But as a precaution I've got the place under twenty-four-hour surveillance. So what do you think of them apples, Detective Strachey?"

Damned if I knew. Barner was now sounding almost borderline-deranged. But it was funny that Thad had not mentioned to me that the "Lancaster County" friend he was visiting in Brooklyn was his onetime boyfriend in the FFF.

Chapter 16

Moyle lived in a sixties-era white-brick high-rise on Seventy-fourth near Third, and that's where Barner and I met him. He had been spirited out of Lenox Hill Hospital in an ambulance past a mob of reporters and television news vans, then transferred to an NYPD patrol car three blocks away. With the private security force guarding Jay Plankton having screwed up grandly, Moyle was now under the protection of the police.

Jerry Jeris had joined us in Moyle's living room for his second debriefing of the day, the feds having had a go at Moyle at Lenox Hill. Jurisdiction was unclear at this point-had either abductee actually been transported across a state line?-but while Moyle was a relatively minor player in the nation's cultural life, J-Bird Plankton was a man who had twice appeared on the cover of People. As such, any crime against his person was almost by definition a federal offense, if only honorary, and automatically triggered the involvement of the FBI, if not the Department of Defense.

"For fuck's sake," Moyle was saying as soon as he lit up a cigar, "this is my first smoke in thirty-six hours. These terrorists, not only did they deprive me of a single decent meal-the meatball sub they fed me last night was for shit-the bastards wouldn't even buy me a cheap smoke, and here I'm afraid for my very life and I'm going into frig-gin' nicotine withdrawal on top if it."

"What sadists," Jeris said, and lit up too.

The black-glass coffee table had three ashtrays lined up on it, each the size of a meteorite crater but not as clean. The beige leather couch and chairs to match faced a television set that could have been used for the return of Cinerama, though thankfully it was turned off. Moyle was sucking up his rehabilitative smoke, but apparently he was not going to insist that our questioning of him be conducted while ESPN played reassuringly in the background. On other cases, I had seen that happen.

"Anyway," Moyle said to Jeris, "a fat lot of help you and Glodt were while I'm locked in some toxic dump in Jersey or someplace with no smokes, and sawdust for meatballs, and these deranged fags mutilating me and threatening to eat my pancreas for lunch if I don't do what they tell me. I heard what the reward was from Steve-a niggerly six-five-and J. Pukingham Christ, I couldn't fucking believe my ears.

Except, of course, knowing Steve, I sure as shit could believe it, and did. Steve the big spender. Steve the bleeding heart. Steve the Brooke Astor of New York AM radio."

"At first it was five," Jeris said. "But Jay and I pleaded with Steve, we were practically kissing his skinny butt, and he said okay, then six-five. For Steve, that's not small.

He says he's gonna have to raise the national ad rates in October to get his money back if anybody claims the reward."

I said, "Leo, why did you think you might have been taken to New Jersey? You told the officers who picked you up outside Jay Plankton's apartment this afternoon that you had been blindfolded while you were in transit. But now you say you might have been held in New Jersey. Why is that?"

Moyle was only vaguely aware of who I was. He knew that I was a private investigator who had once had contacts with the FFF, that I had been hired by Jeris and Plankton, and that I was working with NYPD. He peered over at me with his small gray eyes and said, "We were either in Jersey or Queens because we went through a tunnel going, and we came through a tunnel coming back. It sounded like traffic in a tunnel, and my ears popped."

Jeris said, "Hey, Leo, they popped your ears, but at least they didn't pop your cherry."

Jeris chuckled, while Moyle considered this somberly and didn't chuckle back. He wasn't ready to get back into the old J-Bird routine just yet.

Barner said, "Yeah, Jersey or Queens, maybe. Lincoln, Holland, Queens Midtown.

What about Brooklyn Battery? Could it've been Brooklyn?"

"Could've been Brooklyn, yeah," Moyle said. "I couldn't tell. I'm so freakin' scared, I'm not exactly playing 'Name that Tunnel.' But going out, we go through the tunnel, then we drive for maybe an hour, maybe two, I don't know. It's on expressways, though, with some slowing down and speeding up, and no stop-and-go till we're almost where we're going. The same coming back, except in reverse.

"What kind of vehicle, I don't know, as I told the feds. At first it's some Bronco, or like that, that I was shoved into. But then after a couple of minutes they switched-this is before the tunnel, still in the city-and I don't know what I'm in. I'm on the floor of some van or delivery truck, blindfolded, tape over my mouth, and trussed up tighter than Steve Glodt's account at Brooklyn Dime."

"Which isn't probaby going to get any looser," Jeris said. "Not for the six-five reward anyhoo. I mean, who's going to claim it? The FFF assholes who snatched you and then let you go? That would take balls."

"Well, balls these pricks definitely have," Moyle said. "Light in the loafers they may be, but I can't say these frig-gin' sissy-boys don't have guts."

I said, "Were the kidnappers wearing loafers?"

"What?"

"Never mind. You were blindfolded."

"I was the entire time. I never saw their shoes. They untied my hands when we got to their place, but I never saw daylight for twenty-four hours. I felt like I was in a tomb and it could have been my own."

Barner said, "How did you know how much was being offered as a reward?"

"They had the radio on-WINS," Moyle said. "I was in this one hot room the whole time, no air conditioner even, just a fan and a radio. I was on a couch that smelled like somebody spilled some chick's nail polish on it. I just had to sit there or lay down to sleep, with my feet tied to the leg of the couch. I hardly got any sleep at all. I didn't know what these perverted creeps were gonna do to me next, ampute my hemorrhoids or extract my bottom teeth. There were two of them who did all the talking, and this one guy really liked to bust my nuts, tell me I was a homophobic shithead, and I was gonna pay for my sins."

"Those were the words the kidnapper used?" I asked. " 'Homophobic shithead' and

'pay for your sins'?"

"Yeah. The fag scumbag."

Jeris cleared his throat theatrically, but it went right by Moyle. He was back on his own turf and figured he could unwind and work on getting back to being himself.

I said, "The two who spoke-was there anything distinctive about their voices?"

"You mean like, did they lithp? No."

"They were both adult men?"

"Yeah."

"New Yorkers?"

"How do you mean?"

"Did either man have an accent? Brooklyn? Queens? I. ocust Valley lockjaw?"

"No," Moyle said. "They just talked regular American Knglish, like me."

Moyle in fact had a mild South Boston accent, as if his vocal cords had been replaced early in life by a kazoo that somebody had stepped on. I said, "Did they sound like they were from Boston?"

"Oh. I dunno. I guess not, no."

"Were there any other voices that you heard, male or female?"