“Aw, nuts,” one of the officers said.
“What did you do?” I demanded, raising my voice. “You and two highway police grabbed me and gave me the bum’s rush out to the car. You threw me in and dragged me down here without any charge being made against me. That’s kidnapping. I’ll have the federal men on your neck. I’m not going to be pushed around, that’s all. Wait until tomorrow morning, and I’ll go to your damned hotel.”
There was a moment of silence.
I turned to Bertha and said, “You know where this plane came from, and you know a lawyer up there who has pull with the sheriff. Get him on the phone, have him get the sheriff out of bed, and get a warrant for kidnapping issued against this officer.”
“Listen, punk,” one of the officers said, “it isn’t kidnapping when you arrest a man for murder.”
“What do you do with him when you arrest him for murder?”
“We take him down to jail and throw the book at him, and if he acts rusty, we throw something else at him.”
“Swell,” I said. “Take me to a magistrate, and if he says so, you take me to jail, but don’t detour me to any hotels. The minute you do that, that’s kidnapping. Get the point, Bertha?”
The lawyer grabbed at it. “That’s right,” he said. “The minute they try taking you any place except in accordance with the statutes in such cases made and provided, it’s kidnapping.”
Bertha whirled to face the officers. “All right, you,” she said. “You’ve heard what the lawyer says.”