More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. II

TUNNEL GIRL

“Sorry to bother you so early, sir.”

An alarmed Ron Badgett, in a 6:00 a.m. morning daze, blinked at the suited man on his doorstep, holding a police department shield.

“I’m Detective Larry Perillo.”

“What’s wrong, officer?”

“You own the building at Seventy-seven Humbolt Way?”

“That’s right. My company’s there.” Ron Badgett felt another jolt of concern course through him. He’d been fuzzy-headed and exhausted three minutes ago. Now he was thoroughly awake. “There been a fire or something?” The paunchy, middle-aged man, with thinning hair, pulled his beige terry-cloth bathrobe belt tight.

It was a cool September Saturday morning, and the two men were standing in the doorway of Ron’s well-worn suburban colonial house, which hadn’t quite recovered from the previous owners’ three children, who’d apparently run and jumped and pounded on every accessible surface. Ron and his wife spent most of their free time fixing it up.

“No, sir, your office’s fine. But we’re hoping you can help us. You know the old building behind yours, across the parking lot?”

“The condemned one?”

“That’s it.”

Sandra, Ron’s wife of eighteen years, appeared in the doorway, frowning. She wore a blue quilted robe and slippers. Her hair was mussed, and she had a sleepy, morning look that Ron still found appealing, even after eighteen years of marriage. “What’s the matter, honey?”

“There’s some problem with an old building behind the office.” He introduced her to the policeman.

“Oh, that one they’re going to tear down?” Sandra, at the moment working only occasional freelance jobs, had spent a week helping Ron move into the building. One day, at the back loading dock, she’d commented that the old building looked dangerous.

“That’s right, ma’am.” Perillo then added, “It seems that yesterday evening a coed from City College was taking a shortcut through the courtyard back there. Part of the building collapsed. She’s trapped in one of those old delivery tunnels that used to connect the factories and warehouses in the neighborhood.”

“My God,” Sandra whispered.

“But she’s alive?” Ron asked.

“So far. We can hear her calling for help but she doesn’t sound very strong.”

His wife shook her head. Ron and Sandra had a seventeen-year-old daughter, currently in school in Washington, DC, and the woman was undoubtedly thinking about their own child hurt or trapped. Nobody’s as sympathetic as fellow parents.

The policeman glanced down at the morning newspaper, sitting nearby in a plastic bag on the lawn. He picked it up and extracted the paper, showed them the headline: CAN THEY SAVE TUNNEL GIRL?

A photo revealed dozens of rescue workers standing around a pile of rubble. A police dog was in the foreground, sniffing at a gaping hole in the ground. A grim-faced couple stood nearby; they were identified as the parents of the trapped girl, Tonya Gilbert. Another photo was the girl’s high school yearbook picture. Ron scanned the article and learned some things about Tonya. She’d just started her senior year at City College, after spending the summer as a hiking guide at a state park on the Appalachian Trail. She was a public health major. Her father was a businessman, her mother a volunteer for a number of local charities. Tonya was an only child.

Ron tapped a sidebar article. “Hey, look at that.” PARENTS OFFER $500K REWARD FOR GIRL’S RESCUE read this headline.

A half million? he thought. Then he recalled the girl’s last name sounded familiar. Her father was probably the same Gilbert who owned a big financial analysis and investment bank in the city and was always appearing in the press at charity auctions and cultural benefits.

Sandra asked the detective, “How can we help?”

Perillo said, “Our rescue teams tried to get to her from the surface but it’s too dangerous. The rest of the building could collapse at any minute. The city engineers’d like to try to get to her through the basement of your office.”

Sandra shook her head. “But how will that help? It’s nowhere near the old building.”

“Our people looked over old maps of buildings that used to be in the area. There’re some basements under the parking lot between your building and the collapsed one that we think haven’t been filled in. We’re hoping somebody can work their way to the girl from underground.”

“Oh, sure, of course,” Ron said. “Whatever we can do.”

“Thanks much, sir.”

“I’ll come down right away and let you in. Just give us a few minutes to throw on some clothes.”

“You can follow me.” The detective gestured toward his dark blue unmarked police car.

Ron and Sandra hurried back into the house, his wife whispering, “That poor girl…. Let’s hurry.”

In the bedroom, Ron tossed his robe and pajamas onto the floor, while Sandra stepped into her dressing room to change. As he pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt, Ron clicked on the local TV station. A news crew was at the scene, and a reporter was telling the anchorman that another portion of the wall had just collapsed, but the debris had missed Tonya. She was still alive.

Thank God for that, Ron thought. He slipped on his jacket, staring at the TV screen. The camera panned to two young women standing at the police line. One wiped tears while the other held up a sign. It read: We ♥ You, Tunnel Girl.

RB Graphic Design was in an old coffee warehouse, a small one, near the river and across the street from City College.

Two years ago a dozen developers had decided to turn around this former industrial district of the city and convert it to lofts, chic restaurants, theaters and artsy professional quarters — the way a lot of towns seemed to be doing lately, in more or less desperate attempts to reverse the trend of flight to the homogenous mall-land of the ’burbs.

The real estate companies sunk big bucks into renovation and new construction in the eight-square-block area, while the city itself agreed to some tax breaks to get people and companies to move in and paid for some cheap street sculpture, signage and a public relations firm, which came up with a name for the district: “NeDo,” for “New Downtown.” This term had already been printed up on street signs and in promotional materials when it was discovered that people weren’t pronouncing it “Nue-Dow,” as planned, but “Nee-Due,” which sounded pretty lame, like a hair spray or soft drink. But by then the name had stuck. Despite the awkward name and some other bad planning (such as forgetting that those going to chic restaurants, theaters and jobs in artsy offices might want to park their cars someplace), the development caught on. Ron Badgett, for one, knew immediately that he wanted to move his company into the area and was particularly taken by the former coffee warehouse. He couldn’t explain it, he told Sandra, but he knew instinctively that it suited his personality perfectly.

Ron was also ready to move from his original office. He felt he’d exhausted the benefits of the old place, which was in the traditional city center, a boring neighborhood of 1950s office buildings, the bus station and a recently defunct secretarial school. It was a ghost town at night. Violent crime had increased in the past couple of years and Sandra hated driving to the area alone in the evenings to meet Ron after work.

But even though NeDo was starting to catch on, the move didn’t work out financially for his company the way Ron had hoped. It seemed that a number of his clients preferred the old neighborhood (which offered uncongested streets, ample parking and restaurants that weren’t noisy and pretentious). He’d lost a half-dozen clients, and though he’d picked up a few new ones he was still hurting from the dip in business and the cost of the move, which had been more than he’d figured on.

The money was a problem, especially to Sandra. She was more ambitious — and had more expensive tastes — than her husband, and their income had taken a hit when she’d been laid off from her job as an engineer with an energy company six months ago. He knew she would’ve liked him to get a steady job with a big ad agency, but he couldn’t bring himself to. Ron Badgett had always been open with his wife about the fact that he had other goals than amassing money. “I have to work for myself. You know, I need to follow my creative spirit.” He’d grinned ruefully. “I know that sounds stupid. But I can’t help it. I have to be true to myself.”

Ultimately, he believed, Sandra understood this and supported him. Besides, he loved being in NeDo and had no desire to move.

As the Badgetts now followed the speeding police car, these thoughts about the neighborhood and their fiscal situation, and personalities, however, were far from his mind; all he could think of was Tonya Gilbert, Tunnel Girl, lying beneath the collapsed building.

Ahead of them they saw the bustle of the drama: scores of emergency workers, fire trucks, police cars, onlookers kept back by yellow police tape. The press too, of course, a half-dozen vans with their station logos on the sides and crowned with satellite dishes pointed skyward.

Ron skidded to a stop in front of his building — under a prominent No Parking sign — and, with Sandra, jumped out. They followed the detective to the front door of RB Graphic Design, where several somber police and fire officials stood. They were big men, and solid women, some wearing jumpsuits and belts encrusted with rescue equipment, some in business suits or uniforms.

One of them, a white-haired man in a navy-blue uniform that had ribbons and badges on the chest, shook the Badgetts’ hands as Perillo introduced them. “I’m Fire Chief Knoblock. Sure appreciate you coming down to help us out. We’ve got ourselves some situation here.”

“My Lord, she’s underneath all of that?” Sandra asked, staring through the alley beside Ron’s building at a huge pile of rubble. The remaining walls of the building hovered precariously above gaping holes in the ground. They seemed ready to tumble down at any minute. A cloud of dust from the recent collapse hung in the air like gray fog.

“’Fraid so.” The chief continued, “She’s down about twenty-five, thirty feet in a section of an old tunnel they used to make deliveries in when these were working factories and warehouses. Miracle she’s alive.” The tall man, with perfect posture, shook his head. “All to save a couple blocks’ walk.”

“They should’ve had warning signs up, or something,” Ron said.

“Probably did,” the chief responded. “I’d guess she just ignored ’em. You know kids,” Knoblock added with the air of a man who’d seen a lot of tragedy caused by teenage foolishness.

“Why did it collapse?” Ron asked.

“Nobody quite knows. The inspectors said a lot of the support beams were rotting but they didn’t think it was in danger of coming down anytime soon, otherwise they would’ve fenced it off.”

“Well, come on inside,” Ron said. He opened the door and led Knoblock and the others into the building, then down into the basement. The developer hadn’t spent much time renovating this part of the building and it was musty and dimly lit, but clean, thanks to Sandra’s hard work during the move.

Detective Perillo asked, “One thing I was thinking, Chief. Did she have a cell phone? Maybe you could call her. She could tell you how bad she’s hurt or maybe something about how we could get to her.”

“Oh, she’s got a phone,” the chief said. “We checked the records. She made a couple of calls last night as she was leaving school — just before she fell in, we’re figuring. But the cell company said it’s shut off. She probably can’t find it in the dark. Or maybe she can’t reach it.”

“Might be broken,” Sandra offered.

“No,” the chief explained. “The company can tell that. Phones still have some signal, even when they’re off. Has to be she just can’t get to it.”

A fireman in a jumpsuit walked down the stairs, looked around, then cleared graphic arts supplies off an old drafting table. He spread out a map of the area around Ron’s building. Two others rigged spotlights — one on the map, the other on a portion of the basement wall in the back of the building.

Knoblock took a call on his own phone. “Yes, sir… yes. We’ll let you know.”

The chief hung up. He shook his head and said in a low voice to Ron and his wife, “That was her father. Poor guy. He’s pretty upset. I was talking to his wife and it seems that he and Tonya’ve been having some problems lately. She banged up her car over the summer and he wouldn’t give her the money to fix it up. That’s why she had to walk to the bus stop.”

“So,” Sandra said, “he thinks it’s his fault she had the accident.”

“And, you ask me, it’s why he’s offering a reward like that. I mean, five hundred thousand dollars… I never heard of that before. Not ’round here.”

A voice called down from the top of the stairs. “Langley just showed up. He’ll be down in a minute.”

“Our rescue specialist,” the chief explained.

“Who is he?” Ron asked.

“The number-one search-and-rescue specialist in the country. Runs a company out of Texas. Greg Langley. You ever hear of him?”

Sandra shook her head. But Ron lifted an eyebrow. “I think so. Yeah. He was on the Discovery Channel, or something.”

“A and E,” the chief said. “He’s pretty good, from what I hear. His outfit rescues climbers and hikers who get stuck on mountains or in caves, workers trapped on oil rigs, avalanches, you name it. He’s got this sort of a sixth sense, or something, for finding and saving people.”

“He and his crew were in Ohio,” Detective Perillo said. “Drove all night to get here.”

“You were lucky you could catch him when he was free,” Ron said.

Chief Knoblock said, “Actually, he called us just after the story broke about midnight. I couldn’t figure out how he heard about it. But he said he’s got people listening to news stories all over the country and they let him know if it sounds like a job he could take on.” The chief added in a whisper, “Man seems a bit too interested in the reward for my taste. But as long as he saves that girl, that’s all I care about.”

The firemen finished rigging the power lines and clicked the lights on, filling the space with brilliant white illumination, just as footsteps sounded on the stairs. A group of three men and two women arrived in the basement, carting ropes and hard hats, lights, radios, metal clamps and hooks and tools that looked to Ron like mountain climbing gear. They all wore yellow jumpsuits with the words stitched on the back Langley Services. Houston, TX.

One of these men introduced himself as Greg Langley. He was in his forties, about five foot ten, slim but clearly strong. He had a round, freckled face, curly red hair and eyes brimming with self-assuredness.

Introductions were made. Langley glanced at Ron and Sandra, but didn’t even acknowledge them. Ron felt a bit offended but gave no outward reaction to the snub.

“What’s the situation?” Langley asked the officials.

Knoblock described the accident and the girl’s location in the tunnel, touching places on the map, and explained about the basements connecting Ron’s building with the collapsed factory.

Langley asked, “She in immediate danger?”

“We can probably get food and water to her somehow,” Knoblock said. “And in this weather she’s not going to die of exposure. But her voice is real weak. Makes us think she was pretty badly hurt in the fall. She could be bleeding, could have broken limbs. We just don’t know.”

Another fireman added, “The big danger is another cave-in. The entire site’s real unstable.”

“Where do we go in?” Langley asked, glancing at the cellar wall.

A city engineer examined the map and then tapped a spot on the brick. “On the other side of this wall was an old building that was torn down years ago and paved over. But most of the sub-basement rooms’re intact. We think you can pick your way through them to a wooden doorway… about here.” He touched the map. “That’ll get you into this delivery tunnel.” He traced along the map to an adjoining tunnel. “The girl’s in the one next to it.”

It was then that a faint rumbling filled the basement.

“My God,” Sandra said, grabbing Ron’s arm.

Knoblock lifted his radio. “What was that?” he called into the microphone.

Some static, an indiscernible word or two. Then a voice, “Another cave-in, chief.”

“Oh, damn… is she okay?”

“Hold on…. We can’t hear anything. Hold on.”

No one in the basement spoke for a moment.

“Please,” Ron whispered.

Then the chief’s radio clattered again and they heard: “Okay, okay — we can hear her. Can’t make out much, but it sounds like she’s saying, ‘Please help me.’”

“Okay,” Langley snapped. “Let’s get moving. I want that wall down in five minutes.”

“Yessir,” Knoblock said and lifted his radio again.

“No,” the rescue specialist barked. “My people’ll do it. It’s got to be done just right. Can’t leave it to… “His voice faded, and Ron wondered what sort of unwitting insult he’d been about to deliver. He turned to another assistant, a young woman. “Oh, here, call her father. Tell him this’s the account I want the money wired to as soon as she’s safe.”

The woman took the slip of paper and scurried upstairs to make a call. There was silence for a moment, as the fire department and police officials looked at one another uneasily. Langley caught their eye. His glance said simply, I’m a professional. I expect to get paid for producing results. You got a problem with that, go hire somebody else.

Knoblock, Perillo and the others seemed to get the message and they turned back to the chart. The chief asked, “You want one of our people to go with you?”

“No, I’ll go in alone,” Langley said and began to assemble his gear.

“Got a question,” Ron said. Langley ignored him. Knoblock raised an eyebrow. The graphic designer pointed down at the map. “What’s this?” He traced his finger along what seemed to be a shaft leading from a street nearby to the tunnel adjacent to the one the girl was in.

One of the firemen said, “It’s an old sluice. Before they put the levee in, there was a lot of flooding in those tunnels when the river overflowed. They needed serious drainage.”

“How big is it?”

“I don’t know… I’d guess three feet across.”

“Could somebody get through it?”

Langley glanced up and finally spoke to him, “Who’re you again?”

“I own this building.”

The rescue specialist turned back to the map. “Only an idiot’d go that way. Can’t you see? It goes right underneath the unstable portion of the building. It’s probably already sealed off after the first collapse. Even if it wasn’t, you bump one support, you breathe wrong, and it all comes down on top of you. Then I’d have two people to rescue.” He gave a grim laugh. “Tunnel Girl and Tunnel Asshole.”

“Sounds like you’ve checked it out already,” Ron said pointedly, irritated at the man’s haughtiness. “You work fast.”

“I’ve been in this business a long time. I have a sense of what’s a reasonable risk and what isn’t. That drain isn’t.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really,” Langley muttered.” You know, this is a pretty tricky operation. You two might want to leave. We’re going to bring in some heavy equipment here. People have a way of getting hurt in situations like this.” He looked at Ron, then glanced at Sandra.

When Ron didn’t move, Langley added, “Chief? We on the same page here?” Langley strapped on a yellow hard hat and clipped an impressive-looking cell phone to his belt.

“Uhm, Mr. Badgett,” Knoblock said uneasily to Ron and Sandra. “I appreciate you helping us out. But it might be better if—”

“That’s okay,” the graphic designer said. “We were just leaving.”

Outside, Ron got into the car and nodded for Sandra to join him. He drove slowly up the street, away from the site of the collapsed building and the rescue efforts, the cacophony of the lights and crowds.

“Aren’t we going to stay?” she asked. “See what happens?”

“No.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked uneasily, watching her husband troll slowly down the deserted street, looking into the alleys and the vacant lots overrun with grass and filled with trash — locales scheduled to become part of NeDo in the future but at the moment nothing more than evidence of what the neighborhood had once been.

Finally he stopped, staring down at the ground. He climbed out of the car. Sandra joined him.

“What are you…?” Her voice faded. “No.”

Ron was looking at an entrance to a large drain — the one he’d pointed out on the map.

“You’re not… No, Ron, you’re not going in there.”

“Five hundred thousand dollars,” he whispered. “Where else are we going to get a chance for money like that?”

“No, honey. You heard what Greg said. It’s dangerous.”

“A half million dollars. Think about it…. You know business’s been slow. The move set me back a lot more than I thought.”

“It’ll get better. You’ll get more clients.” Her face was a grim mask. “I don’t want you to go. Really.”

Ron was staring at the grate of the drainage ditch, the blackness on the other side. “I don’t think it’s dangerous at all…. Didn’t it seem there was something weird about what Langley said?”

“Weird?”

“He didn’t even check the sluice out. But he goes on and on about how risky it is. You’re an engineer; what do you think? Isn’t this the best way to get to her?”

She shrugged. “I don’t do geologic work, you know that.”

“Well, even to me it seems like the best way…. It was like Langley was telling everybody that there was only one way to get to the girl, his route. So nobody’d even try the drain.” He nodded toward the grating. “That way he’s sure he gets the reward.”

Sandra fell silent for a moment. Then she shook her head. “I didn’t really get that sense. He’s pretty arrogant and insulting. But even if what you’re saying is true, going in there still has to be risky.” She pointed toward the collapsed building. “You still have to go underneath it.”

“Five hundred thousand dollars, baby,” he whispered.

“It’s not worth getting killed.”

“I’m going to do it.”

“Please, Ron, no.”

“I have to.”

She sighed, grimacing. “I’ve always sensed there’re sides to you that I don’t know, Ron. Things that you don’t share with me. But playing knight in shining armor to save some girl? I never thought of you that way. Or is it that you’re just pissed off he insulted us and threw us out of our own building?” Ron didn’t answer. Sandra then added, “And to be honest, honey, you aren’t really in the best shape, you know.”

“I’m going to be crawling, not running a marathon.” He laughed, shook his head. “Something’s not right about this whole thing. Langley’s working some angle. And I’m not going to let him get away with it. I’m going to get that money.”

“You’ve made up your mind,” she asked in a soft voice, “haven’t you?”

“That’s one thing you do know about me: Once I’ve decided what I want to do, nothing’s going to stop me.”

Ron reached into the glove compartment and took out the flashlight. Then he walked to the trunk and found the tire iron. “My coal mining gear,” he said with a weak laugh as he held up the bent metal rod. He looked at the blackness of the drain opening.

Sandra took her cell phone from the car, gripping it firmly in her hand. “Call if anything happens. I’ll get somebody there as soon as I can.”

He kissed her hard. And the knight — in faded jeans and an old sweatshirt, not shining armor — started into the murky opening.

The route through the drain was, in fact, much less risky than the doomsaying egomaniac Langley had predicted — at least in the beginning. Ron had about three hundred feet of steady crawling, impeded only by a few roots, clumps of dirt and sewage-related detritus, which was hardly pleasant but not dangerous.

He encountered a few rats but they were frightened and scurried away from him quickly. (Ron wondered if they were charging into the spot where the rescue specialist was now working his way toward Tonya. He had to admit he liked the idea of sharp-toothed rodents scaring the hell out of his rival — yeah, Sandra was partly right; Langley had pissed him off.)

Closer to the building, the drain became increasingly clogged. Roots had broken through the concrete walls and clustered together like pythons frozen in rigor mortis, and the way was partly blocked by piles of dried mud nearly as hard as concrete. His back in agony, his legs cramping, Ron now made slower progress. Still, he could see that — not surprisingly — Langley had been wrong. The drain walls were solid and in no danger of collapse.

Tunnel Asshole…

Ron kept going, checking his progress by looking through the access holes that opened into basements and the old delivery tunnels. Finally he arrived at the narrow one that, he recalled from the map, led to a wooden door opening into the tunnel where Tonya Gilbert was. He put his ear to the opening and listened.

“Help me,” the girl’s muted voice rasped. “Please help me…” She was probably no more than thirty feet from him.

The opening into this side tunnel was small, but by working a few old bricks out of the wall with the tire iron he was able to create enough space to crawl through. He climbed onto the dry earth of the tunnel and, standing, shone his light around. Yes, it was the one right next to the girl’s.

He’d done it! He gotten to Tunnel Girl first.

Then he heard a noise:

Thud… thud…

What was it? Was the girl signaling?

No, the sound was coming from a different place.

Thud…

Ron suddenly realized what it was. Greg Langley had arrived. He was at the far wall of the tunnel, breaking his way through another old door, which connected this shaft to the deserted basement next door. The sound of breaking wood told Ron that Langley would be inside in three or four minutes. Then the pounding stopped, and Ron heard the man’s muffled voice. Ron shut the light out, alarmed. What if Langley wasn’t alone? He walked quietly to the door the rescue specialist had been breaking through and listened. He heard the man say, “I’ll call you back.”

So, he was only on his phone. But who was he talking to? And what had he been saying? Had someone found out Ron was coming and was a threat to getting the reward?

Thud…

Langley had resumed breaking through the wooden door. Ron flattened himself against the wall beside the wooden door. Suddenly there was a loud crack and several boards fell inward, creating about a two-by-two-foot opening. Light from Langley’s lantern shone into the dim tunnel. Ron pressed hard against the wall, breathing shallowly, not moving.

Finally something emerged from the opening, a wicked-looking pickax. It seemed more like a weapon than a tool. Then a beam from another flashlight — a powerful one — shot throughout the tunnel and swung from side to side. It narrowly missed catching Ron in its circle of light. He squinted and leaned back against the wall as hard as he could, rubbing his eyes to get them used to the brilliance.

There was a pause and then finally he could make out Langley’s head emerging through the opening. He got halfway through, then once again started to play the flashlight around the tunnel.

Just before the illumination hit Ron’s legs, the graphic designer lifted the tire iron and swung it hard into the back of Langley’s head, just below the hard hat. It struck him solidly and the man grunted and collapsed onto his belly.

Once I’ve decided what I want to do, nothing’s going to stop me.…

As quietly as he could, Ron gathered rocks and bricks from the floor and began piling them onto the unconscious Greg Langley, creating what he felt was a very realistic scene of a man caught by a surprise cave-in.

Two days later Ron Badgett and his wife were standing near the podium in front of City College, awaiting the start of the press conference. A hundred people milled about. Behind the lectern was a blow-up from a local newspaper, mounted to a curtain that rippled in the wind. The headline read: TUNNEL GIRL SAVED!

Sandra had her arm hooked through her husband’s. He enjoyed her proximity and the flowery smell of her perfume. She had a smile on her face. The atmosphere among the crowd was festive, giddy even. There’s nothing like rescuing trapped children to supercharge community spirit.

Waving and smiling, Chief Knoblock, Tonya Gilbert and her parents walked through the crowd and up to the podium. After a lengthy round of cheers and applause, the chief quieted the onlookers like a conductor in front of an orchestra and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, could I have your attention please?… Thank you. I’m delighted to present to you Tonya Gilbert. She was just released from Memorial Hospital this morning. I know she wants to say a word to you.”

More wild clapping and shouts.

The pretty girl, with a small bandage over her forehead and a blue cast on her ankle and another on her wrist, stepped shyly to the microphone. Blushing fiercely, she started to say something, but her throat caught. She started over. “Like, I just want to say, you know, thanks to everybody. I was pretty freaked. So, you know… uhm, thanks.”

Her lack of articulation didn’t stop the crowd from exploding in applause and cheers once again.

Then the chief introduced the girl’s parents. The businessman, in a blue blazer and gray slacks, stepped forward to the microphone, while his wife, beaming a smile, put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. The businessman thanked the fire department and police for their heroic efforts, and the citizens of the town for their support.

“But my deepest appreciation goes to the man who risked his life to save my little girl. And as a token of that appreciation I want to give him this.” The businessman held up a framed, three-foot-long mock-up of a check for $500,000. “Which represents the sum I’ve ordered deposited into his account.”

More raucous applause; large sums of money, just like rescued youngsters, are guaranteed crowd-pleasers.

Gilbert added, “Please join me in thanking… Mr. Greg Langley.”

A brace on his neck, a bandage on his hand, the rescue specialist walked slowly to the podium, limping. He seemed agitated, though Ron guessed it had less to do with the pain from the injuries than his impatience with hokeyness like this. He took the big check and passed it quickly to his assistant.

Tonya’s father continued, “What he did took great personal courage and sacrifice. Even after being buried in a cave-in and nearly killed, Mr. Langley continued to crawl to the tunnel where our Tonya was trapped and got her to safety. You’ll have the gratitude of our family forever.”

The crowd seemed to want a speech but all Langley said was an impatient “Thanks a lot.” He waved and left fast — on to more rescues and more rewards, Ron assumed. He felt a burst of regret he’d only brained the guy when he’d simulated the cave-in and hadn’t caused more serious damage; he definitely deserved a broken wrist or jawbone.

As they drove home, Sandra was clearly pleased the girl had been rescued but she said with some genuine sympathy in her voice, “Sorry you missed out on the reward, honey.”

What he’d told his wife was that the drain was so clogged with roots and mud that he’d only gotten halfway to the tunnel.

She added, “I know you’re disappointed you didn’t get what you’d wanted. But at least the girl’s safe… and so are you. That’s the important thing.”

He kissed her hair.

Thinking: Ah, but you’re wrong, dear. I got exactly what I wanted.

Though he could hardly share this thought with her. Just like there was a lot about him he couldn’t share: Such as why he’d picked the old coffee warehouse in the first place: because it had windows facing the main door of City College — providing a perfect view for watching the girls leave, making it easy to pick who’d be his victims. This is what he’d meant when he’d told her the place suited his personality; it had nothing to do with having an artsy office in a vibrant redevelopment. He needed a new hunting ground after the secretarial school across from his old office had closed — the school from which he’d kidnaped two coeds within the past year and videotaped their leisurely murders. (Ironically Ron Badgett himself was one of the reasons that violent crime had increased lately in the old city center.)

A few weeks ago, just after he’d moved to the new building, Ron had spotted gorgeous Tonya Gilbert leaving class. He couldn’t stop thinking about the clinging pink tank top she wore, her long hair flying in the breeze, her slim legs — couldn’t stop picturing her tied down in a cellar, Ron slipping the garrote around her beautiful neck.

Deciding that Tonya’d be his first victim in NeDo, he’d followed her for several days and learned she always took a shortcut from the school down the alley beside his office and continued through the courtyard of the deserted building behind it. Ron had planned the abduction carefully. He’d found that an old tunnel went right underneath her route and had laid a trap — removing a grate and covering it with thin Sheetrock, painted to look like concrete. When she’d walked over it last night, she’d fallen through and dropped twenty feet to the floor of the tunnel. He’d climbed down to her, made sure she was unconscious, shut off her cell phone and threw it down a drainpipe (he’d been troubled to learn from helpful Chief Knoblock that cell phones still have a signal when they’re off; he’d have to remember that in the future).

Leaving her in the tunnel, he’d returned to the surface to seal up the open grate with plywood. But as he was hammering the grate back into place he must’ve hit a weakened beam. It collapsed and, as he’d scrabbled to safety, half the building came down. There was no way to get back inside from there. Worse, one of the sub-basement walls had collapsed too, exposing the tunnel where the girl lay.

Tonya was still unconscious and wouldn’t know what Ron had done, nor could she identify him. But rescue workers would undoubtedly find the workroom off the adjacent tunnel where he had his knives and ropes and video camera, all of which bore his fingerprints. There was also a videotape in the camera that he sure as hell didn’t want the police to see. He’d tried to climb back down to get his things but the building was far too unstable. He was looking for another route down when the first fire trucks arrived — somebody must have heard the collapse and called 9-1-1 — and Ron had fled.

He’d returned back home, desperately trying to figure out how to return for the damning evidence. While Sandra slept, he’d stayed transfixed to the TV all night, watching the coverage about Tunnel Girl, praying that they wouldn’t get into the tunnel before he had a chance, somehow, to beat them to it. Praying too that she wouldn’t die — his only hope to get to the workroom was to pretend he was trying to rescue her himself.

Then, after a tortured, sleepless night, the police arrived at his doorstep (his alarm at seeing Detective Perillo had nothing to do with the possibility of a fire-damaged office, of course).

Despite this scare, though, it worked out for the best that they’d asked for his help; it was through Knoblock and the city engineers that he learned that there might be another way to get back into the tunnel and collect what he’d left behind last night. After working his way through the drain and knocking Langley out, he’d managed to get all his gear, obliterate his foot- and fingerprints and slip out of the tunnel without Tonya’s hearing him. On the way back down the sluice he’d disposed of the weapons, ropes and camera by pitching them down fissures in the drain and filling in the spaces with dirt and mud. (He did, of course, keep the videotape of the student he’d last killed; it was one of his better ones.)

Oh, he was a bit sorry he couldn’t be the one to rescue the girl and collect the reward. But, if he had, the press might’ve looked into his life and learned a few interesting things — for instance, the fact that he’d always chosen to live or work near colleges from which coeds had disappeared over the years.

Besides, he’d been honest with Sandra regarding one other thing: That he had values other than making money. The reward meant little. There was indeed, as she’d observed, another side to him, a more important side.

I need to follow my creative spirit. I have to be true to myself.…

Of course, that creative spirit didn’t involve graphic design; it centered around ropes and knives and beautiful college girls.

“I’ve got to say,” Sandra said, “I’m still not convinced that everything was the way it seemed to be.”

Ron eyed his wife cautiously. “No?” He hoped she wasn’t on to him; he loved her, and he’d prefer not to kill her.

“It was just odd, Langley calling right after the accident. You know, I actually wondered if maybe he was behind the whole thing.”

“No kidding?”

“Yeah, maybe he travels around and booby-traps buildings and oil rigs, then after somebody’s trapped he calls and gets a reward or a fee to rescue the victims.” She gave a soft giggle. “And you know what else I thought?”

“What’s that?”

“That maybe Tonya and Langley were in on it together.”

“Together?” Seeing that his wife’s suspicions were headed in a harmless direction, he could laugh.

“I mean, she and her father were having problems — he wouldn’t pay to fix her car, remember? She might’ve wanted to get even with him. Oh, and did you see that she was a hiking guide on the Appalachian Trail? Maybe she met Langley when he was rescuing somebody at the park. I mean, she wasn’t very badly hurt. Maybe they staged the whole thing together, Tonya and Langley, to split the reward.”

Ron supposed this might make sense to an outside observer. Of course, now that he thought about it, that same observer might also speculate that Sandra herself could’ve been in collusion with Langley, whom she might’ve met through her work for an oil company and, as an engineer, rigged a trap for the girl after she’d noticed the building during Ron’s move.

Interesting takes on the incident, thought an amused Ron Badgett, who was, of course, the only one in the world who knew exactly what had happened to the girl.

“Could be,” he said. “But I guess that’s between Gilbert and Langley now.”

Ron steered the car into the driveway and, leaving the engine running, climbed out and opened the door for his wife. “I’m going to head back to the office, see how they’re coming with the basement wall.” The city was paying to have the hole in his cellar repaired.

Sandra kissed him good-bye and said she’d have dinner ready when he got back home.

Ron climbed back into the driver’s seat and drove eagerly to NeDo. In truth, he couldn’t care less about the basement wall. The last daytime classes at City College were over in twenty minutes and he wanted to be at his desk by then, in front of his window, so he could watch the coeds leaving the school on their way home.

Tunnel Girl had been saved; Ron Badgett needed someone new.