The Bind

by Stanley Ellin

  “Some say yes, some say no, because maybe that new shvartzeh government there put too much heat on them. Anyhow, best thing for my boy is to wait in his car near that bridge from Daystar Number One to the Beach. He’ll pick her up when she hits the Beach. You know her license number?”

  “There’s two numbers,” Jake said. He flipped open his notebook and read the numbers to Magnes. “He shouldn’t have any trouble spotting the car. Either a cream-colored Jag sports model or a black Mercedes coupe. It’ll pretty sure be the Mercedes, with her son or that houseman driving. She’s a gray-haired woman, very thin and washed-out-looking, wears oversized sunglasses even in the house.”

  “There’s other ways off that island,” Magnes pointed out. “Cab, hired limousine, even a boat. They got something at that dock besides the sailboat?”

  “Yes.” Jake thought it over. “You know what I drive, don’t you?”

  “I saw it.”

  “Then describe it to your man, and if he sees anything likely coming across the bridge with me close on its tail, that’ll be Mrs. Thoren. Whichever way she heads when she gets over on the Beach, I’ll cut in the opposite direction, and he can pick her up right where I leave off. It might even convince her nobody is following her.”

  “And if it’s by boat?”

  Jake said: “You’ll have to have somebody cover that, too.”

  “But not in an hour. The one I can get has his boat in a marina down on Fourth Street. For him to go down there and bring the boat back to Daystar would take at least a couple of hours.”

  “Just tell him to make it as quick as he can. He won’t have any trouble finding the place here. The guy next door has a big light burning in his back yard, and it’s the next house north of that. But tell your man to lay far enough offshore not to get spotted. This guy Webb who put up the light is gun-happy.”

  “I’ll tell him. This is some tummel, all right. She knows all about you, you know all about her, and both of you got to go around with a straight face like you don’t know anything. That is some smart pro working on her, sonny, to fix things up like that. You know what? With such a head on him I wouldn’t be surprised if he made a deal with her. She hands over all the insurance money to him when she gets it, and in return he’ll lay off her for good afterward. Nobody even has to account for that money, because there’s no taxes on it.”

  “I already thought of that,” Jake said. “So make sure your boys know what they’re doing every minute.”

  29

  He planted the phone back on its stand and said to Elinor: “Get the picture?”

  “Yes. What’ll you do? Watch out of the window for her to come by?”

  “No, I’ll wait outside in the car.” He yawned widely, his eyes watering. “I don’t think she’ll make any move until morning, but when she does I have to be right in back of her.”

  “But that means sitting there at least five or six hours. The way you look, you’ll never be able to stay awake that long.”

  “It’s the way I feel, too. But there’s not that much of a rush. I’ll catch some sleep now, and you wake me up at three. Then it’ll be your turn.”

  “I don’t feel sleepy,” Elinor protested. “I’d rather wait in the car with you.”

  “You’ll do what I tell you to. And you’ll start by hooking the phone into the monitor and bringing it up full volume. That’ll amplify any sound in her room so you’ll be able to hear a hairpin drop on the carpet. Then if you hear anything that sounds like she’s up and doing, wake me quick. If not, wake me at three. I guarantee you’ll be sleepy by then.”

  He showered, scrubbing himself hard to cleanse off any residue of bay water. When he went into the bedroom Elinor was sitting cross-legged on the bed, the phone locked into the monitor on the night table beside her, a magazine propped against the monitor. She was peeling an orange, and the room was full of its sharp scent. “Want some?”

  “No. All quiet with Mrs. Thoren?”

  “All quiet.” She stuffed a segment of orange into her mouth and just managed to get it down as Jake started toward the study. “Jake, that’s foolish. I mean, you can’t even turn around on that couch. There’s enough room in this thing so you can be comfortable for once.”

  He didn’t dispute the point. He fell into bed beside her, giving himself up to sleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. The next thing he knew, she was softly rubbing her fingertips back and forth over his forehead. “Hey, it’s three o’clock.”

  He sat up and shook his head to clear it. “Still all quiet at the other end?”

  “Still. Want something to eat before you go out?”

  “No, hungry is better if you have to stay awake. Now get some sleep yourself.”

  The windows of the car were fogged opaque by night dampness. He went over them with a rag, then got behind the wheel. By backing down the driveway a few yards, he found he had a view of the Thoren house front from where he was.

  He slid down in the seat, eyes fixed on the house. With the passing of time, moisture again formed on the windshield. Pale golden light from the streetlamp coming through the rear window reflected droplets of water trickling down it. After a while he got out of the car and used the rag on the glass again. He had just gotten back behind the wheel when he saw Elinor running across the lawn toward the car. She had changed from pajamas to dress but was barefoot. She slipped into the seat beside him and said breathlessly: “There’s nothing wrong, Jake. I just couldn’t stand being alone in there.”

  “Nerves?”

  “Yes. I tried to go to sleep, but as soon as I turned the light out—”

  “Keep your voice down, baby. Otherwise you’ll have Milt Webb scouting around here with a machine gun.”

  Elinor said in a whisper: “I’m sorry. Anyhow, as soon as I turned the lights out, all I could think about was Holuby grabbing me and pulling me under. And when I tried to think about something else, it kept coming up all blackmailers and gangsters. That was even worse. I mean, blackmailers and gangsters are only supposed to be like in the movies, but these are for real. They make such a big thing out of smoking pot, but how about them?”

  “The logic is on your side. And now that you got it off your chest, how about getting back into the house?”

  Elinor thrust her arm through his. “I’ll feel better staying here. Right up close to all that muscle.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Yes you will.” She leaned against him, his imprisoned arm pressing against her breast. “Look, I know all about what happened when we came here last week. I made like Doris Day, so you made like a computer. But you don’t have to any more, Jake. You turn me on, I turn you on, so it doesn’t make sense that way.”

  “Baby, not even Elizabeth Barrett Browning could have put it into more beautiful language. But get this into your head. What turns me on is Mrs. Thoren. Especially Mrs. Thoren sitting there with a ballpoint in her hand, waiting for me to show her where to sign a release form.”

  “All right, so go be a computer about her. Not about me. I wouldn’t believe it anyhow, after what happened yesterday. I mean, the way you landed all over Holuby because of what he did to me. So you’re just as human as anybody else, aren’t you?”

  “At least.”

  “Then why don’t you stop trying not to be?”

  Jake said: “For one thing, if I got too human with you right now, Mrs. Thoren could come rolling by and I’d never know it.”

  “I didn’t say right now. And suppose you didn’t know where she was going? If you wind up with all the information you need to make her sign that release, you can just give it to those lawyers at Guaranty. Then they could win the case in court with it.”

  Jake said: “Except there’s not a chance of my giving it to them. The merchandise I’m selling is a release, not information.”

  “Oh,” Elinor said, disconcerted, and when Jake said, “That’s the word for it, all right,” she said defiantly, “Well, that still doesn’t change anything between us
, as far as I can see.”

  When she started to fall asleep in a series of nervous twitches, her weight slowly bearing more and more on him, her head sagging over to rest on his shoulder, he put an arm around her shoulders and kept it there until the car windows misted up again and he had to get out to clean them. It took some trouble to get her propped into the far end of the seat then—she was completely out and as limp as if she were boneless—and he left her that way when he got back into the car.

  The gray of dawn lightened the sky a little after five-thirty. A few minutes later a shaft of sunlight struck the glazed, earth-colored tiles on the roof of the Thoren house. The sunlight might have been the signal for departure, the way the black Mercedes suddenly appeared in the driveway of the house. From what Jake could make out at that distance, Charlotte Thoren was behind the wheel, and there was no one else in the car.

  He already had the Jag’s motor turning over when the Mercedes, moving fast, flashed past him, squealing as it rounded the bend of Circular Road. Trying to time his own departure to the split second, he had forgotten Elinor completely. As he shot the car down the driveway in reverse, she was flung forward, her head banging hard against the dashboard. The Jag leaped forward with a snarl like something jet-propelled, careened around the turn past the Ortega house, and headed into the straightaway leading to the bridge to Daystar Number 1, but the Mercedes was already out of sight.

  Elinor had so far not made a sound. Jake glanced at her. She was clutching her forehead with both hands, her face screwed up with pain.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I guess so.” Still clutching her head, she peered dazedly through the windshield. “What happened? Did you see them go by all of a sudden?”

  “Not them. Her, all alone.”

  “But where is she?”

  “Over on Island Number One by now. We have to close up on her before she gets clear of it, or she can go right past that guy Magnes has waiting. She is one hell of a driver.”

  The Mercedes didn’t come into sight again until Jake made the last turn of the road circling Daystar Number 1. Then he saw it approaching the bridge over to the Beach, slowing down to take the hump of the bridge smoothly. He moved up on it fast, yelled: “Watch it!” to Elinor as he took the bridge in a leap and a bounce, caught a glimpse of the guard’s open-mouthed, astonished face as he went by, and was only half a block behind the Mercedes as it headed down the street to the intersection of North Bay Road. At the corner of the intersection, aimed in the same direction as the Mercedes, he saw a car double-parked, poised and waiting. An unobtrusive blue Buick, a few years old, its driver’s elbow—all that could be seen of him—resting on the window sill.

  “Magnes’ boy,” Jake said. He slowed down a little and touched the horn. The Buick instantly went into motion and took up the pursuit of the Mercedes with a surprising burst of speed. “There’s more motor in that baby than it came out of the factory with.”

  By the time the Mercedes made the northward turn into Alton Road, it was already a full block ahead of him, the Buick midway between them. Jake swung southward into Alton, drove a couple of blocks along it, then pulled up to the curb. Across the street were the greens and sand traps of a golf course. It was only a little after dawn, but a pair of golfers were already trudging across the green, dragging golf carts behind them.

  Elinor said: “Won’t she catch on pretty soon about the other car following her?”

  “She might. It won’t make any difference. She’s known since yesterday that we’re on to her.”

  Elinor shook her head somberly. “It must feel awful being followed around like that.”

  “It does. It’s not bad for breaking down somebody’s nerve after a while. Let’s see your head.”

  She leaned toward him and lifted her face for inspection. At the hairline was a swollen, reddening bruise. She winced when Jake ran a thumb over it. He said: “You’ll live. It’ll be black and blue there, that’s all.”

  “Thanks for the consolation.” She gave him a look of triumph. “You know, that’s the first time I ever saw you scared about anything.”

  “Well, what the hell. Magnes’ guy was expecting me to show up right behind her. If I didn’t—”

  “I don’t mean that,” Elinor said. “I mean the way you looked at me when I banged my head. I saw it. You were in a real panic because you thought I was hurt bad.”

  “I panic easy,” Jake said.

  30

  Between gaping yawns at the breakfast table Elinor said: “When will you know where she went?”

  “As soon as that guy can get to a phone without losing her and call Magnes. It might be ten minutes from now. It might be ten hours.”

  “But he can’t keep watching her all the time, can he? Twenty-four hours a day?”

  Jake said: “No, but if he has to he’ll get somebody from a local agency to double up with him. There’s no place in the world where you can’t get local talent to back you up on a surveillance job.”

  While Elinor slept he went to work, bleary-eyed, sorting out the now dry scraps of paper gleaned from Thoren’s boat. He wound up separating it into four sections: wads of cellophane, bits of cardboard, writing paper, and what had to be the remnants of a stamped envelope.

  That done, he started piecing together the fragments of envelope, working outward from the stamp and cancellation mark. Before it was completely reassembled he could make out that it had been addressed in large, ineptly formed block letters to Mr. Walter Thoren, 18 S. Circuler Drive, Daystar 2, M.B., Fla. It bore no return address.

  Jake ran strips of transparent tape across it to bind it together, then bent the desk lamp low over it and studied the blurred postmark. Finally, with the aid of a reading glass, he deciphered it. Miami Beach, March 6th. March sixth was one day before Walter Thoren’s death.

  “You pretty little thing,” Jake said to the envelope.

  He went into the kitchen, washed down an amphetamine with a glass of orange juice, and brought another tablet and glass of juice into the bedroom. Elinor was under the blanket, knees drawn up to her belly, head, as usual, under the pillow. “The human lungfish,” Jake said. “Come on, start surfacing. It’s after nine.”

  When he removed the pillow she feebly clutched at it. “Ah, Jake, I can’t wake up. It’s no use. I just can’t.”

  He tossed the pillow aside. “Then get this pill down. It ought to carry you as far as the bathroom anyhow.”

  Elinor managed to prop herself on one elbow. She looked at the pill through barely open eyes. The bruise on her forehead, Jake saw, was now completely black and blue. “What is it?” she asked suspiciously.

  “A benny. Bottled insomnia. Open your mouth.”

  She did, and he popped the pill into it. She took a long swallow of juice. “You’re sure in a good mood,” she said. “What happened? Did Magnes call up about where Mrs. Thoren is?”

  “No, I just worked out a jigsaw puzzle with Thoren’s wastepaper. I think I have the envelope the last blackmail note was mailed in. And don’t settle back to sleep again. You have to get to town and work on those newspaper files.”

  When he pulled off the blanket he saw she had given up altogether on nightclothes. The narrow areas that had been covered by the bikini were strikingly pale against the rest of her. She dragged herself across the room and leaned over the dressing table to peer into its mirror. She gingerly touched a finger to the bruise. “Look at that. First sunburned so it almost killed me. Then drowned. Now this. I’ll never make it back to New York.”

  “You’ll make it back. But I have to admit you are more accident prone than most, baby.”

  “Me?” Elinor said with outrage. “You call Holuby an accident? And the way you drive?” The phone in the study rang, and she instantly forgot her outrage. “I’ll bet it’s Magnes,” she said eagerly.

  “Or Maniscalco,” Jake said. “Looking for me to build up his confidence again.”

  It was Magnes.
“Dekker, for a man my age to get one heartburn after another is absolutely no good. Take my word for it, the whole next week every mouthful of food I swallow will turn to acid in me.”

  “Your guy lost her,” Jake said. “Only three hours, and the stupid bastard lost her already.”

  “He didn’t lose her.”

  “Then what are you moaning about?”

  “He never had her. From the beginning, he didn’t have her.”

  Jake said: “What kind of car does he drive?”

  “A Buick. A blue hardtop.”

  “Then he had her from the beginning, Magnes. I was right there in back of her, and I gave him the horn, and I saw him take off after her. What are you up to? Am I supposed to pay you bonus money now to find out where she’s holed up?”

  Magnes said coldly: “Sonny, before you go around calling people a sellout artist, you want to listen to everything they got to say. So listen. I am calling you from Mount Sinai Hospital where my boy is laying with stitches all over his head and maybe a fracture. And with a nice little wife sitting here like it’s ek velt. Like it’s the end of the world for her. Because the one you saw driving that Buick was not my boy. My boy was on the floor in back of the car out cold and with his head split open. That’s how some meter maid found him when she looked in the car where it was parked uptown.”

  “For chrissake, how did he get himself into a spot like that,”

  “How? Because around five A.M. a car pulls up where he was waiting for the Thoren woman to show, and a couple plain ordinary guys get out and flash him a police badge. They tell him he was reported by somebody lives on the block as a suspicious person and what’s he up to? He shows them his credentials, he tells them he got a job tailing somebody coming off Daystar, and they tell him to get out so they can frisk him. All friendly, y’understand, even some joking. And while one of them is frisking him, the other one knocks him over the head. That’s all he knows. Next thing he’s in Mount Sinai with his wife sitting there and crying her eyes out. She’s marked down as next of kin on his I.D., so they went and got her to the hospital right away. So she called me up, and here I am.”