by Hank Janson
I got up, sweating, and backed away from her, wiped my arm across my forehead. She lay there for a moment as though surprised by being so suddenly released. Then she sat up quickly, turned around to face me. There was apprehension, fear and just a hint of surprise in her eyes. In the same moment, she clutched at the broken strap of her cami-knickers, held her bodice so it covered her bare breast. Her other hand went to her waist, fingers fumbled at the chain. She looked down at it, shocked, scrambled off the bed, and suddenly realized she was tethered like a dog in a kennel. Her hunted eyes found mine. The apprehension in those blue eyes was deep and bitter. She backed until she was pressed up tight against the wall. She was scared. No matter how much she struggled now, she could not escape me.
This was my first let-up since I’d met her. I didn’t have to worry about her any more. She’d never get off that chain, except with a hacksaw or padlock key. For the first time, I was able to look at her and see her as a woman instead of a threat to my liberty. I liked what I saw. She was attractive, with long, slim legs; a compact, beautifully-proportioned body and the kinda figure that makes guys turn to look a second time. I was seeing her to the best advantage, because all she’d been wearing under that red dress was black cami-knickers; black-lace cami-knickers through which the milky white of her skin gleamed invitingly. She wore one other article of clothing. A slender suspender girdle. She wore it beneath the cami-knickers. I could see it because the lace-work was so fine, so delicate and so revealing.
Her face was white, she was breathing heavily and she was using both hands to tie the broken shoulder strap. She was still pressed against the wall as far from me as she could get. The hunted expression in her eyes showed she expected me to spring at any moment.
‘I. just want to explain ...’ I began.
She snarled, baring her teeth like a tigress at bay. ‘Murderer,’ she spat at me. ‘Murderer!’
She was a sweet-looking dame. It hurt me to see the blazing contempt in her eyes. I’d been through so much already. Now I was feeling so exhausted, I hadn’t the strength to argue or even explain.
‘So I’m a murderer,’ I agreed wearily. ‘Being in for one killing or two makes little difference. I only hang once.’ I pointed my finger at her. ‘What’s to stop me bumping you right now?’
Suddenly she wasn’t scared any more. She stared at me, pressed herself back against the wall, but the fear had left her eyes. She kinda sucked in her breath. ‘Yeah,’ she taunted. ‘That’s what I’d like to know. What’s to stop you killing me now?’
I said ominously: ‘Bear it in mind. Keep thinking about it. And keep quiet for a coupla hours, or maybe I’ll slit your throat.’
Maybe I said it with conviction. As I spoke, her hands went up to her throat, encircled it protectively,
‘That’s the idea, honey,’ I gritted. ‘You keep good and scared and pipe down for a coupla hours.’ I turned away from her, stumbled across to the other side of the room, sank wearily into a deep, comfortable armchair. I stretched out luxuriously, sighed with contentment. She was watching me curiously. After a moment, she asked anxiously: ‘What are you going to do?’
I yawned. ‘Get some sleep,’ I said. I yawned again. ‘A coupla hours sleep. That’s what I need.’
‘I mean … what are you going to do about me?’
I worked a grim note into my voice, stared at her with hard eyes. ‘Cut your throat maybe if you don’t pipe down.’
She shut up, still stood there, watching me. After a time, my eyelids began to flutter. I musta dozed for a few minutes. When I opened my eyes a little later, she was curled up on the bed, crouched there with her cheeks resting on her hands. She was staring at me like I was some laboratory subject she was analysing.
Maybe it was the unusual exertion, maybe it was the after-effects of that drug, or maybe it was the whisky Gunn had forced between my lips, while I lay unconscious. I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. My eyelids inexorably closed, and I slept.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I musta slept for two or three hours. I awoke with a start, tensed because I knew I was in trouble.
My eyes turned towards the dame, and the next moment I was climbing out of my chair in desperate anxiety. The bathroom door was closed as far as the chain would permit. I almost thrust it open and burst into the bathroom. I stopped myself just in time.
‘Hey. Are you in there?’ I demanded.
There was a moment’s silence. Then she said, quietly and wearily: ‘Go away. Leave me alone.’
‘How long have you been in there?’
‘I’ve only just …’
‘If you’re not out in three minutes, I’m coming in,’ I warned.
‘Why you …’ she choked with indignation.
I paced up and down the room, lit a cigarette. ‘All right,’ I called. ‘Three minutes up. I’m coming in.’
‘I’m coming,’ she answered breathlessly. The door opened and she sidled out. There was an angry flush on her cheeks and her eyes glinted with annoyance. I looked her over, slowly and scrutinizingly. The chain was still firmly secured around her waist. That was reassuring. Just for a moment, I’d been scared she’d managed to work that chain down over her hips. I could see now it was drawn too tightly for that.
She climbed on the bed, pulled a sheet up around her. ‘Don’t keep looking at me like that!’ she flared.
‘Stripping your dress was your idea,’ I told her.
She flushed even more. ‘Haven’t you anything I can wear?’
‘Getting squeamish kinda sudden?’
She sat and glared at me. There was still a hint of fear deep down in her eyes. But she’d had time to cool off, adjust herself to her circumstances.
I got busy making coffee. My upper arm was painful where I’d been jabbed with that hypodermic. I noticed it more and more as I sliced bacon, dropped it into sizzling fat. It was a long while since I’d eaten. An appetising aroma filled the air, sharpened my appetite.
I put a large cup of coffee, bacon and bread on a tray. I knew just how far that chain would allow her to move. I’d formed in my mind’s eye a mental boundary line over which I shouldn’t pass if I didn’t want to tangle with her. I kept my side of the boundary line, pushed the tray over into her territory. ‘Get this inside you,’ I told her. She tossed her head, sniffed disdainfully. ‘I don’t eat with murderers!’
I shrugged my shoulders disinterestedly. ‘Suits me.’
I didn’t realise I was so hungry. I ate slowly and with relish. Meanwhile, she sat on the bed, curled up with the sheet around her, watching me with evident disapproval. The aroma of that coffee was lingering in the air. It proved more than she could resist. After a little while, she reluctantly sidled off the bed, approached the tray, inspected it critically. I ignored her. She picked up the tray, carried it back to the bed, sat there drinking the coffee. A little later she started on the bacon.
She was only halfway through by the time I’d finished. I leaned back in my chair with satisfaction, lit a cigarette and looked at her directly for the first time since she’d started eating. ‘Tastes good, doesn’t it?’
She glared at me. ‘What am I supposed to do? Say thank you?’
‘I don’t have to feed you,’ I pointed out.
She tossed her head, sniffed contemptuously. But she didn’t stop eating. When she was through, she pushed the tray on one side, stared at me hostilely.
‘Cigarette?’ I invited.
‘Do I have to go on my knees for it?’
I took a new pack from my pocket, tossed it to her. She caught it neatly. I was gonna throw her a box of matches, then hesitated. A dame like her could raise all hell with matches, setting the bedclothes alight, burning the place down in a desperate effort to get away. My own cigarette was almost finished. I put it in a saucer, edged it across the boundary line. ‘Help yourself to a light.’
She was furious. She figured I did that so she would have to come out from under the sheets. At the same time, she want
ed that smoke badly. She came over and got her light, eyes flashing angrily all the time. And because she was so self-conscious, I noticed her. Noticed her as a woman, I mean. Noticed how her skin gleamed through her undergarment, the contrast between the silky blackness of the suspender tags against the milky-white of her thighs and the deep cleavage between her breasts as she stooped.
Conscious of my scrutiny, she scuttled back to the bed, pulled the sheet around her before she lit the cigarette. She held my dog-end between her fingers like the part my lips had touched was leprous. She glanced around, wondering where to put the dog-end, and then got a better idea. She threw it at me.
It fell short. I grinned amiably, kicked it off the carpet and ground it beneath my heel on the wooden skirting board.
I took a chair, pulled it almost to the boundary line and sat facing her comfortably. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked conversationally.
‘As if you don’t know,’ she sneered.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to be sociable. But I owe you an explanation. I owe you an apology, too.’
‘Now fancy that,’ she mocked.
I looked at her levelly. ‘I didn’t kill that guy,’ I said.
‘He wasn’t even dead,’ she mocked. ‘You don’t know a thing about it. You weren’t even there when it happened. And I’m not chained up like a dog.’
‘I can understand you not believing me,’ I said wearily. ‘I was framed. I recovered consciousness sooner than expected. You jumped to the wrong conclusion the same way as the cops would have done.’
‘Save it for the judge,’ she sneered.
I breathed hard. ‘You’re not an easy dame to get along with.’
‘You aren’t exactly a helpful playmate yourself,’ she retorted.
I felt in my pocket for another cigarette, flinched as red hot pain stabbed in my upper arm. That needle sure had made me sore. ‘I’m sorry about you,’ I said sincerely. ‘It was just your bad luck you happened along. I’ve gotta straighten this thing out, get myself in the clear. I won’t have a chance if you go squawking to the cops.’ I sighed. ‘You see the way it is. I’ve just gotta stop you squawking.’
She sneered. ‘Yeah, that’s all. You just wanna stop me squawking. That’s why you’ve got this set-up, everything laid on to keep me a prisoner.’
I stared at her. ‘You talk like I’d planned all this, You’re not getting the crazy idea I like doing this?’
‘Cut out the frills,’ she said crudely. ‘I know why I’m here. So do you. It’s a dangerous game to play, and you’ll never get away with it. It may take a year, it may take a coupla years. But they’ll get you, brother.’ Her eyes flashed, and her breasts heaved. ‘And I hope they’ll hang you!’ she finished.
I could understand the dame being sore. But she talked like I had some personal kinda motive for treating her this way. ‘I don’t know how long you’re gonna be here,’ I said . ‘Not too long, I hope. You can fight back at me all the time you’re here. Or you can accept the way things are. It’ll make it easier for you and for me if you accept everything quietly.’
She tossed her head, and the movement caused the long chain to clink. ‘Make myself comfortable!’ she said in disgust.
‘I’ll tell you just once more,’ I said levelly. ‘I didn’t kill that guy. I was framed.’
‘Stop it,’ she drawled. ‘You make me weep.’
‘Now tell me about yourself,’ I said. ‘What’s your name? Who are your folks? Can I get in touch with them, make some excuse to explain your absence?’
‘Perhaps you’d like me to write them a letter?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That’s a good idea. You write them a letter. If it’s okay, I’ll see they get it.’
Her cheeks blazed with anger. She swung herself off the bed, pushed through into the bathroom, shut the door behind her as far as she was able.
She showed pretty clearly she wasn’t gonna do any more talking. I got up, winced with a sudden hot stab of pain in my arm, and made my way to one of the other rooms, where I could take a shower. There was an ugly red swelling on my arm where that hypodermic needle had jabbed. I felt the spot tenderly, and pain burned deep down inside my arm. The flesh was swollen and reddened. As a doctor, Gunn would have made a good butcher.
I was fresher when I was through washing. I went back to my room, and the dame was still in the bathroom. She musta been in there half an hour. It worried me. All the time she was in there, I couldn’t see what she was doing. I was worried she might figure out some way to get loose. I called out to her. She didn’t reply. I called out again, crossed over to the bathroom door. She still didn’t reply.
I pushed at the bathroom door, rapped on the panels. It resisted me. ‘Listen,’ I gritted in a warning voice. ‘If you don’t answer up or come out, I’m coming in. Understand?’
I got results then. A low kinda moan. The door resisted me like her weight was lying on the floor, stopping the door from opening.
I got anxious. I knuckled the panels some more. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked loudly. ‘I’m coming in.’
Silence.
I put my shoulder against the door, pushed. It resist me. I pushed harder, felt the door give, got it wide enough to thrust my head around the door.
She had it all worked out. She was standing right behind the door, the slack of the chain formed into a noose. I fed my head right into it. As my head came around the door, the loop of chain was around my neck and she was straining backwards, throwing her full weight on the chain so it bit deep into my neck, cut into my windpipe, choking me with hard, metallic agony.
In a moment like that, you’re panic stricken. All air is cut off, and all you can do is claw at your throat trying to loosen the killing constriction. For maybe half a minute, I was half-crazy, futilely trying to dig my fingers underneath the ring of steel that was sinking deeper and deeper into my neck. I knew I was gonna die; there was a red haze enveloping me and my heart was pounding louder and louder, echoing like a booming drum from one side of my head to the other.
She almost did for me. Another minute and I’d have been unconscious. But through the panic and fear of death, a tiny gleam of intelligence penetrated my mind. Fighting every natural primitive urge to tear that constricting ring from around my neck, a slender flash of commonsense showed what I must do.
My fingers left my throat. Just momentarily, the steel ring gouged even deeper. My hands extended on either side, grasped at the chain. Then I pulled my hands together, so that the loop of chain slackened.
It wasn’t easy to do that, not while I was half-choked and gasping for breath. To counteract my move, the dame was jerking savagely on the chain, repeatedly throwing her full weight on it so the chain almost ripped through my fingers.
But the first easing of the chain destroyed my panic. I sucked air into my lungs, contented myself merely with resisting her attempts to jerk the chain from my grip. Then, as the red haze began to clear from my eyes, I exerted my strength, pulled on the chain, until slowly but inexorably she was drawn close to me. I got my arm around her waist, held her tightly while I withdrew my head from the loop. She didn’t waste time. Her fingernails took strips of skin off my neck and her teeth fastened in my cheek, bit deep until I was maddened and grunting aloud with the agony of it.
The pain was unendurable. When you’re suffering that kinda pain, you don’t stop to think. I grabbed her hair, tugged with all my strength. Her mouth opened to squeal as she arched backwards. I didn’t let up, threw my weight on her hair like I wanted to yank it out. She was squealing, arching over backwards and dropping to her knees, hands clutching at her hair to ease the pain, as a few moments earlier my own fingers had scrabbled at the chain around my neck.
My throat was crushed and lacerated. I wasn’t sure I was ever gonna talk again. Blood was trickling down my cheek from the wound inflicted by her sharp teeth, and there was that burning pain in my upper arm. All those things added up. I maintained the pressure on her hair for
maybe half a minute, getting a savage kinda satisfaction from her agony.
‘Maybe that’ll teach you,’ I growled grimly, when I let her go.
Her eyes were filled with tears, face twisted in pain. Her fingers massaged her scalp. She let loose a coupla sobs.
I caressed my neck tenderly. There was a ring of fire around it. ‘Cut out the snivelling,’ I snarled. ‘You got off light.’
She was letting loose throaty sobs as she scrambled to her feet. I’d had enough. I figured she’d had enough. That was a mistake. She still had plenty of fight left in her. I didn’t notice when she gathered up the slackness of chain. A length of swinging chain can be a nasty weapon.
She tried to slash me across the face with it. There wasn’t enough slack to enable her to slash that high. Instead it cut across my arm, biting into my shoulder.
I was tenderly massaging my neck, quite unprepared for it. The sharp agony caused me instinctively to whirl and dive at her. She slashed again, but I caught her wrist so the chain slapped without force against my chest. ‘Why you little ...’ I growled, as with a swift twisting jerk she got free from me, eluded my clutching arms.
She couldn’t get far from me. I reached her as the chain, taut and vibrating, brought her up with a jerk. She spun around, taloned fingers swooped at my eyes. Defensively I grabbed her wrists, and then we were falling, sprawling across the bed with my fingers locked around her wrists, holding those sharp rending nails from my eyes.
Instinctively, I used my weight to clamp her down, spread-eagled myself so she couldn’t move, leaned my weight on her wrists, so her shoulders were pressed against the sheets. All the time, she was struggling and writhing, spitting and snarling. But she was at a disadvantage. Her strength was no match for mine, now my weight was crushing the breath from her. Her struggles became weaker and, quite abruptly, ceased altogether.
There were long seconds while we both lay still, listening to the beatings of our hearts. I’d been hurt and I was angry. She was angry, too. Her eyes were flaming into mine, hostile and defiant. Yet my pulse was quickening, my body appreciating her nearness, the soft solidity of her body beneath mine and the quick rise and fall of her breasts as she drew breath.