Angelina's Oak

by Jesse Reiss

Chapter 14

  When James exited the train Paula flipped out her cell phone and tried to dial Angelina’s number. She had no service. The train continued on to the next stop: Highland Avenue. It seemed to take forever. She stood by the door, urging it to go faster.

  As soon as the train stopped and the doors opened she ran out and up the large flight of stairs into the cavernous rooms that led to further escalators and stairs. The cell phone signal came to life and she hit redial.

  Straight to voicemail.

  That means either the phone battery ran out or was turned off by whoever has her or she is in the tree where she gets no serv — Paula tossed that ridiculous idea out. That was impossible.

  She dialed Jacqueline’s number and she answered on the first ring.

  “Jacq — I’m at the Highland Metro exit.”

  “I’m coming now. Do you need me to call the cops or ambulance or something?”

  “No. I’ll do that myself.”

  Paula reached the long escalators heading up to Hollywood Boulevard and the Hollywood/Highland Mall complex and started briskly walking up them. She thought to dial 9-11 and decided to go back to her recent calls and call back Stanley who she had so rudely chewed out. Shame and regret surged through her as she realized she had falsely accused yet another person for her troubles. She didn’t think he would ever act nice to her again.

  The escalator reached the top, dumping its cargo right out onto the Hollywood Boulevard sidewalk at the large Hollywood/Highland Mall, facing Disney’s El Capitan Theatre across the street. To her left and right were name-brand clothing stores and above were large electronic billboards and neon lights. Tourists were everywhere, milling and rubbernecking.

  Paula heard familiar police siren wails as she hit send on her cell phone. The sirens and vibrating of helicopters were as common in Hollywood as the Metro busses’ screeching brakes. She put the phone to her ear and stared up into the sky as if she could will the satellites to connect her through faster. She didn’t see the two police cars come tearing through the red light at Highland Avenue. She saw them only when one drove right up onto the curb, scattering the pedestrians and came to a stop twenty feet from her. The other stopped at the curb while two other cop cars arrived, coming from the other direction, one riding up onto the curb, missing a group of Asian tourists with oversized Hollywood T-shirts and tiny digital cameras.

  She heard the dial tone ring twice and Lee answered.

  “Paula! Where are you?” He was rising from the police car by the curb and their eyes made contact.

  She lowered the phone and looked at him. “Right here.”

  He ran over to her while the other cops got out and stood by, waiting for his word.

  “Where is Angelina?” Lee sounded deeply worried.

  Paula’s tears were flowing again and her mouth began to quiver, but she spoke clearly. “I don’t know. She was at Griffith Park at a tree and I spoke to her about an hour ago and she was okay and now I’m told she has been kidnapped. I can’t get any service on her cell phone.”

  “What happened in the subway?”

  “A man — a guy who works for me — met me in the subway with a gun. He wanted the coin. He got off at the Vine station.”

  “What’s his name and what does he look like?”

  As she began to describe him, she noticed dozens of tourists from every nationality had gathered around and were snapping pictures with their cameras and cell phones and shooting footage with mini camcorders. Paula realized it was she that was the center of attention. Lee recognized it at the same time as she ducked her arms around her head to hide her face. “Get me out of here,” she said.

  Lee guided her through the mob to the police car and opened the door for her, putting her in the front seat. His partner got into the back seat and Lee got behind the wheel. Cameras flashed as the siren went back on and the car pulled out onto Hollywood Boulevard, screeching through a U-turn and taking a quick left up Highland Avenue with a second cop car in pursuit.

  Lee barked orders into his radio, alerting to a possible kidnapping in Griffith Park and giving a rough description of Angelina and repeating James Hickey’s description and location, as Paula had given it to him.

  As the car raced up Highland and took a right on Franklin she redialed Jacqueline’s number, telling her that the cops had picked her up and that she was headed to Griffith Park and to go there. She hung up and turned her attention to Lee.

  “How did you find me so quickly?”

  “When you finished screaming at me and hung up I had your cell phone traced. We tracked you to the Vermont Metro station and lost signal, which reappeared briefly at Western. I then knew you were on the train and it was a matter of heading down Hollywood Boulevard and recapturing the signal when you surfaced.”

  “I’m sorry I screamed at you.”

  “I’ll accept your apology once we find Angelina and she is safe. Till then, there is a chance you might still take it back. I’m the one that’s sorry I didn’t investigate deep enough to stop this before it happened.”

  “There was no way to tell. I’ll forgive you.”

  “Please. Once we find Angelina, we can apologize and all that.”

  Paula nodded in agreement.

  Though they hadn’t found her daughter, here was a man in her life — and one effectively taking charge. It lifted a hundred pounds off her shoulders.