by Lisa Unger
There was a dispute between the couple—middle-aged, childless, working good jobs, the woman in publishing, the man a public school teacher—and their landlord. They lived in a three-bedroom apartment that, if they vacated, could be rented for four times what they were paying for it, having lived there since the late seventies. For weeks there were news stories, posters all over the city. Then nothing; they faded from the city’s memory. Jeffrey remembered the maddening feeling that they wouldn’t ever be found, that no one would ever be certain if they were alive or dead, or what they might have endured in their last few hours on this planet. A life interrupted, no reason why.
Their disappearances coincided within a few weeks of police finding dismembered limbs on the Jersey side of the Henry Hudson. A couple of legs, some arms, a hand. Thought to be the work of the Russian mob, and in conjunction with allegations that the landlord had connections with the same organization, police thought initially that the mystery had been solved, as least as far as their end was concerned. Turns out the limbs belonged to someone else. Never identified. Another unsolved mystery … another miserable end.
He thought about Lydia now, feeling his heart begin pounding in his chest with fear for her, fear for himself. Where was she? Where was Jed McIntyre? Was this his plan, to keep Dax and Jeff locked up until he’d finished with her? He struggled against his bindings, which felt as if they must be duct tape. Panic was a swelling tide within him and he tried to keep it from choking him. He’d failed her so many times in the last few months, failed to protect her, failed to protect their child. He could barely stand the thoughts that were racing through his mind. Again the groan, bringing him back to himself.
“Dax?”
“Why the fuck did you come, man? That was the worst Australian accent I’d ever heard,” said the darkness. “Christ, you’re stupid.”
“I saw your number on the caller ID,” he said lamely, hating himself for ignoring his instincts. Fucked by technology.
“He took my phone,” said Dax miserably, somewhere down and to the left.
The other way in which life differed significantly from the movies was that much of it is a series of stupid mistakes, unplotted, unplanned, reactionary.
When he’d pulled up to the warehouse in the meatpacking district, he first saw the Rover, parked, headlights on, driver’s door standing open. Next, he’d seen Dax lying face down in a pool of blood. Forgetting every moment of training he’d ever had, not even thinking for a second who could be lurking in the darkness, he’d jumped from the Kompressor and run to help his friend. He saw too late that Dax’s mouth was gagged, his eyes open and wild with warning. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw a small form emerge from the darkness. In a surreal moment, a midget raised a blackjack and nailed him in the temple.
“Was there a midget?” Jeffrey asked Dax.
“Fucking midget,” answered Dax. “I’m going to kill that little turd.”
“What’s your situation right now?”
“I’m in trouble, man,” he said, his voice thick and slow, as if he were just barely holding on to consciousness. “That little dwarf sliced the back of my calves. I think I’m missing some teeth. I taste blood. I’m bound, can’t move.”
“Shit,” said Jeff, his stomach hollowing out. “Hang in there, buddy. It’s going to be okay.” Panic was replaced by a lethargy, a feeling of desperate hopelessness.
That was the other way in which life was so different from fiction. Not everyone always gets out alive.
chapter thirty-two
Lydia felt an odd calm as she walked down the cold empty street, a light snowfall crunching beneath her feet. The lamps created circles of light in a dark winter sky and the snowflakes that fell there glittered like stardust. On one level, she was scared—terrified, of course. That part of herself seemed to exist beneath a surface of soundproof glass, banging, screaming, but unheard. Mostly, she was numb. She had the sense that every moment of her life since the death of her mother had led her to this moment. She thought of what Julian Ross had said about the music written for her, the notes one chose to play or not. But Lydia wasn’t quite as passive as that. She had written this symphony for all of them and she recognized it now. Hadn’t she in a way forced the hand of fate? If she hadn’t lived the life she had, chasing monsters, pulling back the curtain on evil, would she be here now? Would Dax and Jeffrey be in danger … or worse? She knew as a fact that they would all be somewhere else this moment. She couldn’t say if it would be a better situation or a worse one, though it was a safe bet it couldn’t be much worse. But they wouldn’t be here.
If she hadn’t written With a Vengeance, the book about Jed McIntyre and his crimes, he may never even have thought of her again while he rotted away in the New York State Facility for the Criminally Insane. If she and Jeffrey hadn’t gotten into that mess in Miami, Jed McIntyre would still be locked away. She took a sharply cold breath of air into her lungs and stopped herself. This was a mental spiral that could only lead to a loss of focus. And she needed to be focused right now. She could self-flagellate later, when they were all safe.
She didn’t have far to go. Just to the abandoned subway station at Prince and Lafayette. She was to walk down the stairs and wait at the gate. She thought of the network of tunnels Dax and Jeffrey had described to her. She was about to see them for herself. She paused at the top of the stairs and wondered, not for the first time, if she should call Ford or Agent Goban. Somehow she didn’t quite believe that McIntyre had the ability to know what she was doing, that he was watching her, or had some way to listen to her phone; but she was reluctant to take the chance. As if in answer to her musings, the phone in her pocket rang. She retrieved it and put it to her ear.
“Well,” said Jed McIntyre. “What are we waiting for?”
Jeffrey was sitting on some kind of rickety wooden chair, each ankle bound to a chair leg, each wrist bound to its arms. Dax was gnawing at the binding on Jeffrey’s ankle like a rat. Since Dax was tied and on his belly, that was the only binding he could reach. Occasionally he would stop and spit, make a noise of distaste. Jeffrey slowly moved his foot and ankle forward, trying to put stress on the tape. They didn’t seem to be making much progress, until suddenly Jeffrey had more freedom of movement. The hope gave him strength and after a few minutes, he snapped the ankle free.
“Now what?” said Dax. “What are we going to do with this free ankle? Kick our way out?”
He had a point.
“Knock yourself over,” suggested Dax. “And I’ll try to get the bindings on your hands.”
Jeffrey began to rock himself and eventually toppled to the side, landing hard on cold concrete.
“Does this type of thing really happen?” he asked.
“I heard that some people are actually hiring companies to kidnap them. I mean, like, attack them on the street, take them away in a van, and tie them up like this. They predetermine the number of days they’ll be held, what kinds of things they want to happen to them. They try to get away. For fun. Can you imagine? There are too many idiots with money in this city.”
“No shit.”
Awkwardly, they snaked their bodies closer to each other, and after a few minutes of adjustment, Dax went to work on one of Jeffrey’s wrists.
“You know,” said Jeffrey, “in some cultures we’d have to get married now.”
Dax spit. “Bloody homo.”
Standing behind the gate was a homely midget. He was filthy, with a big face and a striped stocking cap; in his hand he held a key, which he passed through the gate to her. Lydia suppressed the urge to run screaming. When she leaned in to him, she saw that his beard was full of crumbs and that he gave off a strange odor, some combination of body odor, foot rot, and baked goods. He smiled a dirty smile at her, his teeth brown and filmy, as she swung open the gate. He took the key back from her and locked it behind them, then he jumped down on the tracks. She followed quickly, landing awkwardly and almost dropping to her knees. She’d never tho
ught to carry a flashlight. The dwarf seemed comfortable with the darkness, so she kept her eyes on him and stayed close to the wall as the relative light from the abandoned station behind them faded, becoming smaller until it disappeared altogether.
The dwarf jumped though a hole in the concrete, and, pausing to look through, all Lydia could see was black. The darkness seemed alive with ugly possibilities and she was aware that her heart was pounding in her chest, every nerve ending in her body pulsing with fear and the desire to flee. She could hear the skittering of rats, but she couldn’t see them. The sound of their tiny, clawed paws seemed to come from above and below her, all around. She steeled herself and followed the midget through the hole like Alice in some sick urban Underland.
They were making progress until Dax passed out. His head just kind of got heavier against Jeffrey’s arm, and Jeffrey felt a wave of fear.
“Dax? Dax?” he said uselessly, his voice bouncing off the concrete that surrounded them. He forced his own breathing to quiet, and was relieved to hear Dax’s. He couldn’t begin to imagine how much blood Dax had lost.
For a second he almost believed that this was a nightmare, not real. He didn’t want to believe they were going to die down here; thinking thoughts like that was suicide. But things were looking grim. He continued to turn his wrist, working it in circles and trying to stretch the tape and put stress on the tear Dax had made. He thought of Lydia, imagining that this piece of tape was the only thing that kept him from seeing her again, that kept him from holding her safe and warm in their apartment. He imagined that it was the only thing that kept them from putting an end to Jed McIntyre. Finally, he pulled his hand free. He had a moment of elation and relief. He reached out his hand to touch Dax’s neck, feeling for a pulse. It was weak; but he was alive.
He went to work on the other hand, the left half of his body free now. He imagined that getting this hand loose was the only thing that was going to save Dax. And it wasn’t far from the truth. Dax groaned next to him.
“Hang in there, Dax. Hold on.”
It was then that he heard someone approaching in the darkness. Jeffrey held his breath, every nerve in his body on edge. There was silence again and he started pulling desperately on the other bindings. The sound of chains and a padlock coming undone made him freeze. He came as close to praying as he ever had. A door swung open and a large form stood in the doorway. It was lighter outside than it was in the room where they were being held, but he still couldn’t see the face of the person standing before them.
“You boys are in a lot of trouble … again,” said a voice Jeffrey recognized.
She didn’t know how long they had been walking and the darkness was disorienting. She felt closed in and was having difficulty breathing in the dankness. Though she was trying to remember where they had turned by running her hands along the wall, feeling for abnormalities that she would remember if feeling her way out, it seemed fairly hopeless. She had no idea where she was, and if she turned and tried to leave, she might be wandering the tunnels forever.
She followed her guide more just by hearing him than actually seeing him. He shuffled his feet loudly, maybe on purpose so she could hear him. Or maybe that was just the way he walked … quickly, rushing, shuffling his little feet. He hadn’t said a word and she wondered if he was mute. She started talking, mainly just to make herself feel better.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked him. “What’s he giving you?”
He didn’t answer her, just gave a little snort that was maybe meant to express disdain.
“Because he’s using you, you know. When you’ve fulfilled your purpose he’ll kill you and never think twice about it. So anything he’s promised you is a lie.”
“Shut up,” came a small, whiny voice from in front of her.
Bull’s-eye, she thought with an inner smile.
“It’s true. He doesn’t care about you. He’s not your friend.”
She had given it a little thought while feeling her way through the darkness. What would motivate someone to do the bidding of Jed McIntyre? The life of a homeless dwarf couldn’t be an easy one. He was probably scared a lot of the time, lonely, a misfit even in a land of misfits. Money doesn’t buy loyalty for very long, generally. But fear can, gratitude, maybe for a time. Maybe Jed was offering him protection.
“You think he’s looking out for you. But as soon as he has what he wants, he won’t need you anymore, Shorty.”
“Don’t call me that,” he said, his voice defensive and angry.
She grinned at her victory. Even in moments of mortal danger and terrible fear, Lydia really had a knack for fucking with people’s heads.
“Just tell me what he promised you. Is he protecting you? He’s going to leave you here when he goes, trust me. He’s not taking you with him. Besides, I’m going to kill him. Then you’ll have to answer to me.”
The midget laughed and it sounded at once childlike and sinister.
“Yeah, right. You’re going to kill him.”
“Watch me. Then we’ll see who’s laughing.”
His giggling stopped abruptly. “When he’s done with you, you’re not even going to want to live.”
The words sent an army of chills from her neck into her fingertips. She wanted to pull out her gun and make the dwarf wet his pants and weep for mercy. But if she killed him, she’d never find Jeffrey. If she never found Jeffrey, then the little bastard would be right after all.
“When this is over, I’m going to have mercy on you, Shorty.”
“Isn’t that generous?” came another voice out of the darkness. “You’re a better person than I am, Lydia Strong.”
Suddenly there was light and the darkness seemed to skitter away in the beam of the powerful flashlight. In the momentary blindness that followed, she heard Jed McIntyre laugh.
She struggled against arms that wrapped around her from behind, arms as cold and strong as lengths of chain. One impossibly powerful arm held her immobile across the chest and another wrapped tightly around her throat. She tried to twist away from him, feeling weak against his superior weight and the intensity of his grip on her. When she stomped down hard down on his foot, his grip loosened for just a moment and she managed to free an arm. Her hand flew to the shoulder holster but stopped dead when she felt the steel of a blade against her neck. It was so sharp that just the lightest touch nicked her skin and she felt a warm vein of blood trickle down her neck. Her breathing came harsh and ragged.
“This would be a good time to hand over your weapons, Lydia,” Jed McIntyre said reasonably. “I can feel one here at your back.”
Releasing her arms but keeping the knife pressed to her throat, he pulled the Glock from her waistband and handed it to the dwarf. “I dislike guns,” he said. “They’re so sloppy.”
The dwarf pointed it at her, his grin superior and malicious. She wondered if he realized she had the safety on. It was a piece of information she’d hold on to for the time being. Her mind was oddly clear in spite of the horror and unreality of the situation. Things seemed to be happening very slowly.
Jed McIntyre removed the Smith and Wesson from the holster and pushed her away from him; she hit a concrete wall hard. She raised a hand to her neck and felt the wet stickiness of her own blood. It looked black on her fingers.
Jed McIntyre picked up the flashlight that lay on the ground and shone it under his face. He looked ghoulish in the harsh white light, creating black circles under his eyes, his teeth yellow and shining. His red hair was a chaos of wild curls.
“You can’t imagine how long I’ve been waiting for this moment, Lydia. Doesn’t it feel like destiny?”
With that he pointed the revolver at the dwarf, whose malicious smile melted into uncertainty. He let go a little laugh, his eyes darting from Jed to Lydia and back to Jed. “What are you doing?” he asked, voice cracking. “Come on, Jed. It’s not funny.”
“I wouldn’t shoot that in here if I were you,” said Lydia, looking around at the co
ncrete tunnel they were in. At such close range the bullet would pass through the dwarf and ricochet all over the tunnel.
“Sorry, Horatio. It’s been great.”
Horatio swung the gun he had pointed at Lydia toward Jed. It was too big for his hands, but he managed to reach the trigger. But the gun wouldn’t fire. Those pesky safeties.
McIntyre fired the revolver and Lydia dropped to the ground, curled herself in a ball, and covered her head with her arms. The echoing bang must have been heard for miles.
Horatio issued a girlish scream that ended abruptly in a horrible gurgle. She heard him fall to the floor, heard him rasping and convulsing there on the ground for thirty seconds, maybe more. She heard the sharp scream of the bullet as it bounced off the walls, twice, maybe three times before losing momentum, all the while waiting to be struck by it. She leaned against the wall, feeling pity and revulsion, terror and rage come in flashes, competing with one another in intensity. Then there was silence.
“I hope I didn’t act in haste,” said McIntyre, musing.
Horatio’s leg twitched horribly for a few seconds more as blood drained from a throat wound. Lydia felt pity for him as she got to her feet to stand face to face with Jed McIntyre.
chapter thirty-three
“Ford?”
“Rose.”
“How are you?”
“Can’t complain.” His throat felt as dry and his hands as shaky as a boy talking to his crush. An awkward silence fell between them. They were strangers to each other now. Strangers who shared a twenty-five-year past.
“Where are you?” he asked finally.