Guilt by Association

by Gilbert, Morris

  Ben stood there, thinking hard, while the others said nothing. Finally he lifted his head, then slowly faced them. His hazel eyes were half closed, but they could sense that his mind was working rapidly. “Maybe, I do,” he said finally. “But it’s a long shot.”

  “Anything’s better than nothing, Ben,” Karen urged. “What is it?”

  “Well, Bix was right about busting out of here. The only shot is through that opening up there. Night after night I’ve thought, until my head aches, about some way to get through that hole, and I guess you have, too.

  “There’s one time when nobody can see under the box,” Ben said thoughtfully. “From the time the box goes up from the floor, the camera can pick it up, but as soon as it gets twenty feet or so up, it’s out of the camera range. And the guys topside can’t see what’s going on, I’d guess, until the box gets to them.”

  Dani frowned. “But what does that mean?” She stared up toward the canopy, then back to him. “How could anyone get to the box after it’s left the floor?”

  Ben looked up briefly. “Karl, you’ve always said that nobody could climb up out of this place, but I think it can be done.”

  “You are not a fly, Ben.” Karl smiled faintly.

  “Don’t have to be. Come and look at this.” They all followed him to the side of the silo. Ben reached up to touch a shapeless piece of steel that protruded slightly. “These were the supports for a steel ladder that used to go all the way to the top. Stone had them cut off with a torch. Down here, close to the floor, there’s not much left of them, but I’ve gotten a glimpse of the ones higher up, and the welders weren’t so careful. Some stick out half an inch or even more.”

  “But you couldn’t climb up on such a small thing!” Dani exclaimed.

  “Mountain climbers do—on even less.”

  “But what good would it do, even if you got to the top? You know a guy as careful as Stone wouldn’t leave an open door. He’d weld it shut,” Bix objected.

  “Who knows?” Ben shrugged. “Every case I ever worked on, somebody left something out. Maybe he did leave a door—but even if he didn’t it’s a chance to use the box to get through that opening.”

  “I still don’t see it, Ben!” Bix protested. “How could you get from the wall over to that box as it’s going up?”

  A thought wrote itself on Ben’s face, and he didn’t answer Bix’s question. Instead he said, “Let’s take a break. I need to think a little about this thing. Sid, you and Lonnie hang on to Rachel.”

  “She ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Sid grunted.

  The others moved away, but Ben said, “Dani . . . ?”

  “Yes, Ben?”

  “Got to ask you something.” He led the way to a couch but didn’t sit down. He turned to face her, and she couldn’t read the expression on his face. “I wanted to ask you something, but not in front of the others.”

  Mystified by his look, she asked, “What is it?”

  “Well, there’s only one way I can think of to fool Stone. First thing in the morning, we give him the notice that you’ve been killed. Then—”

  “Then I go up in the box as a corpse?” Dani said swiftly.

  He stared at her. “You think too much and too fast,” he said. “Man who marries you won’t have a chance! You’ll read through his little schemes before he even gets them off the ground!”

  “Maybe not,” she shot back, a small dimple appearing in her right cheek. “I’ve seen some women so crazy about men, they couldn’t even think of their own names. Maybe I’ll be like that.”

  He studied her with a jaundiced eye. “Yeah? Well, it’d be good for you, I guess.”

  She grew nervous under his examination and said quickly, “I’m the corpse in the play. But I can’t see how that will help.”

  “You sure you want to do it, boss?” he asked carefully. “No telling what we’ll find up there. Maybe five guys with machine guns, and Stone might be mad enough to have them toss you down right then.”

  She threw her head back and looked him in the face, her eyes wide open. “I’ll do it, Ben. But what about you?”

  “Come along, I’ll have to experiment a little.”

  She followed him into the kitchen, and he came out with a pair of pliers. “Be right back,” he said, disappearing into the men’s quarters.

  “What’s he up to, Dani?” Karen asked.

  “I don’t know, except that we’re not going to tell Stone that Rachel missed. We’re going to have my funeral, and then I go up—just like the others.”

  Lonnie stared at her, then shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to be at my funeral!” he exclaimed. “But what’ll that get us?”

  Dani shook her head, and they waited until Ben came through the door, some Romex wire in his hands.

  “I had to pull out some wiring, so we won’t have some of our lights, but if this works, we won’t need them,” he said. He put down the wire, pulled the pliers out of his pocket, and carefully measured his own height, then cut off a length. “Get the butcher knife and strip these ends, will you, Bix? Lay them back about eight inches—and Lonnie, get the rest of the nylon rope we used for the canopy.” By the time Bix returned, he had cut three lengths of the heavy wire. They all watched him make a knot in one end, so that he had a loop about five inches in diameter; then he folded the stripped copper wires to fashion a three-inch loop. He finished all three pieces of wire, then said, “Measure me off some of that rope—three times across the room at the widest part.”

  Karen held one end of the rope while Dani walked it off, and soon they had the three lengths. He came over and looked at the remainder of the thin cord. “That’ll be enough, I guess.”

  “Enough for what?” Dani asked.

  “Well, here’s the plan,” Ben said, taking a deep breath. ‘Tomorrow morning, Dani goes up in the box—as a corpse. I won’t be in sight, Karl, so you have your usual confab with Stone, and put in it that I’ve got some broken bones from catching Bix. Tell him you have to have splints. Karen, you can insist on that. And listen, have a short funeral!”

  “Why short?” Dani asked.

  “Because if you sneeze, the whole thing’s blown!” he grinned, sobered, and said, “These old ladder stubs are out of the camera’s line of view, so Stone can’t see what’s going on. I’ll be going up a rope all the way to the top of this silo.”

  They all stared at him, and he said with a shrug, “We’ll know pretty soon whether or not that’s going to work. First we have to make a thick rope out of these strands—as thick as we can. We may even have to take some of the rope we used for the canopy. If you’ve ever noticed the ropes that fliers climb up, they’re very thick—makes it easier to grasp. So let’s work on that. Then I’ll have a shot at the Matterhorn.”

  “How long does it have to be?” Karl asked quickly.

  “A hundred feet ought to do it.”

  “Then I will show you what a sailor can do with a few pieces of rope!” Karl took over, and after making a sample out of four strands, asked, “Will this do?”

  Ben grasped it and looked up with a startled expression. “Hey, this is great, Karl!” he exclaimed. “Even better than the real thing!”

  “Good! Now I will work.” He measured off several equal segments and sat down in a chair, his hands weaving a thick rope out of the single strands. In less than half an hour he held up the end, saying, “Here is your rope, Ben.”

  “Can you weave these copper wires into the end, so they won’t slip?”

  “Of course.” He worked intently for a few minutes, then said, “I’d risk my reputation on this work!”

  “And I’m risking my neck, but it looks good.” He took the rope, coiled it up, then placed it around his neck. After retrieving the three lengths of wire, he walked to the steel fragments of stubs and turned to say, “Now, all I have to do is climb to the top, fasten this rope to something, and then tomorrow I’ll be all set.”

  He turned to go, but Dani said quickly, “Ben, could I say a
prayer before you go?”

  Though he had turned, now he glanced toward her. His face was set, but he nodded slightly. “Go ahead. I need all the help I can get, boss.”

  She said in a very low tone, “You have said it all, Ben. But we all know this is very dangerous! Once you’re up thirty feet, you’ll be in the dark, just feeling your way. And if something goes wrong. . . .” She faltered, adding in a voice that wasn’t entirely steady. “There’s no safety net, is there, Ben?”

  “No net.” His voice was spare, but he was ignoring the others, looking at her in an unusual manner. “Only line of Shakespeare I know came from some movie I saw. Somebody said, ‘We owe God a death . . . he that dies this year is quit for the next.’”

  Dani nodded. The second part of “Henry the Fourth.” A lump came into her throat, and she bowed her head quickly and began to pray. Though she didn’t see, all followed her example, except Rachel, who stared at the group contemptuously.

  “Lord, we have no hope except in You,” she prayed simply. “Give Ben strength, guide his hands, keep him in the hollow of your strong hand. In the high places, take away his fear. He does this, Lord, not for his sake, but for all of us, so I ask you to bring him back safely. In the name of Jesus, I ask it—amen.”

  “Amen,” several murmured, and Ben said, “Thanks, boss.” Then he turned and reached up with one of the short lengths of wire. He looped it over a stub four feet over his head, put his foot in the loop hanging down, and pulled himself upright. “Onward and upward,” he said cheerfully, then took another section of wire and carefully fed it up to another extension. This one was somewhat longer, they could all see, and the loop slid over it with a comfortable margin. Ben put his other foot in the loop of that wire, lifted himself up, then carefully lifted the first strand from its position and, reaching upward, tried for another hold. Both braces seemed to be too short, so as they all watched, he chose the third wire, which was longer, and carefully pushed it upward. Obviously, the longer the wire, the more it would give and sway; he had difficulty looping the next stub, but finally he did it.

  When he moved up, Dani expelled her breath, not aware that she had been holding it.

  “That’s going to be a long climb!” Bix whispered. “Especially in the dark!”

  They all watched until he disappeared through the canopy—and Dani found out that it was even worse not being able to see him. If he falls, nobody will know until he hits the floor—nobody could try to stand under him as he did for Bix! Then she asked herself, Would I jump under him, if he fell? Finding no assurance, she stood there with the others, listening for the tiny noises that filtered down, until finally he moved out of the range of their ears.

  Although they thought about Ben, he was not thinking of them. Long ago he had learned to close his thoughts to crowds, to think only of the task at hand. He had succeeded in doing this on the trapeze, so that he never heard the applause or any crowd noise at all. Now he slipped off into that silent world, thinking only of capturing the next stub.

  By the time he had climbed ten feet above the canopy, there was almost no light, just the dim rays that filtered through the hole left for the supply box to pass through. It was enough for him to see the stubs for another twenty feet, and he realized that he had been right about the welders—they had been more careless with their work as they went higher. The fractured supports were sometimes two or three inches long and rough besides, which made them hold tighter to the polished wires.

  When the time came that he could not see the next support, he leaned the wire against the wall and pushed it up until it touched something. Then he lifted it and almost at once felt the noose slide over a projection. He breathed a sigh of relief, but as he put his foot in the loop, the thought came, Maybe it’s just a fragment—maybe it’ll pull loose as soon as I put my weight on it.

  So what? his mind answered. You don’t have any choice anyway, because you can’t go down this thing backward. He grinned in the darkness, then put his weight on the noose and pulled himself up. It held, and he forced himself to ignore the thoughts of falling.

  His arms grew tired, but there was no point in resting. Twice he had to use the longest wire, and even then it was difficult, for it kept trying to collapse. He had no idea how far he was from the top, for the door, of course, was closed. Be a fine mess if I rammed my head into the ceiling and shook myself off! he thought once, but he realized he’d touch the ceiling with the wire first.

  All the time he had been telling his mind that he was only six feet off the ground, as he had been taught in the circus. But finally that became impossible, for without warning, while he was in mid step, the whole wire suddenly slipped about half an inch! That fraction triggered a fear that went off like a fire alarm in his brain, and he looked down without thinking.

  He was not six feet off the ground, but almost a hundred. There, far below, he saw the floor through the hole in the canopy and even caught a glimpse of Dani and Lonnie standing there, looking up. They seemed very small!

  Ben clung to the wire, expecting at any moment to feel it all let go, and he’d go plummeting to his death on the concrete. He had been in danger of his life more than once, but never in such silence. Before there had always been violent noise and the clash of action, but now he could only hang there in the silence and wait.

  He found himself thinking of the prayer Dani had said just before he left, and the words came back to him very softly, almost as if someone were speaking them inside his skull. In the high places, take away his fear.

  Peace came over him, and Ben simply reached up with the wire, anchored it almost at once, and pulled himself up.

  The rest of the climb took only a few minutes. He groped in the darkness, trying for the next stub, and when he could not find one, he reached out to find the outline of a door under his hands! It was a steel door, with a sill for his feet and a large steel handle on which to anchor the rope. Ben suspected that it was welded on the other side, for it did not give a fraction when he banged it with his fist.

  “It would have been nice,” he muttered, but reached up, caught the end of his rope with the wire noose, and attached it firmly to the handle. Then he dropped the rope, and when it hit the canopy far below, somebody cried out, so he shouted, “Stand clear!”

  He looped the rope around his leg and rapeled down the side of the cold steel, in what amounted to a controlled fall, stopping himself when he approached the canopy. He ducked under it, and as he came down the last twenty feet, he was aware that all the others were cheering.

  His feet had barely hit the floor before they were on him, Dani, Karen, and even Betty with their arms around his neck, and the men beating him on the back.

  He stood there, surrounded, and felt Dani’s cheek on his. Hot tears touched his face, but she whispered in his ear, “You may turn out to be a louse sometimes, but right now you’re a hero!”

  He grinned and finally interjected, “Well, now that you’ve slobbered all over me, let me point out a few difficulties! But I need a drink first.”

  They all moved to the kitchen, and Betty served them big glasses of iced tea. Ben drank it down, took a second, then stared around him. “I guess we’d better go over this thing carefully, because I figure it’s our last shot. First, we have to convince Stone that Rachel has done the job. She has to be pretty visible, and she can’t be allowed to give any sign to Stone—none at all.”

  “Lemme take care of that, Ben!” Sid glared at Rachel then walked over to where she was standing. Suddenly he pulled out the butcher knife that had been used to strip the wires and stepped behind her. She screamed and tried to move, but he reached out and caught her by the hair. Jerking her back, he put the knife to the back of her neck and remarked clinically, “Some of the hit men in the Chicago area found out a real smart way to carry out contracts—and not have no murder weapon that could be traced. They found out that you take an ice pick and ram it into a guy’s neck, way up high, and it kills him right off.” He looke
d at Karen and nodded, “That’s right, ain’t it, Doc?”

  “Yes,” Karen answered instantly. “If it were placed exactly right, it would do just that.”

  “Well, I didn’t get no instruction, like those guys did, but it got to be pretty big.” Sid nodded. “I mean, you buy an ice pick in any hardware store, and after the job, it’s just an ice pick, like a million others, right?” Then he pulled Rachel’s head back and put the point of the knife on her neck. “So tomorrow I stand right here with this shiv on your pretty little neck. Lonnie stands where he can see your face. If you even blink at that camera, you’ll be dead meat, doll!”

  Ben grinned. “Good! Now you’ll have to be perfectly still, boss. And let’s have a short funeral service!”

  “But once the box is on the way up, how do you get to it?” Holtz demanded. “You’ll be on the wall, a hundred feet in the air and at least twenty feet away.”

  “Twenty feet’s not a lot,” Ben said. “I’ve made jumps a lot farther than that.”

  They all stared at him, and Dani put their thoughts in words, “Ben, you can’t do that! It’d be suicide!”

  He shook his head, “Here’s what we’ll do. Karl will make something like a small cargo net. We’ll put it under you, Dani, and as soon as you get out of view of the camera, you’ll fasten it to the sides of the box. It’ll need to be pretty strong, and the only thing I can think of to anchor it with is some sort of hooks. Anyway, while you’re still down low, you get that net out, then lie down again. They’ll pull you up through the door, and as soon as the box is in the hole, I’ll jump, catch the net and go up under the box.”

  Appalled at the idea, Dani cried out, “Ben! It’ll be dark when the box goes through the opening!”

  “You won’t even be able to see the net, Ben,” Karen argued.

  “That’s why we’ll use a net,” he explained. “A rope would be easy to miss, but all I have to do is hit the net with any part of my body, and I can grab it and scramble up.”

  That began a long debate, for all of them felt that it was an impossible task. But it came to an end when Ben stubbornly shook his head, and finally said, “It’s the only hope we’ve got, and you all know it.”