The Dead Caller from Chicago

Forty-five

My plane landed at midnight. I hurried to an empty gate to check my phone.

Jenny had left the first voice message, suggesting dinner. Wendell Phelps left the next four. His voice was too agitated to be bearing good news. I sat down to call him.

“I need you on my payroll,” he said.

I took a deep breath. I’d been sure I was going to hear worse. “Amanda; she’s safe?”

“I need you on my payroll,” he said again. He sounded disoriented.

“You made the exchange, right?”

Two people passing in front of me turned around. I’d shouted.

“Wendell,” I said more softly. “The kidnapper called, right? You made the exchange? Amanda is safe?”

“Another call,” he mumbled. “… you back.”

I got up and started hurrying toward the garage. Something was wrong.

I called Jarobi. This time he answered.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“The king speaks to serfs only at his leisure.”

“He called me four times when I was on the plane back to Chicago. I just spoke to him. He’s disoriented, doesn’t seem to be making sense.”

“I can do nothing, if he won’t-”

“You weren’t there for the exchange?”

“The man’s an arrogant-”

I clicked Jarobi away; Wendell was calling.

“My people have gotten nowhere,” he said. “The damned fools don’t know where to start.”

“Make sense, Wendell. You made the exchange, right? Amanda’s OK?”

There was silence at the other end of the call.

“Wendell?” I asked, entering the garage.

“I’m here.” His voice had dropped even more. He was barely whispering.

“What aren’t you telling me, Wendell?”

I got to my row. Though the garage was almost empty, a tow truck had pulled up in front of my Jeep, blocking it. A man in coveralls was shining a flashlight through the side window of an Audi parked next to me. Another man, this one in a suit and presumably the Audi’s owner, stood alongside, watching. He’d locked his keys in his car.

Wendell mumbled something that I couldn’t hear. An awful possibility flitted into my mind.

I stopped. “Wendell, they told me in California that the kidnapper called, ready to sell the painting. Has the exchange been made?”

The two men ahead turned around at the sound of my voice.

“I didn’t want some rule-abiding cop screwing things up,” he said, “but I think we’re still OK. I’ve still got the two million dollars in cash, here at home. He won’t leave that on the table-”

“Where’s the painting?” I asked slowly.

“I wasn’t forgetful. I just wasn’t,” he said, his words coming now in a torrent. “He’ll call again, for the two million. It must have been the stress. I’ve never done such a-”

“Tell me everything.” I looked down the empty row, only vaguely comprehending the scene ahead. The tow driver took out a flat jimmy bar, the kind cops used to pop locks for forgetful drivers.

“He called this afternoon and told me to be ready to drive to meet him on a moment’s notice. I instructed Jarobi to bring the painting downtown to my office. There’s public parking below ground, as you must remember. I met Jarobi by my car and put the painting in my trunk so I’d be ready instantly. Jarobi left, and I went back upstairs, to wait for the call. Damn it, that garage is patrolled.”

“Then what?”

“Then nothing. I hung around my office all day, but he never called back. I left around seven, thinking he’d call my cell phone as I drove home.”

The tow driver slid the jimmy bar between the Audi’s outer door and the side glass, pushed down, and jerked it up. There was a loud click. The Audi driver reached for the door handle. The door opened. The Audi man smiled and reached for his wallet.

“The painting is gone, isn’t it, Wendell?” I asked, my own words a torrent now that I understood. “Taken right out of your car, and now you’ve lost the only leverage you had to get her back?”

“I didn’t think to look until I got home. My trunk was securely locked. The parking lot is monitored.”

“Cameras?”

“No cameras, but guards, patrolling…”

I wanted to savor the man’s trauma, revel in his hopelessness, but there was no time.

“You’re still driving that old Mercedes, right, Wendell?”

Ahead, past my silver-taped beater of a Jeep, the tow truck pulled away. The Audi’s backup lights came on.

“Thicker metal than any of the new ones,” the rich, all-knowing man sputtered.

“It has a manual inside trunk release?”

“Why the hell does that matter? It’s a solid automobile, no piece of tin.”

The Audi drove away, leaving me alone in the garage. “When you got home, how did you unlock the trunk?”

“The mechanical release,” he said, barely above a whisper.

“You gave up the damned painting without getting her back.”

His silence said it all. Then he said, “That two million won’t do any good, will it?”

“The painting is what he wants. It’s worth tens, maybe hundreds, of millions.”

I thought for a moment, and then I told him what I wanted, and where, and clicked him away.

I pulled out the business cards I’d gotten in L.A. and called the cell phone numbers. I told each lawyer the same thing: “Anybody but me that calls will be lying.”

Both started to ask questions. I said I didn’t have the time.

I started the Jeep, praying I wouldn’t be too late.