"But I can"t leave you..." she started.
"Yes, you can. You"ve got two kids."
She was beginning to look pale. I didn"t blame her. I wasn"t feeling great myself. We hurried back to our side of the office. Just as we got to the hallway, I heard the guard getting off the elevator.
"Get out of here. I"ll be okay," I said again. Barbara nodded and headed for her desk. I ducked into the copy room because there was no other place to hide without running straight into the guard. I looked desperately around the room for a place to hide the notebook. If Ranson wanted it, she could find a way to come here and get it. I heard the guard in the hallway. He was talking to Barbara. Not good. I was hoping he would let her out since he knew her pretty well. But it didn"t sound like he was going to. Even worse, I heard the sound of a second guard"s voice. One to block the door and another to search.
Where to hide this? There were stacks of paper and two copy machines, one with a broken sign on it. Inspiration hit. I opened up the broken copy machine, exposing the inner workings. That"s where I put the notebook. I had to sit on the cover to shut it, doing an untold amount of damage. Then I closed up the copy machine and figured it was time to bluff my way out of this place.
I walked out of the door and into one of the guards.
"What are you doing here?" he asked. What a clever question.
"That d.a.m.n copy machine. It always breaks down when you need it, and the little one doesn"t collate," I said in the best helpless female * 58 *
voice I could manage. He led me down to the reception area where Barbara was waiting with the second guard.
"Is something the matter?" I asked as innocently as possible.
"Break-in," said a guard.
"No! Maybe we should call the police? You don"t suppose he"s still around," I continued as a helpless female.
"You"re going to have to wait here," was all one of the guards said.
"But that"s not possible," I said. "I"m supposed to meet my boyfriend in twenty minutes in the Quarter and I"m always late. So last week we had a big fight about it and I promised, I mean, promised him I"d be on time. If I don"t show up he"ll kill me, I just know it." My guess was that the best way out of here was the bimbo route.
"Sorry, lady," said the guard.
"I"ve already tried," put in Barbara. She looked nervous, but she wouldn"t fall apart.
"Can I at least call him?" Anything at this point. The two guards looked at each other. One of them shrugged.
"All right," the other one said, "Just make it snappy." He led me to a telephone, then stood by to listen in.
I dialed Sergeant Ranson"s number. Some bored clerk answered.
"h.e.l.lo, is Jo there?" I asked.
"No."
"Do you know when he"ll be in?" I almost said she, which would have been a bad mistake.
"He? Sergeant Joanne Ranson"s a woman."
"I know. But it"s important that I talk to him." Catch on, dummy.
"Sorry, she ain"t here and I got no idea when she"ll be back."
"Well, can I leave a message?"
"Yeah, sure."
"It"s Michele and I"ve got a problem. I"m stuck here at work and don"t know when I"ll get out. Got that?" Write down that I"ve got a problem, dimwit.
"Yeah, but Ranson"s out somewheres. I don"t know when she"ll get back."
"Thanks anyway."
The clerk hung up.
"All right, let"s go," said the guard.
* 59 *
"But I didn"t get him. Let me try and call his mother. He usually calls her around this time of day." The guard gave me an exasperated look, but shrugged okay. I dialed the number Ranson had given me for Alexandra Sayers.
"h.e.l.lo," she answered.
"Hi, this is Michele. I can"t get hold of Jo anywhere and I need to tell him that I"ve got a problem at work and can"t leave. I"ll meet him as soon as possible." I hoped she caught my slight emphasis on as soon as possible as in help.
"You can"t talk, right?" Alexandra asked.
"Right," I answered, praising pagan deities that Ranson had backed herself up with someone who was not an idiot.
"Are you in danger?"
"Yes. And I"m not the only person stuck here. Barbara Selby, the office manager, is also stuck here. I know I"m always late, but this time I want Jo to know that I"m an innocent victim." The guard was shifting from foot to foot, like he was going to break this off any minute.
"Okay, I"ve got that," answered Alexandra on the other end.
"If Jo calls you, ask him if he could meet me at work," I said. The guard made a cutting motion against his throat. Time was up.
"Right," she answered.
"I"ve got to go."
"Okay. Stay put. We"ll get there as soon as possible." She hung up.
I put down the phone.
"Geez, if I lose this boyfriend, it"s going to be this company"s fault," I said and did what I thought was a flounce back to the guard"s station.
As we got there, Milo and a man best described as goon got off the elevator.
"Search the floor," Milo said. The two guards went off. I was hoping that Milo"s goon would help, but he didn"t. At this point, if it were just Milo, I would have risked jumping him. But I wasn"t a match for two men with guns. We waited in silence for the guards to finish.
They came back and reported that we were the only people on this floor.
Then Milo left and went into the file room. He didn"t stay there very long.
I took the notebook because I knew that once that electronic eye was tripped we wouldn"t get off the floor without being caught. It had * 60 *
to be linked to the guard station, and I was sure they had orders not to let anyone or anything go once that warning indicator went on. They probably shouldn"t have let me use the phone, but they didn"t figure a ditzy office temp could cause any problems. The missing notebook should buy us time until the police arrived. I hoped. If all the books were still sitting in a drawer that somebody had obviously broken into, then the only possible leak would be the people who had broken into the drawer. As long as one of them was missing, then Milo had to find out where it was. He would keep us alive until he found out. If the wheel of fate was spinning in the proper direction, the police would arrive long before that point.
"All right, let"s go," was all he said. I didn"t think he meant we could all go home.
"I can"t," I said, trying to waste time. "I"m supposed to meet my boyfriend here. He"ll kill me if I stand him up."
"You"re coming with us," Milo said.
"Forget it, I quit," I continued. "You just can"t make me work overtime whenever you feel like it. This is America, not Russia, you know." I would have tap-danced to "G.o.d Bless America" if I had thought it would do any good.
"Turner, explain to the young lady," Milo said. Turner was the goon. He pulled a gun out of his shoulder holster and pointed it at me.
"Is this some kind of joke? If it is, it"s not very funny," I continued.
Come on, Ranson, where are you?
For an answer, Turner put the barrel against my temple.
"Mr. Milo doesn"t joke very often," said Barbara. "Now, I"m sure if you cooperate and be quiet, everything will be all right." Barbara was a tough lady. She was playing her expected role of the older, experienced manager handling the latest office bimbo. She was also trying to get that gun away from my head and buy us a little time. I nodded my head in agreement with her. It worked. Turner put his gun back in his holster.
"Let"s go," Milo said again and he punched the elevator b.u.t.ton.
We started to follow.
"My purse," I yelled. What"s a bimbo without her makeup, nail polish, tissues, address book, .45?
Milo motioned one of the guards to go get it. He got it, then handed it to Turner, who looked in it. It was one of those big canvas bags, with * 61 *
lots of pockets and stuffed full. I held my breath. The gun was in one of the deepest pockets. Fortunately, Turner was looking for a fairly large notebook. It probably never occurred to him that I might be carrying a gun. Never underestimate a bimbo.
When we got to the lobby, they led us out the service exit, not the front door. We were on a back street and I didn"t see a single person, not even a dog or pigeon. I had hoped to spot some man that could pa.s.s for "Joe." Anything vaguely male between twelve and eighty-four would have suited me.
I tripped instead, doing what I hoped they wouldn"t notice was a shoulder roll. I used my landing as an excuse to make some noise.
"Oh, s.h.i.t, that hurt. I think I"ve hurt my back. I"ve got a bad back, you know." I didn"t get up, but looked for more injuries to buy time.
Turner grabbed me under the shoulders and helped pull me up, then pushed me toward the waiting car. I faked a limp, but didn"t fall down again. I couldn"t push it too far or I"d get myself killed here and now. Barbara put an arm around my shoulder to help me to the car.
"You all right?" she asked.
"Yeah," I answered. I hoped she was.
Turner motioned us into the back seat of the car. It was a big, black ugly car, really a limo. It was the kind of car that ran a red light one night and took off the front wheel of Danny"s bike. She ended up with eighteen st.i.tches and two cracked ribs. The car never stopped. I wondered if this was the same car.
There were two men in front, the driver and son of goon. Goon boy got out and Milo took his place. I started to slide over to the far side, but Turner got in and sat down, so he was between me and the door. No jumping out at any stop lights. Barbara got in beside me. Goon boy sat on one of those little extra seats that fold down when you"re not using them. He was facing us and staring unkindly in our direction. I heard the locks click shut. Obviously the driver controlled them. Even if Turner weren"t there I couldn"t have jumped out.
The driver started the car. Fate had one more chance to get back into my good graces. The limo nosed out of the alley onto the street.
Fate blew it. There were no patrol cars, no dark blue undercover cars, no cavalry in the nick of time. We drove away in the twilight. Thanks, Joanne. Next time, don"t call me and I won"t call you.
We were heading out of the city, taking the same road that I"d taken * 62 *
to get to One Hundred Oaks Plantation, though I didn"t think we were going there. I had to admit that the boys in this car had just displaced Karen Holloway from the top of my list of people I could do without ever seeing again. As a matter of fact, I would very happily trade where I was now to be in a locked room with her. Such pleasant thoughts on this scenic drive. I supposed that Cordelia would find it "tawdry" when she opened the Times-Picayune and found out that I was floating in the river with a bullet in my head. Stop that, you"re not going to get killed.
Something will come up and in less than twenty-four hours you"ll be taking Barbara Selby back to her kids. Why was I even thinking about Karen and Cordelia? Two spoiled children. Perhaps because we were still heading down the road that would take us to their grandfather"s estate. I could feel the tenseness in Barbara next to me. I didn"t want anything to happen to her. After this was over and everything was okay, I was going to confine my detective work to finding lost Pekingese for rich ladies.
We pa.s.sed the gate to One Hundred Oaks Plantation. Its grounds ended by sloping into a low swampy area. Not a good place to be running around in the middle of the night. We drove past the swamp, with its clumps of pine and oak on the higher ground, the cypress and marsh gra.s.s in the dark water. It continued for about a mile. Then we slowed, and the car turned into an overgrown drive. The property looked derelict. It had to be adjacent to One Hundred Oaks since this was the first turnoff we had pa.s.sed after that bombastic gate.
The drive was b.u.mpy, a long winding road past clumps of pine trees and a few live oaks with Spanish moss. There were no lights on at the house. It loomed as a dark shadow against that cobalt of sky before all light is gone.
The car stopped. Turner and goon boy got out, motioning us to follow. Milo was already out, the driver stayed where he was.
"Something was missing from one of those file drawers," Milo said. "If you tell us where you put it, it will make things easier for all of us."
Yeah, easier for them; they could kill us and not be late for supper.
"I don"t understand," said Barbara. "What"s missing?"
"This is weird. What"s going on?" was my contribution.
"Then you"ll have to be our guests for a while longer." Milo smiled * 63 *
a smile that wouldn"t have looked out of place on a water moccasin.
"I"m afraid you won"t be very comfortable. Boys, show them their accommodations."
Turner got a long piece of rope out of the trunk, a preview of our accommodations.
"The bas.e.m.e.nt?" he asked. Milo nodded. "Yeah, real nice," he continued. "No windows, dirt floor, rats. You"ll like it."
We followed him into the house. Goon boy and Milo were behind us. He took us through a front parlor and into the kitchen, although it didn"t look like anything had been cooked here in a long time. The walls were streaked and moldy, the result of long years by the river and little care. There wasn"t much furniture, a few mismatched odds and ends evidently left behind a long time ago. There were two sets of stairs leading up, one just off the first room we had gone through. Back in the kitchen was another set, steeper and narrower than the first. There was a storeroom off back under the second stairs. Turner entered it and opened a trap door that looked very heavy. Goon that he was, it caused him to grunt. He motioned us to follow him and he started down the stairs to the bas.e.m.e.nt. There was no light on the stairs, only a naked bulb in the bas.e.m.e.nt itself, which Turner turned on. The stairs were old, unpainted wood and creaked rottenly as we descended. There was another door at the bottom made from the same heavy oak as the trap door. I wondered if this bas.e.m.e.nt had been used for slaves, since it was obviously designed to be very good at either keeping something in or out. Perhaps only Prohibition.
There was one large, square supporting column in the middle of the room. That was what Turner tied us to, Barbara on one side, me on the other, with our backs to each other and our hands digging into each other"s spines.
"Good luck, girls. Last fellow we left here was real talkative in the morning. Probably the rat bites had something to do with it," said Turner in the cheerful voice of a s.a.d.i.s.t. He turned off the light, then shut the door with a heavy thud. I heard the rasp of a bolt being shoved into place. It was pitch dark. Then I heard the sound of the trap door being shut and its bolt thrown. Footsteps echoed on the floorboards above, then silence broken by the distant sound of a car being driven away.
* 64 *
"Alone at last. I"ve been waiting for this for such a long time, Barbara," I said hoping to cheer her up.
"Oh, my G.o.d," her voice broke. I guess the idea of being alone with me wasn"t very cheering. Perhaps it wasn"t me, but the ambiance of our surroundings.
She was crying. All the tension of the last few hours was taking its toll. I didn"t blame her. Crying was a tempting idea. As a matter of fact, we were in a situation begging to be cried about. But I decided that we were going to get out. I needed to convince Barbara of that.
And myself.