"TV versus Reality"
Chapter Ten
The second piece of property on the list turned out to be Nicholas Gardino's beach house.
James Rockford was standing in the cottage's hallway, staring thoughtfully out a shattered picture window at a small, dark object lying in the sand on the beach two hundred and twenty feet below.
Dennis Becker came crunching up—the shards of already broken glass on the hall floor shattering even further beneath the thick leather soles of his shoes. "He was here, all right," he told the pensive private eye. "Looks like they had him tied to a bed in the back. And—judging by the food still cooking on the stove and the fresh pot of coffee—they must a' been in an awful big hurry to move him!"
"They didn't move him!" Jim declared as he finally figured out what it was that he'd been staring at. "He escaped!"
Becker thought Rockford's explanation for the missing pane of glass over for a few moments and then summed up his opinion of it into two words, "That's ridiculous!" He then postulated on a more probable cause. "I figure the window must a' broke as they struggled with him down the hall here."
"He's headed south!" Jim stated further, noting the fresh set of footprints in the rain-washed sand—leading away from the object.
Dennis looked more dubious than ever and reminded Rockford that, "NOBODY in their right mind would ever dive out a' this window!" He emphasized his point by pointing out the near vertical drop of over two hundred feet just outside it.
"They might...if they knew they were on the ground floor...and they thought they were going to be landing on the lawn," Rockford reminded him right back and pointed to the small, dark object on the beach below them. "I'll bet you a hundred bucks that's a blind-fold!"
Becker was about to take the bet when a uniformed officer came hurrying down the hall towards them.
"Sarge! Headquarters just called! We got a lead on the paramedic!" the officer announced. "He placed a 911 call from 321 Cove Road about two minutes ago!"
"321 Cove Road..." Jim repeated, as the three of them turned away from the broken window and started heading off down the hall in the direction of their cars. "I, uh, believe that's about three miles south of here, isn't it?" he inquired, sounding very smug.
Becker shot his annoyingly accurate fellow detective a sideways 'O-oh brother' glance. "So, how is he?!" Dennis demanded. "Is he okay?!"
The uniformed officer shrugged. "The operator didn't know. The call got...cut off..." he let his grim words trail away.
The three men glanced solemnly at one another and then picked up their pace.
At a nearby phone booth...
Langley was on the line with Doc McKenzie.
"No! I will not meet you at the beach house in five minutes!" McKenzie adamantly stated. "I just drove by there! The police were crawling all over the place!"
Phillip looked shocked, then confused and then thoughtful. "Then be at 1868 North Dragoon Drive in two hours!" he told McKenzie and slammed the phone down.
Andy came driving up in a dark green sedan. They dragged Gage out of the tan car and forced him into the back of the green one. Andy sped off.
Over at 321 Cove Road, Malibu...
Sergeant Dennis Becker was standing in the room the paramedic was in when he was kidnapped...again. He was busy taking the housewife's statement down in his little black notebook.
The woman handed the detective the paramedic's wallet and the car's license number. "He seemed like such a nice young man," the lady told the detective, between questions. "He was so scared. He said they were going to kill him..." She blinked her watering eyes and then aimed them at the police officer. "Is that true?"
"We're doing everything we possibly can to see to it that it isn't," the Sergeant assured her, but Becker didn't look or sound so sure. "Thank you very much Mrs. Stafford. You've been a big help. When you get dressed, we'd like to take you down to headquarters to look at some pictures."
Mrs. Stafford nodded her willingness to comply and hurried off to get dressed.
Becker closed his notebook and went back out to his unmarked police car.
Dennis picked up the car's radio mic' and thumbed its call button. "This is Sergeant Becker. I'd like an APB on Ocean Ida 7731. Vehicle is a '76 tan, four door, Lincoln Continental and was last seen traveling north on Cove Road. Suspects are armed and dangerous. They're holding a kid—re-kidnapped fireman hostage in the back seat. Run a make on the car's plates and get back to me."
"10-4."
Dennis replaced his radio and then watched as Rockford came driving up in his silver Firebird.
Jim held a slip of paper out of his car window and waved him over to take it.
"What's this?" the officer asked as he snatched up the proffered piece of paper.
"The license number and description of the other car and the creeps who were in it," the private eye helpfully announced. "Compliments of a Miss Cathy Ann Brickman. She's going to talk her father into having a phone installed—for emergency use only. Unlike the other two upstanding citizens he approached for help, she—at least—was willing to dial 911. Cathy says she's really bummed the creeps caught him."
Becker had been studying the Fire Department photo I.D. in the open wallet in his left hand. "Not nearly as bummed as me..." the police sergeant sadly confessed, and went over to put out another APB.
1868 North Dragoon Drive turned out to be a cute little six room cottage on a deserted stretch of Castle Rock Beach, ten miles up the coast from the beach house in Malibu.
The two dark green sedans pulled up and parked. All nine of their occupants exited.
Two brawny bad guys carted Gage—kicking and screaming—into the cottage.
"HELP! HE-ELP! POLICE! ANYBODY?! HEL—!" John stopped in mid-shout, as the door was slammed, and put all of his energy into trying to pull free.
The two meanies tightened their already vice-like grips and jerked him—kicking and thrashing—into another back bedroom—where he was shoved back onto another mattress.
It took four of them to hold him down while Andy took out a key and reattached his handcuffs to another headboard. They grabbed his ankles and Mark fastened them—securely—to the corner posts of the foot of another bed.
Speaking of being really bummed...
Gage grimaced and thrashed around, frustrated at finding himself back in the same exact BAD situation he'd just escaped from. Well, maybe not exactly the same. He stopped struggling, shut his eyes and started groaning. "Oh-oh, no-o...No, no, no-o..." Someone grabbed his head and forced his mouth shut. He opened his eyes and watched Andy press some more tape over his mouth.
There! All that was missing now was the blind-fold!
Langley leaned over their recaptured prisoner and gave him a backhanded crack in the face. "That was for all the inconvenience you've caused us!" he explained with a scowl.
The blow was more humiliating than hurtful and Gage found himself glaring defiantly back up at his attacker.
This seemed to upset Langley because he pulled his arm back to strike again.
"Hey, Phillip!" Andy said, grabbing the angry guy's arm. "There's no sport in that!"
Phillip gave Gage a look that made his blood run cold. Then he straightened his tie and went stomping out of the room.
The others followed.
John breathed a nasal sigh of relief and closed his eyes.
Alas, his relief was short-lived, as it occurred to him why they weren't bothering to keep him blind-folded anymore. Even if the…convincing...didn't kill him, they obviously intended to shut his eyes—and his mouth—permanently!
John hadn't recovered from the horror of that thought, when something even more horrifying happened. He noticed he was having a difficult time breathing. Something was plugging his nose. He snorted and turned his head—and caught a glimpse of something red out of the corner of his eye. 'Oh, grea-eat!' he thought. 'I'm gonna drown in my own blood!' He shook his head, but couldn't clear his nostrils. He started to panic.
Andy heard Gage thrashing around. He crossed over to open door and poked his head into the room to tell their prisoner to settle down. He spotted the paramedic's dilemma and hurried over to tear the tape from the fireman's mouth.
Gage gasped and sucked in a huge lungful of air...and another...and another. "Thanks!" he told Andy, when he finally got his breath back.
Andy nodded, snatched a couple of Kleenexes from a box on the nightstand, and wiped the prisoner's bloody nose.
John studied his nurse for awhile and then wondered, "How much…are they paying you…to keep me here?"
His captor looked curious. "Why?"
"Because I'll pay you double—triple…to let me go."
Andy stared dubiously down at him. "Now, where would a fireman get a hundred and fifty thousand dollars?"
John just lay there for a few moments—too shocked to speak. Then he cleared his throat. "They're paying you fifty thousand dollars?"
Andy nodded.
The prisoner contemplated his reply over and then inquired, "A piece?"
Andy managed another nod.
The amazed paramedic did some quick mental calculating and suddenly appeared even more stunned. "That's gotta be at least a half a million dollars!" he exclaimed and then looked curious. "What am I supposed to know that's worth that much?"
Andy didn't answer.
"What am I supposed to know that's worth that much?" the paramedic pleaded.
"That much," Andy reluctantly replied, "PLUS two and a half million more."
John was stunned into silence again. 'Three million dollars is a LOT of money!' the paramedic was forced to concede. 'More than enough money for some men to kill someone over...' he glumly realized. "Oh, well..." the forlorn fireman muttered, "at least now I know why they're going to beat me to death."
"They're—we're not going to beat you to death," Andy assured him.
The paramedic looked ecstatic—and then skeptical. "But Phillip said that you were going to…convince...me to talk."
"And so we are!" Andy further assured him. "Doc McKenzie'll be here any minute now."
Their captive looked terribly uneasy. "What's he going to do when he gets here?"
Andy saw the fireman's nose had finally stopped bleeding. "You'll see..." he promised and pressed a fresh piece of tape over the prisoner's mouth—to prevent further questioning. "You'll see..." he rather ominously repeated and then exited the room, leaving the good doctor's victim alone with his thoughts.
Gage swallowed hard and lay there, trying hard not to think of what Doc McKenzie's specialty might be, but 'Scalpels?' crept across his mind anyways...and he shuddered.
The wall clock in the LAPD's Detective's Squad room read just after two.
Sergeant Becker had been kept too busy to eat. He hung up his phone, got up from his desk and started reaching for his coat, draped over the back of his chair. He suddenly remembered something and picked his phone back up instead. Dennis dialed a number from memory.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Rocky. Is Jim there?"
"Just a second, Sergeant.. I'll go get him."
"Dennis?"
"Yeah, Jim. Just thought you'd like to know. We found the cars."
"Abandoned?"
"And wiped clean! They were both rentals, too. So, now we're right back where we started."
"Which was nowhere! What was the name of the rental agency?"
"What do you want that for?" Becker asked and began shuffling through the piles of paper on his desk.
"O-oh, just a hunch."
"Speaking of hunches, Captain Mosley was impressed with your lead. If the gutsy little guy hadn't already escaped, it would have led to his rescu—Here it is! Rodale Car Rentals. 444 West Fair Avenue."
"What? No phone number?"
"You have a directory. Let your fingers do the walking!"
"Okay. Thanks, Dennis. I'll let you know if this leads to anything."
"Thanks, Jim." Becker replaced his phone.
It rang.
The sergeant's stomach growled. He sighed and picked the phone up, instead of his jacket. "Good Afternoon. LAPD. Detective Becker speaking..."
The party on the other end of the line identified himself.
The police officer cringed and stood there, looking extremely guilt-ridden. "Oh, yes, Captain. What can I do for you?...No. I'm afraid I don't have anything new to tell you, aside from the fact that we just found the cars they used to kidnap him the second time...We have every available person on the force out looking for the guys who grabbed him. Hopefully, when we find them—we'll find him..." The cop cringed again. "Yeah, I hope we find him alive, too...Right! I promise I'll get back to you the moment we hear anything...Right. Goodbye, Captain." Dennis hung up, grabbed his coat and turned to leave. His desk phone rang again. He decided to take the call. He'd pretty much just lost his appetite anyways. "Good Afternoon. LAPD. Detective Becker speaking…"
"Dennis," Rockford said, "we're looking for two dark green, four-door, '77 Lincoln Continentals. License numbers OI3311 and OI7483."
Becker held the phone away from his ear and stared at it a moment, before pulling it back up. "We are?" the incredulous cop inquired and jotted Jim's latest little revelation down.
"Yeah."
"And how can you possibly know that?"
"Simple. I noticed that all four of the rental cars they used were the same make and model. So I asked the Rodale people if the guy who rented the tan Continentals had specifically asked for Continentals. They said yes. I began calling other agencies and asking them if anyone had rented any Continentals, lately. Turns out a place—just down the block from Rodale's—rented two out this morning. They described the guy who came in—sounds like Andrew Ruger—and gave me a description of the cars and their plate numbers."
There was a long silence as Becker pulled the receiver down again and shot the private investigator a look of admiration via the phone.
"Dennis?...Are you there?" Rockford wondered.
Becker smiled and pulled the instrument back up to his mouth. "Yeah! Jim-bo, have I ever told you what a great detective you'd make?"
"Get some APB's out on those cars and find that fireman before those yahoos kill him—and I'll tell you what a great detective you'd make!" Rockford teased right back. "If you want me, I'll be at the courthouse."
Becker couldn't help but grin. "Why?"
"You've got all those places on the list staked out, don't you?"
"Yeah."
"And they haven't shown up at any of them yet, have they?"
"No."
"Well, they have to be somewhere! I'm gonna try to find some more wheres for them to be. See yah!"
Dennis heard a click. He got the dial tone back and placed a call to Central Dispatch. He smiled again as he realized he'd just gotten his appetite back.
TBC