Earth Angel (39 page)

I sat up, composed myself, and reread the note again. Where was I? Robert De Niro in
Taxi Driver
. But
Taxi Driver
didn’t fit in with the other clues. The kidnapper may be a psycho, but he had method. When I hit the right movie, all the
clues would tie in. Still, in the interest of thoroughness, and because I couldn’t think of another list
to make, I looked up De Niro at the back of Maltin’s book and read through the other movies De Niro was in.

And there it was.

So simple.

The red-haired man behind the baker’s showcase was telling his customer a joke. “A guy goes to his doctor, says, ‘Doctor,
I think my wife is dead—’”

“Oh, Harry, not that one,” the woman arranging the cookie trays pleaded. She nodded in my direction. I was the only other
customer in the place.

Harry looked over at me. I sipped my coffee and pretended not to be looking or listening.

“I gotta go, Harry, tell me tomorrow.” The customer took a step toward the door.

Harry reached across the showcase between two pies and grabbed the man’s wrist. “No, no, Bill. It’s a short one. Listen. A
guy goes to his doctor, says, ‘Doctor, I think my wife is dead.’ The doctor says, ‘What makes you think that?’ The guy answers,
‘Well, the sex is the same, but the dishes are starting to pile up.’” Harry boomed a sonic laugh into the man’s face and let
go of his wrist. The man chuckled and left, a little bell over the door tinkling at his departure. The woman arranging the
cookies—Harry’s wife, I assumed—shook her head chidingly, but she was smiling at his naughtiness.

“I’d better get some more rye bread, sweetie,” Harry said and disappeared into a back room.

The woman looked up from the cookies and said to me, “He doesn’t mean any harm.”

I smiled and shrugged. They were both in their late fifties and could easily have a daughter the right age for kidnapping.
Or it could be a waitress who worked for them. Or maybe even a customer. Or was he going for an older woman this time, a short
plump woman like Mrs. Harry stacking cookies? The possibilities were endless.

I took out my list of addresses, each a possible target for the kidnapper. I’d visited two of them already, this was the third.
Four more to go. I’d hoped to narrow it down before calling them in to Lt. Trump, but I was running out of time and I didn’t
want to be too late again. Too much was at stake with this kidnapping.

I paid for the coffee and left. All my movie lists were stuffed into the back of the legal pad which I carried under my arm.
But the movie the kidnapper had been referring to hadn’t been on any of my lists. I had missed it completely.

I am not the enemy of the people. I do not have the mark of the beast. And to show you my good faith, I leave you a sign,
for I am a diamond in the ruff. Catch me if you can, Homer.

Catch. Diamond. Homer. Show.

Baseball terms.

Robert De Niro played a catcher in a 1973 movie called
Bang the Drum Slowly
. Michael Moriarty played a pitcher. Moriarty. Professor Moriarty was an enemy of the people in the Sherlock Holmes stories.
Mark Harris wrote the script, based on his novel. That must be the “mark” in “mark of the beast.” The director was John Hancock.
What does one sometimes say as a euphemism for signing one’s name: “Put your John Hancock right there.” So much for the “sign.”

That left me with a lot of possible name combinations. Once again I began cross-referencing names against the map index and
Yellow Pages.

I drove to 221 Baker Street, the fictional address of Sherlock Holmes. In Santa Barbara, a Chevron station occupied that address.
I made a note and drove on. Then I considered the title,
Bang the Drum Slowly
, which is a line from a song, “The Streets of Laredo.” I found a Laredo Drive and drove the entire length of it, stopping
at the bakery to listen to Harry’s joke. Instead of Baker Street, perhaps the kidnapper was referring to a bakery on Laredo.

I called the city’s parks and recreation department and got a list of baseball fields. Perhaps there was a game and he intended
to kidnap someone from the game. I underlined fields where women’s softball leagues were being played.

But what about “diamond in the ruff”? Why misspell
rough
like that?
Ruff
spelled like that often was used in comics to indicate a barking dog. That would go along with the “beast” in the note. I
looked up pet stores, dog stores, veterinarians, and animal shelters. I found a Mark G. Lawrence, veterinarian, on State Street.
Mark Harris wrote the story, so maybe this vet was the “mark of the beast.”

After leaving the bakery, I walked to the restaurant at the corner and called David from the pay phone.

“Hello?” David said.

I hung up.

I immediately redialed.

“Yes?” he said.

“David, it’s me. I’m sorry I hung up. That’s so high school, I can’t believe I did it—” He tried to say something, but I rushed
over him. “You’re a good guy, really, and I meant everything I ever said, though I’m not sure now what I might have said.
Anyway, I just wanted you to know I was sorry and humiliated and…” I paused. What else was there to say? “…and I think if
you let a surgeon look at your leg they might be able to get rid of your limp. Good-bye. I’m really sorry.” I hung up.

I stumbled into the restroom and washed my face with cold water. My face felt so hot I was afraid the skin would peel like
dried paint. I wet a paper towel and pressed it to my cheeks, over my eyes. My breathing slowed down to normal.

I saw myself in the mirror. At least the dye-job had turned out nicely.

***

The veterinarian was closest, so I drove to his place next. It was still early afternoon, the air warm, and the houses and
sidewalks and streets cheerful under the bright sun. No one could harm another person on a day like this. This was a day for
picnics and nodding to strangers on the street, buying an ice cream from a vendor for some dirty-faced kid who’s a quarter
short. Not stalking a rapist, kidnapper, and potential murderer.

The house was old and white, in need of painting. In the front lawn a painted wooden sign hanging from an iron bulldog’s mouth
said M
ARK
G. L
AWRENCE
, V
ETERINARIAN
. Apparently Dr. Lawrence lived and worked out of this address. He might have a young wife
or daughter. Or a nurse or receptionist.

A man came out the door with three identical black dachshunds on leashes. I smiled at him and he smiled back. I was about
to leave when I saw some movement around the side of the house. Something ducked into the six-foot high bushes that surrounded
the house like a stiff Elizabethan collar.

I stood frozen to the sidewalk, unable to react. I hadn’t counted on actually seeing anything or anybody. I was just scouting,
prioritizing the list for Trump. Now what? I could run inside and call the police, but that might take too long. I could run
inside and warn everybody, organize a posse or something. But what had I seen? Movement. Shaking bushes. Maybe I just saw
a dog looking for a nice, cool place to relieve himself.

Surely the kidnapper wouldn’t try anything in daylight, not with all these people around. I should look first. Make sure.
I could see people in the waiting room through the window, so I could always yell for help. I wasn’t really taking much of
a chance. Through the window, a fluffy orange cat perched on a man’s shoulder watched me walk
slowly and quietly between houses, toward the back. The hedges were thick and high, snipped down only where there was a window.

I heard rustling again and immediately dropped to the ground on my knees. I didn’t want to be seen. From this vantage I noticed
how the bushes were pretty thin the first foot up from the ground so I placed my cheek against the grass and looked for feet.

Black shoes with laces, but one of the laces had been broken and was now knotted together. The muddy cuffs of black pants.

I was afraid to run, afraid that he’d hear me. I rose to a low crouch and slowly began to back away, each step agonizingly
deliberate. I felt stupid and cowardly, but excited, too. He was here! I had been right! Now we could end this. End whatever-the-hell
course I had foolishly set for myself. I felt like a shipwreck survivor who had drifted alone on the ocean for weeks on a
plank of wood and who suddenly spots land. I would just sneak around to the front of the house and warn everybody. Perhaps
the police would arrive in time. Perhaps as a group we could capture him.

Backing up was too slow. He could have moved, could be inside by now for all I knew. I turned and started to creep away, but
my sweatshirt snagged on a hedge branch and yanked the whole hedge which shook and scratched against the house.

Rapid footsteps. Loud hedge rustling. Coming toward me.

I started to run.

“Hey, you,” the deep voice growled. He leaped out of bushes directly beside me.

I looked down at his feet. Black shoes, knotted lace. Muddy cuffs. I looked up into his face. Early fifties, jowly, deep wrinkles
around his mouth. Thick white eyebrows. Black windbreaker. Black baseball cap.

I kicked at his crotch but he easily blocked me with his arm. When his arm swung over to protect his testicles, I saw the
gun attached to his belt.

He started to say something but I screamed, “Nooooo!!” the way they teach you in rape-prevention classes (which I’ve never
taken, but saw on an episode of
Designing Women
) and I ran, head down, straight forward, and rammed the crown of my head into his face. He let out a surprised yelp, and
I heard something crack and could feel warm liquid against my scalp. His or mine, I wasn’t sure.

I sat hunched forward in the back of the car because my hands were handcuffed behind my back. The man who I had attacked,
and whose nose I broke, was leaning against the hood of the car, an ice pack across the bridge of his nose. The ice pack was
compliments of Dr. Mark G. Lawrence, veterinarian. A Federal Express truck pulled up and a uniformed woman ran a package into
the vet’s office and ran back to her truck and pulled away without even looking at me. Those are the people to send with,
I thought.

Lt. Trump and Sgt. McCauley pulled up to the curb in an unmarked car. Sgt. McCauley spoke to the officer whose nose I’d broken.
He spoke softly, with his hand on the man’s shoulder, but the man got agitated and brushed it off. Sgt. McCauley put it back,
but this time he gripped the man’s shoulder and his voice was more forceful.

“I thought we had a deal,” Lt. Trump said, opening the back door. Somehow since this morning she’d managed to run both legs
of her black hose.

I explained about my lists, how I was trying to narrow down the locations. How I thought that officer was the kidnapper.

She just looked at me with a tired expression. “You aren’t the only movie expert we have on this case, you know. You were
the one who broke the code, told us it
all had to do with movies, but as soon as we realized that we contacted a dozen other experts. We’ve got a film historian
from UCLA, we’ve got a reviewer from the
New York Times
, we’ve got editors of those fanzines, a video geek who works at Blockbuster. All kinds of people. Three people so far came
up with
Bang the Drum Slowly
, one of them a fifteen-year-old movie buff at one of the local high schools. This was one of the locations we came up with,
so we sent someone to check the locks and windows. What do you think, because we’re cops we’re stupid?”

“Will you unlock these cuffs, please?”

She called, “Ian.” When he looked over, she made an unlocking gesture. He nodded, got the keys from the officer, and threw
them to her. I climbed out of the car and she took the cuffs off. Just as they do in all the movies, I rubbed my wrists.

“Has he kidnapped anyone yet?” I asked.

“Not that we know of.”

“The officer has my list of possible kidnapping sites. He can—”

She walked to the officer, retrieved the legal pad. She read the list as she walked back to me. “This is good. We don’t have
some of these. This is very good. We should have thought of this one.” She continued to study the list, absorbed.

“I’m going now, okay?” I said.

She looked up. “Where? Where are you going?”

“The motel.”

She nodded. “Fine. Just stay there. You’ve got a self-destructive streak that seems to spill over on everyone around you.”
She nodded at the officer with the ice pack. “By the way, I’ve had about a zillion calls today from David Payton. He wants
to talk to you, thought I might know where you are.”

I raised my eyebrows at her. “And?”

“And nothing. I didn’t tell him anything. That’s your business.”

I looked down, stared at her two runs. They made her seem like a little girl playing dress-up.

“Look, Dr. Gottlieb, I can’t begin to understand the kind of shit you’ve been going through. I’ve never been shot at, I’ve
never even fired my gun at another person. Hell, you’ve seen more action than I have. My ex didn’t kill anybody, but he did
leave me and his daughter to run away with his own aunt. His own mother’s younger sister. He used to be a cop and sometimes
I wish he’d been killed in action rather than have pulled this crap.” She looked away and I saw a glint of wetness in her
eyes. “I’m talking woman to woman here. Something bad happens, you think all kinds of crazy thoughts. Stupid things.” She
opened her purse and I saw the vials of potassium chloride I’d taped to the bottom of my sink. She closed the purse and looked
over at the men who were now talking about basketball playoffs. “After Ben left me, I tasted metal for the first time. You
understand? I left a lipstick ring around the barrel of my own gun.” She looked down, stuck out a leg as if noticing the runs
for the first time. “David Payton seems like a nice guy.”

“You interested?” I said.

She smiled. “I’ve got a guy.” She let her eyes glance toward Sgt. McCauley. “He has no aunts.”

“And he looks good in sweatpants.”