More Twisted: Collected Stories - 2

  Detective Perillo asked, "One thing I was thinking, Chief. Did she have a cell phone? Maybe you could call her. She could tell you how bad she's hurt or maybe something about how we could get to her."

  "Oh, she's got a phone," the chief said. "We checked the records. She made a couple of calls last night as she was leaving school--just before she fell in, we're figuring. But the cell company said it's shut off. She probably can't find it in the dark. Or maybe she can't reach it."

  "Might be broken," Sandra offered.

  "No," the chief explained. "The company can tell that. Phones still have some signal, even when they're off. Has to be she just can't get to it."

  A fireman in a jumpsuit walked down the stairs, looked around, then cleared graphic arts supplies off an old drafting table. He spread out a map of the area around Ron's building. Two others rigged spotlights--one on the map, the other on a portion of the basement wall in the back of the building.

  Knoblock took a call on his own phone. "Yes, sir . . . yes. We'll let you know."

  The chief hung up. He shook his head and said in a low voice to Ron and his wife, "That was her father. Poor guy. He's pretty upset. I was talking to his wife and it seems that he and Tonya've been having some problems lately. She banged up her car over the summer and he wouldn't give her the money to fix it up. That's why she had to walk to the bus stop."

  "So," Sandra said, "he thinks it's his fault she had the accident."

  "And, you ask me, it's why he's offering a reward like that. I mean, five hundred thousand dollars . . . I never heard of that before. Not 'round here."

  A voice called down from the top of the stairs. "Langley just showed up. He'll be down in a minute."

  "Our rescue specialist," the chief explained.

  "Who is he?" Ron asked.

  "The number-one search-and-rescue specialist in the country. Runs a company out of Texas. Greg Langley. You ever hear of him?"

  Sandra shook her head. But Ron lifted an eyebrow. "I think so. Yeah. He was on the Discovery Channel, or something."

  "A and E," the chief said. "He's pretty good, from what I hear. His outfit rescues climbers and hikers who get stuck on mountains or in caves, workers trapped on oil rigs, avalanches, you name it. He's got this sort of a sixth sense, or something, for finding and saving people."

  "He and his crew were in Ohio," Detective Perillo said. "Drove all night to get here."

  "You were lucky you could catch him when he was free," Ron said.

  Chief Knoblock said, "Actually, he called us just after the story broke about midnight. I couldn't figure out how he heard about it. But he said he's got people listening to news stories all over the country and they let him know if it sounds like a job he could take on." The chief added in a whisper, "Man seems a bit too interested in the reward for my taste. But as long as he saves that girl, that's all I care about."

  The firemen finished rigging the power lines and clicked the lights on, filling the space with brilliant white illumination, just as footsteps sounded on the stairs. A group of three men and two women arrived in the basement, carting ropes and hard hats, lights, radios, metal clamps and hooks and tools that looked to Ron like mountain climbing gear. They all wore yellow jumpsuits with the words stitched on the back Langley Services. Houston, TX.

  One of these men introduced himself as Greg Langley. He was in his forties, about five foot ten, slim but clearly strong. He had a round, freckled face, curly red hair and eyes brimming with self-assuredness.

  Introductions were made. Langley glanced at Ron and Sandra, but didn't even acknowledge them. Ron felt a bit offended but gave no outward reaction to the snub.

  "What's the situation?" Langley asked the officials.

  Knoblock described the accident and the girl's location in the tunnel, touching places on the map, and explained about the basements connecting Ron's building with the collapsed factory.

  Langley asked, "She in immediate danger?"

  "We can probably get food and water to her somehow," Knoblock said. "And in this weather she's not going to die of exposure. But her voice is real weak. Makes us think she was pretty badly hurt in the fall. She could be bleeding, could have broken limbs. We just don't know."

  Another fireman added, "The big danger is another cave-in. The entire site's real unstable."

  "Where do we go in?" Langley asked, glancing at the cellar wall.

  A city engineer examined the map and then tapped a spot on the brick. "On the other side of this wall was an old building that was torn down years ago and paved over. But most of the sub-basement rooms're intact. We think you can pick your way through them to a wooden doorway . . . about here." He touched the map. "That'll get you into this delivery tunnel." He traced along the map to an adjoining tunnel. "The girl's in the one next to it."

  It was then that a faint rumbling filled the basement.

  "My God," Sandra said, grabbing Ron's arm.

  Knoblock lifted his radio. "What was that?" he called into the microphone.

  Some static, an indiscernible word or two. Then a voice, "Another cave-in, chief."

  "Oh, damn . . . is she okay?"

  "Hold on . . . . We can't hear anything. Hold on."

  No one in the basement spoke for a moment.

  "Please," Ron whispered.

  Then the chief's radio clattered again and they heard: "Okay, okay--we can hear her. Can't make out much, but it sounds like she's saying, 'Please help me.' "

  "Okay," Langley snapped. "Let's get moving. I want that wall down in five minutes."

  "Yessir," Knoblock said and lifted his radio again.

  "No," the rescue specialist barked. "My people'll do it. It's got to be done just right. Can't leave it to . . . " His voice faded, and Ron wondered what sort of unwitting insult he'd been about to deliver. He turned to another assistant, a young woman. "Oh, here, call her father. Tell him this's the account I want the money wired to as soon as she's safe."

  The woman took the slip of paper and scurried upstairs to make a call. There was silence for a moment, as the fire department and police officials looked at one another uneasily. Langley caught their eye. His glance said simply, I'm a professional. I expect to get paid for producing results. You got a problem with that, go hire somebody else.

  Knoblock, Perillo and the others seemed to get the message and they turned back to the chart. The chief asked, "You want one of our people to go with you?"

  "No, I'll go in alone," Langley said and began to assemble his gear.

  "Got a question," Ron said. Langley ignored him. Knoblock raised an eyebrow. The graphic designer pointed down at the map. "What's this?" He traced his finger along what seemed to be a shaft leading from a street nearby to the tunnel adjacent to the one the girl was in.

  One of the firemen said, "It's an old sluice. Before they put the levee in, there was a lot of flooding in those tunnels when the river overflowed. They needed serious drainage."

  "How big is it?"

  "I don't know . . . I'd guess three feet across."

  "Could somebody get through it?"

  Langley glanced up and finally spoke to him, "Who're you again?"

  "I own this building."

  The rescue specialist turned back to the map. "Only an idiot'd go that way. Can't you see? It goes right underneath the unstable portion of the building. It's probably already sealed off after the first collapse. Even if it wasn't, you bump one support, you breathe wrong, and it all comes down on top of you. Then I'd have two people to rescue." He gave a grim laugh. "Tunnel Girl and Tunnel Asshole."

  "Sounds like you've checked it out already," Ron said pointedly, irritated at the man's haughtiness. "You work fast."

  "I've been in this business a long time. I have a sense of what's a reasonable risk and what isn't. That drain isn't."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah, really," Langley muttered." You know, this is a pretty tricky operation. You two might want to leave. We're going to bring in some heavy equipment here.
People have a way of getting hurt in situations like this." He looked at Ron, then glanced at Sandra.

  When Ron didn't move, Langley added, "Chief? We on the same page here?" Langley strapped on a yellow hard hat and clipped an impressive-looking cell phone to his belt.

  "Uhm, Mr. Badgett," Knoblock said uneasily to Ron and Sandra. "I appreciate you helping us out. But it might be better if--"

  "That's okay," the graphic designer said. "We were just leaving."

  Outside, Ron got into the car and nodded for Sandra to join him. He drove slowly up the street, away from the site of the collapsed building and the rescue efforts, the cacophony of the lights and crowds.

  "Aren't we going to stay?" she asked. "See what happens?"

  "No."

  "What's wrong?" she asked uneasily, watching her husband troll slowly down the deserted street, looking into the alleys and the vacant lots overrun with grass and filled with trash--locales scheduled to become part of NeDo in the future but at the moment nothing more than evidence of what the neighborhood had once been.

  Finally he stopped, staring down at the ground. He climbed out of the car. Sandra joined him.

  "What are you . . . ?" Her voice faded. "No."

  Ron was looking at an entrance to a large drain--the one he'd pointed out on the map.

  "You're not . . . No, Ron, you're not going in there."

  "Five hundred thousand dollars," he whispered. "Where else are we going to get a chance for money like that?"

  "No, honey. You heard what Greg said. It's dangerous."

  "A half million dollars. Think about it . . . . You know business's been slow. The move set me back a lot more than I thought."

  "It'll get better. You'll get more clients." Her face was a grim mask. "I don't want you to go. Really."

  Ron was staring at the grate of the drainage ditch, the blackness on the other side. "I don't think it's dangerous at all . . . . Didn't it seem there was something weird about what Langley said?"

  "Weird?"

  "He didn't even check the sluice out. But he goes on and on about how risky it is. You're an engineer; what do you think? Isn't this the best way to get to her?"

  She shrugged. "I don't do geologic work, you know that."

  "Well, even to me it seems like the best way . . . . It was like Langley was telling everybody that there was only one way to get to the girl, his route. So nobody'd even try the drain." He nodded toward the grating. "That way he's sure he gets the reward."

  Sandra fell silent for a moment. Then she shook her head. "I didn't really get that sense. He's pretty arrogant and insulting. But even if what you're saying is true, going in there still has to be risky." She pointed toward the collapsed building. "You still have to go underneath it."

  "Five hundred thousand dollars, baby," he whispered.

  "It's not worth getting killed."

  "I'm going to do it."

  "Please, Ron, no."

  "I have to."

  She sighed, grimacing. "I've always sensed there're sides to you that I don't know, Ron. Things that you don't share with me. But playing knight in shining armor to save some girl? I never thought of you that way. Or is it that you're just pissed off he insulted us and threw us out of our own building?" Ron didn't answer. Sandra then added, "And to be honest, honey, you aren't really in the best shape, you know."

  "I'm going to be crawling, not running a marathon." He laughed, shook his head. "Something's not right about this whole thing. Langley's working some angle. And I'm not going to let him get away with it. I'm going to get that money."

  "You've made up your mind," she asked in a soft voice, "haven't you?"

  "That's one thing you do know about me: Once I've decided what I want to do, nothing's going to stop me."

  Ron reached into the glove compartment and took out the flashlight. Then he walked to the trunk and found the tire iron. "My coal mining gear," he said with a weak laugh as he held up the bent metal rod. He looked at the blackness of the drain opening.

  Sandra took her cell phone from the car, gripping it firmly in her hand. "Call if anything happens. I'll get somebody there as soon as I can."

  He kissed her hard. And the knight--in faded jeans and an old sweatshirt, not shining armor--started into the murky opening.

  The route through the drain was, in fact, much less risky than the doomsaying egomaniac Langley had predicted--at least in the beginning. Ron had about three hundred feet of steady crawling, impeded only by a few roots, clumps of dirt and sewage-related detritus, which was hardly pleasant but not dangerous.

  He encountered a few rats but they were frightened and scurried away from him quickly. (Ron wondered if they were charging into the spot where the rescue specialist was now working his way toward Tonya. He had to admit he liked the idea of sharp-toothed rodents scaring the hell out of his rival--yeah, Sandra was partly right; Langley had pissed him off.)

  Closer to the building, the drain became increasingly clogged. Roots had broken through the concrete walls and clustered together like pythons frozen in rigor mortis, and the way was partly blocked by piles of dried mud nearly as hard as concrete. His back in agony, his legs cramping, Ron now made slower progress. Still, he could see that--not surprisingly--Langley had been wrong. The drain walls were solid and in no danger of collapse.

  Tunnel Asshole . . .

  Ron kept going, checking his progress by looking through the access holes that opened into basements and the old delivery tunnels. Finally he arrived at the narrow one that, he recalled from the map, led to a wooden door opening into the tunnel where Tonya Gilbert was. He put his ear to the opening and listened.

  "Help me," the girl's muted voice rasped. "Please help me . . ." She was probably no more than thirty feet from him.

  The opening into this side tunnel was small, but by working a few old bricks out of the wall with the tire iron he was able to create enough space to crawl through. He climbed onto the dry earth of the tunnel and, standing, shone his light around. Yes, it was the one right next to the girl's.

  He'd done it! He gotten to Tunnel Girl first.

  Then he heard a noise:

  Thud . . . thud . . .

  What was it? Was the girl signaling?

  No, the sound was coming from a different place.

  Thud . . .

  Ron suddenly realized what it was. Greg Langley had arrived. He was at the far wall of the tunnel, breaking his way through another old door, which connected this shaft to the deserted basement next door. The sound of breaking wood told Ron that Langley would be inside in three or four minutes. Then the pounding stopped, and Ron heard the man's muffled voice. Ron shut the light out, alarmed. What if Langley wasn't alone? He walked quietly to the door the rescue specialist had been breaking through and listened. He heard the man say, "I'll call you back."

  So, he was only on his phone. But who was he talking to? And what had he been saying? Had someone found out Ron was coming and was a threat to getting the reward?

  Thud . . .

  Langley had resumed breaking through the wooden door. Ron flattened himself against the wall beside the wooden door. Suddenly there was a loud crack and several boards fell inward, creating about a two-by-two-foot opening. Light from Langley's lantern shone into the dim tunnel. Ron pressed hard against the wall, breathing shallowly, not moving.

  Finally something emerged from the opening, a wicked-looking pickax. It seemed more like a weapon than a tool. Then a beam from another flashlight--a powerful one--shot throughout the tunnel and swung from side to side. It narrowly missed catching Ron in its circle of light. He squinted and leaned back against the wall as hard as he could, rubbing his eyes to get them used to the brilliance.

  There was a pause and then finally he could make out Langley's head emerging through the opening. He got halfway through, then once again started to play the flashlight around the tunnel.

  Just before the illumination hit Ron's legs, the graphic designer lifted the tire iron and swung i
t hard into the back of Langley's head, just below the hard hat. It struck him solidly and the man grunted and collapsed onto his belly.

  Once I've decided what I want to do, nothing's going to stop me. . . .

  As quietly as he could, Ron gathered rocks and bricks from the floor and began piling them onto the unconscious Greg Langley, creating what he felt was a very realistic scene of a man caught by a surprise cave-in.

  Two days later Ron Badgett and his wife were standing near the podium in front of City College, awaiting the start of the press conference. A hundred people milled about. Behind the lectern was a blow-up from a local newspaper, mounted to a curtain that rippled in the wind. The headline read: TUNNEL GIRL SAVED!

  Sandra had her arm hooked through her husband's. He enjoyed her proximity and the flowery smell of her perfume. She had a smile on her face. The atmosphere among the crowd was festive, giddy even. There's nothing like rescuing trapped children to supercharge community spirit.

  Waving and smiling, Chief Knoblock, Tonya Gilbert and her parents walked through the crowd and up to the podium. After a lengthy round of cheers and applause, the chief quieted the onlookers like a conductor in front of an orchestra and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, could I have your attention please? . . . Thank you. I'm delighted to present to you Tonya Gilbert. She was just released from Memorial Hospital this morning. I know she wants to say a word to you."

  More wild clapping and shouts.

  The pretty girl, with a small bandage over her forehead and a blue cast on her ankle and another on her wrist, stepped shyly to the microphone. Blushing fiercely, she started to say something, but her throat caught. She started over. "Like, I just want to say, you know, thanks to everybody. I was pretty freaked. So, you know . . . uhm, thanks."

  Her lack of articulation didn't stop the crowd from exploding in applause and cheers once again.

  Then the chief introduced the girl's parents. The businessman, in a blue blazer and gray slacks, stepped forward to the microphone, while his wife, beaming a smile, put her arm around her daughter's shoulders. The businessman thanked the fire department and police for their heroic efforts, and the citizens of the town for their support.