The Bags of Tricks Affair

by Bill Pronzini

  “Now talk,” he said in a voice like the crack of a whip. “Where is the son of a bitch?”

  22

  SABINA

  The trough had been fashioned of six-foot metal sections welded together, their flanged edges nailed to the floorboards on each side to hold them in place. Some of the rusted nails had worked or broken loose from the rotting wood; Sabina discovered this when she knelt and felt carefully along the edges. The flange on one section had popped up by half an inch or so from the warped board it was attached to. The protrusion was what she had stubbed the toe of her shoe on.

  That section was loose on both sides; it rattled and gave slightly when she slid her fingers under the flange and tugged upward. But she couldn’t get enough purchase to lift the flange up any higher, and the sharp metal cut painfully into her finger pads.

  There was a restrained excitement inside her now, a sense of purpose at last. Find something to pry up the flanges, something thin and strong enough to act as a fulcrum. The scattered pieces of lumber … would any of them do? No, they were all too thick.

  She went again to the rowboat skeleton. The first thing she did was to send the rowboat crashing to the floor by kicking the fractured leg of the sawhorse holding up its lower end. As she’d hoped, some of the gray bones cracked loose. She felt them until she came upon one that had a split in it. The smaller, splintered piece felt as though it might be what she needed … if she could break it free.

  Perspiring in the cold dampness, she worked in vain with her fingers and the pipe. Then she thought to try slipping the hollow pipe over the splinter’s thin, sharp end. The aperture was just large enough to swallow a couple of inches of wood.

  She struggled to get the splinter deeper into the pipe, to gain enough purchase to jerk it up and down, from side to side. Finally it cracked and broke off. She separated it from the pipe, felt along its length. The piece was some eighteen inches long, the broken end less than half an inch thick. Not too thick to wedge under the lip of the flange, she prayed.

  It just fit. She wiggled it in as far as it would go, then reinserted the sharp end into the pipe. Now she had an effective pry bar, or she did if the wormy old wood didn’t disintegrate from the pressure.

  She tore two strips from the hem of her tattered dress, wrapped them around her sore hands, and began laboring. Her strength soon flagged from the exertion; she forced herself to take her time, to rest at intervals. Countless minutes passed before her efforts were rewarded by the screech of another nail pulling free. When it did, the metal rose enough for her to slide the wood farther underneath, thus easing the strain.

  A third nail popped out, then a fourth on the opposite side. The section felt wobbly now. Sabina withdrew the wood, took hold of the flange with both hands and jerked upward as hard as she could. The fifth or sixth time she did that, there was another rending metal sound as one or more of the welds fastening this section to the others snapped.

  She heaved and twisted frenziedly, raising puffs of the dust and powdery rat droppings that had collected in the hollow. More welds broke apart, another nail came out, and all at once the section parted on both ends, the flange on the opposite side pulled up out of the floorboard. She held the section in one bloodied hand, staggered upright, braced herself, and took a two-handed grip. It took only one more twist to free it completely. She thrust the length of metal from her, sent it clattering to one side.

  On her knees again, she peered into the six-foot opening in the floor. She could make out the murky water below, smell its briny odor, feel the chill of the lapping wavelets. How far down? Six feet, eight, more? She couldn’t tell. But no matter how far it was, the water couldn’t be very deep, not with this part of the building canted downward on pilings.

  But could she get out through the gap?

  She leaned across it, measuring. As she’d estimated before, it was some eight inches wide, not wide enough even for a woman of her slender frame to squeeze through. The space had to be enlarged a few more inches on one side or the other. She felt the near edge of the floorboard. The wood was wet, rotted, or else she would not have been able to pry up the flange.

  More work with the pipe. Chip away at the rotted wood, keep chipping away for as long as it took to widen the opening. It could be done. Freedom, her one and only hope … it had to be done.

  She set to the task.

  Bits and pieces of wood flaked off at an agonizingly slow pace. After a while all awareness of time ceased. Her mind was a blank; only dimly did she feel the pain in her cramped joints, her lacerated hands. She became a machine, a human piston, constantly beating away at the one small obstacle between her and escape.

  Fatigue and muscle cramps took their toll eventually, forcing another period of rest. She sat back, flexing her hands, her legs. For a moment, then, she closed her eyes. Just for a moment … except that exhaustion turned it into minutes, how many she never knew.

  The sudden shrill scream of a gull swooping low above the hole in the roof snapped her back to awareness. Her mind, her movements were sluggish at first; she shook herself, mentally as well as physically, until she was able to focus again.

  She pushed back onto her knees, felt along the ragged edge of the floorboard. She’d made progress; almost half of it had been chopped through. But not enough yet to attempt to eel her body through the trough opening. The gap had to be widened even more. Lengthened, too.

  The fabric around her hands was slick with blood. She peeled off the sodden strips, tore two more from the hem of her dress and rebound her hands. Then she took up the pipe and resumed her labors.

  As before, she lost all perception of the passage of time. Gouge with the pipe, rest briefly, measure her progress; gouge with the pipe, rest, measure; gouge, rest, measure …

  Much of the board was gone now, the floor opening at least ten inches wide. Enough? Not dressed as she was, in the filthy cape and the remains of her evening gown. She struggled out of the clothing, heaped it to one side. Clad only in her shoes and combination undergarment of silk camisole and drawers, she eased herself into a sitting position with her legs thrust through the opening, then pushed forward into it with her elbows braced on either side.

  Her hips would not fit through the gap. No matter how much she squirmed, the boards held her in a tight grip.

  A frustrated cry formed in her throat; she bit her lip so that the only sound she made was a low moan. She wiggled and pulled herself out and onto the floor, lay panting from the exertion. The next time she made the attempt she would have to succeed. She wouldn’t have enough strength left by then to extricate herself from the hole a second time.

  Shivers brought on by the cold roused her. The rough wood had torn her undergarment, scraped her skin raw in places. She swept up the cape, encased herself in it. When the shivering subsided, she rewrapped her hands with more strips from the hem of her dress, then set her jaw and once more picked up the pipe.

  More lost time while she gouged, rested, measured. And felt herself growing weaker and weaker. Dimly she wondered if she ought to give it up for the time being, crawl back onto the cot in the office, sleep until some of her vigor was renewed … no. No. She was not going to get any stronger; lack of food and water would see to that. And as exhausted as she was, if she let herself sleep, God only knew how long she would be unconscious. It was only afternoon now; she might wake up in the middle of the night, and the prospect of another night in the place was intolerable. If she had any chance at all of escaping, it had to be soon, very soon.

  She felt along the edge of the board again. Better than half of it had disintegrated. A little more, just a little more …

  The pipe slipped out of her grasp, fell through the gap into the gurgling water below.

  Oh God, now she had no choice. Now she had to make the one last effort.

  She said a silent prayer, removed the bloody strips from her hands, shed the cape again. But she had the presence of mind to place it close to the edge, where she could reac
h it when she lowered herself into the opening. If she succeeded in getting through, she would pull it with her. The bay water was bound to be freezing; without something to cover her near-nakedness, she would die of hypothermia. If she didn’t succeed, she wouldn’t need the cape—she would die here anyway.

  Into the hole then, bracing herself with her elbows as before, the fingers of her right hand clutching the cape. She wiggled lower. The floorboards held her again. She squirmed, twisted—

  Let go of me, let go!

  —and her hips scraped through. Instinctively she raised her arms, pulling the cape with her, as the weight of her shoes sent her plunging downward.

  The fall was short, no more than six feet, and the water shallow so that her feet jarred through it into soft mud. The icy shock took her breath away. Gasping, she lost her balance, fell sideways into a nest of marsh weeds. Salt water poured into her open mouth, choking her. She coughed it out as she fought upright. The cape had slipped out of her clutch, but she could see it floating next to one of the slimy pilings.

  The mud sucked at her shoes; she had difficulty pulling free, staggering ahead to gather the cape and then to where the shoreline slanted upward. The ground was more solid there, matted and thickly grown with weeds and marsh grass. She stumbled upward past the last of the pilings. Just as she emerged from under the building, something caught her ankle and sent her sprawling.

  She lay facedown in the grass, laboring to catch her breath. Tremors racked her. But the frigid water had had a revitalizing effect, too, clearing her mind and giving her back some of her strength. She rose up onto her knees. The grass was wet from the fog, she realized then, and the cupped leaves on some of the weeds glistened with moisture. Water, fresh water. She bent her head to the leaves, lapping at the dew like a cat at a bowl of cream. Then she tore up handfuls of grass and sucked on the stems. Her thirst still raged, but the moisture alleviated a little of the terrible burning in her mouth and throat, allowed her to swallow again.

  She gained her feet and, dragging the cape, slogged out to where she had a more or less clear view of her surroundings. The area, overlaid with a thin, windblown fog, was every bit as desolate as she’d imagined. There was another, smaller building besides the one in which she’d been imprisoned, less well built, one wall leaning near collapse. A ghostlike confusion of erections that had something to do with boat storage loomed beyond that. That was all there was to see except for acres of barren marshland and gray, white-flecked water, the outer reaches of both land and bay obscured by mist. The only sounds were the fog warnings and the distant cry of a gull.

  The cape was sodden; Sabina twisted some of the water out of it, swirled it around her. Its clamminess increased her trembling. Still, it provided some protection from the wind. Without it, in nothing but her thin, torn undergarment, she would soon freeze.

  She slogged to the front of the repair shop, tearing up and sucking more wet grass on the way. There must be some sort of road that led in here … Yes, over there—half-hidden parallel ruts, the grass and weeds between them trampled by the passage of the brougham or whatever conveyance Gaunt had used to bring her here.

  How far to the nearest habitation? No way of knowing. She hadn’t the stamina to trek very far in the open, but there was no choice except to try. There was no shelter here, and once night came …

  She set off along the ruts. At first her legs were so stiff she felt as though she were moving in place, without progress, as if in a nightmare. But then, gradually, the stiffness eased and she was able to walk without stumbling. Her legs were wobbly but she managed to quicken her pace a bit.

  She hadn’t gone far when she heard the clattering.

  It came from somewhere in the mist ahead of her. She came to a standstill, listening. The noise was faint at first, then progressively louder. A vehicle of some kind, moving rapidly. She knew that for certain when the wheel clatter was joined by the whinny of a horse.

  Her first reaction was one of relief, elation, but it lasted only a moment or two. A spiral of fear replaced it. Gaunt! Come back to check on her after all. Who else would be out on this wasteland at this time of day?

  The equipage was still unseen, somewhere just beyond a mist-shrouded line of trees. Close now, very close.

  Sabina flung herself off the rutted trail, into a patch of high grass prickly with thistles. And lay hugging the ground, trembling again, waiting for Gaunt to pass her by.

  23

  QUINCANNON

  D. S. Nickerson made a strangled-chicken sound, his eyes crossed and bulging as he stared at the gun barrel tickling his nose. His moon face had gone as white as clabbered milk.

  “Answer my question, Nickerson, and be quick about it. Where’s Gaunt?”

  “I … I … I … I…”

  “Where, damn you!”

  “I … I … don’t know…”

  Quincannon marched him backward into what was evidently his private office, shoved him into a desk chair, and then loomed over him with the Navy now pointed a half inch from his chin. “No more lies, blast you, and no more evasions. My partner has disappeared and Gaunt is surely responsible. I have no qualms about shooting him and none about shooting you or anyone else who aided and abetted him.”

  Nickerson swallowed audibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a cork on a string. “I’m not … not l-lying,” he stammered. “I’d t-tell you if I knew where he went, but I don’t, I s-swear I don’t! Please, you have to believe me—!”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “S-Saturday morning.”

  “Where?”

  “Here, when he returned my equipage.”

  “What equipage?”

  “Brougham. My … brougham.”

  “You gave him the use of it? When?”

  “Friday afternoon.”

  “What did he want it for?”

  “He wouldn’t say. Wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  “And I suppose you handed it over to him for old time’s sake.”

  “N-no, it wasn’t like that.” Nickerson swallowed again. He couldn’t seem to take his widened eyes off the Navy’s barrel, his expression that of a man gawping at a poisonous snake about to strike.

  “Paid you for its use?”

  “No. I … I had to do what he asked. I had no choice.”

  “He threatened you?”

  “Yes. Yes.” Now it was Nickerson’s head that bobbed up and down. His terrified stammer had abated; words came rushing out of him in a torrent. “He said he’d ruin me … kill me if I didn’t help him and keep my mouth shut afterward. He meant it, he’s … I think he must be insane. I was a fool to ever become involved with him. I couldn’t believe it when he showed up here, the first time I’d set eyes on him in five years. I thought I was free of him when I left New Orleans. I … I don’t know how he found out I came to San Francisco, he wouldn’t tell me that, either.…”

  “Did he say anything about his sister, Lady One-Eye?”

  “No. I asked about her … news of her arrest in Grass Valley for shooting her husband was in the local papers, your name and your partner’s, too … but he told me to mind my own business.”

  “Use of your brougham wasn’t all he wanted. What else?”

  “One of my … my holdings.”

  “Property holdings? Which one? Where?”

  “He had no particular one in mind and he didn’t care where it was, just that it be isolated and have an empty building on it.”

  “And you had such a property.”

  “An old repair shop for boats in the oyster trade,” Nickerson said, “abandoned when the owner died. A white elephant I acquired for a paltry sum at a tax sale two years ago. Not a single prospective buyer since, despite my low asking price—”

  “Located where?”

  “The South Basin marshes. Gaunt made me drive him down there to look at it inside and out on Friday morning.”

  “What condition is it in?”

  “Good enough, for
a derelict building. Gaunt was satisfied with it. He demanded the key to the padlock, then warned me to take the property off the market and keep it off, and to never set foot on it again. I … didn’t ask him why he wanted it. I didn’t want to know.”

  “No, of course you didn’t.” But Quincannon knew, and the thought chilled him to the marrow. An abandoned boat repair shop on the marshland at the south end of the city. Isolated, freezing cold even in the daytime, no doubt rat infested. Dear sweet Jesus! “Exactly where is it located?” he demanded. “You must have a map. Point it out to me.”

  Nickerson’s eyes were still on the Navy. Quincannon lowered the weapon, but kept it on full cock. The land agent pushed himself to his feet, went shakily to a draftsman’s cabinet on the wall behind the desk. From one of its deep drawers he found and extracted a map, laid it out on the desk, then backed away to give Quincannon plenty of room to examine it.

  There were three marks on the South Basin side of the point, above the outermost jut of land. Quincannon knew the area, an isolated bayfront section east of the Southern Pacific right-of-way; according to the map, the nearest habitation was a sheepskin tannery half a mile or so distant. A squiggly line represented a wagon road that led to the derelict property from the closest thoroughfare, Jamestown Avenue.

  “Three marks indicate three structures,” Quincannon said. “What are the other two?”

  “No, two is all there is. The repair shop and a storage shed. The third mark is for dry-dock and hoist facilities. The pier behind the shop is in unsafe condition—”

  “Damn the pier.”

  The sharpness of the exclamation caused Nickerson to flinch again. He took another unsteady step backward.

  “I’ll take the key now,” Quincannon said.

  “Key?”

  “Don’t be dense. The padlock key.”

  “I … I don’t have it.”

  “Don’t have it?”

  “Gaunt didn’t return it when he returned the brougham on Saturday. When I asked him for it, he said he threw it away so I wouldn’t be tempted to go back out there.…”