Save Me from Dangerous Men--A Novel

by S. A. Lelchuk

  27

  I spent the night sleeping fitfully, wondering what Karen Li had hidden and how I could possibly figure out where it was in the next two weeks. It was starting to seem impossible. By early morning I had given up sleeping. I got dressed and headed for a taqueria down the block. If I was going to be awake thinking, coffee and breakfast might as well be involved. It wasn’t quite a plan, but having made even this small decision felt better. Outside the air was warm, the sky clear.

  They grabbed me on the sidewalk.

  Two of them. One on each arm. Hard. Squeezing up close to me so I couldn’t kick. Manhandling me toward a waiting black sedan. Someone inside the car shoved the rear passenger door open. They’d done this before. The whole thing took about five seconds.

  Statistically speaking, the chances of surviving a kidnapping decreased dramatically as soon as you left public space. For instance, as soon as you were shoved into the backseat of a car. I waited until I was almost at the car door before I jerked my head sideways into the right-hand guy’s chin. He swore loudly and spit blood. His teeth must have caught lip or tongue. That encouraged me. I gave his instep a hard kick and jerked my arm away, pivoting to my left and aiming a right hook at the man on my left. That didn’t work as well. He rolled his shoulder up and caught the punch without releasing my arm. Then he got the other arm around my neck and pressed in with his full weight. He must have had at least fifty pounds on me. I poked for an eye but missed. By that time the first guy had stopped cursing and grabbed me again. He crammed in on top of me, crushing me into the car, the one on the left already inside, pulling me by the neck. The choreography wouldn’t have got them hired by the Bolshoi Theatre, but it was effective enough. They got me in the car.

  The man to my right slammed the door shut.

  The car accelerated.

  I forced my body to relax. No point in wasting more energy. Not yet.

  “You almost made me bite my tongue off!” The right-hand guy spit blood savagely onto the floor mat and added a few extra words that wouldn’t have made it onto network television.

  “You’re talking just fine,” I pointed out.

  He swore again but I wasn’t paying attention. Because I’d been able to take a look at my captors. I’d thought I was in a bad situation. It was actually worse. I was sitting in between the two men from Mendocino. The one on the left was heavily built, wearing the same leather jacket as he’d had in the San Francisco café. He had a ruddy face, short neck, and sandy hair. His mud-colored eyes watched me closely. The one on my right was thinner, with a Vandyke beard and sports coat. Both his hair and skin were the color of pumice. Both men had obvious holsters under their jackets.

  I was seated in between the two men who had killed Karen Li.

  They didn’t seem concerned that I’d seen their faces.

  When it came to kidnapping, that was another not-so-good sign.

  The man in the leather jacket was rooting around in my purse. He found the Beretta first, then the collapsible baton, and my keychain with a little container of pepper spray clipped onto it. He tossed the purse onto the front passenger seat and said, “We gotta pat her.”

  The one on the right glared at me. “Don’t try to stop us.”

  “Or?”

  He shook his head impatiently. “So tough, aren’t you?”

  The man in the leather jacket ran his hands down my body. I forced myself to allow it. Not that I had much of a choice. He was thorough. Also, to his credit, not lecherous. He didn’t shy away from feeling between my breasts, against my hips, and between my thighs, but he did it without pausing or groping or any of the million dirty tricks men did when patting a woman down. He found everything. The brass knuckles in my jacket pocket. The flat black leather sap I kept in my back pocket. The tiny .32 Derringer pistol in the ankle holster in my right boot.

  The man in the leather jacket gave me a look. “Who are you looking to hurt, Nikki?”

  I ignored the question. “You know my name. What do I call you?”

  “You can call me Mr. Ruby.”

  The guy on my right chimed in. “You can call me Mr. Jade.”

  “How’s your tongue, Mr. Jade?” I asked him.

  He swore. I laughed. “Mr. Ruby. Mr. Jade. Sure, whatever. Where are we going?”

  I could see we were headed south along the freeway, skirting the east side of the Bay. Still unable to let go of the thought that they hadn’t bothered to blindfold me or wear masks or do any of the things people did to avoid being identified later on. Kidnappers essentially fell into one of two categories. Those who intended to release their victim. And those who didn’t.

  Mr. Ruby spoke. “Nikki, we’re going to ask you some questions.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “The easy kind.” He paused. “If you want to make them easy, of course.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then they get harder.”

  I watched the landscape blur by. We were doing a safe, unspectacular seventy. In a boring black Buick driving in a middle lane. Not slow, not too fast. Impossible that we’d attract the attention of some idling Highway Patrol cruiser. “Maybe I like the hard way,” I suggested.

  Mr. Ruby gave me a slow, semi-interested look. “No, Nikki, you don’t.”

  “And you know that how?” I was making conversation. Seeing what they’d say. It didn’t really matter what we talked about.

  “There are two types of people,” he answered. “The people who know they don’t like the hard way, and the people who think they do, but then realize they don’t.”

  “How about Karen Li? She didn’t seem like she liked the hard way. But she still got it.”

  Mr. Jade spoke, his words slightly slurred from his wounded tongue. “We’re going to talk about Karen Li, I promise you.”

  I didn’t reply. I could hurt one of them. Everything after that was up for grabs. The car was moving far too fast for me to jump out. Best-case scenario, I stunned the two of them long enough to get behind the driver. I could maybe get an arm around his throat, hit the wheel, or pull the emergency brake, and hope we didn’t bang into anything too permanent. Worst-case scenario, one of them shot me. Or the car ran into a concrete divider or over a guardrail.

  I decided to wait.

  We took an Oakland exit and got onto the Webster Street Tube, a stretch of underwater tunnel connecting Oakland to Alameda Island. We emerged and drove down quiet paved streets, heading west. Alameda lay in between Oakland and San Francisco. It had been used by Pan Am and then later the navy; more recently, a handful of distilleries had sprung up on its western side, taking advantage of huge, deserted hangars that seemed as ideal for gin as they were for airplanes. The streets were empty. Row after row of drab, uniform government-built buildings. The military didn’t have much interest in memorable architecture. The emptiness was striking, like we were driving through some abandoned movie set or plague-hit city.

  The car stopped in front of a building that looked like all the others. Fading blue paint over concrete, like a police barracks in a state that had sharply cut its budget a few years back. Mr. Ruby said, “We’re going to get out of the car and go inside, Nikki. I know you’re calculating odds. There are three of us. Don’t try anything.”

  I didn’t reply. There was no point. Mr. Jade got out quickly, and Mr. Ruby started edging me over to the open door, pushing his bulk against me, forcing me sideways. I considered trying to get to the driver’s seat, but the driver was turned watchfully toward me. Outside, Mr. Jade again took my right arm and Mr. Ruby my left. The driver walked ahead of us to unlock a plain metal door. Inside a pitch-black hallway he hit a switch and fluorescent lights came on. He unlocked another door, hit another light switch as we walked in. More fluorescents.

  We were in a room that looked identical to an elementary school classroom. Sky blue paint, tile floor, even a blackboard and a big metal desk up front. Facing the desk were several rows of desk-chair units, the chairs molded fro
m cheap orange plastic and welded to little pine desks that came around from the right-hand side. Being a lefty, I used to hate them even more for this. I turned to Mr. Ruby. “You’re not going to make me take the SAT, are you?”

  He didn’t smile. “Sit down.”

  I looked around. Shrugged. Sat. Unlike in most classrooms, these desks were bolted to the floor. The chair was too small and my knees pressed uncomfortably against the underside. “If this is the hard way,” I said, “you convinced me. How do third graders handle this torture?”

  Mr. Ruby sat on the big metal desk. Mr. Jade stood off to one side. The driver leaned against the door. The three of them watching me.

  I shifted in the chair, trying to get comfortable. “Which one of you killed Karen Li?”

  They exchanged a look. Turned back to me, smiling.

  “Are you crazy?” asked Mr. Ruby. “We didn’t kill Karen Li.”

  He sounded like he meant it. “Then who did?” I challenged.

  Mr. Jade laughed harshly and stepped closer, looming over the desk. His lip had started to swell up and he dabbed at it with a red-stained handkerchief. “Save the bullshit, Nikki. We didn’t kill Karen Li. You did.”

  28

  I stared at them. “What are you talking about?”

  Mr. Ruby was walking toward me. Hand reaching under his leather jacket. I tensed. He took an object out of his pocket and put it on the desk in front of me.

  The GPS tracker.

  “We know this is yours,” he said.

  “And we know you were following her,” added Mr. Jade. “We saw you in San Francisco.”

  “So you went back that night,” I said, understanding. “To the cabin. You killed her and then you went back there—looking for me? Because of what I had seen?”

  They exchanged another look. “Not exactly,” Mr. Ruby said. He took something else from inside his jacket and placed it next to the tracker.

  Suddenly, everything was very different.

  I was looking at a gold badge topped with a gold eagle. Three letters across the front.

  FBI.

  “Bullshit,” I said.

  Mr. Ruby gave a humorless smile. “Who did you think we were?”

  I tried to think what this changed, if I actually had two federal agents in front of me. I couldn’t decide whether it made things better or worse than if they had been a couple of run-of-the-mill hit men. “Am I under arrest?”

  “You should be,” Mr. Jade said, rubbing his swollen lip. “Assaulting a federal agent.”

  I laughed. “You call that assault?”

  “Easy, tiger,” said Mr. Ruby. I thought again of the moment by the ocean in Mendocino. His hands on her shoulders as I sprinted toward them, trying to save her life.

  “I saw what you were about to do to Karen,” I said.

  He was confused. “Do to her?”

  “You were about to push her off a cliff.”

  Their reaction wasn’t what I was expecting. They both broke into loud laughter. Even the driver started chuckling. Like some private joke everyone except me was sharing. “What?” I asked, annoyed. I didn’t like feeling dumb.

  “Push her into the ocean?” Mr. Ruby was still smiling. “You read too much pulp fiction, Nikki. I was comforting her. The woman was on the verge of a breakdown. She almost fainted.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. “And don’t talk to me about pulp fiction when the woman had her head knocked in that same day. What was she to you, anyway?”

  The smiles left their faces. Mr. Jade sat on a desk in front of me, his long legs crossed. “Karen Li was going to be our star witness.”

  “What?”

  “Forget that,” said Mr. Ruby. “We brought you here to ask you questions.” He waved the GPS tracker at me. “We have you in the same town as the deceased, on the same day. We know you were following her. We know you talked to her that afternoon. And we can put you at the scene of her death that night. Tell us, Nikki—why did you kill her?”

  I thought about everything they’d said so far. Smart money said to pronounce one word, “lawyer,” and then shut up. But they didn’t seem like they were going after me with a full-court press. They were probing, not attacking. Wanting to see what I’d give away. Saying they could put me at the scene was different from telling me directly that I had been seen. Which probably meant I hadn’t been.

  I made up my mind. “I didn’t kill Karen Li. But you know that already.”

  “Don’t tell me what I know,” Mr. Jade said, fingers twisting his goatee.

  “I found her. We were supposed to meet at her cabin. I showed up at the time we agreed on. She was already dead. I took off.”

  Mr. Jade squinted skeptically. “You left her there? Didn’t call an ambulance?”

  I shook my head disdainfully. “Don’t try to guilt-trip me. The woman was dead. As far as I knew, the people who did it were still in town.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Mr. Ruby said. “Why were you even there in the first place?”

  I shifted my legs again under the desk. Cops were cops. Half clever, and half not. They’d set a nice hidden trap and then get so proud of it they’d build a monument a mile high to mark the spot. “You already know that. I was hired to follow her by the company she worked for, Care4.”

  Mr. Jade looked at me. “Why should we believe that?”

  “Because you know it’s true.”

  “Prove it.”

  “The last time I sat at a desk like this, I was in elementary school. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now. If you want to show some cards, I’ll match. If not, book me or call me a cab.”

  They exchanged a look. “You want to play show-and-tell? Fine, you first,” Mr. Ruby said.

  I stood. “I’m getting a cramp. How’d you end up here, anyway, they slash your budget? Can’t afford San Francisco?”

  Mr. Ruby grunted. “Believe it or not, even the government tries to save money every now and then.”

  It was a relief to leave the cramped room and walk outside onto the street. We strolled along the potholed pavement, past rows of dilapidated buildings clad in the same faded blue paint. Across the water to the west was the San Francisco skyline. From the east spread the Oakland Port, high cranes silhouetted, shipping containers stacked into high walls.

  “You got your walk,” said Mr. Ruby. “So talk.”

  I told them most of it. Omitting only the parts involving Charles, Oliver, and Buster. When I finished I said, “Your turn. What was she taking, and what was she scared of?”

  Mr. Ruby’s face was drawn. “I’m not entirely sure we should share that.”

  “Cops,” I said. “Always holding up their end of a bargain.”

  “It’s an ongoing investigation.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Don’t go banging on my door if you think of any questions you forgot to ask. And I won’t go banging on your door if I happen to think of anything I forgot to tell you.”

  Mr. Jade glared at me. “Withholding information from federal agents is a felony.”

  I glared back. “Go sit on your damn felony.” I started heading off in the general direction of Oakland.

  “Nikki!”

  I kept walking. Not looking back.

  “Come on, Nikki. Wait.”

  I stopped and turned to Mr. Ruby. “What?”

  “You have to understand about Care4. You walked into quite the wasp nest.”

  “I didn’t walk into anything,” I answered. “The wasp nest walked into me.”

  “Karen Li wasn’t selling tech secrets on the open market or whatever crap Gregg Gunn told you. She didn’t care about that. Besides, she had enough money. The woman was very good at what she did and worked in an industry that throws more money at talent than the NBA.”

  “So what did she want?”

  Mr. Jade joined in. “She found out about something.”

  “Don’t be too specific.”

  “That’s the problem—there’s plenty to choose from. We believ
e Care4 has done all kinds of things wrong, everything from embargo violations to bribery. We’ve been building a case against them for some time.”

  “So Karen was helping you?”

  “Not at first,” said Mr. Ruby frankly. He scratched the side of his thick neck. “At first she refused, said she’d done nothing wrong, and that we should go find someone else and leave her out of it. Then, much more recently, she came back to us on her own. She had found out something new. Something worse—something bad enough that it changed her mind.”

  “What was it?”

  “We’re not sure, but it was urgent. Something extremely time sensitive. She had managed to hide some kind of evidence, but we have no idea what—could be anything from a warehouse full of gold bars to a single flash drive. We were supposed to meet her later in the week so she could give it to us.”

  “She didn’t tell you anything else about what it was?”

  People will die. Innocent people.

  “Just a name. ‘In Retentis.’ Some kind of internal project. All we know is that it was enough to scare her, badly.”

  It was the second time that week I had heard the strange phrase. In Retentis. The subject line of the e-mail that, according to Karen, had set everything in motion. “Can’t you find out what it means?”

  Mr. Jade answered, absently braiding the hairs of his goatee. “It’s not so easy. According to Karen, whatever is happening is being planned abroad. We don’t have jurisdiction. We’re trying to get subpoenas and search warrants, but we don’t have enough solid evidence to take to the courts and start the process. Which is a disaster, given that she told us that whatever is going to happen will—”

  He caught a glance from Mr. Ruby and stopped mid-sentence.

  “Happen on November first,” I finished. “So if we don’t figure it out by then, it’s too late.”

  They looked at me uncomfortably but said nothing. “Right?” I asked.

  Their eyes met and Mr. Ruby gave a barely perceptible shrug.

  “Right,” agreed Mr. Jade. “She told you, too?”

  “Yeah. So any guesses what it is?”