"I don't guarantee that," Diefendorfer put in, "but I doubt it. Unless one of us has changed an awful lot over the years. There were sixteen people in the organization at one point."

Barner said, "This case has A-one top priority in the department. Although, of course, we want to be able to exploit all possible resources. So your retaining Don would be a real asset to the investigation, Jay."

"Glad to hear it. Maybe NYPD would like to pay him, too."

"Unfortunately, we can't do that."

Plankton found another can of Sprite in Jeris's office refrigerator and popped the tab. He said to me, "We'll bring you on for a week and see what you come up with.

I'm not crazy about having a known homosexual on our payroll, and Leo is gonna be reaming my ass unmercifully over this."

"Ouch," I said.

"Unlike NYPD, which has to put up with a lot of political correctness, affirmative-action crap-six walleyed lesbians in every precinct house or whatever-I can hire and fire as I please, based on merit."

"I'll try to be meritorious," I said.

The J-Bird had his shades on, so he didn't see Barner blush when he looked at Plankton and said, "Some of the department's best officers are gay. If they're promoted, it's because they're effective, not because they're gay."

"God almighty, how naive can a man be? Where are you from, Detective Barner?

Podunk? Mars? Albany? Whoops. I forgot. You are from Albany. Or at least spent one too many years up there in the little state capital that time forgot. What'd Ed Koch say that got him in hot water in the gubernatorial race with Cuomo? He wasn't sure he could stand being governor of New York, because there were no good Chinese restaurants in Albany."

Albany native Barner was spared having to reply truthfully, for at this point Diefendorfer cut in and said, "What's your hometown, Jay?"

"Experience," Plankton shot back. "My hometown is Experience in the World. I guess that's not a set of origins anybody'll ever be able to accuse you of, is it, Thad?"

"A big mistake people often make about the Amish," Diefendorfer said, "is assuming we're any less complicated than other people, or that our communities are any less familiar with the gamut of basic human experience. Anyway, since I've been 'living with the English'-that's what the Amish call it when someone leaves the community- well, since I've been out in the larger world for the past twenty-seven years, I'd venture to estimate that my experience has been at least as broad and varied as yours, Jay-Bird. And, based on my admittedly brief initial impression of you, twice as instructive."

Plankton laughed, and then he launched into another plea for Diefendorfer to come on his show and tangle with the J-Bird's sour, mean, white, straight, male chauvinist, Leo Moyle.

Even without Diefendorfer's unwillingness to join Plankton's drive-by shooting of a morning talk show, the chances that the New Jersey vegetable farmer would converse with Moyle any time soon plummeted when the door was flung open and Jeris burst into the room. Pale and bug-eyed, Jeris croaked out, "It's Leo! Leo's been kidnapped!"

Chapter 6

Half an hour later, I was on the phone with Timothy Calla-han informing him that I would not be back in Albany until late evening. I gave him a rundown on the series of alphabetized pranks played by the FFF on Jay Plankton, and said, "It turns out that the H joke is no joke at all-not that the earlier ones were all that funny. But this one is far more serious even than the tear-gas attack. Leo Moyle has been grabbed and taken away by somebody, who phoned the radio station and said to tell the J-Bird that ' H is for hostage.'"

"Isn't that a Sue Grafton title?" Timmy said. "Or is the H one 'homicide'?"

"I'm not sure," I said. "It's certainly not an E. Lynn Harris title."

"I understand that. It's not an Alfred Lord Tennyson title, either. I thought maybe some of the FFFers were Grafton fans, and you could use that detail as an identifying characteristic."

I said, "Incidentally, who wrote 'The Oblong Box'? It's a writer whose name has only three letters in it."

"Is this another one of the FFF's clues?"

"No, it's another one of Will Shortz's. It's in today's Times crossword puzzle."

"Poe," Timmy said without having to think about it. "The oblong box was a coffin containing the corpse of a man's young wife. When the ship carrying it went down in a storm, the husband chose to forgo a seat in a lifeboat and stayed with his beloved's remains as they sank beneath the briny. It's a short story I read in high school."

"Had it been your body in that box," I said, "I'd have made for shore and returned on a sunny day with a nice wreath."

"Likewise in your case," Timmy said. "And I'd have brought along a six-pack of Molson tied to a brick."

"What about a three-letter word meaning 'spawn'? It's not 'kid,' is it?"

"It's probably 'roe,'" he said. "Does that fit?" "I don't have the paper in front of me, but I hope to be back to it on the 8:10 train, which gets in at 10:30. I'll head straight home, though I'll probably be back down here tomorrow and stay for a few days." I explained to Timmy that while I found Jay Plankton and company repellent in all ways, I had agreed to sign on with them for five days at an inflated fee, partly out of morbid curiosity, even more out of economic self-interest, but mainly as a favor to Lyle Barner, who had once saved my life.

"Does Lyle still have the hots for you?" Timmy asked. "And did he remember me fondly?"

"He referred to you as 'that Irish kid,' so he obviously remembers you as adorable."

"What a strong, clear memory Lyle has."

"Or he may be confusing you with the young Mickey Rooney."

"If not the old Andy Rooney."

"Lyle's involved with a young cop, Dave-something. Dave is out in the department and Lyle's not, so there are problems. We're meeting Dave later, and also a former FFFer who turned up to deny involvement in the crimes and to vouch for the old FFF gang. This guy, Thad Diefendorfer, says they never did protests, just rescues, and always nonviolently. And Diefendorfer should know something about nonviolence-he's Amish."

Instead of blurting out, "He's Amish and gay?" as I would have, Timothy Callahan, being Timothy Callahan, said, "I've heard about homosexuality among the Amish. It's especially hard. I take it this guy has left his community."

"Years ago. He grows eggplants in New Jersey."

"Of course," Timmy said, "anybody who was in the old FFF gang would probably have the skills to pull off a kidnapping. That's essentially what the FFFers did: kidnap young people from secure mental institutions and hide them from their parents and the authorities. Are you sure you can trust this Diefendorfer?"

I thought about this, for the first time, really. "I think so. He comes across as genuine. I like him," I said, as it sank in that I needed to get to know Diefendorfer better.

"How was Moyle kidnapped? Right out of the radio station?"

"No, he'd left to meet a date for coffee at a Starbucks, and then never showed up.

The date called the station to try to track Moyle down, and five minutes later a call came in from someone saying he was with the FFF, and they had Leo, and H was for hostage, and further instructions would follow. I'm at the radio station, and no more word has come in, but Moyle is definitely nowhere to be found."