Phantom Limb (17 page)

Chapter Twenty-four

I crossed the tiny room in a couple of strides. Awakened by the rush of movement, the tattooed man roused himself enough to clamber to his feet. About half a second too late.

The roundhouse he threw was so telegraphed I had no trouble ducking under it. Then I clipped him with my forearm, snapping his head back. For good measure, I grabbed his shoulders with both hands and slammed his head against one of the standing two-by-fours. He collapsed in a heap.

I stood with feet apart, breathing hard. While my old pugilistic instincts had served me, my no-longer-young body protested. My forearm stung from the blow, and my legs felt wobbly. Still aching from my tumble down the sinkhole, my back was threatening to seize up.

All of which I barely registered. My only thought at the moment concerned the unconscious woman on the floor. Thankfully, and somewhat surprisingly, alive.

I crouched by Lisa's side and carefully removed the duct tape from her mouth. She stirred, but didn't open her eyes. As I leaned in closer, I noted the bruises on her cheeks and chin. Her lips were cracked, bone-white.

I could also smell the ketones on her breath. Lisa was dehydrated. We'd have to get some water into her, and soon.

I'd untied her hands and was struggling with the ropes binding her ankles when she came to. Finally, I freed her legs and scrambled back up, so that our eyes could meet.

Blinking in the harsh light from above, I saw recognition slowly dawn.

“Doctor?…Jesus, Rinaldi, is that you?…”

Her voice feeble, a hollow croak.

“It's me, Lisa. Are you okay?”

“Define your terms.”

She tried to stretch her limbs where she lay, and winced in pain. Let her head droop back to the ground.

“You're safe now, Lisa.” I gently pushed her hair back from her forehead. Exposing another ugly bruise.

“Safe?” Her dry lips curled. “I've had the shit kicked outta me and I'm in a hole in the ground. I don't
feel
safe….”

I slipped my arm under her head.

“We've got to get moving, understand? Before Sykes and Griffin show up. They're probably heading here now….”

She lolled, limp as a rag doll. “I'm fine where I am, Doc. My arms and legs don't work anyway…”

“They will, soon enough. Now here, let me help you…”

Putting my hands under her armpits, I more or less hauled her to her feet. She was obviously still dazed, exhausted. Stumbling on rubbery legs.

“You remind me of a punch-drunk fighter,” I said.

“You should see the other guy…”

I smiled, encouraged by her attempt at banter. As though she were summoning from her deepest core the old, resilient Lisa. Good thing, too. Given the trauma of her ordeal, that sly, rueful humor could be a powerful ally in her recovery.

Straightening, I put my arm around her waist, even as I felt her taking most of her weight on her own legs.

“Looks like you're able to stand.”

“Theoretically.”

I glanced around the small, cold cellar. “How did they bring you here? That tunnel?”

She shook her head, then pointed up at something in the shadows. Attached by a kind of peg-and-pulley system to the ceiling. An aluminum ladder.

I risked letting go of her and reached my hand up, grasping the ladder by the bottom rung. When I pulled it down, its length extended to about a foot off the cellar floor.

“What's up top?” I asked her.

“Trapdoor. The way out.”

I glanced up again. Now I could see the trapdoor, its outlines blurred by the hanging bulb's relentless glare.

“Let me go up first,” I said. “Just in case.”

“My fucking hero.”

The old Lisa was coming back, all right.

I took hold of the ladder and quickly climbed up to the trapdoor. When I pushed, it opened easily, with the merest squeak of its hinges. Poking my head through, I found myself looking at a much larger room. Bare-bricked walls, two broad shuttered windows. Fluorescents hanging from the waffled tin ceiling.

But it was what filled the room that caught my attention. A long metal table, on which were arrayed a half-dozen monitor screens. Now blackened, I had no doubt they'd once been connected wirelessly to the security cameras in the Harland residence. As was the phone, in its cradle next to some kind of communications console. Probably the device used to digitally alter the speaker's voice. There were also two computers, one of whose screens displayed a map of Western Pennsylvania.

I climbed the rest of the way up and stood on the hardwood floor. This was the room from which Julian—Raymond Sykes—contacted the residence, making his ransom demands. All these hundreds of miles away.

Not exactly convenient to that abandoned print factory in the Hill District. But then again, Sykes had said that his human trafficking operation was located elsewhere, too.

I considered this. Sykes may just be a big fish in a small pond, as Gloria Reese had put it, but he was a fish who knew how to diversify. Regardless, it couldn't be easy for him to keep tabs on everything himself. Which got me wondering how exactly he did it.

“Hey!” Lisa's voice, calling from below. I could hear her footsteps slowly ascending the ladder. “You wanna lend me a hand, Doc? Before Tattoo Man wakes up?”

“Sorry. Just checking things over.” I bent and extended my hand, helping to hoist her up into the room.

“I wonder what this place is,” I said.

She let out a breath. “Abandoned ranger station, I think. Or maybe some field office from when the mines were working.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw it from the outside. It has some old-fashioned antennas and stuff on the roof. I remember things like that from when I was a kid. Back in the Stone Age, God help me.”

“But when did you see it?”

“When I escaped. Or
tried
to, anyway.” She sighed. “Christ, I see I'm gonna have to get you up to speed.”

“You sure are. But not now. Now we get some help.”

I went over to the table and snatched up the cordless phone. Tried, but failed, to get a dial tone.

I turned the phone over. A tangle of unhooked wires.

“They took the guts out of it. Probably did this every time they left here. In case you got free and came up the ladder. So you couldn't use the phone to call for help.”

Besides, I thought, once they had the second ransom money, there'd be only one reason to come back here. To kill Lisa.

Meanwhile, she'd crossed the room to peer over my shoulder at the disabled phone. “Son of a bitch. Now what—?”

I put my finger to my lips. I'd just heard the tattooed man stirring down below. Quickly, I went back and closed the trapdoor. As I'd hoped, it had a bolt lock. I slid it home.

“That'll keep him for a while. But we still have the others to worry about. Sykes, Griffin.”

She nodded soberly. “Two scary bastards…”

This time, her tone lacked its usual sturdy humor. She looked genuinely afraid. Perhaps recalling a painful memory, some recent terrifying encounter with her captors.

Then, just as quickly, she seemed to shake it off. Survival instincts trumping everything. Even fear.

I gripped her hand and led us to the sole exit door. On the way, I noticed a portable refrigerator in a corner. I stooped and opened it, happy to find what I'd been hoping to.

“Here.” I offered her a bottled water, then put another two bottles in my jacket pockets. “You need to hydrate. Drink that whole bottle.”

“Yes, sir.” She took a long, grateful swallow from the bottle. “But just 'cause you rescued me, that doesn't mean you get to boss me around.”

“Point taken. Now keep drinking.”

Frowning theatrically, she managed to finish the bottle before following me through the door.

We stepped out into a cold, clear night, undergirded by a ceaseless wind. I took a quick look at our surroundings. The building was fronted by a compact clearing, studded with gravel. A makeshift parking area, served by a fire road that meandered into the hills to our right. To our left was the expanse of trees through which I'd fled, pursued by Griffin. I could only hope he was still in there, trampling the underbrush, pushing his way past stubborn foliage.

It was a false hope. Two lights suddenly flared at the edge of the trees. Flashlight beams, bobbing. Two men, walking steadily out of the grove.

Griffin and someone else. Sykes, maybe. Or that long-haired guy from the printing factory. It was too dark to see at this distance, and I wasn't going to stick around to find out.

“Come on!” I whispered, pulling Lisa again by the hand. She didn't resist. Instead, she pushed herself to keep up with me.

At a good run, I led us past the trees and toward the east, the rounded shoulders of the nearby hills. As long as we hewed to the shadowed awning thrown by the bank of trees, I figured we had a chance of reaching the foothills unseen. If we strayed too far from its protective shroud, we'd risk being silhouetted against the moon's light, brighter now in the cloudless sky.

The wind rose and fell around us as we ran, as though the night itself was breathing. Co-mingling with our own labored exhalations, Lisa and I now both gasping. Legs weakening, as we stumbled over exposed roots, tufts of brush, unseen divots in the black earth.

The whole time expecting to hear gunfire erupt behind us, feel the stinging heat of a bullet tearing through my flesh.

Any moment now, any moment…

***

We'd just reached the first stone-pitted slope, a knoll rising like a set of stairs to the hills, when Lisa abruptly stopped, her grasp pulling me back. I whirled, as angry as I was puzzled. But before I could speak, she pointed back the way we'd come. All the way back, to the old brick building.

“Look! They're going inside.”

She was right. The two men were crunching across the gravel to the entrance, their flashlights lowered.

Lisa struggled to catch her breath. “Maybe they think we're still there. Maybe they never saw us running away.”

“Whatever, it buys us time. But we have to keep moving.”

Allowing ourselves to resume at a slower pace, we headed up the mild incline of craggy boulders, hillocks of grass and dirt. Soon enough, though, we were climbing a steeper, unbroken path of shrubs and thick brush, using handholds for balance. It was hard, slow going, and I didn't like how exposed we were without the grove's shadow to cloak our movements.

Moreover, Lisa's fear had been replaced by a growing irritation. With the steep hill, the wind, her aching feet.

And with me.

“Great escape plan, MacGyver. We're either gonna die of exposure or get eaten by mountain lions.”

“I doubt it. And didn't you call me your hero back there?”

“That was then, this is now. Besides, shouldn't you have arranged for a goddamn helicopter or something to pick us up? A crapload of Marines? The Boy Scouts?”

“It's not like I had a plan. So cut me some slack, okay?”

“Sure. I guess I can look at this as some kinda bonding exercise.” A deliberate beat. “But I'm sure as shit not
paying
for this session!”

I managed a quiet laugh. By now, we'd reached an elevated cleft in the hill. A broad stretch of rock, like a stone table without legs. Beyond lay another, steeper mound. A somber, treeless shape whose rounded hump was glazed by moonlight.

Lisa stood gasping at my shoulder.

“Fuck it. This is as far as I go, Rinaldi.”

I nodded, aware that our pursuers could have long since left the old building and might even be heading this way. Swiveling slowly left and right, I searched for someplace safe to hide.

And found it.

***

“Nice.” Lisa took a seat on a small boulder. “I love what you've done with the place.”

I found another rock opposite her and gratefully sat down myself. We were in a cave, hewn out of a rockface adjoining the crest to which we'd climbed. At my urging, we'd crawled to the very back, far enough from the mouth to avoid detection.

The downside, of course, was that except for a sliver of moon glinting off a huge rock halfway between us and the cave opening, we were in total darkness.

At least, I thought, we were out of the wind.

“Maybe it's a good thing you can't see my face,” Lisa was saying, “'cause I'm staring daggers at you.”

“Yeah, I'm sorry to miss that.”

A heavy, not unwelcome silence settled between us. Broken only by the rhythmic sound of our twinned breathing, slowing at last to a normal pace. And growing quieter.

Finally, Lisa spoke.

“How long do you think we should stay here? I mean, when do we go and try to find some help?”

“It's not safe to move now. Not with those men out there. Especially since I don't even know where we are. I figure if we wait here till daylight, at least maybe we can get our bearings. For all we know, there could be a town right over the hill.”

Another silence.

“Okay.” She took a breath. “If we're stuck here all night, I guess there's time to tell you my story. The
whole
story…”

Chapter Twenty-five

It was strange, listening to Lisa talk as we sat opposite each other in the dark. Unlike in a therapy session, I didn't have visual cues to guide me in my responses. Nor did she get to see what was on my face. My reactions, my own body language.

If anything, I was reminded of my childhood years in the Church. The hallowed darkness of the confessional, speaking my youthful sins into the hushed stillness, unable to see the priest's expression behind his little screen. To see empathy, or sorrow. Or, as I feared, disgust.

Now, as an adult, I've come to realize I merely replaced my faith in one institution with faith in another. Both burdened with dogma, with rigorous rules of behavior. Both susceptible to doubt. Heresy. Renunciation.

But, at the moment, Lisa was neither patient nor penitent. I don't know how to describe what was transpiring in that absurd cave, other than words being spoken by one unseen person for the benefit of another, equally unseen. Like two ghosts, talking.

***

“It all started with me and Mike Payton,” she began. “The company's head of security.”

“What started?”

“Our affair.” A beat. “Bet you didn't see
that
one coming, did you, Doc?”

“No, I didn't.”

“Well, believe me, neither did I. Now don't get me wrong. Marriage to Charles Harland was a fucking nightmare from Day One. Hell, the Bataan Death March was probably more fun. On the plus side, he was rich, which I really, really liked. But he's a cold bastard. Cold and cruel. Know what I mean?”

“I was around him long enough to get a sense of that, yes.”

“Anyway, after a few years of wedded shit, we were spending more and more time apart. Christ knows, that creepy house of his is big enough to stay happily lost in. Of course, we continued doing all those public functions together—the charity balls, museum fundraisers, that crap. Plus every year, our big-ass anniversary gala. The most important event on Pittsburgh's social calendar. Every VIP in the state, from the governor on down, shows up to kiss Charles' ring. Which they
have
to do, if they want his financial support come election time.

“And there I am, the former sex symbol, older now but still hot enough to drive all his geezer friends and enemies nuts with envy. Imagining all the great sex he's getting, even at his age. All the tricks I must've learned as a Hollywood starlet, the tabloid party girl. One step up from being a high-priced whore.”

She paused, voice thickening.

“You should see the look on the old man's face every year at that event. It's the only goddamn time I ever see him happy. When the truth is…”

She grew quiet, and I heard the first trickle of a soft rain. A steady, melancholy misting, barely audible as it reached my ears from the shadowed mouth of the cave.

“The truth is,” she went on, “there wasn't anything like that going on between us. Hadn't been since the earliest days of our marriage. We've slept in separate bedrooms for years. Then, after his first stroke—”

“Was that what put him in the wheelchair? I don't think the exact nature of his illness has ever been made public.”

“It hasn't. He and Arthur Drake made damned sure of that. Although Charles was still sharp as a tack after his recovery, they were afraid it would hurt the Harland Industries brand if word got out about a stroke. Instead, they floated the idea that it was some sort of muscular degeneration. Genetic or some bullshit. In other words, ‘Don't you worry, Mr. and Ms. Investor, the mighty Harland financial brain is still A-OK.' And the funny thing is, it was….”

I could feel her hand sweeping the air in front of me.

“Hey, Doc, you got another one of those water bottles? I always get a dry throat doing monologues. Not that I had that many in the crappy scripts I got stuck with. Mostly I just had to scream a lot.”

I pulled a bottle out of my jacket pocket and managed to find her grasping fingers in the dark. Then I heard her twist it open and take a long drink.

As she did, I simply listened to the rain and kept quiet. Whether or not it was the right call, I'd decided not to tell her yet about her husband's latest stroke and hospitalization. Nor did I feel it appropriate to inform her of Arthur Drake's murder. Lisa had just survived a grueling, horrific ordeal, and my instincts told me that letting her tell her story, in her own way, was perhaps the most therapeutic thing I could do for her. At least here, in this godforsaken place.

She spoke again, her voice now stronger.

“Thanks, Rinaldi. Hit the spot. Anyway, after the stroke, Charles and I barely touched each other. Not even a kiss, unless there was a camera around, or an audience of big-shots…”

Lisa sighed. “Which is the other weird thing. I think the old man still loves me. Really. No matter what anybody says. Even that tight-ass Drake has sworn to me that Charles told him so. But I also know something else. That the Lisa Campbell he loves is the one on those old movie posters in his office. The Hollywood sex bomb. All tits and no brains. Someone I haven't been for a long time.”

“When did the affair with Payton start?”

“About a year ago. Funny, too, 'cause I knew that at first Mike was suspicious about my marrying the old man. Had me pegged as a gold-digger, pure and simple. But as we got to know each other, he kinda mellowed. Actually talked to me like I was a person. Though I can't say the same for Drake, or Charles' nurse, Donna Swanson. Neither of 'em ever came around, really, but at least they had the courtesy to be passive-aggressive about it. Unlike James, who was totally upfront. Openly hostile. But, Christ, if I were him, I'd feel the same way.”

“What do you mean?”

“James really
hated
his father. Everything he was, and everything he did. And believe me, the feeling was mutual.”

“Because Charles blamed James for what happened to his other son, Chuck. The overdose.”

“Charles said more than once that the wrong son died. To James' face, in front of company. Can you fuckin'
believe
it?”

She took another deep swallow from the water bottle.

“Even Mike Payton, who has no love for James, thought the way the old man treated his son was really shitty. That was one of the things we used to talk about…”

She paused, as though lost in the memory.

“Anyway, the point is, I hadn't been laid in, like, forever. And I may be older, but I'm not dead. So…”

“You and Mike started seeing each other.”

“I was about to say we started fucking like rabbits behind my husband's back, but I like how you put it better. But it wasn't just the sex, Danny. We
liked
each other. Still do. Me and Mike were together for months, 'til we both realized how crazy it was. What'd happen if Charles ever found out…”

“So you ended it?”

“Yeah. Truth is, I think Mike couldn't deal with the guilt. Underneath all that G.I. Joe, take-no-prisoners crap, he's a real, honest-to-God good boy. Total straight arrow.”

“It was hard, wasn't it, Lisa? Giving him up?”

She nodded. “At first. I mean, I knew damn well it was for the best, but…Yeah, it was hard. Then, about a month ago, just when it was starting to get easier…”

She hesitated. I heard her twisting the empty plastic bottle in her hands.

“What happened a month ago, Lisa?”

“One night, after dinner, James finds me in the study. Charles had already gone up to bed, so James suggests I join him for a nightcap. Real casual and friendly. Which is pretty strange, since he's never been exactly chummy before this. But I figure, why not? I was about to get hammered anyway…”

A short laugh. “I know what you're thinking, Doc.”

“I didn't say anything.”

“You don't have to. But trust me, nobody could live with Charles Harland without being tanked most of the time. Anyway, James mixes the drinks at the wet bar, hands me one. We toast, I take a healthy swig, and then everything goes black.”

“He drugged you?”

“Yep. The next thing I know, I'm in the backseat of a cab driving through these winding, empty streets. Though I'm still woozy as hell, and can't tell where we are.”

She paused again. I leaned in closer, though I knew she couldn't see it.

“When we get where we're goin'—some shitty, rundown building—James has to practically lift me outta the cab. I mean, I am fucking
out
of it. Then he brings me in to meet this weird guy with a mustache. Raymond Sykes. Real skinny, this guy. Like a toothpick. And the place itself—all the rooms and hallways are dark, gloomy. And then we go to this one room, no windows or anything. Padded floor. Then I…I pass out again, I don't know for how long. But when I come around, I'm on this narrow bed… totally bare-assed. Not a stitch. There are lights, really bright lights, shining in my face…

“And then I see James, and he's naked, too. And he's not alone. He's with three other guys, and
they're
all naked. And wearing these masks—like ski masks, I guess. And then James starts telling me who these guys are. I'm so drugged-out I can barely register their names, but I can tell James really wants me to know. Like he's getting off on it. 'Cause one guy's a big state senator, one's president of a worldwide bank. I think the third ran a huge multinational corporation. Strange thing was, I thought I remembered one of the names. Some high-roller who always shows up at the anniversary gala. Fawns over Charles…
and
me. At the time, I figured I was just fucked up from the spiked drink. He
couldn't
be one of the men behind the masks. But now…”

Another long silence. I waited, the only sounds the rasp of her quickening breath, the gentle insistence of the rain.

“And then James pulls a mask over his own face, and says to me, ‘See, Lisa, you're gonna entertain three of the city's most prominent citizens.
Four
, if you count me…'”

I sat up, straining to see her face in the darkness.

“The Four Horsemen. James Harland and these other three.”

“Yeah, that's what he said they called themselves. They come down to this canker sore of a building in the Hill District—this old factory—and do drugs and girls. Hookers, mostly. Coke whores. The skankier, the better. ‘Going ghetto,' James called it. 'Course he told me all this afterwards. After—”

I heard a sharp intake of breath.

“Take your time, Lisa. Or you can keep the details to yourself, if you want.”

“Oh, don't worry. They'll keep. What happened in that room, every horrible, unbelievable thing, is burned right into the old memory banks. Whether I like it or not. I'll be thinking about it, replaying it all in my head, on my deathbed.

“But you're in luck, Doc. I can't even describe what those four monsters did to me. I don't have the words. It went on for hours. Sometimes they took turns, sometimes it was all at once. They…used things, too. Things that hurt. It made what my first husband used to do to me seem like patty-cake.

“What they did…what they made me do…I mean, I always figured I was tough, but…Christ, I can't even talk about it.”

“That's all right, Lisa. Unfortunately, I have a pretty good imagination. I can guess.”

“No,” she said simply. “You can't.”

***

My eyes more accustomed to the dark, I could now make out enough of Lisa's features to see the tears streaking her cheeks. The way they glistened wetly in the hushed gloom of the cave.

“I…I don't remember much of what happened afterwards. Maybe I passed out again. Anyway, when I come to, I'm in the library at the residence. With no idea how or when I'd gotten there. It was daylight. Late morning. Me and James were both totally dressed, and there was an elegant coffee service on the table between us. I guess one of the maids had brought it in. Anyway, the thing that struck me the most—that scared the shit outta me—was this look on James' face. This creepy, satisfied smile…”

I took a guess. “That's when he told you about the video.”

“Yeah. Though I don't know how the hell
you
know about it.”

“I was once in that same room where you were assaulted, Lisa. I saw the lights, the camera.”

She nodded. “James told me that everything that happened the night before had been shot. Put on video. But in a special way. I didn't understand all of it, but apparently he had some stoner friend of his, some computer geek, run the camera and download the video into an encrypted file. I mean, it was all techno-babble to me. But he said the file couldn't be copied, or even opened by someone who didn't know the key code.”

“Which only James had, I assume.”

“Yeah. He said it had something to do with algorithms, or random numbers, or some shit. The important thing was that nobody, not even Sykes, could download it or duplicate it. And that the file was on a flash-drive, hidden where nobody could find it. Jesus, you should've seen his face. He was all excited, like a teenager with some secret porno stash. Really freaked me the fuck out.”

I thought then about how Arthur Drake had described James. Implying, almost wistfully, that he was still a boy, with a boy's appetites. A defiant adolescent in an adult's body.

“What did he say he wanted to do with it? Sell it?” I paused. “Or, more likely, blackmail you?”

She shook her head. “Much worse than that. He said he planned to hang on to it until the next anniversary gala, which takes place in a month. He's going to show the video on a big screen at the event. So that Charles, and hundreds of the old man's VIP guests, could see his famous trophy wife gang-raped by four guys in ski masks. See her naked. Tortured and humiliated.”

“My God, Lisa…”

“Then, after that, he said he'd probably upload it to YouTube. Why should his father's high and mighty friends be the only ones to see it? Why not share it with the whole world?”