Chapter 13: Skin Game

The Mayor's voice was breathless as she picked up the phone. The run around she was being given to make sure that she wasn't followed to the ransom drop was wearing her out. She was built more for comfort than speed and she'd known this was going to be difficult when the kidnappers had started their first telephone call with the question, "Tell me, Mayor, have you seen the movie 'Dirty Harry'?"

This was the fifth call point and she'd only just made it.

"OK, here's the last bit, Mayor," Greggs voice was clipped. "I want you to go to the rocks at Bristol Point. Park up in the car park there. Then I want you out of the car, naked as when you were born, carrying the money. There will be a big green box up beside one of the rocks outcrops. You're going to get out of the car holding the money up in the air where it can be seen, walk across the car park and drop the money, nothing else, in the box. You got that?"

"Naked?"

"Yepp. I want to make sure you're not wired or anything. You aren't are you?"

"No," the Mayor responded indignantly. "You have my word."

"Good. But you'll do it just the same and I'll be watching to make sure there's nothing in that drop except the money. You can let you're hair down too – you could have an entire TV station in that beehive. Got it?"

The Mayor gave an irritated grunt of confirmation.

"Then you can get back in your car and disappear as quick as you like. Get back to this phone and I'll tell where to find Ms Leon."

"How do I know you will?"

"You don't. You just have my word."

Gregg could hear the Mayor's irritated grunt. "What if there's anyone else in the car park?" she added.

"You'd better hope there's not."

Gregg and Maxine sat on the far side of the ravine that separated the Bristol Point rocks from the rest of the park. Gregg peered out through powerful binoculars as a car drew up into the car park. There was a few minutes pause. To Gregg's satisfaction, and visual amusement, the Mayor got out of her car. Completely naked, her hair hanging loosely around her shoulders, she had at least followed instructions so far. She held the two transparent plastic bags of money aloft, one in each hand. She was looking around to see whether and from where she was being observed but she didn't spot Gregg and Maxine's car. Gregg watched her as she walked slowly across the car park, picking her way carefully, barefoot on stony ground. He watched as she dropped the bags into the green box and watched as she walked back to her car. Maxine was sitting alongside him, drumming her fingers on her lap, annoyed by what she saw as Gregg's self indulgence but, even so, amused by the humiliation he was putting the mayor through.

The Mayor's car eventually left the car park. Gregg and Maxine lifted the unconscious form of Victoria out from their car's trunk and tied her to a tree on the edge of the track. Gregg and Maxine got back into the car and drove off just as Victoria was starting to recover.

Gregg looked at his watch. There would be ten minutes or so before the Mayor got back to the phone box to take the pick up call.

"How do we get the money?" Maxine asked.

"Get?" Gregg said. "What do you mean? It's in the trunk."

"How can it be?"

"I worked out where things go when they disappear. They go where I want them to. And in this case where I wanted it was in the trunk of this car. We didn't have to go anywhere near it. No risk at all."

"No risk at all? So, no need for the Mayor to get down to her skin? Apart from catering to your amusement, that is."

"Apart from that? No. But it was amusing?"

"You're a pervert Gregg Gillstrom!"

"Yeahh, but a millionaire one." He laughed.

Maxine smiled, running a hand up his thigh toward his crotch. "But still a pervert."

They drove out of the park and on to the freeway. At a truck stop a little way on they pulled over. Gregg checked the money quickly and called the Mayor's phone box from a truck stop booth. "Get back to the park," he said. "Your lucky lady is over the ravine from Bristol Rocks. You'll find her by the track. Better get a move on though, it'll be dark soon."

Gregg pulled back on to the freeway, watching with amusement the flashing beacons of police cars as they sailed past on the other carriageway.

The mayor was back at Bristol Rocks as quickly as she could be. The police commissioner was with her. On the far side of the ravine they could just make out the figure of Chief O'Mara waving. A crackly radio message reassured them that Victoria had been found safe and unharmed. "Well, that's one good thing at least," said the Mayor. "Even if the trustees are out a couple of million, they've got their ward back."

"Not at all Mayor, we've still got the ransom money." Commissioner Brown nodded towards a man emerging from the undergrowth on the far side of the car park. Nobody's been near the money since you dropped it off."

"You had me followed! What sort of madcap idea was that?"

"It could have been dangerous Mayor. We wanted to keep an eye on you."

"I'm sure your man enjoyed that," the Mayor retorted. "If anything had happened to Ms Leon it would have been your fault."

"But we have still got the money, Mayor. And we've got Ms Leon back."

"Well that's some sort of compensation." The Mayor led the way to the green box. She opened the lid.

To Commissioner Brown's shock there was nothing inside. "What's going on?" he called to his man. "You said no one had touched this!"

"They didn't, Sir. I'm sure. My eyes never left it after the Mayor dropped the money off."

"You idiot you must have been watching her when they lifted it."

"I can't see how they could, Sir. And honestly, I was watching the box."

"The question is which box," The Mayor commented, surprising the Commissioner with her coarseness. She turned to confront him. "So, Commissioner, a really good plan. I hope when your team interviews Ms Leon they get a lead or two that takes them to her kidnappers. And that bloody money!"

Victoria was relieved to be free. She knew enough about kidnappings to realise that the outcome for the victim was often not good. Whether as a result of a bungled police operation or the kidnappers taking fright, the results were often fatal. The first she knew of her good fortune was when she heard the sounds of police sirens coming towards her through the park. Then, a few moments later, there was Chief O'Mara's voice saying, "It's all right, young lady, you're quite safe now" and she felt hands fumbling at the ropes that held her helpless against the tree. Her blindfold tape was peeled away and she was able to see again, the tape across her mouth and the hated wad of cloth that had filled it were pulled off and she staggered to her feet, surrounded by half a dozen police personnel.