“O.K., cowboy,” Seafield said in the garage. “Let’s have the keys to your car out there.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Keys!”
I gave him the keys, and started toward the garage door.
“Stop!”
I stopped and turned. He had acquired a piece of rope and was advancing on me.
“Put your hands behind your back,” he said.
“Don’t be silly!”
“Hands behind your back!”
“You’re taking me to the cops. I’m happy to go to the cops,” I said. “What’s the problem?”
His answer was another big fist hurtling toward my jaw. I let him have the last word.
I woke up slowly. Conscious first of a belated surprise. Surprised that Rush, under pressure, was sticking to the F.B.I. story. My version of the tale had a different ending.
I didn’t get time to worry about it. My consciousness widened to the point of opening my eyes. Even then, life was still pretty dark. I was face down on the floor in the back of a car. Whose car—Linn Pighee’s or Seafield’s or Rush’s—I didn’t know.
My head hurt. I wanted to rub it. But I couldn’t. My hands were tied.
I decided to turn over and sit up. But I couldn’t. My legs were tied. I squirmed for some leverage or position. There wasn’t any.
I bounced heavily as the car came to a stop. I twisted my head to get a hint through a window of where we were. I couldn’t see much of a window. In any case, it was nearly dark outside and where we were there was no street-lighting.
I waited for something to happen.
Nothing did. Then the car radio came on. I decided to ask whether it was time to go see the police now and why I was trussed up. It came out “Mmmwhhhhsssmm-mmmnnnmmmmm.”
My mouth was taped.
But the sound was enough to attract my chauffeur’s attention. “Are we wakies, cowboy?” he asked. I felt a hand on my back. Then the hand pulled testingly on the rope that bound my hands.
“Mmmowowow!” I said.
It let go. “How nice,” Seafield said. “Some company for me while I wait.”
We waited for more than an hour. I kept track by the news bulletins on the radio. I dozed part of the time. My head cleared some.
“All right,” he said, at last. “Time to go visiting.” He got out of the car, opened a back door, and pulled me out feet first. He cut the ropes on my feet, then stood me up. I had trouble balancing and leaned heavily on the car. But I saw we were at the back of Marcia Merom’s apartment building.
“I don’t want any trouble with you,” Seafield said sharply.
It was news to me that there was any kind of trouble I could cause him.
Holding me securely and actually giving me some support while I got my land legs, he led me to the back stairs. There was no one around at all.
We went up to the third floor. Only as we stepped onto Merom’s porch at the top did I think clearly enough to ask myself why I was cooperating with him. The fact that he wanted me upstairs was surely reason enough to fight to stay down.
I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to answer me.
Then I was. Because I’d thought wishfully . . . because I’d drifted into the acquiescent state of mind. Which worked on the assumption that if I didn’t fight, then he wouldn’t do anything really bad to me.
But the man was a murderer. And it could hardly be in doubt that he had scheduled me for the next notch on his metaphorical gun.
My God!
From his pocket Seafield took some keys and opened the back door.
Think, think! Keys meant Merom was not at home. Keys meant Merom was cooperating.
I shouted for help through my tape—“Mmmmfmdmdmghmmdhfkdkfmmm”—as Seafield pulled me into the apartment. It didn’t come out very loud. All a sound like that might attract was the neighborhood cat.
After he closed the door behind us, Seafield said, “Come on,” and led me through to the living room. He turned on a light, then shoved me down against the bedroom door.
He went back to the kitchen.
I didn’t waste the time. I scrambled to my feet and went to the telephone. I nearly sat on it to get the receiver off with my hands behind my back. I lowered the receiver to the table, then squatted again over the dial. I felt for the “O,” to get the operator. I got a finger into it and managed to get the dial all the way around first time.
I turned around then and crouched next to the receiver as it lay flat on the tabletop.
A high-pitched voice said, “Operator. What may I do for you— coffee, tea, or me?”
The voice came from the kitchen doorway. Seafield was leaning casually against the frame. Watching me and not trying to suppress his mirth.
“Bit awkward for you, is it?” he asked. “Let me hold it for you.”
He came to the table and held the receiver up to my ear and mouth. “Go on,” he urged. “Go on.”
The phone was dead. I turned away.
“That’s right,” Seafield said, waving the instrument back and forth in front of my nose. “Last time we were here, you wanted to make a phone call and I pulled the wire out of the wall. And it hasn’t been fixed yet, has it? Has it?”
“Mmmrrmmph.”
“No, it hasn’t. Now, you didn’t think I’d forget something like that, did you?”
He rolled me onto the floor. “Mmrr.”
“But,” he said, “what I’m going to do now is fix the phone. Don’t get me wrong, cowboy. I’m not going to fix it for you, but at least next time, if you think you’ve got a chance, then it will be live. Can’t necessarily say that you will be, though.”
I watched him reconnect the wires he’d pulled out only the day before.
When he finished, he held up the little screwdriver he’d used and said, “See? All fixies.”
He went to the phone. I pulled and squirmed at the ropes on my hands, trying to find a little looseness, some way to wriggle free. For the tenth time I didn’t find any.
He dialed a number. “It’s me,” he said. “Henry says that we can’t do anything now but get rid of the impurity. You are to help.” He paused, then said sharply, “Get yourself over here!”
He slammed the receiver down and walked to the kitchen.
I struggled to my knees and edged toward the phone again.
Seafield reappeared in the doorway, looked at me, and shook his head. “You’re game for an old fella,” he said.
He walked back into the room and pulled the phone wire out. Before going back to the kitchen he kicked me in the stomach.
It wasn’t a kind thing to do.
I heard him open the back door and go out. But a moment later he came in again. And then he was back in the living room with me. He carried a piece of a cement block on a newspaper. He set it down on the floor, returned to the kitchen.
When he joined me again, he had a thick glass wine bottle, empty, in his hand. “This will do nicely, don’t you think?” he said.
“Mmmmnnnrmmm,” I said, in a conciliatory tone. I raised and lowered my eyebrows invitingly. I wanted to talk.
“Over my dead body,” he said.
I didn’t like him dwelling on death, so I asked again, “Mmmmrph?”
“You’ve been such a pain in the ass,” he said, waving the bottle at me. “It’s hard to be patient. And no matter what happens now, you’ve gone and busted the sweetest setup a poor country boy was ever likely to stumble into.”
“Mmm?”
“Oh, yes, you’ve got what you wanted. You’ve busted it up. With people asking questions, it can’t possibly stay undercover much longer. But you shouldn’t take all the credit. People just aren’t as willing to do their country’s duty as they were when we started.” He shook his head. “Yes,” he said, “It’s all through. Like you.”
“Mmmnn?”
“You better believe it, cowboy.”
Despite additional eloquent entreaties, he didn’t say anything else to me. Until Merom arrived.