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“Does it have to do with what happened to Mr. Braun?”

“Tangentially.”

“Okay, I guess. Is it good news?”

“More like a challenge that might bring the news.”

“I’ll be there.”

I’d already talked to Mel so the next call would be the trickiest.

“Hello.” An old persistent bluster was already back in the lawyer’s tone.

“Mr. Braun.”

“Mr. Boll.”

“I did that.”

I was referring to the headlines of most of the papers, all except the New York Times. The discovery of the unconscious body of William James Marmot on the downtown doorstep of the NYPD was too tawdry for top billing in “all the news that’s fit to print,” but it did make the lower right corner of the front page.

“They brought my daughter back last night. She’s unharmed if a little scared.”

“I know. They found your friend Marmot with a note pinned to his chest that led them to the house of two women in Yonkers. Did you do as I asked?”

“First I’d like to know what your plans are for Mr. Man.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“The police know that Marmot was trying to pressure you, but they don’t have evidence that you were actually abandoning your client. They don’t know about Johanna Mudd.”

“I had no idea what they were planning to do,” he claimed. “When I realized what had happened I got sick.”

“She got dead.”

That put a cork in the lawyer’s whining.

“I have enough evidence to put you in deep shit, but that’s not why you’re going to do as I ask.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Tell me.”

“Marmot was a minnow in the waters around Valence and Pratt. If I suggest to the man who employed him that you know his name, the tables will be turned and Chrissie will be missing an old man.”

“I do not bend to threats,” he said with a certainty he did not have.

“Make sure he’s in downtown holding and make plans for five visitors Monday in the morning and afternoon.”

“What visitors?”

I listed the people I had in mind. One or two of them surprised him. He asked about them, but I gave him no answers.

“You do what I ask,” I told him, “and Chrissie will grow up believing she was visiting with her cousins in Yonkers and that you are the greatest man in the world.”