The Dead Caller from Chicago

by Jack Fredrickson

  I called Jarobi. This time he answered.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “The king speaks to serfs only at his leisure.”

  “He called me four times when I was on the plane back to Chicago. I just spoke to him. He’s disoriented, doesn’t seem to be making sense.”

  “I can do nothing, if he won’t—”

  “You weren’t there for the exchange?”

  “The man’s an arrogant—”

  I clicked Jarobi away; Wendell was calling.

  “My people have gotten nowhere,” he said. “The damned fools don’t know where to start.”

  “Make sense, Wendell. You made the exchange, right? Amanda’s OK?”

  There was silence at the other end of the call.

  “Wendell?” I asked, entering the garage.

  “I’m here.” His voice had dropped even more. He was barely whispering.

  “What aren’t you telling me, Wendell?”

  I got to my row. Though the garage was almost empty, a tow truck had pulled up in front of my Jeep, blocking it. A man in coveralls was shining a flashlight through the side window of an Audi parked next to me. Another man, this one in a suit and presumably the Audi’s owner, stood alongside, watching. He’d locked his keys in his car.

  Wendell mumbled something that I couldn’t hear. An awful possibility flitted into my mind.

  I stopped. “Wendell, they told me in California that the kidnapper called, ready to sell the painting. Has the exchange been made?”

  The two men ahead turned around at the sound of my voice.

  “I didn’t want some rule-abiding cop screwing things up,” he said, “but I think we’re still OK. I’ve still got the two million dollars in cash, here at home. He won’t leave that on the table—”

  “Where’s the painting?” I asked slowly.

  “I wasn’t forgetful. I just wasn’t,” he said, his words coming now in a torrent. “He’ll call again, for the two million. It must have been the stress. I’ve never done such a—”

  “Tell me everything.” I looked down the empty row, only vaguely comprehending the scene ahead. The tow driver took out a flat jimmy bar, the kind cops used to pop locks for forgetful drivers.

  “He called this afternoon and told me to be ready to drive to meet him on a moment’s notice. I instructed Jarobi to bring the painting downtown to my office. There’s public parking below ground, as you must remember. I met Jarobi by my car and put the painting in my trunk so I’d be ready instantly. Jarobi left, and I went back upstairs, to wait for the call. Damn it, that garage is patrolled.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then nothing. I hung around my office all day, but he never called back. I left around seven, thinking he’d call my cell phone as I drove home.”

  The tow driver slid the jimmy bar between the Audi’s outer door and the side glass, pushed down, and jerked it up. There was a loud click. The Audi driver reached for the door handle. The door opened. The Audi man smiled and reached for his wallet.

  “The painting is gone, isn’t it, Wendell?” I asked, my own words a torrent now that I understood. “Taken right out of your car, and now you’ve lost the only leverage you had to get her back?”

  “I didn’t think to look until I got home. My trunk was securely locked. The parking lot is monitored.”

  “Cameras?”

  “No cameras, but guards, patrolling…”

  I wanted to savor the man’s trauma, revel in his hopelessness, but there was no time.

  “You’re still driving that old Mercedes, right, Wendell?”

  Ahead, past my silver-taped beater of a Jeep, the tow truck pulled away. The Audi’s backup lights came on.

  “Thicker metal than any of the new ones,” the rich, all-knowing man sputtered.

  “It has a manual inside trunk release?”

  “Why the hell does that matter? It’s a solid automobile, no piece of tin.”

  The Audi drove away, leaving me alone in the garage. “When you got home, how did you unlock the trunk?”

  “The mechanical release,” he said, barely above a whisper.

  “You gave up the damned painting without getting her back.”

  His silence said it all. Then he said, “That two million won’t do any good, will it?”

  “The painting is what he wants. It’s worth tens, maybe hundreds, of millions.”

  I thought for a moment, and then I told him what I wanted, and where, and clicked him away.

  I pulled out the business cards I’d gotten in L.A. and called the cell phone numbers. I told each lawyer the same thing: “Anybody but me that calls will be lying.”

  Both started to ask questions. I said I didn’t have the time.

  I started the Jeep, praying I wouldn’t be too late.

  Forty-six

  Though snow was falling heavily as I left the airport, I made good time because it was past midnight and almost everyone not intent on killing was off the streets. I stopped at the turret only long enough to grab Leo’s revolver before racing across town to slide to a stop down the block from the man’s house.

  His was a working-class block, like Leo’s. The houses were dark, except for his, where a shadow moved behind a curtain. He was still home. He was in no panic to get away. I wanted to believe that was a good sign.

  The nerves pulsing in my chest wanted me to act right away, to kick in the door, hunt him down, and press the gun barrel to his heart. It didn’t seem physically possible to wait.

  My head reasoned louder. If I was right, Amanda was in that house, and he’d not harmed her, for fear of the bounty Wendell would put on his head. He’d be thinking he didn’t have to risk anything now. He’d gotten his big prize anonymously; no one would suspect him until after he left. He could be methodical, take his time to disappear perfectly so that he’d never be found.

  Chances were, he’d go to work as usual and duck out at lunch to make the last calls to California, where it was still only the middle of the morning.

  He’d learn, then, that a boulder had been dropped on his plan. Someone had told both lawyers only that person would have the painting. By then, I’d have grabbed Amanda, and she’d be safe.

  The last light in the house snapped off. He’d gone to bed.

  I sat in the cold, not daring to run the engine for heat because of the noise; shifting only to switch on the wiper to clear away the falling snow, or to seek the comfort of Leo’s revolver on the seat beside me.

  I went over the plan, again and again. The layout of his house would be similar, if not identical, to Leo’s. I’d wait until he went to work; I’d break in; I’d grab her. It would be over.

  At last the first of the dawn came, barely lightening the thick falling snow. I drove around to the alley entrance and stopped.

  I called Wendell. “Your man is in place?”

  “On Thompson Avenue, right where you said. Silver Honda Civic.”

  “Time to call a bluff,” I said and went back to waiting.

  Robinson drove his burgundy Escalade out of the alley at seven o’clock, his usual time. I started my engine and switched on my lights. He drove right past me but made no acknowledgment. I followed him all the way to city hall, turned around, and disappeared back into town.

  He called a moment later. By then I was halfway back to his house.

  “No need to follow me anymore, Elstrom. I haven’t seen anyone for quite some time.”

  His voice was insistent and unnaturally high. He didn’t want me around when he took off, come lunchtime.

  He must have gone crazy, the day before, waiting for me to quit tailing him so he could head downtown to Wendell’s garage, to put his plan in place. It had been a fine plan, too. He wasn’t going to risk exchanging Amanda for the painting at some prearranged place; he was going to make Wendell drive around with the painting and the cash until he was absolutely sure there were no trailing police. Only then would he call him, perhaps to tell him to pull over o
n some random dark street.

  Except Robinson got even luckier than he’d dared to hope. He’d gone to Wendell’s garage downtown, to watch to make sure no GPS devices were being attached, or no cop was hanging around, set to ease down in the backseat when Wendell set off.

  He was in the garage, watching, when Jarobi put the painting right into Wendell’s trunk. Watching when Wendell went upstairs to his office, to wait for a call, leaving the painting behind.

  To a man skilled in working a jimmy bar, it must have looked like Christmas in that garage. Like yesterday, Robinson couldn’t afford to have me tailing him. Today, he was leaving town. Except now I was telling him he had a tail, offering up Wendell’s man as evidence, parked on Thompson Avenue. Robinson surprised me. “Red or black?” he asked softly.

  “What?” I asked, trying to keep shock out of my voice.

  “The car that’s tailing me: Is it red, or is it black?” Robinson was huffing, going up the stairs to a first-floor window to look out.

  He really was being tailed. My mind darted back to the black Impala I’d seen along Thompson Avenue the day Jarobi had come to visit. Perhaps there’d been a red one, too. None of it made sense.

  “It’s silver, Bruno, a Honda Civic,” I managed. “You can see it from city hall. It’s parked right on Thompson Avenue.”

  “I see it,” he said. Wendell’s man was being obvious, as I’d asked. “But I don’t see your Jeep.”

  “I’m tucked out of view.”

  His next words came fast and high-pitched, “All this because of that damned Snarky not being more careful, stealing the painting?”

  It was a slip, a mistake. We’d never discussed a painting. None of that mattered, though. My objective was Amanda.

  “I thought Snark liked jewelry,” I said. “You never mentioned a painting.”

  “Sure, sure; jewelry,” he fired back.

  “Why don’t you go around back, to the police department, get protection?” I asked.

  Of course he wouldn’t do that. He couldn’t dare.

  “Stay put until lunchtime,” I said. “I’ll manage to get between you and him when you pull onto Thompson Avenue. We’ll figure something out then.”

  I clicked him away as I drove up his alley.

  Forty-seven

  Robinson had no enclosed rear porch; his back door opened out to the world, where everyone could see. It didn’t matter. I smashed the glass with Leo’s gun, reached in, and undid the bolt.

  A wrong, faint smell hit me as soon as I stepped inside. It was gasoline. Two red five-gallon plastic jugs rested on the hall floor, and several books of matches lay on a little shelf above them. In a sick instant, I understood. Robinson had planned to come back, probably at lunchtime, to destroy every bit of evidence against him.

  Especially Amanda, who could finger him as a kidnapper.

  The thought chilled. I started running through the house.

  The bungalow had the exact same floor plan as Leo’s. The back bedroom was just off to my right. The bed was made. He’d not kept her there.

  I hurried through the kitchen, to the front of the house. The dining room, the living room, and the little alcove room behind the front porch were sparsely furnished with out-of-date blond maple furniture, a sofa with a grease mark where Robinson had rested his head, and a wire magazine rack. A television sat on a black glass corner unit, directly opposite the sofa. She wasn’t there.

  The bedroom off the dining room was Robinson’s. Unlike the front rooms, his room was a mess. Clothes lay scattered about, and the bed was unmade. He’d seen no point in neatening a room he was going to burn.

  I ran into the kitchen and stopped. Next to a sink mounded up with dirty dishes, two glasses smeared with fresh milk residue sat on the counter. Two people had drunk from those glasses just that morning.

  “Amanda!” I yelled. “Amanda!”

  I ran down the basement stairs. Unlike Leo’s, which had been simply divided into a main area and his walled-off office, Robinson’s basement was divided into a rat’s nest of small rooms. Each of the doors was closed.

  It was the painting, though, that gave me an instant’s hope. It was propped up across the washtubs. Water dripped slowly from the faucet, and a wet sponge lay dropped on the floor. Some of the lavender and green and pink had been sponged enough to smear, but not enough to reveal. The back of my neck started to tingle. There was no telling what direction his rage might have taken if he’d kept sponging and seen there was nothing underneath.

  “Amanda!”

  The first door hid a furnace, a water heater, and a workbench piled with tools. The second room had once been a coal bin but now held shelving jammed with old lamps, pots and pans, and an electric makeup mirror. Robinson must have been married once, to a woman who’d left him and the lamps and the pots and the pans behind.

  The third door was locked. I beat on it with my fist, then stopped to listen. No noise came from within. I shouted her name and tugged on the door, but the lock was strong. I put my shoulder to it. Still the door wouldn’t yield. I backed up and ran at it slightly hunched, hitting it with my right shoulder just above the lock. The door shuddered on its hinges and broke loose.

  She lay on her back on a filthy camp cot. Her ankles and wrists were bound with plastic wire ties, her mouth and eyes covered with silver tape. Her hair was matted. She wore the clothes she’d worn to the turret. Blood had crusted over a small cut above the tape covering her left eye.

  “Amanda,” I said.

  For one horrible instant she did nothing, and I thought she was dead. I touched her cheek, afraid to do more.

  She made to turn her head away. She didn’t want to hear or feel anything.

  “Amanda,” I said louder, looking around for something to cut the wire ties.

  Her forehead wrinkled as she tried to shut out the sound.

  I ran to the workbench in the furnace room, pushed at the pile of tools, and found a wire cutter. Hurrying back, I tore at the tape covering her eyes. She did not wince, for she did not feel the pain. Her pupils were dilated, giant black holes of fear. Leo’s eyes had been like that right after he shot Wozanga, cartoon eyes of shock and horror.

  I pulled the tape from her mouth, and she began gasping, sucking in the sudden new air in ragged bursts.

  “You’re safe,” I said. “You’re safe.”

  She saw and she did not. I cut the plastic ties at her wrists.

  “You’re safe,” I said again.

  Her chest was heaving in a fury now, desperate to breathe deeply.

  I knelt to cut away the ties on her ankles. She’d fall if she stood. I rubbed her ankles, then helped her stand. I had to get her to a hospital.

  “You’re safe.” It was all I could think to say.

  She said nothing, looked nowhere except straight ahead. She was an automaton, traumatized zombielike in everything except breathing. Her lungs still heaved, fast.

  “Work with me now, Amanda,” I said. “A step, and another, out to the Jeep and away from here.”

  She took a step, and then another.

  The front door creaked open above our heads.

  I froze, held my breath. She did not. She kept shuffling forward, breathing fast and loud. She wasn’t aware that Robinson had come home.

  Frantic, I grabbed her shoulder to stop her and looked around for the revolver. I’d used it to smash the back-door glass and kept it in my hand as I’d raced to search the house, but I must have laid it down somewhere.

  I raised my forefinger to my lips. “Be absolutely quiet,” I whispered.

  Her lungs wheezed, in and out.

  His footsteps crossed above our heads. He couldn’t have seen the broken back door yet.

  The gun. I had to find the gun. I dropped to my knees to search the floor.

  She tensed, her breathing coming in shorter, staccato bursts. She’d heard at last; she knew those footsteps. Her kidnapper had come back. I stood up and put my arm around her.

  H
e stopped, above our heads, and in one sick instant I knew why. A cold draft of March air from the shattered back-door window had hit him.

  “Son of a bitch,” he shouted. His footsteps thundered toward the back of the house.

  I took a last fast look. The gun was nowhere.

  He pounded down the stairs.

  Amanda screamed.

  I grabbed the wire cutters off the cot and ran out of the tiny room. I caught him just as he stepped onto the concrete floor. He had a gun in his hand, but I’d surprised him. He was holding it low, down by his hip. I stabbed the tip of the cutters into the hard bone above his left eye. He howled, flailing at me, and fell to the floor. Something clattered out of his hand. His gun.

  I kicked at it, sent it skittering across the cement. Shrieking like nothing human, Robinson got up to his knees and crawled after it, a blinded wild beast. Blood pulsed from the ripped skin above his eye, down onto the floor.

  I caught up to him and kicked at his head. His elbows gave way and his forehead crashed down on the cement. He lay on his belly, howling, struggling to wrap both forearms around his head. I kicked at his ribs until he lowered his arms, and then I kicked at his ears and his cheeks until he quit howling and his arms fell lifeless alongside his body.

  I grabbed Amanda’s hand and dragged her past the lifeless man.

  He moved. I turned to look. He’d pushed himself up to his knees, but he could not see through the bloody pulp that was his face. I tugged her up the stairs, opened the back door, and pushed her out into the cold.

  “No!” he screamed from down below, and the gun fired. He’d found his gun; he’d find the stairs.

  I reached down, picked up one of the red plastic jugs, and twisted off its black cap. Robinson had staggered into view at the base of the stairs, howling like nothing human. A shot rang out; something thudded on the wall behind me. He was firing blind. Surely he could not see.

  I sloshed some of the foul liquid down the stairs and then threw the whole jug down at him as he moved his gun hand to shoot again.

  He screamed as he heard me strike the match. “Noooo!” he wailed.

  He fired again, but the bullet ricocheted off something in the basement.