phone. Squeezing it half to death, I’d say.”
I looked down at my hand, embarrassed to see he was right. “Thank you,” I said again.
As the phone rang, I started to lose my courage. Hank was probably going to follow the rule book and call up Bredloe or Lewis. Or maybe ignore everything I had to say and try to charge me with interfering with an investigation.
He answered with a nervous, “Hello?”
“Hank, it’s Irene.”
“Oh, thank God!” he said. “Uh, just a minute.”
“No stalling, Hank. Page Cassidy. Tell him to check his answering machine.” I hung up.
I thanked the bookstore owner again and left, hoping Freeman wouldn’t be able to trace the call.
The alley, as it turned out, was a blind one, ending at a brick wall not far from the bookstore. Luckily the open end of the alley was in the direction I would have taken anyway — to my left, opposite the one Reed Collins was last seen traveling. It was fairly wide, as alleys went — wide enough for a truck. All the same, with only one way out, as the bookstore door closed behind me, I felt cornered.
The alley was not much to look at. Brick walls, metal doors, and trash bins. A few high, barred windows and some roof access ladders. One or two fire escapes.
A scruffy cat slept on one of the fire escapes. He didn’t look as if he had ever let anyone call him a pet. He was one of the few things in the alley that didn’t have a layer of soot on it.
The day was starting to warm up, and the odor from the bins, already sharp, was going to increase with every degree of heat.
I started walking down the center of the alley, but soon that sensation of being watched returned, and I moved closer to the wall on my right. I looked up at the rooflines of the buildings on the left. No one. I was about to edge closer to the other side when I heard a loud metallic rattling sound. I shrank back against the wall, hiding behind a bin. The sound, I realized, was that of a large, metal roll-up door being opened. I heard a motor start up, and a brown delivery van slowly pulled out into the alley. Fading paint on the brick above the doorway said “Starlight Theater.”
In the van’s side mirror I saw the reflection of the driver. Another old man, except I knew this one. I had seen him in a library in Bakersfield.
He honked the horn of the van, and the door started to roll shut as he drove off.
Frank was nearby. Either in that van or in the building.
I ran around the bin, flattened myself to the ground, and rolled beneath the door just as it closed.
I was in total darkness.
36
I COULD HEAR FAINT SOUNDS coming from somewhere inside the building. I started to crawl forward, feeling my way along the concrete floor. Suddenly the room I was in was filled with bright light, and I heard a high-pitched whistling sound. Panicked, I jumped to my feet and looked for a place to hide. The room was a delivery bay, absolutely barren, with three doors leading off it. The one farthest to the left had an alarm keypad next to it. Several of the lights on the keypad were blinking.
Certain that someone was going to come through one of the other doors at any moment, I tried the middle one. Locked. The door to the right, however, pulled open. I shut it behind me. I was again in darkness, but I could hear someone entering the delivery bay. I turned to flee and immediately stumbled. I reached out and caught myself between the narrow walls of the space ahead of me. A stairway, I realized. Hurrying, but moving as quietly as possible, I climbed the stairs, waiting for lights to be turned on above me or to find myself stepping off into some void. I reached a landing, but there were more stairs above it. I continued upward.
The stairs went on forever, it seemed, finally ending at another doorway. Cautiously, bending low, I turned the handle, pushed open the door. There was low light here, most of it coming through windows that faced the stage. I was, I realized, in a projection booth.
The small booth was unoccupied. A lighting control console was on, a computerized system with monitors and a keyboard added to a variety of other controls. Sitting on a sleek black desk, the console appeared to be the only new fixture in a room that was otherwise musty with age. A pile of discarded equipment stood in one corner. A ladder attached to one wall rose into a recess in the ceiling. I wasn’t sure what it led to, but the door in the recess appeared to be locked.
Staying low, I crept to the largest of the windows in the booth. I gradually raised up to look down on the stage below.
My eyes were drawn immediately to a figure lying on a draped table. His hands and feet manacled, he was dressed in what appeared to be pajamas. One hand bandaged. Face pale beneath three days’ growth of beard, but maybe he only seemed pale because of the bright stage lights. He didn’t move, but perhaps he was asleep.
Frank.
I put a hand over my mouth to keep from shouting out his name. As if he heard me anyway, he stirred slightly.
Tears began running down my cheeks. I wiped them away. Nothing to feel so all-fired relieved about yet, I told myself, but to no avail. He was alive. I could see him.
In addition to the draped table, there were several other objects on the stage. Some long, freestanding mirrors, trunks, a colorful set of boxes, and a large cylinder. A mechanical lift stood at one side of the stage, its platform extended up into the ceiling. I only glanced at these objects; Frank held my attention. I wondered how long I could keep myself from running to him. If anything happened to him while I watched from a distance….
He opened his eyes, seemed groggy, disoriented.
I tried to force myself to look at the situation logically. As much as I wanted to be with Frank now, doing anything that might let Hocus know I was here would be madness — dangerous for both Frank and me. It would give Hocus two hostages instead of one. If, instead, I could stay hidden until Cassidy arrived, maybe we would both survive.
