by JJ Lamb
“All right already,” she said, still cheeky, but the chip on her shoulder seemed to be slipping.
“Harry, Mazzio’s fiancé—”
“—I know who the dude is.”
“Bottom line, she’s been taken.”
“Mulzini, I’m not going to get into this with you. You may jump at the drop of a raindrop about anything that has to do with that broad, but I do it by the book—or at least as close as possible. I’m not doing anything, at least until morning. And even that’s not twenty-four hours.”
“You listen to me, hot shot: You get this rolling now or I’ll make it my life’s goal to make sure you end up out on patrol again. And I don’t mean riding around in a squad car. You got that, Pepper?”
Mulzini disconnected, put his cell back on the bed stand. Harry could see that talking to Inspector Yee had pretty much done him in. Marcia was giving him the get-outta-here eye.
“I’m going to the patient waiting room and see if I can pull myself together. If I go home, I’ll be tempted to call Vinnie and tell him what’s going down. That would really be a bad thing for everyone—but especially him.”
“Look, Harry, I guarantee Pepper will get on it.” He turned on his side, reached for Harry’s hand. “We’ll get Gina back.”
Chapter 57
Gina was dazed. A hot dagger stabbed into her neck and her head was pounding. When she opened her eyes, there was only a wall of impenetrable black.
The loud jarring rhythm of tires thumping on the road made her dizzy. All she could remember was walking out of the elevator into the employee garage.
She felt around—she was in a tight space, knew she’d been stuffed into the trunk of a car.
Oh, my God!
A car trunk!
Terror squeezed her belly.
Someone has grabbed her.
Her breath burst in explosive gasps and her chest caved with claustrophobia. A rasp of air warned she was starving for oxygen—she needed to shut down a sudden vision of being thrown in a coffin—alive.
She groped for her purse—her fingers flew over and around all the things she’d shoved inside. Her Swiss Army knife was there. She pulled it out and buried it in her scrub’s pant pocket.
Her cell phone was gone but her small halogen flashlight was there. She used the beam to cut through the darkness.
Yes, she’d been stuffed into a trunk and she could barely move. Everything was closing in around her. She banged the top and screamed.
“Help! Help!”
She had nothing other than her jack knife to use as a tool..
The car slowed; it was being parked. Then, without any warning, the trunk flew up and she was staring into the eyes of the man who had been following her.
It was dusk, but she could see he was looking at her like a useless piece of nothing. He held a stiletto up so she could see it.
“One way or another, you are coming with me. If you scream, do anything to try to attract attention, I will stab you through your eye—or through your heart—or trhrough your throat.” He pushed his face closer to hers. “Do you understand?”
She nodded.
He grabbed her hair, digging his fingers into her scalp, and lifted her head above the edge of trunk. “Take a good look around you. In this neighborhood, you could shriek your head off and no one would open a door, or raise a window shade. If I kill you, no one will give a shit. Got it?”
She nodded again.
“You are going to die one way or another. How long you live is up to you.”
* * *
Inspector Pepper Yee stared at the telephone—hadn’t stopped staring at it since talking to Mulzini.
Damn that man! Even from a hospital bed he has me feeling guilty about that weirdo nurse.
Yee had seen enough of that woman a few years back. More than enough.
She swung her legs up, planted her heels on the edge of the desk. In another couple of hours she was going home, get ready for a date with a guy she really wanted to spend time with. Tall, blond, buff like she couldn’t believe. He was the first man she’d had any real interest in since she and her husband divorced two years ago.
Now this.
She could let this whole Mazzio business wait until morning, just like she’d said to Harry Lucke—right now it was really too early to jump in, other than start the paper work.
But there was Mulzini. He’d asked her to run with it ... now. She owed him—owed more payback than to any other cop on the force.
Yee picked up a pen sitting idle on her desk and pushed the button at the top, snapping it open and closed—again, again. and again.
“Hey, Yee, knock it off before I hammer your head,” yelled one of the guys further down the row of desk. “I’m trying to think.”
“Nothing’s gonna help you pull that off.” She laughed, let her feet slide off the desk to the floor again. She pulled out her cell and tapped it.
“Hi, Jason. This is Pepper.”
“Couldn’t wait to see me, huh?”
“True enough, but we’re going to have to take a rain check.” She once more clicked the pen she’d refused to let go of.
“Not again!”
“I know. Nothing I can do about it. I’m off in a couple of days for forty-eight hours. How does that work for you?”
“Call me when you’re finished today—no matter what time it is. We’ll talk about it then.”
She killed the connection, pulled up her emergency numbers on the computer, and picked up a land line, punched in the numbers and waited.
“Ridgewood Security, Tom speaking.”
“Tom, this is Inspector Pepper Yee of the SFPD. I need to check your security tapes for the elevator that goes to the employee parking area.”
“For twenty-four hours?”
Pepper could picture him cringing. “No, Just the past three hours.”
“Okay, when do you want them?”
“I’m on my way now.”
Chapter 58
Mort Tallent stood in his spacious living room, staring out the panoramic window at San Francisco Bay.
He was confused ... so many unanswered questions.
My life has been nothing but unanswered questions.
One thing was certain: this morning he stepped away from the practice of medicine ... forever.
By now, word of his actions, or inaction, during surgery would be spreading throughout the hospital, not stopping until it reached administration.
He couldn’t return to that life now, even if he wanted to.
And he didn’t want to.
He had enough money put away to do most anything, most anywhere.
That possibility had been on the table for a long time. He could have done it with Annie that time when she asked him to do it. They could have run away, done anything he wanted to do. Anything they wanted to do.
Together.
Too late for that, Tallent.
Way too late.
* * *
It had taken time for Mort Tallent to straighten up and clean his apartment, especially the kitchen and the room that Vlad had taken over.
Afterward, he took a shower to get the feeling of Vlad’s slime cleansed from his body. He had to scrub long and hard before he was satisfied. By then, his skin was raw in places.
He threw a few things together, tied the marred surfboard to a luggage rack on the roof of the Mercedes, and drove north along the coast on Highway One.
At Point Reyes, he spent some time just taking in Tomales Bay before stopping at a local cafe for an oyster sandwich. Only after taking the last bite did it come to him that had to be the best sandwich he’d had in a long, long time.
It had been raining on and off since he left the city, the kind of day they’d been having around the Bay Area for the past month or so. It was wonderful.
He continued to drive west until he could see the Pacific Ocean. The storm-tossed water looked powerful, restless, and beautiful.
He called Vlad’s
cell, left a message: “Keep the money. Forget about Gina Mazzio.”
After that, he felt calm, at peace with himself.
He turned the car around and headed back south through Marin County, across the Golden Gate Bridge, through San Francisco, and down the Peninsula to Half Moon Bay. The whole time the rain came down in torrents, several times so forceful the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up and he had to pull off to the side of the road. Driving again, everything was drenched, cleansed. It was like the whole world was ready to start over. New beginnings for everything.
Except for him.
* * *
It was getting very late in the afternoon by the time Tallent changed into his wetsuit and carried his surfboard to a spot north of Half-Moon Bay. He looked at Vlad’s name scratched on the board’s polished surface. Vlad had taken over his life, owned him.
“No more!” Tallent screamed into the wind.
A light rain was still coming down, the tail end of the most recent passing storm. He watched the Maverick swells turn into waves that seemed to climb up into the sky before crashing back down and extending out to the shore.
He could picture Annie, smiling at him as if he were the only man in the world. He’d liked that feeling she gave him. What he didn’t like was that he’d never let her know that she was the only woman in world for him.
“Time to go!” he announced to the wind.
He hurried to the water, waded in, stretched out on the board, and started paddling. Soon, that’s all there was: paddling, breathing, laughing, then again and again.
He caught the one big wave he was looking for, came up on the board, rode the crest, and when it started to curl under, he twisted around into the tunnel, and for one long moment he was in the eye of the universe. Then he drove into the monstrous wave, flipped up, over, and down, surrendering to his destiny.
Chapter 59
Vlad grabbed the nurse by the arm and back of her neck, lifted her out of the trunk, and stood her on the sidewalk. She was obviously scared, but there was also a simmering defiance in her eyes that made him cautious..
He started herding her toward the entrance to Rosia’s apartment building. He felt a riffle of air around him, looked, saw nothing or no one. He shivered. Perhaps it was one of those feelings that, as his mother used to say, occurred when someone walked across your mother’s grave.
Stupid superstition. Besides, her bones are mixed in there with all the other Potter’s Field nobodies.
He shook off the chill that rode his back.
What difference did it make anyway?
The Mazzio woman was looking around the street; he was taking too much time, needed to get her inside.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Just go where I point you!” He poked the stiletto into the cheek of her ass.
They went through the entrance, where a homeless guy was splayed out on the dirty, broken tile floor, sound asleep in his own vomit. He pulled her up the stairs and along the grungy hallway to Rosia’s apartment. He slammed her against the wall and leaned all of his weight into her chest while he took the key from his pocket and unlocked the door.
Inside, the smell of decay and death rushed out to meet them.
“Someone died here.” Her voice was shaky; she tried to yank away from him. He punched her in the mouth and she cried out. He watched in fascination as blood flowed from her split lip.
* * *
Gina wanted to run, at least try to run. But she had little strength left, and she knew he wouldn’t think twice about killing her on the spot. A she shoved her down a hallway, a horrible stink got stronger and stronger to the point where she was gagging..
On the threshold of the bedroom ,she dug her heels into the threadbare carpet and held on to the door jambs, refusing to take another step. Without a word, he shoved the stiletto into her ass again, deeper this time —the pain shot straight up to top of her head. She screamed, screamed again and rammed an elbow into his chest.
He spun her around and slapped her hard across the face. She started to fall, but he caught her and flung her onto the bed next to a dead woman. The odor of death, mixed with the stink of her own fear, was making her light-headed.
Maria Benz and her mother had been tied down spread-eagle, like this woman. Globs of blood were clotted all over her head and body where he had sliced her. The woman’s eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling, her mouth hung open in an expression of terror.
* * *
Pepper Yee looked at the security screen with Tom, who headed Ridgewood’s security team.
She wasn’t impressed.
Tom was at least fifty pounds overweight and even with that heft, she knew he wouldn’t be able to take down a skinny-ass kid, much less anyone who could be real trouble. Even though he was the head honcho at Ridgewood, she would bet his salary probably didn’t even equal that of a rookie cop. So why would Tom, or any of the other hire-a-cop, risk their lives no matter what the situation?
“How many of your staff are on duty in the hospital right now?”
“We have a regular force of fifteen, but almost half of them are out sick.”
A regular fucking army and I’ll bet my last dollar they’re all just as buff as you.
“Did you check through the tapes?” Pepper asked?
“No, I thought I’d leave that to you.”
Of course.
“Okay, let’s get to it.”
* * *
Harry had been wandering the halls of the hospital, stopping and talking to staff members he knew. The conversations weren’t about anything special, he just couldn’t go home to their empty apartment.
His insides felt raw and he was scared to death for Gina. He finally gave in and made his way back to Mulzini’s room. Harry knew the inspector needed his rest, but he was the only one Harry could really talk to about Gina and the entire situation.
He peeked into Mulzini’s room, which was dimly lit. Marcia and Dirk were gone and Mulzini was asleep. He sat down in the chair next to the bed and tried to empty his mind, but he kept coming back to Gina—she’d been taken and she might be a murder victim at this very moment.
“You ought to go home, Harry.”
“I thought you were sleeping.”
“You ought to go home, ” Mulzini repeated.
“Yeah, I know. But I can’t. Not yet. I’d feel like I was giving up if I left now ... left before I knew anything certain about Gina..” He looked away, his chest so tight he could barely breathe. “How will I go on without her?”
Mulzini swung his legs around and pushed himself into a sitting position. He leaned toward Harry. “Pepper’s good people. She’ll find your Gina.”
“Yeah, I suppose ... sooner or later.”
The inspector reached over and squeezed Harry’s shoulder.
Harry snuffed back a sigh, but it didn’t stop the tears from flooding his face.
“But will Yee be in time?”
Chapter 60
Pepper Yee had zipped through the elevator security tapes until she was down to the last hour.
“Are all your cameras active?”
“What do you mean, Inspector?”
“You know damn well what I mean. How many are props to fool the public into thinking you have tight security in this very public building?”
Tom shifted in his seat, looked away from her. “About half are active.”
“Son-of-a-bitch!” Just when she was ready to ream him a new one, she saw Gina in the elevator. She was smiling almost purposely for the camera.
This isn’t Hollywood, girl.
She slowed down the streaming and studied the four people in the elevator with Gina, who was in a back corner. When the car stopped, four of the passengers moved like single unit and were out in the snap. Gina followed them out, then turned and went a different direction.
“Okay, Tom,. do you have any surveillance right outside this elevator?”
“Yes, we have two active cameras in that sectio
n.”
“Well, don’t just sit there like a lump. Get me one or both of them on the same time line as that single woman stepping out into the garage to the right.”
Tom worked at the computer and had it zipping through time.
“There! Stop!”
A man was carrying Gina over his shoulder. He took her to the back of a Chrysler 300, opened the trunk, and dumped her inside. Once the trunk lid came back down, Yee could read the license plate number. She wrote it down and watched the sedan drive away toward the exit. “Tom, do you have an active camera at the garage exit?” She held her breath as he fast-forwarded through the tape.
“This might give you what you want.”
“I sure as hell hope so.”
* * *
Mulzini was worn out; it had been hard watching Harry become so unglued. The man was usually pretty calm and with it. Right now he was looking off through the window, not saying a word. Mulzini could imagine what he was thinking.
The Inspector was starting to doze when the door crashed open and Pepper Yee rushed into the room. A nurse was with her, trying to get her to leave.
“You’re not family. You can’t go in there.” The nurse was annoyed and wasn’t giving up on her efforts to keep Yee out of the room, badge or no badge.
Harry turned away from the window, walked up to the nurse, and whispered in her ear. She nodded, gave him a glare, turned around, and went back out the door.
“Hello, Inspector,” Harry said in a not-so-nice voice. “Nice to see you again.”
“Okay, Harry. I know I blew you off, and I shouldn’t have. I apologize.”
Before he could respond, she stepped past him to speak to Mulzini. “We’ve got a BOLO out on the car that took Gina Mazzio away. We grabbed a break with the surveillance cameras ... got the make, model, and license number of the vehicle. Didn’t get a clear look at the perp, though.”
Mulzini could see Harry taking in every word. He was chalk white.
“Are you heading out?” Mulzini asked.
“Well, yeah!” Yee said, giving him the eye.
“Take Harry with you.”
