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To the Greenleases came another note, enclosing Bobby's Maltese cross school pin as proof that the family was dealing with the real kidnapers. After that, Hall called the family by telephone. He sounded sober, speaking in a low but brisk tone, introducing himself each time as "M." From Kansas City pay stations, he sometimes talked for as long as ten minutes. To find out if her son was still alive, Mrs. Greenlease one night talked to him directly and requested Hall to ask Bobby two questions: What was the name of the Greenlease driver in Europe last summer? What did Bobby do his last night at home? (Answer: he built an Eiffel tower with blocks.) Hall told her he would try to get replies from Bobby, later said he could not because the boy would not "cooperate." Those in the Greenlease home, knowing something of the history of child kidnapings. feared from the first that the boy was dead. After Mrs. Green-lease's failure to get answers, they were even more fearful. But they acted on the slim hope that they were wrong.
Receipt Delayed. Robert Ledterman and Norbert O'Neill, business associates of Bobby's father, made two abortive efforts to deliver the ransom to Hall. The first time his instructions were too confused to follow. Next, the cash-filled duffel bag was dropped off in a rural spot, but Hall telephoned to say that he had not found it. Ledterman and O'Neill went back and retrieved it.
"Our third call," Ledterman said, "came early one morning. The caller said another call would be made to us ~at 11 a.m. At that hour, I was told another call would be made at 8 o'clock that night. At 8, the same man called and instructed me to go to a certain telephone booth in a hotel to await another call. At 11:30 o'clock that night, the call came in. The man was very jittery. He told me where to go and deposit the money."
Thirty-five minutes later, Ledterman and O'Neill left the duffel bag at the end of a highway bridge in a heavily wooded area ten miles east of Kansas City. They drove away. Carl Hall scrambled up from a hiding place under the bridge. He put the bag in the station wagon parked in a thicket near by. Bonnie Heady, he said later, was sprawled "in an alcoholic stupor" in the car. Hall did not wait round to count the money—three times larger than any ransom ever paid in the U.S. He never did get around to counting it.
Conclusion Foregone. So far, Hall had kept enough control of himself to carry out his complicated plan. Now, with achievement, his character betrayed him. He and Bonnie drove 240 miles east to St. Louis and rented an apartment. Both promptly got drunk. They fought, and Hall, after battering Bonnie's face, walked out. He went to a saloon and watched the sixth game of the World Series on television. He left behind a wrapper for a $2,000 packet of the ransom money. A barfly picked it up, looked at the figure, dropped it back on the floor.