2. Secure before noon today ten thousand dollars ($10,000). This money must be composed entirely of OLD BILLS of the following denominations:
$2,000.00 in twenty-dollar bills.
$8,000.00 in fifty-dollar bills.
The money must be old. Any attempt to include new or marked bills will render the entire venture futile.
3. The money should be placed in a large cigar box, or if this is impossible in a heavy cardboard box, SECURELY closed and wrapped in white paper. The wrapping paper should be sealed at all openings with sealing wax.
4. Have the money with you, prepared as directed above, and remain at home after one o’clock p.m. See that the telephone is not in use.
You will receive a future communication instructing you as to your future course.
As a final note of warning—this is a strictly commercial proposition, and we are prepared to put our threat into execution should we have reasonable grounds to believe that you have committed an infraction of the above instructions. However, should you carefully follow out our instructions to the letter, we can assure you that your son will be safely returned to you within six hours of our receipt of the money.
Yours truly,
Harold Williams
Charles Kessler had hurried to the bank the moment it opened, and he had told them to make no record of the bills; he did not want to take any chances. What was ten thousand dollars for a life, his son’s life? Then there had been no sealing wax in the house, and he had almost sent his older boy Martin out to buy the wax, but caught himself in time and sent Martin and little Adele with the chauffeur to his brother Jonas’s house. Perhaps they would be safer there. And he had run out himself for the wax.
One o’clock. Waiting for the call. Jonas with him, Judge Wagner with him. Poor Martha upstairs; the doctor had given her sedatives.
The cigar box, wrapped in white paper, sealed, on the table.
And now came this call from the newspaper, saying that Paulie was dead. How could it be possible that the boy was dead when the letter said he was safe and unharmed? It said Paulie would be delivered six hours after the money was paid. Safely, safely returned to you. How could it be . . .
Judge Wagner took the phone. He pleaded, “Please cooperate. Do not call . . .”
But the newspaperman insisted there was good reason to believe the dead boy was Paulie. It seemed to be a Jewish boy.
Then the judge said, “I see.” He took the address of the mortuary. He said that Paulie’s uncle, Jonas Kessler, would go there at once, but please, not to print anything as yet.
AT THAT MOMENT, Judd was sitting on a bench in the waiting room of the grimy old I.C. station. A bareheaded college boy, alert-looking, with intense dark eyes, he kept one hand in his jacket pocket, on the final instruction envelope. He had just printed on it the words MR. CHARLES KESSLER, PERSONAL. Now he kept his eyes on Artie, who was at the ticket window. Artie would come toward him in a moment for the letter. And then Artie would board the Michigan City train, staying only long enough to deposit the letter in the telegraph-blank box in the last car. Then Artie would get off the train. They would phone Kessler, giving him only the address of the drugstore near the 63rd Street station. Kessler would have precisely enough time to get to the store and receive their second call, instructing him to board this train as it arrived at 63rd Street and to look in the telegraph-blank box in the last car.
The man would just have time to rush aboard, find the letter, and read its instructions to go out to the rear platform and watch for the large building on the right-hand side, with CHAMPION MANUFACTURING printed on the wall. When the train came alongside that building, near 75th Street, the father was to toss the ransom package, as hard as he could, toward the factory. By then, Judd and Artie would be waiting in the Willys near where the package must fall.
Having the package thrown from the moving train had been Artie’s contribution. He had come running over with the idea, all excited, one night about a month ago. “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” The perfect end to the relays. And the beauty of it, Artie had explained, was that even if the victim’s father tipped off the cops, the two of them could be watching at 63rd Street to make sure no one but the father got on the train. And even if the cops knew what train it was, how could they, in that last moment, watch the entire length of the tracks all the way to Michigan City? The cops couldn’t drive alongside, either; there was no road directly alongside! Foolproof!
All evening they had examined the plan. Great—the work of a mastermind, a superman! Judd had congratulated his friend while suppressing, in himself, the little question, Hadn’t Artie got the idea out of one of his detective magazines?
Then, once this main part of the problem was solved, the foolproof system found, Artie had become impatient to set the day. “Let’s do it. Let’s do it.” But Judd had said that it had to be done perfectly; they had to pick the right train; they had to make a test run.
Together they had come down to this station and chosen an afternoon train, so that there would not be too many passengers, and they had chosen a short-line train, going only to Michigan City, so no one would be likely to use the telegraph-blank box. And they had tested the train, sitting together—Artie by the window and he pressing against Artie—to get a good look, to select a spot for the “delivery.” There were mostly women on the train, biddies on their way back to Gary or Michigan City after their downtown shopping. There they sat with their packages—as the victim would today sit with his package of ransom—and how could those biddies have known what was being whispered and laughed about by those two college boys! That was the delight of the entire adventure. On that ordinary train, among the dull little women on their everyday errands, he and Artie had been picking the spot where a ransom should be tossed to them!
Or now, sitting here in the railway station, watching Artie, with his easy smile, stooping to the ticket window, and knowing why. And only the two of them knowing! You could go through life carrying always your extraordinary deeds between you, sealed off from all the little people, and sealed together by your doing and your knowing!
And sitting with his eyes on Artie, Judd must have told himself that he felt no different than on all their previous trips to this station. Just as during the months of planning it had seemed as if the thing would never happen, so it seemed now as though it had not happened. The thought habit of those months was stronger than the occurrence of a single day. All yesterday was a void, an intrusion, for yesterday had been a part of the deed that they could not have rehearsed. And today was like a going back to before the thing was done, like another rehearsal, a repetition of the part of the deed they had so often rehearsed in this station.
The rehearsal with the dummy package, to see where it would land when thrown from the moving train . . . A few weeks ago, together on the train, watching the package land in an alley near that factory . . . And Artie crying happily, “Let’s do it, Jocko! Monday!” And he had told Artie, Wait. What about picking up the package? How could they be sure the alley would be clear? How could they be sure it wasn’t a spot where a flying package would attract attention?
“Christ, people are always throwing crap out of trains—pop bottles and crap.”
Still, Artie had agreed to another delay, for another test. They would separate, one on the train, the other on the ground. How heavy would ten thousand dollars be? A whole evening they had spent, laughing conspiratorially as they prepared an exact dummy package. Judd had calculated the weight in ones, fives, tens, twenties, calculated the best combination to fill a cigar box, for a box would sail good and solid. He had taken one of the old man’s perfecto boxes, and a magazine of the right weight to stuff inside. That awful Literary Digest. The next day, Artie had taken the package and boarded the train.
Judd had posted himself in the alley, behind the factory with the windowless back wall. To test everything precisely, he had