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The handhold at the bottom of the ladder was exactly as Tabby had described. It yielded on the first try and slid noiselessly. Halfway open it stuck. I shoved. It gave a piercing shriek.
“Hands on your head,” I said to the man who had turned and was reaching under his jacket. “Now, or I’ll give you worse than a slug in your arm!”
It was one of the men who’d tried to snatch Eve Tremain, the one at the door whom I’d shot. He sat at the opposite end of the tunnel-like space. He obeyed sullenly. Keeping my gun on him, I yanked off my cap, partly to rid a few square inches of my body of cobwebs, but mostly to reassure the other man in the room, who sat gagged and tied hand and foot to a chair on my right.
“Gil. I’m going to get you out of here. Mr. Collingswood hired me to find you.”
Glassy eyes stared at me without comprehension. His head lolled as if he couldn’t support it. I wasn’t entirely sure it was Gil Tremain, he’d been beaten so badly. I pulled his gag down, then turned my full attention back to the guard.
“Lock your fingers together and bring them down behind your neck. Then get on your knees. Give so much as a twitch I don’t like and I’ll shoot you. Understand?”
He muttered under his breath.
“Yeah, I’ve been called that before,” I said as I patted him down. I relieved him of a snub-nosed .38 which I stuck in my waist.
“Who else is here besides you?”
“You tell me.”
“When’s your pal with the gap in his teeth supposed to relieve you?”
“What pal?”
I kicked him in the back.
“Get over there and sit with your back glued to the wall. Legs out, crossed at the ankle. Keep those hands the way I told you.”
I shifted so I could see them both.
“Tremain!”
His eyes had closed.
“Did you hear what I said about Collingswood hiring me? He and Lucille have been worried sick about you. So’s your daughter.”
The eyes fluttered.
“Eve...”
It was little more than a croak. He was in bad shape, face purple and yellow and caked with dried blood. His lips were cracked and peeling as if he’d been denied water. He needed to get to a hospital. Had I told Tabby what to do if she didn’t hear shots?
A vacuum bottle sat by the chair vacated by the thug who now sat glaring at me and waiting for a chance to even scores if I let down my guard. I sat and pinned the bottle between my knees, removing the top with my left hand.
A taste reassured me it was nothing but coffee. I let Tremain have a few sips. His lips reached for them desperately, but most of the liquid ran down his chin, he was so weak. He needed someone to hold his head while he drank, which I couldn’t do while keeping a gun trained on the thug on the floor.
“Gil! How many others are there? Keeping you here? Besides this one?” I gave him another few sips. Those went down better.
“One... two... Tell Eve I didn’t...”
“You’ll be able to tell her yourself. Help’s on the way.”
“Tell her!” He began to cough.
I held the lid of coffee to his mouth.
“Take it easy. I understand. You wouldn’t tell them where to find what they wanted from the Crescendo project. You’d hidden it because you smelled a rat. They tried to beat it out of you. More than once, by the looks of it.”
“But I didn’t... that.”
His head and eyes swerved toward the wall facing him. I turned slowly to follow his gaze without losing sight of the man who was spoiling to jump me. What I saw made me sick at heart.
One of the tables from the long vanished speakeasy sat against the wall. It held a syringe and spoon and an unfolded piece of wax paper displaying a white substance I guessed was heroin.
Rage boiled through me.
“They beat you, and when that didn’t work, they offered you heroin.”
His head bobbed agreement.
“Told me... stop pain. I didn’t. I didn’t.”
I stormed to the entrance the guard had been watching. Too angry to see how the panel opened without taking my eyes from the guard, I pounded my palm on the wood.
“Tabby! Open up. Everything’s okay.”
Surely as determined as she’d been to help, she hadn’t left.
The panel shot into its pocket. Tabby came through so briskly I had to fall back a step. Her eyes were ablaze.
Behind her, holding a gun to her head, was Frank Scott.