The man smiled. He opened the inner door all the way, and then he opened the storm door. “Gentlemen,” he said. “Please, come in.”
Randy wiped his shoes on the little mat, and then I did the same. I followed him into the house, and when we were inside, I got my first good look at Leopold. He couldn’t have weighed more than 160 pounds, but he had arms like a boxer. That’s exactly what he looked like, one of those tough little bantamweights.
He just stood there smiling at us. And then the door moved. Another man stepped out from behind it. He was younger. And a lot bigger.
He hit me once before I could even think about what was happening. I tried to duck out of the way of the next one, but he caught me on the side of the head. I went down with my ears ringing and a metallic taste in my mouth, a mixture of blood and adrenaline and sudden fear. I didn’t know what was happening to Randy at that point. I tried to get up. The man was standing above me, ready to hit me again, I was sure, so I picked a spot in the middle of his body and drove my shoulder into it. He gave ground, but not nearly enough. I felt hands on my neck. A grip stronger than human.
He’s choking me.
I grabbed at his hands, at his arms. Useless. You’re going to die right here, Alex.
No, there’s something you can do here. One way out. Somebody showed you this a long time ago…
I brought my right arm up and over his wrists, got as much leverage as I could, and then dropped to the floor. He went down with me, his forearms pinned against my chest. I heard him swearing. I felt his hot breath in my face. He drove his forehead into mine and pulled his arms free.
Did it work? Did I break his wrists? Before I could catch my breath, I got my answer. He hit me on the back of the neck with either one fist or both of them, or maybe it was an iron safe. It didn’t matter. I was done fighting back.
A hand on the back of my shirt. Another one on my belt. I am lifted or dragged or God knows what and then there’s a long flight of stairs leading down. I hit every one of them, five hundred steps or a thousand. And then I am at the bottom lying facedown on something soft. It is carpeting, thank God in heaven for carpeting at the bottom of the stairs and then I am out.
CHAPTER 10
I opened my eyes. White ceilings tiles. Bright fluorescent lights. I thought about the hospital, waking up and seeing the doctor looking down at me. “He’s lost a lot of blood,” I heard them say. “We had to leave one of the bullets inside him.”
No. I wasn’t in the hospital. My eyes focused on machines. Stacks of metal plates, gleaming bars. A mirror on the opposite wall.
The basement. I was in the basement. It was filled with every kind of barbell and dumbbell and weight machine. All the fluorescent lights were on above us, so bright it hurt. My back against a wall. My left arm, hanging above my head. I looked up. A handcuff on my left wrist, looped through a D ring bolted to the wall. A hand in the other cuff. Someone else’s hand.
Randy was sitting right next to me. “Hey buddy,” he said. “Welcome back.”
“Randy,” I said. There was blood on my lower lip. I felt with my tongue where the lip has been split open.
“How ya doin’?” he said.
“What happened?”
“You don’t look so good.”
“Randy, what the fuck happened?”
“I’m not quite sure,” he said.
I took a deep breath. Okay, I could breathe. I moved my legs. My left knee ached, but I could bend it. I moved my arms, as much as possible with the cuff on. The metal bit into the skin. I had forgotten how much handcuffs hurt when you put them on too tightly. I moved my neck. “God,” I said. “That hurts.”
“You gonna be okay?”
“I think so,” I said. “How about you?” I looked at him. He didn’t have a scratch on him.
“I’m fine,” he said. “They didn’t touch me.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “The big guy, behind the door…”
“He jumped on you,” Randy said. “Leopold just picked up this shotgun and pointed it at my head. I tried to stop the big guy from pounding on you, but Leopold told me he’d shoot both of us.”
“That’s beautiful,” I said. “He picks me to beat up on and throw down the stairs.”
“You were closest to him,” Randy said. “Luck of the draw.”
“Have you figured out why they’re so mad at us?” I rubbed my neck with my free hand.
“No idea,” he said. “He still can’t be that mad at me thirty years later, can he?”
“Well, whatever it is,” I said, “they obviously want us to stick around awhile. Where are they, anyway?”
“They went upstairs. They put these cuffs on us and said something about making ourselves at home.”
“Did you say anything to them? Did you ask them why there were doing this?”
“I did,” he said. “They said I shouldn’t even have to ask.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Does this make any sense to you?”
“There’s gotta be some way out of these, right?” He shook the cuffs.
“Stop doing that,” I said. “It hurts like hell.”
“There’s gotta be some way to pick the lock or something,” he said. “There’s always a way out.”
“These are real handcuffs, Randy. We’re not gonna pick them with the paper clip you happen to have in your pocket. This isn’t a TV show.”
“You used these things when you were a cop, right? You gotta know a way out of them.”
“There is no way,” I said. “Unless… Can we stand up?”
I put my weight against the wall, tried to get my feet underneath me. My knee hurt, the muscles under my right arm, my neck, my head. God, my head. I had to stop halfway up and wait for the pounding to go away.
“This thing is bolted in here pretty good,” he said, giving the D ring a tug. “We need a wrench to get it out. Do you see a wrench anywhere?”
“I’m about to pass out here, Randy.”
“If we see a wrench, maybe if one of us stretches real far…”
I lifted my head. Big mistake. “Oh God,” I said. “This is not good.”
“I don’t see a toolbox, do you?”
“All I see are weights,” I said. “And machines.”
“That must be how that guy got so big,” he said. “Look at all this. He’s got a whole gym down here.”
“Yeah, believe me,” I said. “He hasn’t missed many workouts.”
“That’s what this ring in the wall is for, I bet. Look, there’re a few of them here. It must be some sort of exercise thing.”
“I’m gonna sit back here,” I said. “I really have to sit down.” I rubbed some of the feeling back into my left arm, and then I slid down the wall.
He sat down next to me. We heard voices above us, but we couldn’t make out what they were saying.
“It’s a nice basement,” Randy said.
I let that one go.
“They did a nice job down here. I wonder if they did it themselves.”
“Randy, what the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m just saying it’s a nice place they’ve got here. If you have to get beaten up and thrown into a basement, this is the basement you want to be in.”
“Randy, do you think this is some kind of joke?”
“I’m just trying to keep us psyched up, Alex. We can’t give in to these guys.”
“ ‘We can’t give in to these guys’? Are you really saying that? Are you out of your mind? We’re beyond giving in to these guys, Randy. They’ve got us chained up in their fucking basement and God knows what they’re gonna do to us when they come back down here. We’ve got one chance of getting out of this. We have to convince them that they made a mistake. They did make a mistake, right? They obviously think we’re somebody else. Am I right?”
“We’re just trying to find his sister,” he said. “What else would they think?”
“You tell me,” I said. But before he could answer,
we heard footsteps on the stairs.
We saw the legs first, the white of Leopold’s painting overalls, and then the bigger man coming down behind him. It was my first good look at him. He was at least six foot three, and I would have guessed 240 pounds. It was hard to tell. Muscle weighs a lot more than fat, and this guy had plenty. He was wearing baggy gray sweatpants and a white shirt with the collar torn open. The standard bodybuilder’s outfit.
“Gentlemen,” Leopold said. “I trust you’re comfortable.”
“We’d like our check now,” Randy said. I would have jabbed him in the ribs, but it would have hurt me more than him.
“That’s good,” Leopold said. “That’s real good.” He had a dark eyes and a certain Mediterranean intensity about him. But his words came out in a level midwestern accent. The shotgun was tucked under his right arm.
The bigger man sat down on a weight bench. He had the same eyes, the same black hair. This had to be Leopold’s son. He was massaging his wrists. I must have hurt him when I tried that arm lock. Somehow, I didn’t feel too bad for him.
“There’s been a mistake,” I said. “I don’t know who you think we are, but-”
“I know exactly who you are,” Leopold said. He put the shotgun down on another weight bench, then rummaged through the big pockets in his overalls and came out with two wallets. “Let’s see,” he said, opening the first wallet. He held it away from his face and squinted. “Alex McKnight. Says here you’re a private investigator. Prudell-McKnight Investigations. It’s got a nice ring to it, but this business card is kind of second-rate, don’t you think? What’s this, two guns on here? They look like they’re shooting at each other.”
“I’ll tell my partner,” I said.
“Yeah, your partner,” he said. “Where is he, anyway? I assumed this man was your partner.” He looked at Randy as he opened up the other wallet. “But it turns out this is a Mr. Randall Wilkins. From Los Angeles. You came a long way, Mr. Wilkins.”
“I told you,” Randy said. “I just wanted to find your sister.”
“Yeah, about that,” Leopold said. “Tell me a little bit more about why you’d like to find my sister.”
Randy hesitated. “I met her in Detroit,” he said. “A long time ago. In 1971, when I was called up to the Tigers.”
“You were a ballplayer?” Leopold said. “For the Tigers?”
“Yes. I met her when she… When you were all living over on Leverette Street. You don’t remember seeing me with her? We ran into you one day on the street down by the waterfront.”
“In 1971? That’s a long time ago.”
“I just wanted to find her again,” Randy said. “I came back here to Michigan to do that. My friend Alex was helping me.”
“Your friend, the private investigator.”
“He’s a private investigator, yes,” Randy said. “But mostly, he’s just a good guy helping out an old teammate. We used to play ball together.”
Leopold looked at me. “You were a Detroit Tiger, too, I suppose?”
“No,” I said. “I never got called up.”
“That’s a shame,” he said. “Isn’t that a shame, Anthony?”
“A real shame,” Anthony said. These were the first words he had spoken.
“Anthony,” Randy said. “You’re Leopold’s son?”
“I am,” he said.
“And Delilah? Is she your sister, or is she-”
Leopold took a step toward us. His eyes darkened. “Do not speak her name again,” he said. “Isn’t it enough that you come here and terrorize her? That you grill her with questions about-”
“About her mother,” Randy said. “She’s Maria’s daughter, isn’t she.”
Leopold turned away from us. He went through a pile of weights and gloves and belts and finally pulled out a dumbbell. It was about eighteen inches long. As he held it up, the polished metal gleamed.
He stopped himself. He closed his eyes for a moment. And then he stood and came back to us-slowly-the bar hanging in his right hand.
“He sent you,” he said. “Didn’t he.”
“Who?” I said.
“You know who.”
“We don’t,” I said. “Randy is looking for Maria. Like he told you. He hasn’t seen her in thirty years.”
“It’s true,” Randy said. “I just wanted to-”
“Is that the best you can do?” Leopold said. “Baseball players from thirty years ago? Let me guess. You both wanted to say you played in the major leagues, but you figured that would sound too far-fetched. So you drew straws, right?” The bar began to sway in his hand. He was slowly twirling it like a baton.
“You’re making a mistake,” I said.
“Where is he?” Leopold said. “Where is he right now?”
“We don’t know who you’re talking about,” I said.
“In Los Angeles?” Leopold said. “Is that where he is right now? He sent you out here to find her. And you hired this guy to help you.”
“No,” Randy said. “It’s like we told you.”
“How long have you been watching our house?” Leopold said. “How long have you been sitting out there on the street watching us?”
“No,” I said. “We haven’t.”
“Leopold,” Randy said. “We’re telling you the truth.”
“First, it was a white Cadillac,” Leopold said. He twirled the bar a little faster. “A big white Cadillac sitting out there on the street. How stupid do you think we are, anyway? You think we’re not going to notice a big white Cadillac?”
“That wasn’t us,” I said. “We just found you today.”
“This thing weighs five pounds,” Leopold said. He dropped the bar into his other hand. “It’ll break right through the bone if I hit you with it. Whatever he’s paying you, you know it’s not worth having every bone in your body broken. You guys gotta realize that. I’ll do it if I have to. I don’t want to, but I’m a desperate man. We’ve been playing this game with Har-wood for too long. It’s time to make a stand.”
“For the love of God,” I said. “He didn’t send us. Whoever he is. Harwood, you said? Is that his name?”
He shook his head. “Don’t make me do this,” he said. “I am not a violent man.”
He raised the bar over his head. It looked like I would be first. I tensed my body, ready to move. But he was looking at my left arm. With the handcuffs, there was no way I could avoid it. I picked a spot on his leg, just below the knee. One more step and he’d be close enough for me to kick him there.
He dropped the bar. It hit the carpet with a soft thud.
“I got a better idea,” he said.
I shook my head. “You’re making a mistake.”
He went back and picked up the shotgun. “Who gets it first?”
Neither of us said a word. It was a classic breach-action shotgun, with the two big barrels. It was the kind of gun that makes you nervous just being in the same room with it.
“How about you?” he said, pointing the gun at Randy. “Where do you want it?”
“Don’t shoot him,” I said.
He pointed the gun at me instead. “I thought you were just the hired muscle here. How much is this guy paying you?”
“He’s not paying me anything,” I said. “He’s telling you the truth.”
“Have you ever seen what this kind of gun can do to a person?”
“Yes,” I said. “I was a police officer.”
“If I put this gun against your left knee and pulled the trigger, how much knee would you have left?”
I didn’t say anything. I kept looking at those two barrels. Very slowly, he lowered them to my knee.
“I think we could safely say that your left knee would be more or less completely eliminated. Don’t you agree?”
I closed my eyes. I waited for the blast.
“Leopold!”
The voice came from upstairs. I opened my eyes.
“Leopold! What are you doing down there?”
“My
God,” he said. “Anthony, go see what your grandmother’s doing.”
Anthony sprang off the weight bench and started up the stairs. He got about halfway up, it sounded like, before he stopped. “Grandma, what are you doing?”
“Get out of our way,” she said. “We’re coming down.”
“You can’t come down here,” he said.
“Like hell I can’t! Now move out of the way! And put some real clothes on!”
Anthony came down the stairs backward, his hands raised in helplessness. Leopold just stood there for a moment, listening as one stair creaked above us, then another. Whoever was coming down was doing it slowly. When he finally pulled the gun away and started up the stairs himself, he didn’t get further than the first three steps.
“Leopold! Who do you have down there?”
“Mama, go back upstairs! Delilah, take your grandmother back upstairs!”
“She’ll do no such thing! What are you doing with that gun? What’s going on down here?”
“Mama, please! I’m begging you! You shouldn’t be up!”
“You’re destroying the house! Did you see the living room? What in the name of Mary and Joseph is wrong with you? You’re making enough noise to wake the dead.”
“Mama, I order you to go back upstairs right now!”
He stood there frozen. We heard the creak of two more steps, then the woman’s voice, softer now. “Leopold, dear, get out of our way.”
He stepped back. The woman took the final two steps, holding on to Delilah. She had to be ninety years old. Her white hair was tied back, a single strand hanging over her face. She kept holding on to her granddaughter, even after they had cleared the stairway. She had brought the sharp smell of menthol down into the basement with her.
“Who are these men?” she said.
“Harwood sent them,” Leopold said. “They’re looking for Maria.”
“Is that true?” she said to us.
“It’s true we’re looking for Maria,” Randy said. “You’re Madame Valeska. I remember you.”
“But we don’t know this man Harwood,” I said.
“They’re lying,” Leopold said.
“Let me look at them,” she said.
“Don’t go near them,” he said.
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