by John Lutz
"A lot can happen to you without your dying," I told her. That seemed to get to her, and I saw her jaw muscles tense as she tried to concentrate on the road.
"I said I wasn't stupid," she remarked after a few minutes. "After you get the ransom money I will be worthless to you, and you've let me see your face. You know I'll be able to identify you."
"Sure you will, only you'll never see me again, and I can change myself enough so no one will be able to identify me from your description." What I told her was true. Acting had been one of my many short-lived careers that had turned out to be something other than I'd thought, so the art of altering my appearance wasn't new to me. My normally sand-colored hair was dyed black now and combed low over my forehead, and the shape and thickness of my eyebrows were subtly changed by dark pencil. The fashionable dyed mustache I wore could also go when the time came. Naturally I wouldn't be seen anymore at my usual haunts, because my old life as a self-described beach bum would be over.
A tractor-trailer whined past us with difficulty, doing over seventy. I cautioned Thana to stay below the speed limit. Death-defying driving seemed to be a habit with her.
When we reached the Martinaire Hotel I had Thana drive around the block and park in the alley alongside the vacant west wing. I moved quickly, with the smoothness and economy born of careful planning.
After reaching into the back seat and grabbing the duffle bag I'd brought, I shoved Thana roughly from the car, followed her with the gun pressed against her. Through a lock-less wooden door I took her inside the empty wing to a small room that probably had been used to store linens or cleaning equipment. A light in that room couldn't be seen from outside, and by the glow of my flashlight I bound Thana tightly to a metal support and pressed adhesive tape over her mouth. She sat limply without a suggestion of struggle, and her dark eyes were trained on me as I took one final look at her by the flashlight beam, then walked from the room and closed the door behind me.
Within twenty minutes I was back, and when I opened the door to the small room and switched on the flashlight, Thana was looking at me as she had when I left. I'd parked my car ten blocks away in the garage I'd leased and taken a cab back to within two blocks of the Martinaire Hotel. From there I'd walked the rest of the way.
I untied Thana but left the tape across her mouth, and jabbing the small of her back with the gun barrel, marched her outside again into the alley. With one deft toss I looped a thin, weighted rope about the bottom rung of the counterbalanced steel stairs of the old fire escape and pulled them down. Then I slung the duffle bag over my shoulder and motioned Thana to climb ahead of me.
It seemed like an hour, that climb. We passed darkened window after darkened window as we rose. During the day this part of the building would be teeming with workmen, but at this time it was completely deserted and ideal for my purpose.
We were both breathing hard when we reached the top window. I'd taken care of the latch earlier, and I slid the window open and pushed Thana inside, cursing softly for her to be silent. I used my flashlight with a dark handkerchief over the lens to guide us, but I knew where we were going, could have stage-directed the whole thing in my mind even in the dark. I let Thana, struggling for air, lean against the elevator well as I pressed the button. She didn't seem afraid, and from time to time her frantic breathing even seemed to take on the aspect of exhilarated laughter behind the adhesive tape.
Now the riskiest moment: we had to negotiate a short stretch of hall that passed occupied rooms.
The elevator doors slid open onto the empty hall, and we moved through the door at the end of the hall and up the narrow, steep stairway to the roof. Now I felt sure we'd make it as I gripped Thana's elbow and walked with her across the tar and gravel roof of the twentieth story of the Martinaire Hotel, the roof of Norman Norden's penthouse apartment. Near the center of the roof, we stopped.
I bound Thana's hands behind her, and crossed her ankles and bound them tightly. Then I took a longer piece of rope from the bag, looped it beneath her arms and tied it behind her.
I'd already forced the lock on the small opaque skylight to Norden's apartment, and I raised it and propped it open carefully. After dropping my duffle bag through the opening, I gently lowered Thana into the darkness below. The lack of vibration in the rope told me she was completely relaxed and cooperative. I tucked my flashlight downward through my belt so I could see below, then hung by my hands from the skylight for a moment before dropping to crouch beside Thana on the floor.
I'd brought it off! It would have been impossible to get into the penthouse unseen through the main part of the hotel, past doormen, guests and an army of bellhops. Yet here I was, in the least likely spot. While Norden fretted and sent out his private searchers, or even if he called the police, here I would be above it all in the plush penthouse of the lemon drink king himself. The irony of it really got to me, made me feel terrific. I almost laughed out loud as I straightened and moved the soft beam of the shielded flashlight about the room. Thana was sitting awkwardly crossankled, staring up at me, her idle hands still bound behind her.
After making sure the heavy, lined draperies were completely closed, I turned the lights on low. Very, very nice. The large living room we were in was furnished modern and plushly carpeted in beige, with a jagged stone fireplace on one wall. The whole thing was in the subdued taste of extreme wealth.
I walked over and untied Thana's ankles, then helped her to her feet and removed the long rope from beneath her arms. After promising to knock her unconscious if she screamed, I peeled the tape from across her mouth.
"Ever been here before?" I asked her.
She nodded her head yes, working her lips together to ease the sting from the peeled-off adhesive tape. "A few times."
"Plush," I said admiringly. "And private."
"Now what?" Thana asked, walking as if to loosen a stiffness in her legs, moving her slender shoulders as if they ached. "Am I supposed to spend the next several days with my arms tied behind me?"
"Not if you behave."
"It would be foolish of me even to consider misbehaving."
"I'm glad you see it that way," I said, but I wondered if she really did: I couldn't trust her.
I walked around, getting the layout of the apartment set in my mind: two gigantic bedrooms, two baths, a large kitchen, a dining room with an oversize chandelier, and the room we were in, spacious and glassed-in on three sides hung with heavy draperies.
I untied Thana and told her to sit on the long, modern sofa. Then I disappointed her by showing her the simple device I intended using to limit her movements: a pair of handcuffs I'd bought at a magic shop. I snapped the cuffs about her right wrist and a polished wood arm support of the heavy sofa. Then I removed her gold wedding ring and dropped it into my shirt pocket.
"I have some gold fillings, too," she said.
"I'll remember." I patted my pocket and walked over to slouch in a soft chair.
In the early-morning hours, after tying Thana firmly to the sofa and gagging her, I climbed back up onto the roof and left the same way I'd gotten into the Martinaire. I wore dark overalls now, lettered 24-HOUR SERVICE across the back, so I'd attract a minimum of attention and be difficult to remember if someone in the hotel did happen to glimpse me.
From the phone booth on the corner I made the call to Norman Norden's residence. At first, whoever answered wouldn't put me through to Norden but when I mentioned Thana's name and said it concerned her safety, Norden was on the line in ten seconds.
Norden sounded anxious, overwrought. When I told him I was holding Thana for ransom he let out a long, old-sounding sigh, as if he'd expected something like this to happen and now his fears were realized.
When I told him how much it would cost to get her back, he simply said, "Very well," without even hesitating. I admired him then, and felt a little sorry for him, until I thought about his money. He asked me how he could be sure I had Thana. I told him not to worry, that I'd prove it to him,
then contact him later. The agreement was the standard one, that he wouldn't call the police and I wouldn't harm Thana. He wanted to talk some more, get more assurance that his young wife wouldn't be touched, but I hung up on him to keep the conversation short. After slipping the gold wedding ring into the stamped envelope I'd prepared with Norden's address typed on it, I dropped the envelope into a mailbox near the phone booth. I bought a detective novel from a big all-night drugstore across the street, then went back to the dark alley fire escape of the Martinaire Hotel's west wing.
Thana was awake and uncomfortable. When I removed the tape from her mouth it released a stream of curses and complaints.
"Take it easy," I said. "You wouldn't talk to me like that if I had a million bucks."
"You'd need two million!" she told me, chopping the words off angrily. "What did Norman say?"
I looked up at her as I was untying the rope around her ankles.
"That is where you went, isn't it? To telephone your demand for ransom?"
I nodded, unwinding the rope and standing. "Your husband's worried about you, and he didn't seem to think a quarter of a million was too high a price to get you back."
"Just the way you planned, hmm?"
"Just," I said, untying her arms, then handcuffing her right wrist to the sofa arm in such a way that she could stretch out and sleep.
"Don't think I'm not aware of what else you plan." She was glaring up at me with a dark, almost-a-dare defiance in her eyes, and I realized what she meant. "After all," she said, "rape carries the same penalty as kidnapping."
"Maybe you're flattering yourself," I told her.
"I know better!" she spat out at me. It was almost as if she were trying to argue me into it to prove she was right.
I stood looking down at her and she met my gaze without blinking. "You're a means of making a quarter of a million dollars," I said. "You don't have to worry about being molested by me — if you are worried."
I walked to the other side of the room where slanted morning light was beginning to edge in around the heavy draperies. When it was light enough out, they could be opened. That shouldn't be noticeable or remarkable from twenty stories below in the street, and I was beginning to feel like a prisoner in the apartment myself. Thana had been right to an extent. Desire for her would intrude itself into any man's mind after a while. However, one of the main reasons I never actually considered touching her was that I knew if I did, Norman Norden would never rest, would never let himself die, unless I'd preceded him. The money he could spare and forget, but I knew he had to have his wife back "as was."
I stretched out in one of the bedrooms and slept for a few hours. Afterward, I arranged things in the apartment so Thana would have a little necessary freedom of movement. First I closed and locked the kitchen and bedroom doors, then I checked in the hall bathroom and removed anything she might use for a weapon, then broke the lock on the polished gold doorknob. The telephone was my big worry; Thana had only to lift the receiver from its cradle to indicate to the hotel below that someone was in the penthouse.
The phone was on a very long cord, though, so I set it high up on the top wall bookshelf where she couldn't reach it. I fastened the receiver down with adhesive tape so that even if Thana pulled the phone down by the cord it would hold firm. She thanked me when I freed her from the sofa and let her walk about with her wrists handcuffed before her.
Most of the day she just roamed around the apartment, sitting now and then to read part of the paperback detective novel I'd bought. I watched her try and fail to concentrate on the book.
"You have lousy taste in literature," she said at last, giving up and throwing the novel across the room.
"I bought it for you," I said, getting up and walking to the long window overlooking the street. The draperies were open more than halfway and the view of the city was impressive. Below me I could see the ant-like cars feeling their way through heavy traffic to the stop sign at the intersection, where they paused and seemed to consider which way to go next before moving on straight or turning.
"This is intolerable," Thana said behind me.
"Be quiet and I'll fix supper," I told her without moving.
"Fix what for supper?"
"Bologna sandwiches."
"That was lunch."
"It'll be breakfast too," I said, and it was.
I listened to Thana complain the rest of the next day, then late that night I bound her to the sofa again and went out to make my second telephone call.
Norden had already received the wedding ring in the mail.
"I want this to be over with," he said in a shaky voice. "I have the money ready in small bills. I took the liberty of assuming you'd want it that way."
"And the police?"
"I swear I haven't talked to them, to anyone!"
"Tomorrow night," I told him, getting to the point to shorten the call, "send your chauffeur in your blue limousine, carrying the money packed in one suitcase. Have him turn north on Route Seven from Highway Y at exactly eleven o'clock, and tell him to drive at exactly forty miles an hour. When he sees the flash of a blue light, he's to pull to the side of the road immediately, dump the suitcase and drive on. Understood?"
"Understood," Norden said "What about Thana? Is she -"
"She's fine," I said, "and if everything goes right she'll be back to you in no time. If everything goes right."
"You can trust me," Norden said. "I swear it. But you mustn't harm her."
"I don't want to, Mr. Norden," I said and hung up.
Of course it was true, I didn't want to harm Thana; and for some reason I believed I could trust Norman Norden not to bring in the police at this point. The old man, in my brief but tense conversations with him, had shown an admirable self-control and concern for the safety of his wife. I guess you'd say, a certain class.
I got back to the penthouse and untied, then handcuffed Thana to the sofa so she could sleep, and so I could sleep without worrying about her getting to the telephone or hurling something through a window at this stage of the game.
"I think our worries are about over," I told her. "Your husband's going to pay off tomorrow night."
She sneered up at me. "Did you think he might not pay to have me back?"
"Not for a second. I'm beginning to think I should have asked for more."
"You underestimated my value."
"Or Norden overestimates it."
She spat at me then, but I moved back and she missed.
"How's it feel to be set up for life with millions of dollars?" I asked.
"It feels great! It's a feeling you'll never know."
"You sound like you're trying to convince both of us."
She laughed, a quick humorless laugh that was more a reflex from a touched nerve than anything else. The swiftness of her mood changes was startling, though for some reason the changes seemed to be only on the surface.
"You're partly right." She lay back and rested her head on the sofa arm. "It gets boring after a while . . . like anything else. You might find that out. You're the same unhappy you, with or without money."
"But it beats starving," I said.
Thana shrugged. "I guess anything beats that. Except maybe sleeping stiff as a board on this damned couch."
"One more night," I said, "and you can be free to recuperate on your yacht."
I turned my back on her and went into the bedroom where I began going over the way I had things planned for the next night's pickup. I'd turn north onto Route Seven two minutes after Norden's chauffeur had entered it and drive the legal limit of sixty. Route Seven wasn't heavily traveled at that time of night, and if I did pass any cars between us I could look them over to make sure they weren't police. Our respective speeds would bring the cars together at the right spot. Then I would accelerate close to the limousine, blink my blue-lensed flashlight through the windshield and drop back to wait for the chauffeur to pull to the side and dump the suitcase. I'd park well back of him with my headli
ghts on, and when the limousine drove off I would speed forward, pick up the money, and a third of a mile down the road turn onto the cloverleaf and maze of roads at the heavily traveled state highway. A quarter of a mile from that cloverleaf was another one. If anyone were trying to trace me he'd have to reckon on the possibility of me traveling in any of eight directions, and Norden's chauffeur wouldn't even be able to identify my car. I wouldn't return to the penthouse. I'd check the money, then phone Norden and tell him where to find Thana. It seemed foolproof; as foolproof as you can make something like that.
As the next day dragged by, the waiting began to play on my nerves. Still, there was that feeling of anticipation — a good anticipation — because, unlike so many of my schemes, I was somehow sure the whole thing would work as planned.
Thana's nerves seemed to be wearing thin, too. She paced the large, luxurious living room, absently raising and lowering her handcuffed wrists before her as if completely absorbed in whatever she was thinking. The way she was acting kind of surprised me. I was sure she was convinced I didn't mean to kill her when I had the ransom money. She should have been feeling a pleasant anticipation too, an anticipation of freedom.
I tried to ignore her endless pacing, tried to ignore my own nervousness, and I made a good try at reading the paperback novel I'd bought three nights before, but the words were only words, nothing more. I set the book aside and checked my watch. Five o'clock. I decided it might be a good idea to try to get whatever rest I could before tonight's activity, so I handcuffed Thana to the sofa arm and slouched on the other end of the sofa myself. After what seemed like an hour, I dozed off lightly.
"Who the devil are you?"
"I'm his prisoner! He's kidnapped me and he's holding me prisoner!"
The question, asked in a man's incredulous voice, stirred me from sleep. The answer, screamed in Thana's shrieking voice, made my eyes open with a start.
There were two men, an older man in a well-cut, dark suit, and a short, mustached man in work clothes, carrying some kind of long metal toolbox.