopsidedly over her pink teddy bear pajamas; and her blond hair was tousled into floppy curls. She looked so completely helpless and innocent that it made a lump in David’s throat—and he knew better.

  Leaning across the table Red Mask started saying some things in Italian. Janie listened and nodded, and then she turned around and said, “He wants me to translate for him. He wants me to tell you what he’s saying.” Then she turned back to Red Mask and said, “Okay, comincia.”

  Red Mask talked for quite a long time, and David was able to tell from the tone of his voice and a familiar word now and then, that he was giving them some kind of a warning. When he had finished, Janie translated.

  “He says we are their prisoners and we are hidden in a place where no one will ever find us and we must be very good and quiet and not try to escape, and if we do we will be all right and very soon we’ll get to go back to our family, but if we are bad or try to get away, something very terrible will happen to us.”

  “Avete capito?” Red Mask shouted, hitting the table with his fist. Everybody jumped, and the table sank down on one side. Gino and Pietro propped the table back up with the broken leg.

  “Avete capito?” Janie asked. “I mean, do you understand?”

  They all nodded. “They all capiscono,” Janie told Red Mask.

  Taking some paper and a pen out of his pocket, Red Mask put them on the table and pointed at Amanda. “Venite qui,” he said, but Amanda only shrank back against the wall.

  “He wants you to come here, too,” Janie said.

  Amanda looked frantically at David, but he could only shake his head helplessly. Finally she got up and slowly walked to the table, looking very pale and shaky. Red Mask pointed at her and then at the paper and said some more things in Italian. Even before Janie translated, David knew what he wanted.

  “He says you have to write a note to your father and tell him that you are kidnapped and that if he ever wants to see you again he must come to Italy immediately and bring a million dollars.”

  Amanda began to cry. David had never seen her cry before, and she didn’t do it easily and naturally the way little kids do. You could tell that she was hating it by the way she held her head straight up and clenched her teeth against the sobs. But her face twitched and quivered, and tears flooded out of her eyes and down her cheeks. “All right,” she said finally through her clenched teeth. “Tell him I’ll write the letter.”

  The kidnappers were all staring at Amanda. Over Red Mask’s head, the other two looked at each other, and then quickly back at Amanda. Red Mask tipped back in his chair and looked up at them. Then, leaning forward suddenly across the table, he said something to Amanda that sounded like a question—an angry question.

  “He wants to know why you’re crying so hard?” Janie said. “He wants to know if your father doesn’t really have a million dollars.”

  Amanda fought against sobs, and David held his breath, wondering what she would say. And—what the kidnappers would do if she told them what David was pretty sure was the truth—that her father didn’t have anything like a million dollars.

  “Tell them my father has a million d
ollars,” Amanda said at last. She sobbed again, swallowed hard, and caught her breath. “Tell them he’ll come and bring them the money.”

  When Janie had translated to Red Mask, he got up out of the chair and motioned for Amanda to sit down. He spread the paper out in front of her and put the pen on it. Then he put his hands behind his back and began to rock back and forth. He went backwards and forwards, while everyone, including Gino and Pietro, stared at him and waited. Now and then he looked up at the ceiling and then down at the paper. Then, suddenly, he leaned over and jabbed his finger at the top of the paper.

  “Caro Babbo,” he said.

  “He says to write ‘Dear Father,’ ” Janie said.

  Amanda wrote, and Red Mask rocked some more and then pointed at the paper again and said something else—a long sentence this time. But instead of translating right away, Janie tipped her head on one side and bit her lower lip—and right away David began to get a sinking feeling. He got up off the cot and started edging towards the table, just in case. Sure enough, Janie said something to Red Mask that sounded as if she were arguing or else giving advice. Red Mask answered her, and Janie looked surprised and said something back, and Red Mask answered, looking exasperated, and Janie added a few more comments. When Red Mask looked even more exasperated, David got up his nerve and interrupted.

  “Janie,” he said, “what are you talking about?”

  “Well,” she said, “he said for me to tell Amanda to write, ‘I have been kidnapped by a gang of dangerous men.’ So I just asked him if his gang had a name, and he said no they didn’t, and I said that I thought all the gangs who kidnap people, at least all the important ones, had names with words like Army or Brigade in them, and he said his gang didn’t, and I said maybe they ought to make up one because it would sound a lot better, like if it got put in the paper or something, and he said he didn’t want to make up a name, and I was about to say—”

  “Well, don’t!” David said. “Just tell Amanda exactly what he said.”

  Janie sighed. “Well, I just thought—”

  “Don’t!” David said. “Don’t think anything. For heaven’s sake, Janie, just tell Amanda exactly what they tell you to.”

  Janie shrugged and said, “Okay. Amanda just write, ‘I have been kidnapped by a gang of dangerous men.’ ” After that David stayed beside the table and listened and watched while Janie translated and Amanda wrote. When it was finished, the letter said:

  Dear Father,

  I have been kidnapped by a gang of dangerous men. If you ever want to see me again come immediately to Florence with a million dollars. Get a room at the Tuscano Hotel. You will be contacted there with more instructions. Do not say anything to the police.

  Please come quickly. I am very frightened.

  Your daughter,

  Amanda

  When Amanda had signed her name, Red Mask leaned over her and read the letter very carefully, pronouncing the English words with a very Italian accent. On the other side of the table Janie stood on tiptoe and read the letter, too.

  “Oh, oh,” she said suddenly, and pointed to the place on the letter where it said “a million dollars.” She motioned for Red Mask to look and started to say something in Italian. David stepped on her foot as hard as he could.

  “Ouch,” she said, interrupting herself. “You stepped on my foot, David.”

  “I know it,” David said. “What were you saying to him? What were you talking about?”

  “I was just going to tell him that he forgot something. He forgot the part about unmarked bills. In kidnap notes you always have to say, ‘One million dollars in unmarked bills.’ ”

  “Janie.” David kept his voice calm and quiet, but he tried to make his eyes threaten everything he could think of. “Come over here and let me see your foot. Let me see if I hurt it.”

  Janie let herself be led over to the cot. She sat down on the edge, and David took off her shoe. As he pretended to examine her toes, he whispered, “What do you want to tell them stuff like that for?”

  “I was just trying to help—”

  “Help! What do you want to help them for? Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  Janie looked thoughtful. “Yeah,” she said. “I see what you mean. What we ought to be doing is trying to trick them—”

  “No, no.” David’s whisper got more high-pitched. “No tricks. No tricks on anybody. Please Janie, don’t try any tricks.”

  Janie nodded. “Okay,” she said, “no tricks.” But her eyes had that glassy look, and David knew from experience there probably wasn’t much connection between what she was saying and what was going on in her head.

  Either Red Mask didn’t understand what Janie had been talking about, or else he just didn’t care about unmarked bills. He seemed to be satisfied with the note the way it was. He folded it very carefully and went up the stairs with Gino and Pietro following him. After they’d gone, Amanda sat at the table for a long time with her head down on her arms.

  fourteen

  After the kidnappers went away with the ransom note, Amanda went on crying for a long time. She eventually got up from the table, went over to her cot and lay down on her stomach with her face hidden in her arms, still crying. At first the little kids hung around looking at her and at each other with worried faces. They hadn’t ever seen Amanda crying, and they weren’t sure if they should try to cheer her up or not.

  They certainly would have tried if it had been anyone else, but she’d been their sister long enough for them to know you couldn’t treat Amanda the way you did other people. After a while she raised her head long enough to tell them to go away, so they did. Then quite a while later she sat up and rubbed her face hard on the sleeve of her jacket and went over and sat down by David. The little kids had gone over behind the pile of junk in the corner. Amanda checked to be sure they were out of hearing and then said, “I have to tell you something.”

  Feeling pretty sure he knew what it was going to be, David nodded.

  “It’s about my father,” Amanda said. “He won’t come and bring the money.”

  “Yeah,” David said. “I kind of thought he didn’t really have a million dollars.”

  She nodded. “He makes a lot of money, but I think he spends it almost as fast as he makes it. I know he doesn’t have a million dollars, but he might possibly be able to get that much by borrowing and selling some things, like his boat, but I doubt it. But it isn’t just that. What it is, is—” She stopped and clenched her teeth and scowled. It looked as if she were very angry, but David realized that it wasn’t so much anger as an attempt to keep from crying again. “It’s just that he probably wouldn’t come even if he had millions of dollars lying around all over everywhere. It just probably won’t”—she stopped and scowled again—“it won’t make that much difference to him.”

  The last few words came out very shaky, and then she put her face down in her hands, and her shoulders began to shake. David felt awful. Trying to think of something that would cheer her up, he finally said something very dumb. What he said was, “But you were always talking about how crazy your father was about you and how he gave you expensive presents all the time—like the crow and all the snakes and everything.”

  Amanda nodded and cried harder than ever. It was a long time before she was able to talk, and when she finally was, she began to tell David about how she hadn’t really been lying to him about her father. What she had really been doing was lying to herself—trying to make herself believe that her father did love her and that he would have let her come and live with him except that the court said she had to stay with Molly. But all the time she really knew that he didn’t like having her there very much and was probably relieved when she went home after her visits.

  “He probably wouldn’t have me there at all if he didn’t know Mom would love for me to quit visiting him. He only lets me come and buys me all that expensive junk to make her angry.”

  David thought of trying to convince Amanda that what she
said wasn’t true, but he really thought it might be, and he doubted if he could sound very convincing. The only thing he could think of to say was, “Well, your mom really loves you. I know that.”

  Amanda nodded. “I know. I used to blame her for the divorce and tell myself she was going to stop loving me just the way she stopped loving my father, but I guess I always knew it wasn’t true. But she doesn’t have a million dollars or anything like it, and”—Amanda looked over towards where the little kids were playing and lowered her voice—“my father is not going to show up with the money, and what’s going to happen to all of us then? And it will all be my fault.”

  She cried some more, and David tried to think up comforting things to say, most of which turned out to be pretty useless. After she was calm again, he asked her why she’d told Janie to tell the kidnappers that her father would bring the money.

  She shrugged. “I was afraid of what they would do if they knew there wasn’t going to be any money.”

  “But they’re going to find out eventually.”

  Amanda nodded. “But at least this gives us a little time, and maybe something will happen. Maybe the police will find us or—”

  “Yeah,” David said nodding eagerly. “You’re right.” Time was important. Time for something to happen, or maybe even—just time for the kidnappers to get to know them all better. “Yeah,” he said again thoughtfully. “Like King Tut.”

  “King Tut?” Amanda said, but then after she’d thought about it for a minute she said, “Oh, I see what you mean.”

  King Tut was the turkey that old Mr. Golanski had given Dad for Thanksgiving dinner last year. Only Mr. Golanski had made the serious mistake of bringing Tut to the Stanleys while he was still alive, and by the time Thanksgiving came everyone had had time to get to know him. As a result King Tut was still strutting around—at the moment back at Mr. Golanski’s where he was having his room and board paid by the Stanleys until they got back from Italy—which Mr. Golanski, being a farm person all his life, thought was pretty ridiculous.