Girl Who Wasn’t There

by Vincent Zandri

  But Penny made it seem all right. She made it seem like Chloe was mature beyond her years. That she knew better than to stray. And besides, she was playing so nicely with the child of the sweet couple who were also hanging out on the beach. What harm could there be in sneaking away for a few minutes?

  Wait, hold the phone, Sid …

  What’s the use in blaming Penny for the abduction? For this plot to snatch Rabuffo’s fortune, if such a maneuver is even possible? The more correct and honorable thing to do is to blame yourself for being so naïve. So stupid. So selfish. Did you really have to give her that stupid ring while all alone in the hotel room? You should have stayed on the beach, your eyes glued to your daughter, where they belonged.

  Singh approaches me.

  He’s reaching into his pocket with his one existing hand, comes back out with a black leather glove. I know what he’s capable of doing with that one hand protected inside a leather glove. The destruction or, should I say, the facial reconstruction. There’s forty-three muscles in the human face, all of which are manipulated by the facial nerve, or what’s clinically known as the seventh cranial nerve. It’s the fat nerve that protrudes from the cerebral cortex and that splits into five more nerves, the exact names of which I actually forget at the moment considering two major head traumas within twenty-four hours. But I’m guessing each and every one of those five nerves are about to get a workout.

  He brings the end of the glove to his mouth, clamps onto it with his teeth, then shoves his meaty hand inside. If I’m dreaming, this is the part where I’m supposed to wake up.

  I open both eyes, roll onto my side, my wrists still sawing away at the sharp springs.

  “Well, look who’s awake?” Singh says, smiling. “Hey, were you spying on us, old friend? Man, oh man, killer, do we have some history together or what?”

  I’m pulling like a son of a bitch on the tape that binds me. My ankles are still sealed together, but there’s suddenly some wiggle room in the wrists.

  Singh bends down so that he avoids hitting his head against the wood bunk bed frame above me. He reaches out with his rubber-gloved hand, grabs hold of my t-shirt collar, yanks me toward him. That’s when I feel a snap in my wrists. I’ve managed to split apart the duct tape. But that doesn’t mean I want him to know that. In my prone position, with my ankles still bound together, I have no way of defending myself. That is, without getting myself killed in the process.

  For now, I hold my wrists together behind me, while he pulls me forward. Cocking his head over his shoulder, he shouts, “Get me one of them stools!”

  “Why?” Penny asks nervously. “What exactly do you plan on doing with it?”

  “Just bring it here, bitch.”

  “Do what he says,” Walton insists.

  When Penny hesitates, Walton pulls his service weapon, aims it at my wife’s face, thumbs back the hammer to show her he means business.

  “Jeepers, Penny, just do it, will ya,” Giselle adds. “What the hell did you think you were getting into when you agreed to this mission? A nice little picnic by the lake? I’m assuming Joel didn’t fill you in on all the details. But that’s neither here nor there. So either play right, or suffer the same darned consequences your husband is about to endure.”

  “What consequences?” Penny begs.

  “Just give me that damned stool already,” Singh orders. “And you’ll find out.”

  For the first time since I’ve come to, I open my trap.

  “Penny,” I say, “don’t listen to them. They’re just going to kill you in the end anyway.”

  Singh’s face goes wide-eyed. He cocks back his thick arm, belts me in the mouth.

  “Owe, jeeze, Singh,” I snap. “And to think I used to beat you up when we were freshmen.”

  “Revenge is a bitch, ain’t it, killer? That’s for taking my hand off.”

  “Hell you talking about?” I say, my head spinning, brain ringing. “I was just the driver that night.”

  “You leave him alone, Singh!” Penny barks. She comes rushing across the floor, raises her hand, strikes Singh. He turns fast, smacks her across the face. It’s all I can do to remain lying on my side. Maybe Penny deserves to be hit for what she’s done to our daughter. For her betrayal of our little family. But that’s not for Singh to decide.

  My head is fucking pounding.

  “Penny,” I say, “just do as they say, please. You don’t have to worry. Walton and Giselle aren’t about to kill anyone. They’ll never take that risk. Take it from me. Do you know what violent cons do to police who end up in prison? It’s not pretty, believe me.”

  Walton smiles, his teeth gray, his fat face filling with blood and oxygen. He takes a step forward, that service weapon still gripped in his shooting hand.

  “That what you think, O’Keefe?” he says. “You think I don’t have the stomach for taking a life in order to get what I want?” He releases a belly laugh. “Only reason you aren’t dead yet is because we need information from you. But tell you what, you wanna see what I’m capable of when properly motivated?”

  He turns toward the Stevenses, both of whom have been standing in the corner of the cabin between the fireplace and the front door, quiet as church mice. My guess is they expected to receive a substantial payment with the delivery of Singh and then it would be back to the beach. It’s the only reason they would wait around since they don’t seem the type to have been in on this plan from the get-go.

  Walton takes a few steps toward the couple, his pistol aimed for Burt Stevens’ face. Point-blank.

  “Easy with that thing, Chief,” Burt says, his Adam’s apple bouncing around inside his fat neck. “You’ll kill somebody if you’re not careful.”

  “Exactly,” Walton says.

  When he pulls the trigger, the entire cabin lights up in a white flash while the back of Burt’s head spatters against the log wall. The chubby man drops on the spot like a sack of blood and old bones. His wife’s face has received the brunt of the blood spray, her perfect hair now highlighted with bits of bone and brain matter. Her eyes are wide and wet, her lips trembling.

  She lunges herself at Walton, who casually steps out of the way. She smacks the opposite wall so hard, she drops onto her backside, her yellow dress hiked up onto her belly, exposing pink underpants. She screams, jumps back up onto her feet, runs left, runs right, and then finally sprints for the open cabin door.

  Singh is laughing so hard at the show, he’s bent over in pain.

  Penny is screaming, crying.

  Giselle is shaking her head in disgust, while Walton issues a kind of satisfied smile. Like all’s well with his world. He gives her a short head start before heading out the door in pursuit. If I lift my head up enough, I can see out the open front door, see her trying to make it across the overgrown lawn to the logging road. But then I hear the crack, crack, crack of the semi-automatic, and she does a full face-plant in the mud.

  Seconds later, Walton enters back into the cabin. He thumbs the magazine release on his gun, drops the partially empty mag into the palm of his free hand. Storing the mag in one of the narrow pockets on his utility belt, he pulls a full magazine from the belt, slaps that into the pistol grip, then pulls back on the slide.

  He’s once more locked and loaded, and most definitely headed for a death sentence inside some maximum-security joint. At the very least, the son of a bitch will never step foot in heaven.

  “So where were we?” Singh inquires, turning back to me. “Sorry about the rude interruption, killer. But you gotta admit, it was pretty funny. You see the look on that lady’s face when she kissed that wall? Too freakin’ funny.” Reaching down, he grabs hold of my collar again, pulls me out of the bunk. “Where’s the goddamned stool?!” he shouts. “I’ve got work to do.”

  Penny brings him the stool, this time without an argument. Sets it down only a foot or two from the bunk bed. I’m doing my best not to let on that my wrists are freed. In the meantime, I catch a quick peek at the wall-mo
unted gun rack. While the .30-30 is leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the room, the loaded shotgun is still stored on the rack. I don’t know if anybody has noticed the shotgun, or if anybody cares. All they know is they are in charge. They are in control.

  My hands and ankles are bound together. Supposed to be anyway. What difference would it make if there were one hundred shotguns lying around? Once I hand over the information Singh is about to torture out of me, I’m as good as dead. Penny and Chloe, too, if my instincts serve me right.

  Singh presses his hand on my shoulder, pushes me down onto the stool.

  “There,” he says, “that comfy, killer? Oops, sorry, I know you hate it when I call you that.”

  “Feels good, Singh,” I say. Then, working up a smile, “But before we get started, answer me a quick question. If you’re still alive, who’s inside your coffin?”

  “Hey, good question. None of these idiots thought to ask me that. You always were the smart one, killer, errrr, I mean, Sidney. Wemps was the dumb one. The coke head. I was always the jock. But you, you were the smart one. We always knew you’d go places.” He makes a fist, rubs it against the scarred stump of a wrist that used to support his left hand. “’Course, everything kind of got fucked up along the way, now didn’t it?”

  “Hey, man,” I say, “if it’s one thing you can count on, it’s a good life turning to shit.”

  “Amen, brother,” Singh says. Then, “God, we been friends for how long, bro?”

  “Forty years maybe, give or take.”

  He cocks back his good arm.

  “Then you know this ain’t nothing personal. It’s all business.”

  “You can bet your good eye on it, Singh.”

  Penny quickly turns her head. Walton takes on the evil sneer once more, like he’s really going to enjoy this show. Giselle crosses her arms over her chest, checks the time on her wristwatch like she’s late for a church meeting.

  “Can we just pretty please get this moving already?” the house detective adds. “We’ve got two dead bodies to deal with, and for the love of Pete, I can’t imagine we’re not on somebody’s radar by now.”

  “Good point,” Singh says. “The radar that belongs to the good police. If there are any of those left in Lake Placid.”

  This is the part where you might expect me to take my chances, go for the shotgun in the corner. But I do that now, Singh will be on me like flies on an open wound. I need to play a little rope-a-dope, wear him out a little.

  Here’s the thing: he’s only got one hand left. If memory serves me well, he took at least two bullets to the lungs on that fateful night all those years ago. He’s lost lung tissue. A lot of the tissue that remains has got to be scarred and useless, not unlike someone who suffers from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Basically, what I’m saying is, no way oxygen is moving through Singh’s tiny air sacks as freely as they might, say, on a man with a healthy pair of lungs. A nonsmoker preferably. It won’t take very long for him to get winded. I just have to hold out for a little while, pray those five facial nerves don’t give me so much pain I start spouting out the combination to Rabuffo’s vault. Only then, when Singh is too winded to punch, will I make my move.

  I survived ten years inside a maximum-security penitentiary. I’ve been beat up before. Take it from me, you only feel the first dozen or so fists. After that, the nerves tend to go numb. At least, that’s what I’m hoping for.

  “Ready, killer?” Singh poses.

  “Can’t wait,” I say.

  The glove-covered fist flies.

  CHAPTER 36

  HE SUCKS IN a semi-lungful of oxygen, then goes to town striking me maybe half a dozen times over the course of thirty seconds.

  I’m not gonna lie.

  My face is turning into miles of chewed-up roadbed. Feels like it anyway, thanks to those now throbbing five nerves. Both lips are bleeding. My two front teeth feel loose. My nose isn’t broken … yet. But blood is dripping from the nostrils. My left eye is nearly swollen shut, and if he does damage to the right eye, I’m as good as screwed. The chances of rescuing my daughter anytime soon will be almost nonexistent if I can’t see what the hell I’m doing.

  “You know what we want?” Walton says. “Just a sequence of numbers, O’Keefe. You give us the code, you go home. We’ll even release Chloe.”

  … You’ll also need my eye scan, you dope. But then, thank God he’s not aware of it, or he’d pluck my eye out of its socket …

  Penny turns quick.

  “I get my money, you son of a bitch,” she cries out. “After everything I’ve been through. After everything you’ve done to me and my family, I get my money. Joel gets his money also.”

  “You’ll get nothing unless I approve it,” Walton speaks. “And just remember this, dead women don’t need money.”

  Good. They’re arguing. Exactly what I want. Dissension among the ranks. It was bound to happen sooner than later. Something else I predicted is happening too. Singh is noticeably winded. Tired. Spent. His air sacks sucking wind like miniature balloons about to burst. He’d never reveal his condition to Walton, because he’d become worthless in the crooked cop’s eyes. My guess is Walton keeps him around to do the dirty work.

  I shake my head. The blood sprays off of me like a beat-up boxer up against the ropes.

  “What’s the matter, Singh?” I say, my voice slurred by the swelled lips and the combination of blood and saliva pouring out of them. “You’re not the epitome of athletic perfection anymore, are you? You’re all worn out. Just look at you. You look like a cyborg run out of gas.” I laugh just to add spice to my insult. “Go home, get some rest. Let somebody else do the man’s work.”

  His pale, sweat-coated face goes stiff, his good eye rolling around in its socket. He’s overexerting himself. Happens all the time to basketball players, and especially football players during hot summer afternoon double sessions. Even healthy high school kids have been known to drop dead on the field due to overexertion.

  “You shut the hell up, killer,” he says, inhaling and exhaling heavy breaths. “You always were a spoiled prick, always getting your way. I could have been like a son to Rabuffo. But after Wemps and I went out of our way to introduce you to him, you worked your charm, and as usual, got your little bratty way.”

  “Shut up, Singh,” Walton says. “Just do the job you’re hired on for. Keep your high school bullshit to yourself. Get the bastard to talk.”

  “You really think I know the code, Walton?” I spit. “Is that what Penny told you? Is that what all this is riding on? This house of cards? That I know the code to Rabuffo’s personal safe or, what are you calling it? The vault? He’s probably changed it by now.”

  “He knows it,” Penny interjects, while running both her hands through her thick hair. Something she does when she’s truly nervous. “He told me he knows the code. He … told … me. He also told me Rabuffo would never change it because he doesn’t know how to change it. He needs to bring technicians in to do that stuff, and Rabuffo hates exposing his underground lair to outsiders. And now he’s in jail, so what the hell chance is there of the code being changed at this point?” Then, her wet eyes gazing directly at me, “Please just tell them the code, Sidney, and we can get Chloe back and go home.”

  I laugh.

  “Now that’s funny,” I say. “Especially considering I admitted the true depth of my connection to Rabuffo only yesterday. Sounds like somebody else promised you I knew the codes. Who would that be, Pen? Joel Harwood, my lawyer? My friend on the outside? No wonder he negotiated my release so easily.”

  “Leave him out of this,” Penny says. “He took care of me and Chloe when you were gone.”

  “Now that makes me feel a whole lot better.”

  “You two stop your bickering,” Walton orders. “It’s like watching One Life to Live. You live through this thing, I’ll personally pay for a marriage counselor.” Then, pointing at Singh, “Get moving, you one-armed, one-eyed pile of shit. Gis
elle is right. Pretty soon we’re gonna have hell raining down on us if we don’t get this thing moving. I wanna be in Albany by early evening and have that vault emptied by nightfall.”

  “If the FBI aren’t already emptying it now,” Giselle points out, along with a profound sigh.

  Behind my back, I’m slowly separating my wrists. All I need is a few more moments and I can make my move.

  Singh cocks back his arm, punches me again. But here’s the thing. This time I lower my head, chin against sternum. As his punch is being delivered, he unexpectedly nails the crown of my forehead, the absolute hardest part of the skull. Many a professional boxer has ended their career with a connection to that part of a hard head. It’s an absolute wrist breaker.

  I see the pain streak across Singh’s already screwed-up face like an electric current as he retracts his fist.

  “Come on, Singh, you pussy. Let’s see what you got?” Me, egging him on.

  His wrist is in so much pain, he can’t even talk. Cocking back his arm, he issues a straight jab, followed by a right hook—the only hook he’s capable of considering the circumstances. But he’s so slow, I easily catch both of them with my forehead.

  This time he lets loose with a cry and a whimper while rubbing his injured wrist with his stump. It’s a pathetic scene. Tears are pouring out of his eye, and his one good hand … his one existing hand … is now swelled like a black balloon.

  That’s when I separate my wrists entirely.

  “Singh, you asshole!” Walton shouts. “Why aren’t you doing your job? Get to work.”

  “My wrist’s busted up,” Singh cries, shoving the swelled hand in between his thighs. “It’s all fucked up.”

  “Jesus H,” Walton grouses, holstering his sidearm. “Now I’ve seen everything. A torturer who ends up torturing himself. You know what? Screw this. We’ll find another way to get the code. I say we just kill O’Keefe and be done with it.”

  “No!” Penny screams.

  Walton stomps his way across the floor, shaking his arms out, his hands going in and out of fist position, bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet like he’s about to enter into a boxing ring. My face might be bleeding, the vision in my one eye now nonexistent, but I’m somehow able to lock eyes on Penny. She’s crying, her face filled with remorse for what she’s done to me. To Chloe. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part.