by John Norman
I had seen on the patio that I could not carry the knife down the rope of sheets with me, for I would have to use both hands. Perhaps I should have held it between my teeth but, in my panic, I did not think of it. I was in the bedroom when I heard the door begin to splinter in, away from the hinges and the lock. Wildly I thrust the knife beneath the pillow on my bed and ran back to the patio. Not looking down, terrified, I seized the rope of sheets and, scarcely breathing, sick to my stomach, hand over hand, began to lower myself. I had disappeared over the ledge when I heard the door splinter fully away and heard men enter the apartment. As soon as I reached the terrace below, only a few feet away, I would be safe. I could attract the attention of the individuals in the apartment below or, if necessary, with a chair, or implement, or whatever might be found, break through the glass of their apartment.
Above me from within the penthouse, I heard an angry cry.
I could hear noises from the street, far below. I did not dare look down. Then my feet touched the tiles of the terrace below.
I was safe!
Something soft, folded and white slipped over my head, before my eyes. It was shoved deeply into my mouth. Another folded piece of cloth passed over my head. It was knotted tightly behind the back of my neck.
I tried to cry out but could not do so.
"We have her," I heard a voice say.
3 Silken Cords
I stirred uneasily, shaking my head. It was a bad dream. "No, no," I murmured, twisting, wanting to awaken. "No, no."
It seemed as though I could not move as I wished. I did not like it. I was displeased. Angry.
Then, suddenly, I was awake. I screamed, but there was no sound.
I tried to sit upright, but I nearly strangled, and fell back. I struggled wildly.
"She's awake," said a voice.
Two men, masked, stood at the foot of the bed, facing me. I heard two others speaking in the living room.
The two men who had been at the foot of the bed turned and left the room, going to the living room to join the others.
I struggled fiercely.
My ankles had been bound together with light, silken cords. My wrists had also been bound together, but behind my back. a loop of the silken cord had been fastened about my neck, and by it I was bound to the head of the bed. I could see myself in the mirror. The strange mark, drawn in lipstick, was still on the mirror's surface.
I tried to scream again, but I could not. My eyes, I could see in the mirror, were wild over the gag.
I continued to struggle, but after some moments, hearing men returning to the room, stopped. Through the open door, I saw the backs of two men, in police uniforms. I could not see their faces. The two men with masks re-entered the room. They looked upon me.
I wanted to plead with them, but I could make no sound.
I drew up my legs and turned to my side, to cover myself as well as I might. One of the men touched me.
The other uttered a brief sound, abrupt. The other man turned away. The sound had been a word, doubtless of negation. I did not know the language. The men had not ransacked the penthouse. The paintings remained on the walls, the oriental rugs on the floors. Nothing was touched.
I saw the man who had turned away, who seemed to be a subordinate, remove what appeared to be a fountain pen from a leather holder in his pocket. He unscrewed it, and I was startled. It was a syringe.
I shook my head wildly, no!
He entered the needle on my right side, in the back between my waist and hip. It was painful. I felt no ill effects.
I watched him replace the syringe in its holder, and the holder in his inside jacket pocket.
The larger man looked at his watch. He spoke this time in English to the smaller man, he who had had the syringe. The larger man spoke with a definite accent, but I could not place the accent.
"We will return after midnight," he said, "It will be easier then. We can reach point P in five hours with less traffic. And I have other business to attend to this evening.
"All right," said the smaller man. "We'll be ready then." There had not been the slightest trace of an accent in the smaller man's response. I had no doubt that his native tongue was English. He perhaps had difficulty following the natural speech of the other. But when the other had spoken to him, curtly, in the strange tongue, he had obeyed, and promptly. I gathered he feared the larger man.
The room began to grow a bit dark at the edges.
The larger man came behind me and felt the pulse of one of my bound wrists. Then he released me.
The room seemed to grow darker, and warmer. I tried to keep my eyes open. The larger man left the room. The smaller lingered. He went to the night table and took one of my cigarettes and with one of my tiny, fine matches, imported from Paris, lit it.
He threw the match into the ash tray. He touched me again, this time intimately, but I could not cry out. I began to lose consciousness. He blew smoke into my eyes and noes, leaning over me. I struggled weakly against the bonds, fighting to stay conscious.
I heard the larger man's voice, from the doorway it seem, but it seemed, too, from far away.
The smaller man hurriedly left my side.
The larger man entered the room, and I turned my head weakly to regard him. I saw the two men in the uniforms of police leaving the penthouse, followed by the smaller man, who, as he left the house, was drawing the mask from his head. I did not see his face.
The larger man was looking down at me. I looked up at him, weakly, almost unconscious.
He spoke to me matter-of-factly. "We will return after midnight," he told me. I struggled weakly to speak, fighting the gag, the drug. I only wanted to sleep. "You would like to know," he asked, "what will happen to you then?" I nodded.
"Curiosity," he said, "is not becoming in a Kajira."
I did not understand him.
"You might be beaten for it," he said.
I could not understand.
"Let us say simply," he said, "that we will return after midnight." Through the mouth hole in the mask I saw his lips twist into a smile. His eyes, too, seemed to smile. "Then," he said, "you will be drugged again." "And then," he added, "you will be crated for shipment." He left the room.
I pulled at the cords that bound me, and lost consciousness.
* * *
I awakened in the bed, still bound.
It was dark. I could hear the noises of the city's night traffic through the door open to the patio and terrace. Through the open curtains I could see the tens of thousands of bright rectangles of windows, many of them still illuminated. The bed was drenched in sweat. I had no idea of the time. I knew only it was night. I rolled over to see the alarm clock on the vanity, but the face had been turned to one side.
I struggled with my bonds, wildly. I must free myself!
But after a few precious minutes of futile struggle I lay bound as perfectly as I had been earlier in the afternoon.
Then suddenly new sweat broke out on my body.
The knife!
Before the men had burst into the penthouse I had thrust it beneath the pillow. I rolled on to my side and, bound, lifted the pillow away with my teeth. I almost fainted with relief. The knife lay where I had left it. On the satin sheet I struggled to move the knife, with my mouth and the back of my head, toward my bound hands. It was a painful, frustrating task, but inch by quarter inch, I moved it downward. Once it fell to the floor and inwardly I cried out with anguish. Almost choking, from the loop on my throat, I slid half out of the bed and felt for the knife with my feet. My ankles had been crossed and lashed securely together. It was extremely difficult to pick up the knife. It fell again, and again. I cursed the neckrope that bound me to the head of the bed. I wept. Far below, in the streets, I heard the siren of a fire engine, and the other noises of the city night. I struggled, gagged and bound, silently, torturedly. At last I managed to get the knife to the foot of the bed. With my feet and body I managed to pull it up beneath me. And then I had the ha
ndle in my bound hands! But I could not reach the bonds. I held the knife but could not use it. Then, feverishly, I cried inwardly with joy, and pressed the point into the back of the bed and braced it with my own body. I began to saw at the cords with the knife. The knife, its handle braced against my sweating back, slipped four times, but each time I put it again in place and addressed myself again to my task. Then my wrists were free. I took the knife and slashed the cord at my throat and the cord at my ankles.
I leaped from the bed and ran to the vanity. My heart sank. It was already a half past midnight!
My heart was pounding.
I pulled the gag down from my face, pulled the heavy wad of soured packing from my mouth. Then I was suddenly ill, and fell to my hands and knees, and vomited on the rug. I shook my head. With the knife I cut the gag from where it lay about my neck.
I shook my head again.
It was now thirty-five minutes after midnight.
I ran to the wardrobe. I seized the first garment I touched, a pair of tan, bell-bottomed slacks and a black, buttoning, bare-midriff blouse.
I held them to me, breathing heavily. I looked across the room. My heart almost stopped. There I saw in the shadows, in the dim light in the room from the city outside, a girl. She was nude. She held something before her. About her throat there was a band of steel. On her thigh a mark.
"No!" we cried together.
I gasped, my head swam. Sick, I turned away from my reflection in the full-length mirror across the room.
I pulled on the slacks and slipped into the blouse. I found a pair of sandals. It was thirty-seven minutes past midnight.
I ran again to the wardrobe and pulled out a small suitcase. I threw it to the foot of the triple chest and plunged garments into it, and snapped it shut. I seized up a handbag and ran, with the suitcase, into the living room. I swung back a small oil, and fumbled with the dial of the wall safe. I kept, usually, some fifteen thousand dollars, and jewelry, at home. I scrabbled in the opening and thrust money and jewelry into the handbag. I looked with terror at the splintered door.
On the wall clock it was forty minutes past midnight.
I was afraid to go through the door. I remembered the knife. I ran back to the bedroom and seized it, shoving it into the handbag. Then, frightened, I ran to the patio and terrace. The rope of sheets that I had used to leave the penthouse had been removed. I ran again to the bedroom. I saw them lying to one side, separated, as though laundry.
I looked again in the mirror. I stopped. I buttoned the collar of the black blouse high about my neck, to conceal the steel band on my throat. I saw again the mark, drawn in lipstick, on the mirror. Seizing up my handbag and the small suitcase I fled through the broken door. I stopped before the tiny private elevator in the hall outside the door.
I ran back inside the penthouse, to get my wrist watch. It was forty-two minutes past midnight. With the key from my purse I opened the elevator and descended to the hall below, where there was a bank of common elevators. I pushed all the down buttons.
I looked at the dials at the top of the elevator doors. There were two that were already rising, one at the seventh floor and one at the ninth. I could not have called them!
I moaned.
I turned and ran toward the stairs. I stopped at the height of the stairs. Far below, on the steel-reinforced, broad cement stairs, ringing hollowly in the shaft, I heard the footsteps of two men, climbing.
I ran back to the elevators.
One stopped at my floor, the twenty-fourth. I stood with my back presses against the wall.
A man and his wife stepped out.
I gasped and fled past them.
They looked at me strangely as I pushed at the main-floor button As the door on my elevator closed, I heard the door of the adjoining elevator open. Through the crack of the closing door I saw the backs of two men, in the uniforms of police.
Slowly, slowly the elevator descended. It stopped on four floors. I stood in the back of the elevator, while three couples and another man, with an attachA© case, entered. When we reached the main floor I fled from the elevator but, in a moment, regained my control, checked myself and looked about. There were some people in the lobby, sitting about, reading or waiting. Some looked at me idly. It was a hot night. One man, with a pipe, looked up at me, over the top of his newspaper. Was he one of them? My heart almost stopped. He returned to his reading. I would go to the apartment garage, but not through the lobby. I would go by the street.
The doorman touched his cap to me as I left.
I smiled.
Outside on the street I realized how hot the night was.
Inadvertently I touched the collar of my blouse. I felt the steel beneath it. A man passed, looking at me.
Did he know? Could he know that there was a band of steel at my throat? I was foolish. I shook my head, trembling.
I threw my head back and walked hurriedly down the sidewalk toward the street entrance to the apartment garage.
The night was hot, so hot.
A man looked me over thoroughly as I walked past. I hurried past.
A few feet beyond I turned to look back. he was still watching.
I tried to turn him away, with a look of coldness, of contempt for him. But he did not look away. I was frightened. I turned away, hurrying on. Why had I not been able to turn him away? Why hadn't he looked away? Why hadn't he turned away, shamefaced, embarrassed, and hurried on in the opposite direction? He hadn't. He had continued to look at me. Did he know that there was a mark on my thigh? Did he sense that? Did that mark make me somehow subtly different than I had been? Did it somehow, set me apart from other women on this world? Could I no longer drive men away? And if I could no longer drive them away, what did that mean? What had that small mark done to me? I felt suddenly helpless, and somehow, suddenly, for the first time in my life, vulnerably and radically female. I stumbled on.
I entered the apartment garage.
I found the keys in my handbag and gave them hurriedly, smiling, to the attendant.
"Is anything wrong, Miss Brinton?" he asked.
"No, no," I said.
Even he seemed to look at me.
"Please hurry!" I begged him.
He quickly touched his cap and turned away.
I waited, it seemed for years. I counted the beatings of my heart.
Then the car, small, purring, in perfect tune, a customized Maserati, whipped to the curb, and the attendant stepped out.
I thrust a bill in his hand.
"Thank you," he said.
He seemed concerned, deferential. He touched his cap. He held open the door. I blushed, and thrust past him, throwing my suitcase and handbag into the car. I climbed behind the wheel, and he closed the door.
He leaned over me. "Are you well, Miss Brinton?" he asked.
He seemed too close to me.
"Yes! Yes!" I said and threw the car into gear and burned forward, only to stop with a shriek of rubber, skidding some ten feet.
With the electric switch he raised the door for me, and I drove out into the swift traffic, out into the hot August night.
Even though the night was hot the air rushing past me, pulling at my hair, refreshed me.
I had done well.
I had escaped!
I drove past a policeman and was almost going to stop, that he might help me, protect me.
But how did I know? Others had worn the uniforms of the police? And he might think I was insane, mad. And I might be detained in the city. Where they were. They might be waiting for me. I did not know who they were. I was not even clear what they wanted. They could be anywhere. Now I must escape, escape, escape!
But the air invigorated me. I had escaped! I darted about in traffic, swiftly, free. Other cars would sometimes slam on their brakes. They would honk their horns. I threw back my head and laughed.
I had soon left the city, crossing the George Washington Bridge, and taking the swift parkways north. In a few minutes I was in Con
necticut.
I slipped my wrist watch on my hand, as I drove. When I did so it was one forty-six a.m.
I sang to myself.
Once again I was Elinor Brinton.
It occurred to me that I should not follow the parkways, but seek less traveled roads. I left the parkway at 2:07 a.m. Another car followed me. I thought little of it, but, after some four turns, the car still followed.
Suddenly I became frightened and increased speed. So, too, did the other car. Then, as I cried out in anguish, I was no longer Elinor Brinton, the one always in control of herself, the rich one, the sophisticated one, she with such exquisite taste and intelligence. I was only a terrified girl, fleeing from what she knew not, a bewildered, confused girl, a terrified girl, one with a mark on her left thigh, a circle of steel locked snugly on her throat.
No, I cried to myself, no. I would be Elinor Brinton! I am she!
Suddenly I began to drive coolly, swiftly, efficiently, brilliantly. If they wanted a chase, they should have it. They would not find Elinor Brinton easy game! Whoever they might be, she was more than a match for them. She was Elinor Brinton, rich, brilliant Elinor Brinton!
For more than forty-five minutes I raced ahead of my pursuer, sometimes increasing my lead, sometimes losing it. Once, grinding and spurring about graveled side roads, they were within forty yards of me, but I increased the lead, yard by yard.
I thrilled to their pursuit, and would elude them!
Finally, when I was more than two hundred yards ahead of them, on a cruelly winding road, I switched off my headlights and drove off the road into some trees. There were many turn-offs on the road, may bends. They would assume I had taken one.
I sat, heart pounding in the Maserati, with the lights off.
In a matter of seconds the following car raced past, skidding about a curve. I waited for about thirty seconds and then drove back to the road. I drove lights off for several minutes, following the double yellow line in the center of the road by moonlight. Then, when I came to a more traveled highway, a cemented road, well trafficked, I switched on my lights and continued on my way. I had outsmarted them.