“I’m sure we can do that,” I said, knowing that my brain was scrambling to think of ways to counter whatever Danton had in mind.
“I don’t scare easily, Alex. I lost one finger to my own negligence a long time ago in a kitchen, as I told you,” he said. He had clamped his other hand on my neck to keep me close to him. “The other one was hacked off by a drug dealer in Nigeria who thought I’d been poaching from his stash. Both times without the benefit of anesthesia.”
He laughed at his own story, or maybe at the look on my face as I checked out his mutilated fingers.
“Don’t look so surprised, Alex. You and the detective obviously came up here today because-”
“I asked him to bring me here to find Luc. That’s all. I was desperate to spend a few hours with Luc before he goes home.”
“Such a sweet thought. But I think the truth is that your friend Chapman believes I knew something about Luigi and his drug business. He’ll be happy to see you come in with me, Alex. Both Mike and Luc will be glad you’re there.”
I tried to dig my heels into the seams of the wooden floorboard, but Peter Danton pulled me forward. “I’ve learned to work with what I’ve got left, in case you’re thinking there isn’t much strength in my hands.”
I wanted them off me-off my neck. I shook my head but he grasped me even tighter.
“Come along, Alex,” he said, as he steered me through the opening of the vault. “Don’t keep everyone waiting. It’s cold in there. Bone-chilling cold.”
FIFTY-THREE
The temperature dropped the minute we crossed the threshold into the subterranean shelter. Outside it had been a warm, sunny April afternoon, but once the steel door closed behind us, the fifty-five-degree temperature-and the sudden injection of fear-had me shivering uncontrollably.
Peter Danton kept a firm grip on my neck as he moved me forward. There was a single corridor-a long, gray cement floor lined with cases and cases of wine, stacked floor to ceiling. Overhead, the long fluorescent lights cast an eerie glow in the windowless space.
I could hear voices in the distance. I thought about screaming, but there was no point in creating chaos without an understanding of what had gone on. I knew that Mike had a gun, and it didn’t appear that Peter Danton did.
Every ten cases or so, an alley had been created between the cartons, each ending against a solid concrete wall. I looked from side to side but saw no one.
I paused to catch my breath and rub my hands together. The boxes stacked on my right side were different than the wine cases. They were brown cardboard, labeled ENERGY LIFE PACK, which seemed ironic at the moment. The date stamp said 1960, and they had obviously been sealed for more than fifty years. In small print below that was a list of uses: ATOMIC WARFARE/BACTERIA WARFARE/HURRICANES/EARTHQUAKES. I wondered if their contents would be of any help today to interlopers buried alive in an out-of-date bomb shelter.
“Is that you, Peter?” Josh Hanson called out. “You back?”
“Yeah. Is there a problem?”
“Nah. Mike here is asking questions I just can’t answer.”
I bit my lip as Danton dragged me along beside him.
“What is it you don’t understand, Detective?” Danton asked.
We were coming to the end of the corridor, and I could tell from the direction of Josh’s voice that the others were around the corner to the left.
The bunker seemed almost like a labyrinth-a small maze with a low ceiling and no natural light, and no exit at the end of any of the rows. The tight, cold space was a claustrophobe’s nightmare. It seemed airless, too, because the chilly temperature made it harder to breathe. I closed my eyes to try to concentrate on a way to safely talk us all out of this disaster.
“I’m just trying to learn about all these vintages-what makes them valuable and that kind of thing.”
Mike was the first person I saw when we turned the last corner. He was ten feet away from me, holding a bottle of wine from the long rows of shelves on which the bottles had been stacked after being removed from their cases.
Although Peter Danton had let go of my neck, Mike clearly got a look at the panicked expression on my face.
“Coop-what-?”
There was a long table tucked into the far corner behind Mike, where Luc and Josh had been seated with Jim Mulroy. Luc got to his feet immediately and called out my name.
“I’m fine,” I said, holding out both hands in front of me and urging both Mike and Luc to stay calm.
“Alex was afraid she was missing out on something tasty,” Danton said. “Aren’t you guys still drinking?”
There were several open bottles of red wine-and four half-filled wineglasses-on the table at which they’d been sitting before Danton came back out and found me.
Mike started toward me as Luc tried to catch up with him.
“I’m fine!” I shouted, far too loud to be convincing as my voice echoed off the ceiling and wall.
At the same moment, Danton yoked me with his right arm, dragging me back and reaching out with his left toward a crack between the metal racks of the last row of wine bottles.
Before Mike could reach me, Peter Danton dropped his hand from my neck and lifted a double-barreled shotgun, pointing it directly at the three startled men who were facing us.
FIFTY-FOUR
“I’m happy to pay for the wine I drank,” Mike said, lowering his hand to his side. His off-duty gun was probably in a shoulder-holster under his arm. “No need to shoot.”
“On the house, Detective. Keep your hands away from your pockets. More wine and fewer questions, you’d be on your way home.”
“Alex,” Luc said. “Are you all right?”
I nodded at him while Danton answered. “Sit yourself down, Luc. Back at the table where Jim is.”
Luc stood his ground for several seconds, until Danton fired directions at Josh Hanson.
“There are several lengths of rope in that cabinet behind you, Josh,” Danton said. “Sit them down and tie their hands to the chair, behind their backs.”
“Let me recommend something to you,” Mike said. “You and Josh take a flying head start on us, Peter. Get yourselves out of here right now, before anybody else gets hurt. Go right to the airport, if you’re smart. You can live like a king in the South of France. Like a deposed dictator or any other kind of thug. I bet Gil-Darsin’s villa’s already on the market.”
“Shut up, Chapman.”
“Leave us here for a few hours. Overnight even. You know we can’t call out on these phones. Go wherever the hell you want to go and just let us be. You’re not wanted for murder in France.”
“I didn’t kill the girl there,” Danton said.
“They’re ready to tag that one to Luigi,” Mike said. “Not to worry.”
I could hardly stop trembling from the combination of cold and terror.
“Give me your gun, Detective,” Danton said, as I watched Josh wrap the rope around Luc’s hands.
“My day off, Peter. Left my Glock home in bed. I just came for a ride in the country,” Mike said, lifting his arms in the air. “All in the name of love. Now, if you let Alex sit down, maybe she’ll stop shaking so badly.”
“She’ll get used to it.”
“Come here, Coop,” Mike said. “Go sit back there with Luc.”
I knew Mike wanted me out of the way in case he and Peter reached the point of exchanging gunshots, but I couldn’t bring myself to move farther into the corner of this death trap of a vault.
“She’ll stay right here until I see your heat,” Danton said, slamming the shotgun against my back.
“I’m telling you, man. Sometimes I just don’t pack. Like you, the night you slit Luigi’s throat.” Mike gestured by running his finger across his neck. “I mean it’s more quiet than shooting him, but it left so much fucking blood all over the houseboat. It would have been much neater if you’d just pumped one or two shots in his gut.”