The Big Exit (29 page)

He hears the footsteps again and on the first try, his nerves get the best of him: he fails to properly align the bracelet
with the bottom of the leg and the sink doesn’t stay up. The footsteps grow louder, they’re coming toward the door. He tries
it again, and this time the wedge holds, and he quickly slides the chain down the leg and pulls it out through the open gap.

Just as he gets free of the sink, the door opens and bashes into him, toppling him over. He rolls onto his side and when he
looks up he sees a figure standing over him, pointing a gun at him. But he’s not a cop. He’s a guy in a T-shirt and jeans
and a Giants baseball hat. Richie doesn’t know why, but he looks somehow familiar. Had he met Anderson before somewhere and
didn’t know it?

“You were always a determined little fuck, weren’t you, Richie?” he says.

When he says his name, it dawns on him that this isn’t Anderson. The guy stands there, his mouth breaking into that unmistakable
smile and Richie can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. It doesn’t compute,
yet it does. The face looks fuller, puffed out. But it’s him, isn’t it? It’s fucking him.

“You—” is all that comes out of his mouth.

“Not who you were expecting?”

“What have you done with Ashley? Where’s Dupuy?”

He’s so concerned with other more pressing matters, McGregor’s resurrection seems almost inconsequential. He can’t even begin
to process it.

McGregor smiles. “They’re getting a very personal tour of Paul Anderson’s fetish chamber. It’s really pretty timid by S and
M standards. But I must say some of his bondage toys have come in handy.”

His smile suddenly disappears. He’s seen the ankle bracelet wedged under the pedestal.

“What the fuck is that?” he asks.

“What the fuck do you think it is? It’s an electronic leash. And it’s all over, man. The cops are on their way.”

“Get up,” he says, waving the gun at him. “Get the fuck up. I don’t how you found me. This house isn’t even rented in Anderson’s
name.”

“Easy, man,” Richie says, standing up slowly, his foot now throbbing along with his head. “Easy. Let the women go, okay? It’s
me you want anyway.”

“No, I don’t. But I do want to know how you found me. That Ashley girl says she works for Marty Lowenstein, but she wouldn’t
say how she found me.”

He pulls him out of the little room and nudges him forward down a short hallway, poking him in the back with the gun, telling
him not to try anything. As soon as they get out into the hall, the unmistakable odor of gasoline becomes stronger.
He’s going to burn the place down
, he thinks, stepping in a wet patch on the floor. There’s gas everywhere.

“Let’s talk about this, man,” he says, resorting to clichés. “You don’t have to do this. Let the women go. We’ll talk this
out. You and me.”

“We sure will,” he says.

He marches him into the kitchen, where he sees a gas can sitting on the floor next to a door that turns out to be the entrance
to the garage. There are two cars in the garage. McGregor presses a button on the wall to open the garage door, then leads
him over to the driver’s
side of the closer vehicle and tells him to get in. Richie opens the door hesitantly, a little discombobulated.
He can’t expect me to drive
, he thinks. But it turns out that’s exactly what McGregor has in mind.

“Get in,” he repeats, giving Richie a nudge with the gun. “You’re driving.”

He then circles the front of the car, keeping the gun trained on Richie the whole time.

“I can’t drive,” Richie says after McGregor slides into the passenger seat next to him. “Uncuff me.”

“Yes, you can. That’s why power steering was invented. Press that button right there,” he says pointing to a spot to the right
of the wheel.

Richie looks for a key for the ignition but doesn’t see one.
Where are the cops?
he wonders, fumbling around by the side of the wheel, stalling.
Come on, boys. Come on
.

“Where’s the key?” he asks.

McGregor leans over and presses a button below the dashboard.

“It doesn’t use a key. It’s a hybrid. I’ve got the fob in my pocket. It’s wireless.”

He realizes then that the engine is on, but it’s so quiet he can barely hear it. He’s never driven a hybrid. What’s he do
next?

McGregor points the gun at him and says, “Roll down your window.”

“Why?”

“It’s hot in here. You’re sweating.”

“Why don’t you turn on the air conditioner?” he asks, trying to kill more time.

“Just roll it down.” After some more fumbling, this time with the window button on his door handle, he complies with the request.

“There,” he says, and just as he says it, McGregor fires the gun. The bullet whizzes past Richie’s face and into the house,
hitting the gas can near the door, a ball of flames exploding out of it.

“Drive,” McGregor says, pointing the gun at his head again. He can barely hear him, his ears are ringing so badly. McGregor
jerks the gearshift into reverse for him, then moves the gun closer. “Fucking drive.”

C
AROLYN HAS A HARD TIME CONCENTRATING ON ANYTHING BUT HER
pain; then the sound of a bang and small explosion upstairs jolts her to attention. McGregor’s turned off all the lights
and left the room, but there’s some light leaking in from cracks here and there, and she can make out enough of Ashley’s face
to see that she looks as panicked as she is.

The place is on fire
, she thinks.
He’s burning the place down. We’ve got to get out of here
.

And just as she thinks it, she feels her phone vibrating in her back pocket and almost simultaneously hears the muffled sound
of the ringer going off. She’d forgotten she slipped the phone in her jeans as she got out of the car and now someone, probably
Lowenstein, is calling. But with the way her hands are cuffed to the bed frame, she can’t reach the phone, and maddeningly,
the call goes to voice mail. Not long afterwards, the phone vibrates again, signaling she has a new voice mail. Then, thirty
seconds later, a short but sustained vibration: someone’s sent a text message.

She looks over at Ashley again, this time trying to calculate the distance between them. If she can get up on the bed and
stretch out width-wise, Ashley might be able to get to the phone by stretching forward as far she can. It’s worth a shot.
And Ashley, seeming to read her mind, motions with her hands to come toward her.

The only problem is actually getting up off the floor. Her foot on her broken leg is dangling there, a fact that only becomes
more apparent as she tries to stand on her good leg. On the first two attempts she can’t lift herself up, but then she leans
back, letting the cuffs dig into her skin, and uses the bed post as leverage to power up on one leg.
Breathing hard through her nose and sweating, she breaks for a few seconds, knowing the next part is really going to hurt.
She rolls over onto the bed, and using her knees and good leg, maneuvers herself toward Ashley.

Another explosion, this one louder. Then she smells it: smoke. Not a strong smell, but it’s definitely there.
It’s burning
, she thinks.
It’s on fire. How the fuck are we going to get out of here?

By the time Madden gets to the location, the house is already on fire. He sees two San Mateo Sherriff’s officers’ cars parked
across the street from the residence and he pulls in behind them, just in front of a burgandy BMW convertible that seems oddly
familiar. He sees flames jutting off the left side of the house and smoke wafting out from the open garage door. He can see
a single vehicle inside, partially obscured by all the smoke. The fire trucks arrive as he’s literally getting out of his
car and a few seconds later Carlyle calls to tell him there’s a report of a fire at the location.

“I know,” Madden says. “I’m looking at it.”

Two cops are just standing in front of the house, one talking on his radio, the other hunched over, his hands on his legs,
coughing. Madden comes up and flashes his badge, introducing himself.

“Anybody inside?” he asks.

“Not that I saw,” the hunched-over cop says. “But I wasn’t in there long. Did find this, though,” he says, handing him a Ziploc
bag with Richie Forman’s ankle bracelet inside. “Your guy wasn’t attached to it. But there was some blood on the floor next
to it.”

“Where in the house?”

“Laundry room. It was weird. Found it wedged underneath the leg of a sink.”

For a moment Madden isn’t quite sure what to do. The firefighters are busy getting their hoses hooked up and gear on and he
just stands there, looking at the house.
Think, Madden, think
. And then it occurs to him that he should try to get the plate off the car in the garage. The smoke’s pretty bad but when
the wind shifts a little, he’s able to read it, and calls Carlyle back to run the plate.

Just as he gets off the phone he sees Lowenstein running toward him and his first thought is,
Shit, I can’t deal with this guy now
. He
knew Lowenstein tried to follow him from the lab, but he thought he’d lost him. Now here he is, frantically coming at him.

“They’re in the basement,” Lowenstein calls out.

“What?”

“They’re in the basement,” he says, pulling up. “You gotta get someone in there.”

“Who?”

“My investigator, Ashley,” he says, trying to catch his breath. “And Carolyn Dupuy.” He holds up his phone to Madden. There,
on the screen, is the thread of text messages with green bubbles around them. Her last one says, “In basement. Help. Door
under stairs.” Followed by his: “Coming.”

“What the hell’s she doing in there?” he asks.

But instead of waiting for an answer he sets off for the house. He goes past a firefighter who’s pulling a hose and goes straight
for the front door. He doesn’t put his hand directly on the knob but gives it a quick touch, checking its temperature. It’s
warm but not burning hot, so he gives it a turn and pushes it open. “Hey, don’t go in there,” another firefighter shouts.

Too late. He’s inside already.

The stairs leading up to the second floor are just off to the right.
Under the stairs
, he thinks.
No, behind
. Staying low, he follows a short hallway, looking for the backside of the staircase, and sure enough there’s a door. He’s
coughing badly now, the smoke’s much worse, the heat of the fire suddenly upon him. He’s about to reach for the knob when
a firefighter appears by his side, his face fully covered by a breathing apparatus. The firefighter starts to pull him out,
but he shouts for him to open the door. “There are people in the basement.”

When he opens it, Madden leads the way down the stairs and is greeted by fresher air. He goes to reach for his flashlight
but the firefighter already has his out and waves it around the room, then trains it on the bizarre sight: there, in the middle
of the room, is an ominous-looking metal-framed bed. And on the bed are two women, one of them stretched out at an odd horizontal
angle, her hands extended all the way out, like she’s being blown by the wind. Both of them have their mouths taped and are
handcuffed to the bed.

Madden gets to Carolyn first and pulls the tape off her mouth, leaving the firefighter to help Ashley.

“Thank God,” she says, her face covered in sweat. “Get us out of here. My leg’s broken, Hank. It’s broken really bad.”

He looks over at her leg and notices her foot is pointed in a direction it shouldn’t be.
Jesus
, he thinks. She pleads again for him to get her out of there.

He wants to, but there’s the little matter of the cuffs. While they tend to use plastic wrist ties these days, he has a handcuff
key on his keychain and two extra keys. But when he goes to reach for his keys in his pocket, he realizes he’s left them in
the ignition of his car.

“Do you know where the keys are?” he asks her.

“You don’t have a fucking key? And you call yourself a cop. Shoot them off.”

“You don’t want me to do that.”

“Look in those drawers,” Ashley says, her mouth now untaped. “He got them out of those drawers.”

Madden goes over to the chest and opens the top drawer, where he’s a little startled to find a set of sex toys, including
a giant dildo, two tubes of lubricants, and an open box of rubbers. He quickly moves on to the middle drawer, which has another
set of cuffs, but still no keys. Then, finally, in the bottom drawer—bingo: in a corner is a thin wire ring with two small
keys on it.

He returns to the bed, where one fireman is on his radio, requesting a set of bolt cutters. Madden gets the cuffs off, and
the firefighter starts to plot their exit.

“I got a couple of windows over on this side,” a second firefighter says. “But it’s real tight. I don’t think we’re getting
her out that way in her condition.”

Carolyn is grimacing horribly, shouting for them to get her the fuck out of there, and for a brief moment, Madden wonders
whether it wouldn’t have been better to leave the tape on her mouth.

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” the first firefighter says. “We’ll get you out.”

And sure enough they do. A couple of tactical water strikes and a mad dash later, they make it outside with only a mild case
of smoke inhalation. An amateur photographer snaps a series of shots of them
coming out of the house, the most dramatic of which—a firefighter carrying Carolyn out in his arms, Madden resolutely by their
side, his face covered in sweat, his eyes tearing—will appear on the front page of both the
Mercury
and
Chronicle
and as the lead story on the eleven-o’clock news.

Outside, Madden can’t stop coughing but he keeps pushing aside the oxygen mask the paramedics insist he use. He can’t wear
an oxygen mask and talk on the phone at the same time.

“I need you or someone there to get on the phone to Hertz,” he says to Carlyle. “I need them to track down a vehicle immediately.
I don’t have the plate, but it’s under Marty Lowenstein’s name and it was rented last Saturday. Not the one he rented today.”
He then breaks into another coughing fit.

“You gonna be okay there, Hank?” Carlyle asks.

“It’s him, Brian. It’s McGregor.”

“What do you mean?”

“Forman’s in the car with McGregor. He’s not dead.”

“Who’s not dead?”

“McGregor.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“No, I’m not. Just find that car. It’s got NeverLost. And that means it can always be found.”