Compulsion. Meyer Levin

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      How could the boy have got into the culvert? Maybe foolish kids, trying to play a game, crawl through the pipe. And this one got stuck and drowned.

      A kid of someone. A pity. “You ever seen him around here?”

      The two railroad men lifted the body to carry it up to their handcar. But then they asked, “Where are his clothes?”

      Wrotzlaw searched in the weeds. “Hey!” He picked up the pair of glasses, glinting there, and placed them on the boy. He searched farther along the downtrodden grass. “Stocking.”

      He held it up, a knee-pants stocking, a good one, new, not like the black cotton stockings of the neighborhood kids, with mended holes at the knees.

      But no other clothing could be found. “Other kids maybe got scared, ran away, took everything.” Now the railway men said Wrotzlaw should come with them, to bring the body back to their railway yard. He would be late for his job, he protested, but the other Pole insisted, “You found him, you come with us.” So he climbed up. “Poor kid, he’s got drowned.”

      By the freight platform, men gathered. The yard boss called the police. A patrol wagon removed the corpse. “Unknown boy, drowned” was marked on the blotter, and the body was sent to Swaboda’s.

      Tom Daly called Kessler. Almost before Tom could hear it ring, the phone was picked up. “Yes? Yes?”

      “This is the Globe.”

      “Please. We are expecting an important message. Please don’t call this number. Please leave the line clear.”

      “But our reporter believes he has identified your boy, Mr. Kessler.”

      Charles Kessler had been sitting with his hand ready to the phone, waiting for the call promised in the special-delivery letter. He was a small-made man, always keeping himself neat and correct-looking. His chair was high-backed and carved, one of the ornate throne-chairs common in those days. In his solid house with his solid furniture it seemed an impossible thing that a kidnaping should have happened to him.

      He had always dealt with everyone to the penny, exact. Even when he had been a pawnbroker, long years ago, he had been proud of his reputation for honesty and exactitude, ninety-five cents on the dollar. In Chicago’s wide-open days, when elaborate gambling salons had studded the downtown area, he had kept his elegant little pawn office open far into the night to accommodate the princelings of the first great Chicago meat and wheat fortunes, who would pledge their diamond studs in order to go on with a game. It was thirty years since he had gone out of the loan business into real estate, but could this crime be some long-nurtured, crazed act of revenge for a fancied wrong?

      A man accustomed to dealing correctly and exactly in mortgage notes and debentures, how could he deal with a ransom letter? He wanted to deal with it precisely, not to deviate, not to take any risk. The letter lay there on the mahogany table, unfolded. It said he must keep the telephone line clear—a call would come.

      The letter itself proved that the kidnaping was real and not some crazy joke, as he had hoped it might be when he had come back from searching the school building last night—he and Judge Wagner—to find his wife sitting dazed by the phone. “Someone—a man. He said, Kidnaped, instructions in the morning. He said a name. I don’t know. A name . . .”

      A joke? Paulie was not a boy to play such jokes. Maybe some of his schoolmates? Or should the police be called? An alarm be sent out?

      Judge Wagner, a wise man, a man with connections, said, Wait. A big alarm might prove dangerous for Paulie—if it was really a kidnaping. Then all night long they had tried on the phone to reach important people—the chief of detectives, the mayor, the state’s attorney.

      And early in the morning, Kessler himself had run to the door to answer the bell. A special-delivery letter. A name, Harold Williams. No use trying to recall anyone with such a name; it was surely a fake. “But why me?” All morning long Charles Kessler kept asking this of his friend Judge Wagner, of his brother Jonas. “Why me? I never hurt anybody. Why me?” And: “Who would do such a thing? Who? To a decent honest man, to a poor innocent woman, the boy’s mother . . .”

      There lay the letter. It was typewritten.

       Dear Sir:

       As you no doubt know by this time your son has been kidnapped. Allow us to assure you that he is at present well and safe. You need fear no physical harm for him provided you live up carefully to the following instructions, and such others as you will receive by future communications. Should you, however, disobey any of our instructions even slightly, his death will be the penalty.

       1. For obvious reasons make absolutely no attempt to communicate with either the police authorities or any private agency. Should you already have communicated with the police, allow them to continue their investigation, but do not mention this letter.

       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 . . .”

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