“I need you on my payroll,” he said again. He sounded disoriented.
“You made the exchange, right?”
Two people passing in front of me turned around. I’d shouted.
“Wendell,” I said more softly. “The kidnapper called, right? You made the exchange? Amanda is safe?”
“Another call,” he mumbled. “… you back.”
I got up and started hurrying toward the garage. Something was wrong.
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 on some random dark street.