by Kit Crumb
“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, I’ve already made the arrangements. Peter, these men represent most of the South American organ black market. This could mean millions.”
“It could also mean the end,” Simms dropped his day planner in the drawer and slammed it shut. “Look what happened with Mason. You recruited him and he almost ruined everything.”
Rosie was quickly losing her composure and began to raise her voice. “But he didn’t, did he? And he became a donor and got the mob off your back.”
Simms suddenly grew pale. “God, don’t tell me you gave them his liver.”
“What does it matter?”
“You were supposed to bring up that Italian stallion so Clouse could pull his liver for them. Look, maybe you’re right and it doesn’t matter, and they can’t track us down. That’s not the point. I can’t trust you, anymore. You recruited Mason without consulting me and he nearly gave us away. What’d you do, recruit him with a good fuck? If it weren’t for me you’d just be a nymphomaniac running a pornographic film company so you could fuck all the actors. And the actresses for all I know. Shit.”
Rosie stood, placing both hands on the desk. “That’s not fair, you know about my condition. Sometimes I can’t help myself. Besides, you’re nothing but a doctor who lost his license for fondling a patient. My film company gave you the chance to step back into the operating room.”
Now Simms was on his feet. “You need me, Rosie. Anybody can do pornography but where are you going to find another surgeon?”
“You get more for one extraction than you made in the first five years of medical practice,” Rosie yelled. She spun on her heel and marched out of the room. Just past the door, she turned and leaned on the door jam.
“Oh, and Peter, Cecil Vinci and his contingent will arrive tomorrow evening expecting to sit in on the extraction of a liver … don’t disappoint him!”
Chapter Thirty
Her ears were ringing and her head throbbed. She moved just the fingers of her right hand, then her wrist. There was no feeling in her right leg, and her left leg felt like it was hanging in space. As she came fully conscious, she opened her eyes to total darkness but was afraid to move her head. The vision of Jan’s body, and all the others, came flooding in. She closed her eyes.
She didn’t know how much time had passed when she opened her eyes again. Her right breast ached clear up into her shoulder. There was still only darkness, and in that void Crystal remembered how Claire’s little penlight illuminated stacks of bodies, how they were everywhere and seemed to come alive in the light. Claire. Where was Claire? She opened her mouth to call out, and realized it was already open. She tasted dirt.
* * *
Claire walked bent over holding the penlight in an attempt to track Crystal down the tunnel. Her footprints seemed staggered; first, close together, then far apart. Was she running? Claire crawled on her hands and knees, getting the last of the illumination the little light had to offer. Then the prints stopped. Claire backed up, maybe Crystal had turned, but the last set of prints pointed straight ahead.
The little light glowed a dim yellow, Claire turned it off. She didn’t move, not wanting to erase one of the prints. When she turned the light on, shining it ahead, she gasped and fell back onto her haunches at what she saw. She was less than a foot from a vertical shaft.
She calmed herself, turned the light off and crawled on her stomach to the edge. Extending her arm to its full length, she again turned on the penlight. Nothing. Claire rolled onto her back placing the flashlight back in her pocket and pulled out her lighter. Spinning the wheel on the lighter Claire leaned into the tunnel, “Crystal can you hear me?” To her total amazement, the flame caught and flared. “Can you make a noise?” She slowly waved the lighter back and forth praying the flame wouldn’t go out.
From deep within the abyss came a clicking sound.
“Crystal! Hang on. I’m coming to get you.”
Claire held the lighter out in front of her until she got her bearings then snapped it shut. Making her way to the tunnel wall, she stumbled back to the room with the bodies and found the floor switch. Stepping down on it the room came to life with light from the four floodlights mounted in the ceiling. Once she found the heavy electrical cable that supplied power, she followed it down the wall, then along where the wall descended to the floor, out of the room and down the tunnel. When she came to what looked like an electrical box she began to twist the cable where it attached until it came loose and once again she was cast into darkness. Then came the task of pulling the cable up as she went, following it back to the room.
Madly pulling she managed to wrest it loose from the floodlights. Extracting the lighter, again she spun the wheel praying for a flame. For less than a minute, her prayers were answered; that was all she needed. When she figured she was within a couple yards of the vertical shaft, she dropped to her hands and knees, running her hands back and forth searching for the lip of the tunnel.
How would she secure the cable? She took out her lighter once again hoping for one more light, no luck. Then she remembered the matches.
She didn’t look at the flame as the match flared to life, she didn’t want to waste the time waiting for her eyes to adjust. Holding the match at arm’s length and moving it from side to side, she noticed a pile of debris against the wall across from her. Support timbers, an old iron wheel and spikes.
“Ouch,” she dropped the match, waved her hand up and down and stuck her finger in her mouth.
The wheel was the size of a truck tire. Once she got it upright, it was easy to roll to the edge of the shaft. The timbers were twelve feet long and solid redwood. Moving the one she needed took all her strength and ingenuity. She ended up sliding it, first one end then the other, until it was next to the wheel. Lifting one end of the timber just enough, Claire secured the electrical cable around it, making a loop on the other end. After lowering the looped end of the cable over the edge and calling out to Crystal, who did not respond, she pulled up on the cable only to meet resistance.
“Do you have the loop?”
A faint tremor of Crystal’s voice echoed up the shaft. “Yes.”
“Can you climb up?”
“No.”
“Just hold tight, I’m coming down.”
The cable was wrapped around the beam and she’d managed to flop the iron wheel on top to help hold it in place. Claire pulled on the cable one last time for assurance then slid on her belly over the lip of the shaft. Planting her feet on the wall, she pushed out and began walking down, just like she’d done a hundred times before. She and Rye had made hundreds of mountainside rescues, but they were in daylight. The wall of the shaft was smooth against her feet, but the cable felt secure in her hands. She paused to steady her breathing and thought she felt a tiny slip. First an inch, then a foot. In a panic, Claire imagined the steel wheel sliding towards the rim. She was half right; the wheel had already gone over the edge.
Claire dropped several feet, her hands burning as they slipped when the cable suddenly pulled tight. Gripping it until her knuckles turned white, she slammed against the wall, her feet frantically winding around the cable.
She never saw the wheel as it careened off the wall, but the impact off the back of her head nearly pulled her loose.
Chapter Thirty-one
Simms walked from the scrub area into the hall of the tiny clinic, where he joined Nurse Clouse.
“Good evening, Bonnie, have you seen Derrick? He was supposed to meet me in scrub.”
“Not since I sent him to finish the prep.”
The phone began to ring in the little office across from the scrub room.
“Excuse me, I’d better get that,” Simms said
With a look of resignation, he picked up the handset. “This had better be important, I just scrubbed.”
/> It was Hubble and he was all business, as usual. “We’ve had a private investigator asking about the Dodge.”
“Christ, you didn’t let him in did you? And why wasn’t I informed?”
The moment of silence that followed Simms’s question was typical of Hubble, but it still pissed him off.
“The PI was a woman, and you were locked away in your private office.”
Simms couldn’t stand Hubble and would have fired the man except he was a damn good attorney. He was on the verge of blasting him for not interrupting him in his office when Clouse poked her head in.
“Doctor, I just found Derrick, you’d better come quick.”
He hung up the phone, then dashed into the hall where he was met by a limping Derrick. Clouse was at his side offering him ice.
“C’mon, I got kicked in the balls not hit over the head,” Derrick said, grimacing in pain.
“Jesus Christ, what happened?” Simms said.
“I was coming down the hall to prep Crystal when I saw her with another woman heading for the exit. When I asked the woman who she was, well, she kicked me.”
“Did she say who she was?” Simms said.
Derrick looked embarrassed. “Yeah, she said she was Doctor Pain.”
Simms spun around, ducked back into the small office and snatching up the phone, punched the speed dial for Hubble’s office.
“Hubble, here.”
“Your PI kidnapped our patient. Get your fat ass to the clinic, stat!” Simms slammed the handset down.
“Derrick, how sedated was she?”
“Just a heavy local, enough to keep her from walking away. She couldn’t have gotten off the exam table on her own.”
“How long will it last?”
“At least an hour. She’ll be moving at a crawl if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Exactly. You and Bonnie head into the woods. I’ll wait for Hubble.”
The security camera had captured Claire and her Austin-Healey on tape. On a hunch, Hubble had gone out through the gate after Simms’s call, and found the little sports car less than a quarter mile down the road. Moving around the car, he let the air out of all four tires and pulled the registration.
By the time Hubble entered the clinic, Simms was livid.
“Where in the hell have you been? I’ve sent Bonnie and Derrick into the woods looking for your fucking PI. Shit, by now she and Crystal could be half way to California.”
With his usual understatement and aplomb, Hubble sat on the edge of the desk and waited for Simms to finish his rant.
“Actually, Mr. Simms, she’s not. I found her car parked on the shoulder of the road just down from the gate. They’re still in the woods, or may have found their way to the mine.”
“Shit, shit, shit! We can’t let them get to the mine and if they’re already there they can’t be allowed to leave. Get a flashlight and go to the mine; I’ll hike through the woods and see if I can find them.”
Simms was in the scrub room changing when the wall phone rang. It was the line used only by Rosie Rehnquist to confirm a sale.
“Rosie, we’ve got a real problem…”
“Thanks for asking, everything went fine,” Rosie said, and paused to let the fact that she was insulted sink in. “What’s the big problem?”
“A private investigator broke into the clinic and helped Crystal escape. I’ve got Hubble headed for the mine; Derrick and Bonnie are in the woods looking for them.”
Rosie nearly drove off the road as she listened to Simms and heard the fear in his voice.
“If they see what’s in the mine and get away, it’ll shut us down. We may have to leave the country,” Simms said.
Rosie let his words sink in. They couldn’t be allowed to escape, even without seeing the contents of the mine. Surely the PI had figured out what was ahead for Crystal. No, they couldn’t be allowed to leave. But, if they did, the film company, mansion, clinic—all would have to be shut down and the mine destroyed.
“Peter, are you there?” she said.
“Yeah, I’m here. I want you to shut down Lewd and Lascivious and get up here as soon as possible. I’m going to need your help.”
“There’s got to be another way!”
“Listen to me, Rosie…there is no other way. Whatever you have to do—do it and get up here on the double.”
“What if they never find the mine, couldn’t we just silence the PI?”
“Can’t take the chance. She’s not like your girls. Someone might come looking. Plus. we’ve got to deal with Derrick, Bonnie and Hubble.”
Chapter Thirty Two
When he saw the sign “Welcome to Denton by the Sea,” Rye cut the sirens and lights, and brought his speed down to the limit. Now he had to find Pericolo Lane. Prodded by an extreme sense of urgency he wasted no time and drove the ambulance into the first gas station he came to, and parked in front of the little store.
The place looked deserted. He quickly scanned the isles of chips, cookies and other snacks, but couldn’t find anyone.
“Hello, I need some assistance.”
A man suddenly popped up from behind the counter.
“Sorry, just looking for something.” The man glanced out the window. “That your ambulance?”
“Sure is. Can you direct me to Pericolo Lane?”
“Keep going north, two more blocks, then right just after the Book Nook. You won’t see a sign for a mile or so, but that’s Pericolo.”
Rye spun on his heel and headed for the door. “Thanks.”
The gas station store clerk stood watching until the ambulance pulled onto Main Street, and disappeared from sight.
Stepping in front of the register, he opened the till and began pulling out twenties, tens and fives leaving just sixty dollars in the drawer. It had been a busy morning. He knelt to his hands and knees setting the cash on the floor and began dialing the combination of the floor safe when the door buzzer went off. When he stood up, three men were half way to the register.
Two of them hung back while the third man limped up to the counter.
“Good afternoon, I’m trying to find Pericolo Lane.”
“Sure, north two blocks, hang a right just past the Book Nook. Stay on that road until you see the sign.”
“Thanks a lot.”
The two men were out the door as soon as they heard the directions, with the third one limping right behind.
The clerk watched them drive away giving little thought to the coincidence of two people asking for the same road within fifteen minutes. He knelt down behind the counter, opened the safe, pulled out a heavy cloth bag and put in the cash.
“Oh shit, forgot the damn receipt.”
When he stood up he was staring into the chest of a man in a blue tailored suit.
He looked up at the man’s chiseled features, partly obscured by sunglasses. “I didn’t hear you come in.” He became suddenly aware that he was still holding the cash deposit in his hand. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for 20415 Pericolo Lane.”
The clerk smiled, this had to be one for the books.
“20415 is way up there. You know, you’re the third person, like in minutes, looking for Pericolo Lane.”
The man in the blue suit turned to look at his two companions, also wearing sunglasses and blue suits.
“One of them drove an ambulance. Anyway, go north two blocks and take a right just after the Book Nook, that’s Pericolo.”
The clerk watched as the three men climbed into a big silver car and pulled out of the station, headed north.
Rye was driving the top-heavy ambulance as fast as he dare on the curvy road, watching every mailbox and gate for 20415. Glancing ahead as he approached a curve, he noticed a giant metal g
ate set between two stone pillars. He knew he’d found the address even before he saw the numbers. He drove for another quarter mile before he spotted an unchained driveway where he could turn around.
“Shit.” He nearly drove off the road when he spotted Claire’s Austin-Healey.
By the time he was back in his lane he’d passed the driveway where he was going to turn around and was getting frantic. He had slowed the ambulance to a crawl when a dirt road appeared on his right. He pulled in, cut the ignition and started jogging back the way he’d come.
He reached around to the holster clipped to the back of his pants when he noticed that all four of the Healey’s tires were flat. He kept his right hand wrapped around the handle of the .38 as he approached the car.
There was no blood, no sign of a struggle. But why were the tires all flat?
Looking down at the gravel shoulder, he could just make out a footprint. He immediately recognized it as one of Claire’s special EMT, size-eight shoes.
He stood for a minute taking it all in. Looking down the road he could see the massive gate, looking up the road he could see his ambulance. Another minute and he was back in the ambulance driving up the dirt road that seemed to parallel the gated drive. He caught glimpses of the paved driveway until the trees became too dense. He checked the dashboard clock—he’d been driving for fifteen minutes. When he looked back up, he could just make out a clearing ahead. He brought the ambulance to a stop, climbed out and stepped into the woods.
He moved in a crouch from tree to tree until he was at the border of a clearing. He was about to step into the open when two people emerged from the woods on the opposite side. A man and a woman, joined by a third person—all in a heated discussion.
As he strained to hear what they were saying, Rye failed to notice the three men creeping up behind the ambulance.
Chapter Thirty Three
The pain kept her conscious. With labored effort, Claire lowered herself down the cable, no longer attempting to walk down the wall.
She felt two hands around her hips moving up to her waist. “I’ve got you.” Crystal said.