The little man looked startled. “I beg your pardon?”
“Hello? Big Boy?”
“I do not approve of young ladies being so forward.”
Who, me? “I'm Annie, Annie Kincaid. I'm supposed to meet Gloria?”
“What for?”
“She called and I, um . . .”
“And you came to ask more questions. I told you to stop asking these questions, but you insisted you did not know what I was talking about.”
Uh-oh.
“How'd you get my cell phone number?” As the words left my mouth I realized that I could hardly have focused on a less important detail. I should have been focusing on the fact that this man had threatened to kill me. My heart sped up and I started to stammer. “I . . . uh . . . was just leaving?”
“I think not,” the dapper little man said with a shake of his head. He had a dark goatee and was balding on top. A couple more years and a few gray hairs and he would look like a short, malevolent Don Quixote. “I do not approve of nosy young ladies who do not know how to keep themselves healthy.”
He inclined his head and two enormous men emerged from between the stone slabs. One was so pumped up with muscles that his arms stuck out from his barrel chest at a forty-five-degree angle, while the other was so hairy it looked like his mother had run off with a gorilla. Neither was likely to be surprised by any of the moves I'd learned in the YWCA's six-week Respect Your Self-Defense class.
Barrel Chest grabbed my arm and started to frisk me.
“Tiene algo,”
Barrel Chest said, looking confused.
“He says you've got something,” Don Quixote said, frowning. “What are you wearing under those, er, pants?”
“I've got a nice dress on, that's all. I don't have any weapons.”
Oh, nice move, Annie
, I thought.
Just go ahead and tell him he's free to kill you, why don't you?
“Why are you wearing a dress under there?” The Don seemed genuinely curious.
“I didn't want to ruin it.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Look, it's a long story. And I'd really like to go home. I'm sorry if I offended you with that Big Boy remark. And please don't take this the wrong way, but some friends of mine will be meeting me here at any minute.”
Don Quixote took a slim gold cigarette case from his coat pocket, flipped it open, and selected a cigarette. He tapped one end on the case, stuck the other end in his mouth, flicked a gold lighter, and lit up in blatant violation of the state law banning smoking in public buildings.
He blew a stream of smoke out his nostrils like a bull in children's cartoons and came to stand with his face close to mine. His breath reeked of cigarettes. I turned my head away but was held fast by Ape Man and Barrel Chest. “You are a very nosy girl. A most
inappropriate
girl. Why do you keep asking questions when I tell you to mind your own business?”
“I, um . . . You're right. But I've learned my lesson, boy have I. I'm going straight home and minding my own business from now on, you bet. You can count on me.”
“Yes, your mother told us you were nosy.”
“My mother?” I said, anger slicing through my fear. “What does my mother have to do with this? If you touch one hair on her head . . .”
“Calm down,
chica
,” Don Quixote said with a peculiar smile. “Your mother is a lovely woman. I like her very much. But to my great disappointment, she is married. I do not believe in breaking the sacred vows of matrimony.”
Wasn't that just typical? I meet a guy who believes in commitment and he turns out to be a psycho.
“Your mother is much more appropriate than you. She went away like we told her to. She promised us you would do the same.”
“And I will. Right this very second, as a matter of fact.”
“Sadly, it is a too late for that. Tell me what you know. Who has been talking?” His voice was calm but fierce.
“I don't know. I really don't,” I babbled. “No one's been talking to me, that's for sure. Nobody ever talks to me.”
He held the cigarette out to me.
“Thanks, I don't smoke,” I said.
He raised the glowing tip to my face, so close that I could feel its heat.
“Tell. Me. Now. Was it Pascal?”
“Iâ” My heart was pounding and bile rose in my throat. Torture was something one saw in movies about political prisoners, not in warehouses in Burlingame. “Please, I don't knowâ”
“Haggerty?” he hissed. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried not to move. I felt the excruciating pain of a burn on my upper cheek, even though the cigarette had not yet touched my skin.
“The FBI?
Tell me!
” Don Quixote sounded as if he was losing control, but he had nothing on me. I think I peed my pants a little.
A cell phone rang. Don Quixote swore and answered gruffly, taking a deep drag on the cigarette. He turned to me and rolled his eyes, and I wondered if I was supposed to commiserate over the frustration of being interrupted at work. Speaking in rapid Spanish, he tossed the cigarette absentmindedly to the floor and crushed it under the sole of a tooled leather boot. I was never so glad to see someone litter in my life.
“Okay, okay,” he groused, and snapped the phone shut. He looked at me speculatively. “What do you know about Robert Pascal?”
“Pascal? Well, he's an artist, a sculptor. He's awfully rude. He's best known for developing a style called . . .”
Don Quixote gestured impatiently and the goons shoved me to my knees. I fell hard, wincing as bits of gravel dug into my skin through the worn overalls. The Don stood over me and punched me in the face. Pain shot through me, and I saw stars and sagged to the ground. Rough hands pulled me back to my knees.
Ape Man giggled. The Don rebuked him. The cell phone rang again.
More Spanish flew, but I did not even try to understand. My eye was throbbing, my cheek burned, and I felt dazed. I realized I was covered in stone dust like a corpse I'd seen not so long ago. I was starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together, and not liking what I saw, when I was yanked to my feet and dragged. I struggled and was kicked in the thigh, hard.
“Stop it!” I cried impotently.
Ape Man giggled again.
A motor started up, and the heavy steel hook that was used to move the stone slabs lowered. Barrel Chest slipped the hook under the rear strap of my overalls, the hydraulic lift engaged, and suddenly I was three feet off the ground. Don Quixote grabbed the front of my overalls and pulled me toward him until I was almost horizontal. We were nose to nose, my butt sticking up in the air.
“If you live through this night, do yourself a favor,” the Man of La Mancha hissed. He hung my once-posh evening bag around my neck like a sign and smiled cruelly. “Mind your own business. And stay away from Haggerty and Pascal.”
He gave me a shove and I started spinning as the cable hoisted me higher. I was dizzy and nauseated and petrified that my overalls strap would tear, sending me plummeting to the concrete floor. When the cable at last ground to a halt, I was five feet from the ceiling.
“Don't leave me here!” I yelled at the retreating figures. “
Por favor?
Let me down!”
Ape Man pulled out a gun and fired in my general direction. I ducked, which made me swing even more. My assailants laughed as the bullet ricocheted off the metal roof and several stone slabs before burying itself in a bag of mortar. I heard the muffled sound of a distant door slamming. Silence descended.
I reached behind my head and grabbed the cable, forcing myself to take slow, deep breaths to control the nausea and to relax. It was nearing midnight and I was alone in a stone warehouse, dangling several stories above a concrete floor, held up by the grace of denim and a couple of brass buckles. A boring life in a crappy tract house in Pinole was sounding pretty good right about now.
Clear the mind, Annie, that's the girl.
Now,
think.
It was late Tuesday night. What time would the Marble World people arrive for work in the morning? Seven? Maybe eight? I could hold on until then, no problem. I just wasn't sure if my overalls felt the same level of commitment.
The spinning gradually subsided, and I wished I had not procrastinated about losing those extra fifteen pounds. Tilting my head back cautiously, I looked up. Near the ceiling, where the cable met the joist, was a wide steel I beam and what looked like a ladder that was probably used to work on the pulley mechanism. All I had to do was shimmy up the cable, swing over to the I beam, hook one arm around the ladder, and climb on down.
It was a good plan. Unfortunately my upper body strength was, to be kind, laughable. Even when I had been in peak physical conditionâwhich was to say when I was in the eighth gradeâI had not been able to do a single pull-up. Since then my shoulders hadn't gotten much bigger, but my hips and butt sure had. A shimmy up the cable was not in my future anytime soon.
I needed a Plan B. Think, Annie,
think
.
Nothing, absolutely nothing.
I felt a bubble of panic start to grow. Time to look on the bright side.
Bright side? I was
dangling
from a
hook
!
Okay, try logic. If I survived, I was going to have one hell of a story to tell at cocktail parties. If I fell, there was an outside chance it would not be fatal. And if it was fatal, well, we all had to go sometime. At least it would be quick. And I would not have to pay off my swollen credit card bill.
But still. My sister, Bonnie, would take it hard. And Mary. And Sam. And Pete. Maybe even Frank. I sniffled a little, thinking about my memorial service. My mother and father looking pale and stunned. My grandfather, supported by his old friend Anton, would have aged twenty years since he'd heard the news. The chapel would be filled with flowers and sobbing friends. Maybe Naomi Gregorian, even. Agnes Brock would send a gaudy floral wreath with a sash inscribed,
So Young, So Lovely, So Long.
And in the corner, a handsome, green-eyed stranger would struggle for composure as he realized his one love, his true love, was lost to him forever. Why oh why had he been so cold, so cruel, so abandoning? The organ, which had been playing a melancholy hymn, would fall silent as the minister stepped up to the pulpit. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered . . .”
No, wait. That was the wedding ceremony. Talk about your Freudian slips.
I heard a muffled trill. Whaâ? My cell phone! Geez! I had been so focused on not plummeting to my death I had forgotten I had it with me. Now I felt like an idiot on top of everything else.
Don't hang up
, I prayed to the unknown caller.
Please don't hang up.
My right hand carefully released its death grip on the cable and reached for my handbag. I unzipped it, fished around for the phone, and hit the on button.
DON'T DROP IT!
“Hello?”
“Annie? Listen, I know you think I'm a jerk, butâ”
My eyes started to tear up, and my voice shook. “Michael! Oh, thank God! I need you!”
“And I need you, too, my darling,” he replied, sounding surprised but pleased. “I'm so glad you've reconsideredâ”
“Not
that
, you moron! I need help!”
“Annie, what is it? What's wrong?”
“I'm at Marble World! In Burlingame! I'm hung up, high up, and I don't know how long my overalls will hold out!”
“Take it easy,” Michael said calmly. “I'm on my way. You say you're at Marble World, hanging somewhere?”
“Yes, on a cable, suspended from a hook near the ceiling.”
“Are you in imminent danger?”
“Only if I fall.”
“Annie, honey, that's kind of what I meant . . . Stay on the line with me, now. What are you doing in Burlingame? You're supposed to be eating ice cream in bed.”
“I know, I know. I wish I were, too. Hurry, Michael.” I hiccuped.
“I am, sweetheart. I am. Are the police on their way?”
“Um, no, I sort of forgot I had the cell phone. Should I call 911?”
He paused. “Do you think you can hold on for ten more minutes? Be honest.”
“Um . . .” I thought about the straps that were holding me up. They weren't ripping or anything. Yet. “Yeah, I'm okay. Ten minutes, no problem.”
“Because if you're sure you can hang in there, it would probably be best not to call the cops. They're going to ask a lot of awkward questions, like what you're doing at a stone warehouse in the middle of the night.”
“Yeah.”
“Annie?”
“Yeah?”
“What the hell are you doing at a stone warehouse in the middle of the night?”
“It's kind of a long story. Just get here soon, okay?”
“I'm going ninety-five, sweetheart. What exit do I take?”
I gave him the directions, which were luckily pretty simple since I was in no shape to convey anything complicated. Michael stayed on the line, talking soothingly. “Hang in there, sweetheart. I'm almost there.”
“Michael?”
“Yes, darling?”
“The Vermeer's real.”
There was a pause. “I was coming to help you anyway, Annie. You know that, don't you?”
I sniffed.
“Don't you?”
“Unghh.” I was usually pretty good in a crisisânot especially effective, but reasonably levelheadedâbut with rescue in sight I was fast becoming a wreck.
“Okay, I'm pulling into the parking lot. I see your truck. Where are you?”
“In the warehouse. The front door was open before; I don't know about now.”