Desperate Measures

by Fern Michaels

  “Because I’m going to work night and day on this. I’m not going to be bound by rules and regulations and shift work. I won’t be sloughed off and I don’t have two hundred other cases staring me in the face. I’m a taxpayer and I have every right to expect the best this police department has to offer. Think of me as an extra pair of feet and hands. I won’t tire of this, Detective, you need to know that.”

  “Understood, Mr. Sorenson. We’ll be in touch.” He held out his hand. As a courtesy, Pete gave him a bone-crushing shake.

  Pete felt Nester’s eyes boring into his back when he weaved his way around the desks in his search for a path that would take him downstairs and out.

  When Nester was certain Pete was gone, he sat down at his desk and called Carl Weinstein at the FBI. The moment the agent identified himself, Nester told him about Peter Sorenson.

  “How much of a pimple on our ass is he going to be?”

  “Think of it in terms of a boil, Weinstein.”

  “Listen, I don’t know if you heard or not, but Adam Wagoner suffered a major stroke. He was taken to Walter Reed Hospital early yesterday. I don’t think he’s going to make it. He should have retired ten years ago,” Weinstein said callously.

  “No, I hadn’t heard. What does that do to the promise he made to Miss Stern, that she could communicate with her fiancé?”

  “Cancels it right out. You’re to say nothing, Nester. Do we understand each other?”

  “Yes.”

  The connection was broken. Nester stared at the black receiver in his hand. “Up yours, Weinstein.” He yanked a file from the stack on his desk and slammed it down. He did his best to stare off into space, but Pete Sorenson’s face kept getting in the way. “Poor, dumb son of a bitch,” he muttered.

  It was barely light when Pete crawled off the couch on Monday morning. He looked at his watch: five-twenty. He was starved and he itched. He padded out to the kitchen, threw a frozen steak under the broiler, then showered and shaved. He entered the kitchen in time to turn the steak. He brewed coffee, shoved frozen dinner rolls in the microwave, then sat down to make what Maddie called his infamous lists. He couldn’t do anything without a list. He had lists everywhere, in the bathroom, in the kitchen, in his briefcase, in his hip pocket. He even had a list that listed the lists. His colleagues said he was organized. He called it bad memory.

  His address book, the yellow pages, his legal pads, and a stack of pencils glared up at him. At six-ten he made his first phone call, to a colleague who sounded bright and alert, despite the early hour. “How’s it going, Pete?” he asked.

  Pete told him, then added, “I need a lot of favors, will you pass the word along? And I need the name of the best private dick in business. I owe you dinner and two tickets to the next Rangers game.”

  “I’ll get back to you before I leave for the office.” That would be in thirty minutes, since most of the lawyers he knew were out of the house by six-thirty and in their offices by seven, where they toiled till way past the dinner hour. He shook his head when he thought about the comparisons writers made between lawyers and used car salesmen. Every lawyer he knew worked their ass off, just the way he did, for his clients.

  Pete checked his steak, punched a few holes in it to make it broil faster. The rolls steamed inside their plastic bag when he removed them from the microwave oven. He spread two inches of blackberry jam on the sourdough rolls and wolfed them down, one after the other. He was on his third cup of coffee when his steak was done, just the way he liked it. Maddie liked hers still on the hoof. He shuddered when he thought of the bloodred meat she drooled over. He spread spicy brown mustard in a thin layer, then a thin layer of ketchup, and last added A.1. steak sauce. He cut it all up, tossed the bone in the garbage, and sat down with his lists.

  At exactly six forty-five the colleague was on the phone. “Write fast, Pete, I’m on the run. I’ve got motions, a deposition, two closings, and I have to somehow convince Judge Pettibone to give me a continuance on the Capricone business. What that means is, I don’t get to eat today. Marcia wanted to fool around last night and I fell asleep on her. She isn’t talking to me this morning. Ready?”

  “Yeah. Why do you do it, Mike?”

  “For the bucks, same reason as you do. I fucking hate it. I wish I was a truck driver tooling down the highways of life. Don’t think I’m kidding either. Here goes . . .”

  Pete wrote steadily, his own brand of shorthand. He thanked his friend. He made calls right up till nine o’clock, when he called a detective named Jakes and made an appointment to meet with him at a deli on First Avenue. His next call was to Annie.

  “I need a favor, Annie, a big one. I’m almost afraid to ask you, but here goes: Can you possibly take a leave of absence and come to New York and operate Fairy Tales? I’ll make it worth your while, and if they fire you, I’ll get you a job paying three times as much as you’re making, or you can work for me. I need your answer now, Annie.”

  “You got it. I’ll be there early this evening.”

  “Annie, I don’t know how I can ever repay you. I swear, I’ll make it up to you.”

  “We’re friends, Pete. You’d do it for me, wouldn’t you?”

  “Hell yes.”

  “Any news?”

  “I’m working on it. I filed two Missing Persons reports last night. I’m hiring a private dick. I’m doing everything I can think of. If you have any ideas, I’d like to hear them.”

  “It almost sounds like ... like they were . . . this is going to sound silly, but it sounds like they were spirited away by someone.”

  “I’m beginning to think the same thing. I’ll see you this evening.”

  Jesus, what a friend, he thought after hanging up.

  Pete’s next call was to his uncle Leo. Unlike all his hardworking lawyer friends, Leo didn’t arrive at his office until ten-thirty or so. Pete called the house and was told Leo had an early morning breakfast appointment and would be in the office by ten. Pete was sitting in the waiting room when Leo entered through the huge plate-glass doors.

  He looks slick, Pete thought. He felt the urge to finger the material of his uncle’s suit. He was blow-drying his hair these days. He’d never noticed before. He also had clear polish on his nails, a manicure. The tie alone cost at least three hundred dollars, but his shoes looked scruffy and unshined. The shoes and the plastic briefcase were so at odds with the rest of Leo’s look that Pete winced. Hell, everyone had quirks. He had a few himself.

  Leo Sorenson’s office was plush. There was no leather anywhere to be seen, not even on the priceless books stacked neatly on the shelf, all cloth-bound. The furniture was deep and comfortable, covered in a rich, textured, nubby material that caressed one’s fingertips. The carpet was thick and deep, covering the tips of his shoes and somehow working upward to meet the drapes in a continual flow of eye color. Maddie would call it a symphony of color, but only because of the slashes of brilliant paint on the walls that were framed in stark aluminum. Now, the early morning sun turned the greenery into long-leafed emeralds. Directly in Leo’s line of vision, if he was sitting at his desk, was a medium-size fish tank with tropical fish of every color.

  If I were a client, Pete thought, as he sat down across from his uncle, this room would intimidate the hell out of me. And it would make me want to put a rubber band around my checkbook.

  Leo settled himself in his padded, woolly chair. “To what do I owe this unexpected visit?” he asked carefully, not liking the look on his nephew’s face.

  “I need . . . a favor. If you don’t like the word ‘favor,’ help is what I need,” Pete said quietly.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, Peter, but I believe this is the first time you’ve ever come to me for . . . help. I’ve often wondered why you kept yourself so distant from me. I never pried into your affairs. I guess the time is passed when . . . we should have discussed your grudges, if you had any. As you know, I never had a child, didn’t know the first thing about raising a boy. If I made
mistakes, you didn’t say anything.... Why are you here, Peter?”

  He’s nervous, Pete thought. He doesn’t like me any more than I like him. Somewhere along the way, after those first years, their true attitudes toward each other had come out. Now, instead of answering his uncle’s question, Pete asked one of his own: “Why don’t you like me? Is it because I look like my father? I know you two didn’t get along. I still have the surfboard,” he blurted. He felt childish, suddenly out of his depth.

  “I know. I hope you get to use it someday.”

  “Don’t worry, I will.” He cleared his throat. “I know you have contacts all over this city, all over the world. I need you to ... what I would like to ask you is, will you help me find Maddie?”

  “I can try, Peter. I only work half days in the summer. Will tomorrow be soon enough?”

  “Can’t you make some calls today? You’re a personal friend of Morgenthau, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Leo said carefully.

  “I filed Missing Persons reports for Maddie and her friend Janice. The detective I spoke with gave me the impression he wasn’t going to bust his ass to go out there and scour the city. I was supposed to get married yesterday. Ask Morgenthau if he can come down on the detective, his name is Nester, and get some push behind him.”

  “And I could come out of this looking like a fool if it turns out your girlfriend took off and left you high and dry. I don’t like to be made a fool of, Peter.”

  “She didn’t leave me high and dry. She just opened a million-dollar business. Why would anyone in their right mind go off and leave that behind? You just don’t close the doors and walk away from something like that. She would have left me a note. Maddie is an upfront person. I have this feeling she’s been spirited away. Abducted is not out of the question here. She’s goddamn gone, and I want her back, her friend too. The cat’s gone too.”

  “She called my office,” Leo said, “left her home phone number, and when I tried to return her call, the operator said her phone was disconnected. I was out of town for a few days when the message came in. She called a second time at my home, but I was out for the evening. She left the hotel number, but when I called it, the operator said no one was registered by that name.”

  Leo rummaged in his desk drawer until he came up with a wad of pink message slips. He licked at his index finger as he flipped through the slips. “See, here it is!” He handed the slip over to Pete, who looked at it, with concern. “And here’s my telephone log. See, I returned her call and made a notation that the phone was out of order.”

  “So she was trying to get in touch with me through you. Now I’m more convinced than ever that something happened to her.”

  “You might be right, Peter,” Leo said thoughtfully. “I’ll call Robert this morning. I’m sorry about your wedding.” Pete nodded, his mouth a grim, tight line. “Is there anything else, Peter?”

  “No. I assume you were satisfied with the deal I put through.”

  “More than satisfied.”

  “Then you’ll understand if I put any future business on hold for a while. I need to devote all my time to finding Maddie, and I can’t do that with business hanging over my head. Besides, I’m burned out. I need a break.”

  “You take breaks and rest on your laurels when you’re sixty-five, not when you’re in the prime of your career. Business is business, Peter. A week off, but you’re on call. The Midwest deal is heating up. You’re needed. We’ve been working on this deal for three years. With your expertise, we might ace out the Japanese. You do have a contract, Peter.”

  “It has four months to run and then I’m out. It’s time I learned how to use that surfboard. Don’t push me on this, Leo. I’ve given you my blood and sweat for the past seven years. I’ve made you so much money, you’ll never be able to spend it even if you live to be a hundred. Jesus, I don’t ever want to have to come into an office on Saturday and Sunday. I’m sick and tired of ninety-hour weeks. Half the time I forget what day it is or what city I’m in. I make lists. Lists, Leo. I can’t function without lists. What the hell kind of life is that?”

  “A life with lists that gives you a very nice living,” Leo replied, chuckling.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It was a nasty little apartment off A1A in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The ancient kitchen was loaded with roaches. The walls were a dingy eggshell color, the floor covered with cracked linoleum. The padding on the kitchen chairs was ripped and held together with gray electrical tape. Bits of dry egg yolk and purple jelly decorated the aluminum ridge around the Formica table. The one window was so grimy, Maddie had to wipe a circle with a wad of toilet tissue to see through it.

  Days earlier she’d refused to eat anything that came out of the filthy, ugly refrigerator that was painted pink. At one time it had been blue, and another time a dingy beige. She’d amused herself one day by picking at the peeling paint. That and counting the roaches was her entertainment.

  The tiny living room and even smaller bedroom were horrors she didn’t want to think about. She’d demanded the marshal guarding her go down to the strip to bring back oversize beach towels because she refused to sit on the furniture, since it smelled of dry urine and decayed food. She absolutely refused to sleep in the sagging bed, with its thin mattress and ugly spread the color of charcoal. The tattered edge gave testimony to the fact that the spread was once a grayish-pink floral pattern. It too smelled of something Maddie couldn’t identify until the marshal said it was a marijuana sex smell. She’d bolted from the bedroom, to the marshal’s amusement.

  She was nervous now, irritable with the lack of sleep and decent food. She felt dirty and knew she smelled, but there was no way she was going to use the filthy tub, which seemed to be growing some kind of fungus.

  “Whoever owns this place should be put in jail,” Maddie muttered. “I’ve been here eight days. You said it was only going to be a matter of hours. When are we leaving here?”

  “When we’re told it’s safe to leave. We’ve been through this a hundred times, Miss Stern.”

  “It must be a hundred and ten degrees in this place. Look at my hair, it’s frizzing up, and we’re inside. I want to move to a decent place. I don’t want to stay here. I want a bath in a clean tub. Is that too damn much to ask? You people didn’t tell me it was going to be like this. You said hours, not days. I want out of here. You said I would be given my new identity and taken away within hours. Do you hear me? Listen to me, I’m talking to you,” Maddie shrilled.

  “Miss Stern, I don’t make the rules, I just obey them. You signed on, now you have to live with it. I’m sure it isn’t going to be much longer.”

  “That’s what you said yesterday and the day before that and the day before that. I demand you take me out of this ... this fleabag. Oh God, there’s a cockroach crawling up my leg. I want out of here,” she said, swatting at the roach. “If you don’t get me out of here, I swear to God I’ll ... I’ll throw one of those kitchen chairs through that damn dirty window. Are you listening? You aren’t keeping your promise. You said a few hours. It’s now close to a hundred hours. I won’t stand for it! You better listen to me,” Maddie said, hysteria creeping into her voice. “You have no right to take me out of my environment and put me in this . . . this hellhole. You call somebody, and you call them now!”

  “It won’t do any good, Miss Stern. This is all a process, and you can’t hurry up this process. You have to be patient. Now, why don’t you sit down and watch television.”

  Maddie paced, wringing her hands, her eyes taking on a wild look. “Married people spend less time together than we do. Explain that to me.” She didn’t like the way she sounded, didn’t like the edge creeping into her voice. “I feel like killing you and walking out of here,” she blurted.

  The marshal snorted, but his hands moved upward to touch his shoulder holster. Maddie saw the slight hand movement. Her shoulders slumped. She walked back to the kitchen to stare out of the window.

  It was all
going wrong. Nothing was the way Nester said it would be. Janny, if she wasn’t in the same predicament, was probably following the plan they’d made and placing her ads in the paper and wondering why there were no ads from her. And Pete, where was Pete? What was he thinking, feeling? Did Adam Wagoner keep his promise to tell him where she was? There should have been word by now. Nothing was working out. She might as well be dead. Maddie Stern was dead. She tried to square her shoulders but failed miserably. She didn’t even have a name anymore. If right now, this minute, she walked out onto the street and tried to buy something, she couldn’t. Unless she had cash in her hand. She couldn’t rent a car or drive it. Her birth certificate was gone. Maddie Stern didn’t exist. Tears dripped down her cheeks.

  Maddie stomped her way back to the living room. “You people are not keeping your end of the bargain. I did everything . . . gave up everything. I deserve better, and I damn well demand better. I don’t believe anything you say. I’m leaving here, and don’t try to stop me. Everything was a lie to get us to agree to go into this damn program.”

  The marshal stood up. Would he dare attack her? Maddie wondered. A surge of adrenaline rushed through her. She eyed the grimy door with its peeling layers of paint. She was in shape, but then so was the marshal. The two locks might give her a bit of trouble and she could lose seconds. She had to get out of this place, that’s all there was to it.

  “I can’t let you do that,” the marshal said, not liking the wild look in her eye. “Look, I’ll make a call, sit down and let’s discuss this.”

  “It’s too late to discuss this. We’ve been discussing for eight days. I can’t stand it. I don’t care. You people lie, you don’t keep your word. I don’t owe you anything. If you try and stop me, I’m going to scream my head off.”

  The annoyance and frustration building over the past eight days erupted into anger so hot and scorching, Maddie felt light-headed. She started to mutter and curse under her breath as her pacing became frenzied, her sneaker-clad feet making slapping, shuffling sounds on the imitation wood floor.