True-Life Adventure

not tough.
    Because the next thing I remember is lying on the ground and being stomped on.
    Some onlookers must have pulled her off me. Anyway, my next memory is of sitting up, knowing I was about to throw up, realizing that my glasses weren’t on my face, feeling bewildered, and trying to answer the ornery-looking dude who was inquiring about my health.
    I haven’t the least idea what Mrs. Rabbit-Owner looked like, but I can remember my nurse perfectly. He was big, black, and scarred on the right cheek. He was wearing a leather jacket and one of those multicolored, knitted skullcaps tough black guys wear to make them look tougher. The kind of guy I’d expect to mug old ladies, and here he was taking care of me after a mugging administered by an old lady. For about three weeks afterward I hardly thought in stereotypes at all.
    As it happened, I didn’t throw up, did find my glasses, didn’t have anything broken, and regained my powers of speech after ten or fifteen minutes.
    The cops came and went; Mrs. Rabbit-Owner apologized for turning me black and blue; I assured her I was insured, and then I waited for a tow truck, caught a ride to a body shop, and stuck around for a while. I had a pretty good idea why the brakes failed, but I wanted confirmation.

CHAPTER 15
    My brake lines had been cut. That made three attempts on my life in two days. Some guys get nervous about stuff like that. Me, I merely took leave of my senses.
    Meaning I called Blick to fill him in. You can imagine how that went.
    On the whole, it was rather a discouraging morning. This was the score: one failure to reach Jacob by phone, one failure to find Lindsay at a hospital, half a dozen insults from Blick, one failure to reach Jacob by personal appearance, one sickle-swipe from the grim reaper, one smashed Toyota, one severe beating from one new enemy, and half a dozen more insults from Blick.
    Some guys let stuff like that get them down. Me, I went to the office, crawled under the city desk and arranged my ursine frame in a fetal position.
    I had to lie there twenty minutes before Joey relented and offered to buy me lunch. It was the classic two-martini one and it did me a world of good. That and Joey’s promise to lend me a company car for the time being gave me strength to return my phone calls.
    There were two messages— both from Susanna. I figured I knew what she was calling about and I hated to ruin her day, but it’s rude not to return calls, so I did. And told her Lindsay was still missing.
    “I thought as much, since I hadn’t heard from you.” She sighed. “But I do have a tiny piece of information for you. Two, in fact. One of the cameramen saw her in the Hunan Restaurant the night before she took off.”
    “No kidding! Did he see who she was with?”
    “Yes, but it was no one he knew. It was a woman.”
    “Did he get a good look at her?”
    “Not very, apparently. Dark, curly hair, pink dress.”
    “That’s all? ”
    “He’s not a real verbal guy. I got the impression he could recognize her again; he just didn’t know how to describe her.”
    “Terrific. If I find her I’ll bring her right over for an I.D.”
    “What are you so down about?”
    “Oh, nothing. I mean, I don’t want to talk about it. What’s the other tidbit you mentioned?”
    “I got a threatening phone call. A whispery voice, demanding to know where Lindsay is. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.”
    “What was the threatening part?”
    “It said, ‘Where is Lindsay Hearne?’ and I said, ‘Who is this?’ and it said, ‘You’re next.’ So I said, ‘What the hell do you mean?’ and it said, ‘If you want to live, tell me where Lindsay Hearne is.’ So I hung up.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “No. Why not? I didn’t have anything else to say to the creep.”
    “I mean the whole thing. They guy really said, ‘You’re next’?”
    “I’m not at all sure it was a guy.”
    “Susanna, for Christ’s sake. You aren’t taking this seriously?”
    “I’ve gotten a lot of crank calls in my life.”
    “You’ve got to tell Blick about this. Promise me.” And I told her about my brakes.
    In the end, she promised to call Blick and to have her husband pick her up after work for a few days so she wouldn’t have to stand at any dark bus stops.
    I rang off, feeling not at all relieved. Feeling worse than ever, in fact. I didn’t like the sound of that “next” at all. I wondered if Brissette and Tillman had gotten similar