Phantom Limb

by Dennis Palumbo

  And then, exhaling quietly, he lowered his gun.

  Julian spoke evenly.

  “I appreciate how difficult this is for you, Mr. Payton. For a man of your background and experience, your impotence must be especially galling. Even humiliating. But if you don’t holster your weapon immediately, my associate will put a good-sized hole through your heart.”

  Swallowing hard, Payton did as he was told. Then very deliberately looked off, the planes of his face tight.

  After which, the laser point dropped away from his chest and continued its lazy, circuitous journey around the room.

  “Now, Charlie,” said Julian, “where were we? Ah, yes. I need you to choose who is going to make the delivery. Other than yourself, of course. Regrettably, the drop-off point is not wheelchair-accessible.”

  Harland hesitated only a moment, then peered intently at his son.

  James showed his palms. “Me? No fucking way. I’m not getting my ass killed for that slut. Sorry, Dad. No can do.”

  Payton gave him a disgusted look. Then, almost eagerly, the security man turned to his boss. As though grateful at last for an opportunity to act. To do something.

  “I’m the logical choice, Mr. Harland. I’ll go.”

  Julian’s voice rose sharply. “No, you won’t, Mr. Payton. Under the circumstances, I’m not prepared to consider you a civilian. You’re sitting this one out.”

  For some reason, I wasn’t surprised when Arthur Drake spoke up next. Calmly and resolutely.

  “I’ll go, Charles.”

  “No.” Harland’s jaw set. “I won’t allow it. It’s too dangerous, and I simply can’t spare you.”

  His son stared at him. “Gee, thanks, Dad.”

  Harland studiously ignored him. Then, as though finally regaining his sense of his own authority, he looked up and directed his words to one of the security cameras.

  “I choose Mr. Payton. He is my head of security, charged with the protection of myself and my family. He will go.”

  “Maybe he would, Charlie…if you were calling the shots. But you’re not. I am. So I guess that means I get to choose.”

  Another brief silence. Followed by the red laser point, moving silkily along the edge of the desk. Drawing a half-dozen pair of eyes as it sought its next target.

  Me.

  I watched the glowing dot travel up my right arm, until I couldn’t see it anymore. But from the concerned look on Gloria’s face, staring at me, I knew where it had stopped.

  “Looks like you’re it, Dr. Rinaldi,” Julian said. “You’ll make the delivery.”

  I wanted to respond, but my mouth had gone dry. My heart pounding hard and fast in my ears. I imagined I could feel that insistent red dot burning into my forehead, like the sun’s rays focused through a magnifying glass to a single incendiary point.

  Gloria gave me a commiserating look.

  “You don’t have to do this, Daniel.”

  “Yes, he does,” Julian snapped. “If he wants to see Lisa Campbell alive again. And remember—no cops, no Feds, no choppers. Just Dr. Rinaldi and the money. Otherwise, Lisa won’t be the only one who ends up dead tonight.” A brief pause. “You feeling me, Doctor?”

  I knew, since he could see me, that all I had to do was nod.

  So I did.

  Chapter Nine

  I parked on a side street off Perrysville Avenue, climbed out of the late-model SUV and looked up through a tangled skein of trees at the Allegheny Observatory. Perched at the highest point of Riverview Park’s steep, dense woodlands, outlined by pale exterior lights, the neoclassical basilica’s towering Ionic pillars and three massive domes dominated the hilly landscape.

  It was almost midnight, sky so black and clear it shone. Wind cold enough to burn my cheeks. As instructed by Julian, I’d driven alone here to the park, just north of the city, in one of Harland’s company-owned vehicles. A large zippered suitcase containing five million dollars in bearer bonds had been belted into the passenger seat beside me.

  After selecting me from among those in Harland’s study, Julian had outlined a set of instructions for the delivery of the ransom. Any deviation from the plan would result in Lisa’s death. Then he told us all to stay exactly where we were for ten minutes, and warned against anyone using his or her cell, or trying in any way to leave the room. To guarantee our compliance, his “associate” would keep his weapon trained on us until the brief time was up. As if to emphasize the point, the laser dot began once more to roam the room.

  After these final words, the phone went dead.

  Then began one of the longest, most agonizing ten minutes of my life. Most of which was spent in a strained, uneasy silence, during which nobody moved. Except for Gloria. Keeping her gun drawn, she’d gone to sit with Barney, who remained behind the desk, clasping his wounded arm.

  Alternately embarrassed or angry, Mike Payton kept glancing over at his boss, whose face was curiously unreadable. Biegler was quietly seething. Arthur Drake looked morose and older suddenly than his years, while James Harland sat with his shoulders slumped, frightened eyes scanning the floor.

  I also took a seat, and found myself drawn as if hypnotized to the wandering movement of the laser point. Not the most tranquil way to spend ten long, tortuous minutes, granted. But for some reason, it helped focus my concentration. Gave my conscious mind something to do, other than to surrender to panic or despair.

  Until, finally, I saw the red dot disappear. Our signal that the time was up.

  As if to confirm this, Arthur Drake glanced at his Rolex. Then nodded to Harland.

  But Mike Payton’s eyes were on me.

  “You ready to do this, Rinaldi?”

  “Hell, no.”

  He almost smiled. “Then you better get going.”

  Gloria Reese rose and walked me to the door, urging me to be careful. I think I thanked her, though by then all that concerned me was remembering Julian’s instructions.

  Lisa’s life was at stake.

  As was mine.

  ***

  Now, after locking the car, I carried the heavy suitcase back to Perrysville Avenue, searching with a flashlight along its endless bank of trees for a marked trailhead. For some reason, Julian hadn’t specified the marking. He’d just assured me I’d know it when I saw it.

  He was right, though I almost passed by the dirt path that wound up into the wooded hills. The trail was marked by a coarse wooden stave buried in the earth. Something hung from a nail atop it, glinting dully in the frozen light of the moon.

  A pair of glasses. Cracked, smudged.

  Lisa Campbell’s glasses. The pair she’d worn in my office earlier today. A million years ago.

  I drew in a breath, laced with bitter cold.

  I stood there, unmoving, at the trailhead. I told myself it was to give my eyes a few more moments to adjust to the dark, but the truth was, I needed to calm my nerves. Looking at the trail curving up into the deep gloom of gnarled trees and coiled branches, I kept imagining a laser dot appearing suddenly on my arm, my chest. Crawling remorselessly up to my forehead.

  Gathering myself at last, I tightened my grip on the suitcase handle and took my first step onto the trail. My breathing quick and shallow, I wound my way up the steep, broken earth, flashlight beam bouncing before me, ducking under thin-fingered branches and stepping over exposed roots. Every few minutes I peered up through the patchwork of foliage to the majestic domes of the observatory, using them as a kind of reference point.

  Though the building itself was not my destination. Julian told me only that I was to ascend the marked trail until it split into two separate paths.

  I was to take the one to my left.

  Despite the cold, I could feel sweat beading my forehead. Feel the stiffness in my fingers from their death-grip on the suitcase handle, as though someone might wrest it from me.
Feel the pounding in my temples from the raised lump on my head.

  It was entirely possible, I realized for the hundredth time since leaving Harland’s house over an hour ago, that I wouldn’t survive this night.

  Then, also for the hundredth time, I pushed that thought from my mind.

  And kept walking, stumbling more than once on the slippery, unforgiving trail. Up and up, one foot after the other, moonlight showing through the foliage like shards of porcelain.

  Until, gasping, head throbbing, I came to where the trail broke off into two smaller paths.

  I was about to take the one on my left when my cell phone vibrated in my pocket.

  I froze, mouth going dry. Julian? The police? Some news, some change in plans?

  With my free hand, I plucked my cell from my pocket and read the display. And, despite myself, almost laughed aloud.

  It was Noah.

  ***

  I ignored it, and watched the display until it indicated that a voicemail message had been left. Naturally, Noah had marked it “Urgent.” He usually did.

  Noah Frye was a paranoid schizophrenic, his grotesque delusions kept barely in check by psychotropic meds and the devotion of his girlfriend Charlene. I’d known him since my days at a private psychiatric clinic years before, when I was an intern therapist and he was a patient. Now we were friends.

  Which was why I also knew what he was calling about. With everything that had happened since Lisa Campbell’s appointment with me this afternoon, I’d totally forgotten my original plans for tonight.

  As I stood now at the fork in the trail, holding a suitcase worth five million dollars, the absurd triviality of those plans came crashing in on me. Instead of exchanging a ransom demand for a woman’s life, I was supposed to be having drinks with Noah and Charlene at the saloon where they both worked. Deciding on a wedding gift for a mutual friend.

  I could just see Noah now, his bear-like frame in stained overalls, pacing back and forth behind the bar. Hair unruly, sweat-matted. That familiar lunatic’s glint in his eyes. Wondering where the hell I was. Perhaps constructing elaborate, delusional fantasies about what might have happened to me.

  Maybe I’d been in a car accident. Or been murdered by one of my patients. Or brainwashed by rogue Russian spies. For Noah, it was an entirely reasonable possibility that I’d been abducted by aliens.

  That image made me smile. Tightening my grip on the suitcase, I headed for the narrow path on my left, wishing that something as fanciful as alien abductions did occur. As opposed to the murders, sexual abuse, and myriad other real-life horrors that afflicted human beings in this hard, uncertain world.

  Like kidnapping. And what usually happens afterwards.

  Steeling myself against the cold, the darkness, and my own unyielding fears, I plunged forward along the steep dirt path, deeper into the haunted night.

  Chapter Ten

  I hadn’t gone a hundred feet up the path when I saw the large, shambling utility shack. The wood-framed, tin-roofed building was right where Julian had said it would be. Perched at a precarious angle at the crest of a hill, its rough-hewn walls were shrouded in darkness. Enveloped by low-hanging branches and scalloped by deep shadows, it stood as forlorn and isolated as an outpost on the moon.

  Instinctively crouching, I made my way slowly toward the only visible entrance, a narrow plywood door. Moving closer, I saw that it was unlocked and swayed slightly, rusty hinges creaking, in the steady wind.

  A distant, muffled sound made me stop, still bent low, and look up to my right. Up to where the observatory could be seen through a lattice of branches. I had to squint to make him out, but my ears hadn’t been deceiving me. Stepping resolutely in and out of the basilica’s faint exterior lights was a solitary figure in a bulky jacket and brimmed hat. A security guard, slowly making his way around the building’s perimeter.

  I froze for a moment, wondering if he could see me. But he never ceased his steady, rhythmic march along the side of the building, soon disappearing from view as he rounded a corner.

  Some part of me wanted to call out to him. Solicit his help. But I kept silent, remembering Julian’s warning that he had a clear view of the trail and surrounding areas. And that any deviation from his instructions meant Lisa’s death.

  Drawing a couple deep breaths, I hastened across the final dozen yards to the shack’s entrance and pulled open the door. Its thin plywood slats rattled mournfully in my hand.

  I shone my flashlight beam into the cold darkness of the interior. One large, rectangular room, it was divided by mottled aluminum shelving into smaller compartments. Dirt and dust clung to every visible surface, ash-gray webs hung from exposed ceiling beams. Shadows draped the worn hand tools hooked to the walls, the splintered rakes and shovels bundled in the bleak corners. The chilled air itself seemed old, congealed. A choking, tangible thing.

  Fighting a rising panic, I crept slowly, carefully, across the room, sending my flashlight beam warily into each segregated area I passed. Nothing but more dust, old tools. Wicker bundles of dead grass. An upside-down wheelbarrel, caked with rust.

  Finally, as the shadows dispersed before my light at the far end of the room, an unseen barrier emerged as though from a dream. Spanning the width of the rear wall from floor to ceiling like a hanging curtain, was a thick, oily tarp. Oddly unnerved, I played my flashlight across its creased, opaque expanse. Deliberately. Reluctantly.

  Until the beam revealed what looked like a bulge. Like something was pushed up against the tarp from the other side.

  Heart thumping, I took another step—

  When I heard a sudden rush of movement behind me.

  I whirled, bringing my flashlight up, but it was too late.

  The man was big. Tall. All in black.

  Maybe the same man I’d seen at my office. Maybe—

  He threw his arms around me and brought us both crashing to the uneven wood floor. I was on the bottom, pinned under two hundred eighty pounds of solid muscle. My back buckled in agony. My teeth rattled in my skull. Pain exploded in my ribs.

  I tried to peer up at him, get a look at his face. But he’d already rolled off me and grabbed for the suitcase that had flown from my hand. I’d also lost the flashlight, whose beam plumed uselessly up against the unrelenting darkness.

  I was still on my back, gasping for breath, when I heard my assailant head for the door. Then, to my surprise, I heard a second set of footsteps. Hurrying into the room.

  Head clouded, back aching, I forced myself to turn over, scramble up to my knees. Then I grabbed up the flashlight.

  I trained its beam in the direction of the shack’s open doorway, just in time to see my attacker swing the heavy suitcase at the newcomer. It caught him on the jaw, hard, and he went down like a collapsing sail.

  Then, without a backwards glance, my assailant slipped through the opened doorway to be swallowed up by the night.

  Gulping mouthfuls of midnight-cold air, I crawled gingerly across the floor to where the second man lay. Before I even shone the light on his face, I could hear the slow, labored rasp of his breathing.

  I let out a grateful breath of my own. He was alive.

  Getting up on my haunches, I played the light on his face. At first, I almost didn’t recognize him in the security guard’s pea-green jacket and standard-issue hat.

  But this was no security guard.

  It was Jerry Banks. The assistant chief’s nephew.

  Harry Polk’s new partner.

  ***

  With an abrupt, shallow moan, Banks tried to raise his head. There was an ugly bruise sprouting on his jaw, and I realized he’d have to be evaluated for a concussion. But other than that, he appeared to be unharmed.

  I, too, seemed to be okay, except for the fact that every part of me was bruised. Including, I must admit, my ego. This was the second time that hulking
son of a bitch took me down. I swore to Christ, there wouldn’t be a third.

  Not the most mature, psychologically healthy response to what had happened, but there it was. Sue me.

  I’d already detached the two-way from Banks’ belt and was about to call for back-up and an ambulance when another figure filled the doorway.

  Lieutenant Stu Biegler.

  He looked winded, spent. Shoes scuffed, the bottom of his overcoat mud-spattered.

  “The perp got away.” Struggling to catch his breath. “I gave chase, but I lost him in the damn trees…”

  I angrily tossed aside the two-way and jerked my thumb at Jerry Banks, who was finally rousing himself.

  “This your idea, Biegler?” By now, I’d climbed to my feet. “The kidnapper said no cops. Just me alone. You could’ve gotten both of us killed. Me and Banks.”

  Biegler shrugged. “It was a calculated risk. I figured that Julian—or whoever was watching—wouldn’t take notice of a lone security guard up at the observatory. Hundred yards away.”

  “Well, you figured wrong. Besides, why the hell didn’t you tell me about your little plan?”

  “Need-to-know basis, Rinaldi. The cornerstone of any successful covert operation. And you—as far as I’m concerned—didn’t need to know. Hell, if you had, you coulda blown the whole thing.”

  “I think we can safely consider it blown. Big-time.” I bent and helped Banks get woozily to his feet. Though my gaze never left Biegler’s. “I bet you didn’t inform Gloria Reese about your master plan, either. Because she didn’t ‘need to know,’ right?”

  “Agent Reese is merely acting in an advisory capacity. I saw no reason to enlist the Bureau’s cooperation.”

  “Right. You’re a real piece of work, Biegler. Now we don’t have either Lisa Campbell or the ransom. I can’t wait to watch you tell Charles Harland all about it.”

  Biegler pursed his lips, but said nothing. His silence told me he’d already begun dreading that conversation.

  I turned to Jerry Banks.