Long could be compassionate, in his dry, reserved fashion. He had once or twice donated his varied and considerable strengths to the service of others. But he had rarely been subject to the compassion of mankind. He had rarely needed it.
And Frisch’s response to a man who was almost a stranger went beyond casual kindness. He had given up sleep and ruined his furniture. Long injured the mans arm, and still he continued to help him. He risked jail. He offered to risk his life. How could Long comprehend such kindness, let alone pay it back? Like music, Frisch’s gift to him could not be translated into terms of gain or loss. Nor was it subject to reason. It had no meaning but that of its own existence.
Idly, because he was a methodical creature who did think in terms of gain and loss. Long began to tally the losses and gains of the last few days: loss of power. Loss of blood. Loss of new hope.
Loss of certainty.
On the credit side was only this encounter with an absurd young man who gave up a night’s rest for Mayland Long. Who performed the onerous duties of a nurse. Who lent him a shirt.
Who dared place his hand on Longs head, and tell him it was all okay.
With a ledger like this, Mr. Long wondered, why did he feel so much stronger, now, driving toward the dawn?
The Citroen darted onto the freeway and he was pressed against the back of the seat. This was the last short step of the nights journey—to Elizabeth Macnamara’s apartment. It would be profoundly anticlimactic if he ran out of gas.
The chill of the air prophesied fog later, but now, in the last hours of night, the sky was sharp and clear. He shifted in the seat, and his flannel shirt stuck to the leather upholstery, glued with drying blood.
At least this shirt was the right color.
He left the freeway and zagged right onto Middlefield. His arm was numb to the turn. Passing by Liz’s condominium he noticed a single light shone yellow. He turned the corner and parked along a side street. He wondered if the car would start again. No matter. He would not be driving again soon.
A stone tower obscured the light of the stars. He had parked in front of a church. He was a connoisseur of all stone architecture, and churches in particular were his passion, but this edifice was disappointing. It was obviously new, and the stone was merely veneer. TRINITY PARIS read the signboard. A pale phantom H in the varnish at the end of the word marked where the brass letter had been lost.
He stood on the cold grass and yawned. “De profundis clamor ad te,” he growled to the cross on the empty tower—,”Out of the depths a call to you.” He was not certain to whom he was speaking. The effort made him cough. He moved away from the street, crossing through the churchyard.
The direction of his progress was against the clock, or widdershins. To cross a churchyard widdershins is not auspicious, as he knew, but in the churchyard of Trinity Parish no one was buried. All the ground was paved over by concrete.
Behind the church lot stood a hedge of yew. He passed through the omen of its furry branches and found himself beside a noise of waters. The fountain was lit from below, and its shower sprang up in an arcing circle to fall again with silver lights upon the backs of sleeping seagulls.
Cold spray beaded on his face. He stepped among the gulls, who stood on one leg or with head under wing, and they did not stir. He circled the fountain, avoiding light, and reached the white stone walk which wound between the gleaming buildings. No sound came from within the condominiums, not even the mumble of television. He came to Liz Macnamara’s residence and stood beneath the window he had climbed through earlier in the evening.
Had it been just this evening?
The window was still open. Good. Had Elizabeth closed it he would not have been able to make the ascent. Not with one arm.
Drink, sleep or pray, he had said. According to your nature. What was Elizabeth’s nature? He would discover something of it soon.
He leaped lightly against the wall, wedging his left foot into the crack between two foundation blocks. Before his impetus failed he kicked upwards and grabbed the window sill with his good hand. The off center support disturbed his balance and his left side struck the wall with a dull thump. Pain tightened rather than loosened his grip, and he swung up through the window. He rolled head first into the room, favoring his wounded shoulder, and came to rest flat on his back on the plush carpet.
Liz Macnamara was awake. She sat curled on the sofa, as he had seen her before, and her face was white and frightened, again as before.
But her hands and feet were bound with tape and her mouth covered with a length of it. The terror in her eyes was immediate and deadly, for Floyd Rasmussen had one hand wound into her yellow hair and a squat black pistol pressed against the side other head. His small, colorless eyes regarded Long. The wounded man lay still as a bronze statue.
“You shook my confidence earlier tonight, fella,” remarked Rasmussen. “But at this distance I think I can’t miss. Her, that is.”
Long’s eyes met Elizabeth’s, and found within them an endless apology.
“Why? What is the purpose of this?” asked Long. His seemingly casual attempt to rise was checked by a movement of the gun. “I know about your financial enterprises, but between theft and murder there is a certain difference… They are crimes of different quality.”
Rasmussen relaxed onto the couch, holding Liz’s hair in a brutal fist. “True, but that bridge has been crossed,” he stated. “Not by me, but that doesn’t matter now.”
The young woman’s eyes closed in sick grief. Long’s face was expressionless. “Mrs. Macnamara is dead?”
“My—partner—couldn’t use her. He lost his temper.” Rasmussen’s words were resentful.
“Are you sure?” pressed Long. His frown was vaguely puzzled.
“Beat her up and throttled her,” snapped Rasmussen. “I walked in just too late. Face all black and limp as a fish. Ugly.” Liz Macnamara reeled and sagged in his grip. He ignored her.
“How unfortunate for all concerned,” whispered Long.
“Yeah. I hadn’t intended to kill anyone. I only wanted to keep Lizzie here incommunicado for a few weeks while I cleaned things up and got out. But life doesn’t work right; Lizzie wrote a terrible letter and then she called her mother. And Doug, my partner: he’s a vicious little asshole and he blew the simple job he was supposed to do. But all that’s put me in a bind. So did you, leaving blood all over my house. Now I’ve got to get rid of both of you before I split.”
“Where are you going?”
Rasmussen snorted. “Why should I tell you?”
“Because it doesn’t matter,” answered Long gently, looking away from Elizabeth’s face. “If you’re going to kill us it can’t hurt you to tell.”
He stared through the darkened dining area, where the Swedish glass shone like an assembly of ghosts. There was no sign of a struggle in the immaculate decor. The security chain on the front door hung unbroken. But then, Liz Macnamara had thought herself safe.
The white tape concealed half her face, but Long saw that Liz’s jaw was clenched. Her blue eyes stared straight ahead of her. She. appeared hard and angry. Remembering the words she’d spoken the previous evening. Long thought she was probably very much afraid.
The big man shrugged. “Okay. I got a yacht—the Caroline—remember the model in my office? And Threve’s got a Cessna, hangared out in Marin. We’ll be in Mexico this afternoon, and Sao Paulo tomorrow. Even with their inflation, two million dollars tax free makes it worthwhile learning another language.”
“Why not simply leave us tied, then?” inquired Long, dispassionately. “You will be safe by the time we can free ourselves.”
“Oh will I?” Rasmussen’s voice was thick with sarcasm. “Fella I don’t believe it. I saw what you did to the light switch in the bedroom, and how you tore apart the door. With the amount of blood you left in my plasterboard you ought to be dead—I’ve gutted enough deer to know how much a body holds.”
“Then you must know I’m not a
bout to dismember any more doors,” sighed Long. Regardless of Rasmussen’s gun, he sat up. “Not tonight.”
“I don’t know that at all,” the blond man growled. He wound his fingers more tightly in Liz Macnamara’s hair. “You’re one weird cat. I don’t know what it is: meditation, karate, hypnosis—but I have no idea what your limits are. I don’t trust you. Also, you made me kill Blanco. I don’t like you.”
Mr. Long’s smile expressed reciprocity. “But Miss Macnamara—you know she is no yogic adept. You needn’t kill her.”
Rasmussen laughed. Her head was twisted around by his beefy hand. “Liz? Liz has been living dangerously for months now. She’s been having qualms of conscience. Besides, I know little Lizzie here. She carries a grudge. She’d follow me to hell, she would, simply to help the devil stoke the coals.”
He sighed. “No. I’m not up for leaving behind either bodies or witnesses. Not after what Doug did.”
Long’s eyebrows rose. “How will you avoid that?”
“Simple. We’re taking you along. On the Caroline. Part way.
“Get on your feet.” He stood up, dragging the young woman with him. She thrashed against him, screaming muffled curses, but without her arms she could do nothing. Long regarded him without moving.
“Why should I cooperate with you?” he asked. “You offer me no incentive.”
Rasmussen smiled and prodded the barrel of the gun against Liz’s temple. “You’ll do what I say because while you are alive there’s a chance you might find an opportunity to get away. It’s that simple. Of course I got no intention of giving you that opportunity, but you’ve got to bet the team you’re on.”
Long stood. The two men confronted one another in the yellow lamplight. “Do you think you could shoot the both of us before I could reach you?” he asked mildly.
“I don’t have to,” answered the heavy man, and his laughter rumbled through the rooms. “If you had the guts to sacrifice little Lizzie you would have gone for me long ago. That much we know about each other, Mr. Long. You know I’m able to kill her. I know you’re not. That’s why I’m the one in power.”
Long’s armour of composure broke momentarily at Rasmussen’s last words, and a fire neither subtle nor civilized shone out of his narrow eyes. The burly blond flinched. He gestured with the gun.
“Walk. Out the back way, through the garage.”
The fire vanished as though the furnace door had slammed shut. Long turned and preceded Rasmussen through the length of the house. They passed through a door in the kitchen.
The garage was so clean and empty as to appear unused. There were no cardboard boxes stacked against the wall, no broken Venetian blinds. Not even a stepladder.
Liz Macnamara had no old possessions: nothing of the sort one can’t use and refuses to throw away. Until recently, she had been accustomed to owning nothing.
Within the garage the Mercedes sat in solitary splendor. Rasmussen tossed the keys to Long.
“Open the trunk,” he commanded. Mr. Long did so.
“Get her in.”
Long stood motionless, keys in hand. “No.”
Rasmussen’s hand slid from Elizabeth’s hair to her throat. It slowly tightened.
Liz opened her eyes wide as the pressure grew, but she did not look at Mayland Long. Her breath whistled in her nose and then that noise ceased.
“Stop,” said Long. “There’s no need for that.”
Rasmussen was smiling broadly. He loosened his grip as Mr. Long bent to help to ease the bound woman into the trunk of the Mercedes. In a single, smooth motion he whipped the pistol around and struck Long on the back of the head.
The trunk door slammed shut on both his captives. “Goddamn,” he said to himself. “Let’s see what hypnosis can do about that!”
Chapter 15
The solid thud of the trunk lock closed them both in darkness. Long groaned and eased his wounded side away from contact with the wall. His free hand sought and found Liz Macnamara’s face. He pried the tape from her mouth, then began to free her hands.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so very sorry.”
“For what?” The bands of tape peeled away with difficulty; she swallowed a cry of pain.
“For what?” Long repeated. “It’s I who have failed you, it seems, having entered the scene in the guise of a rescuer and succeeded only in adding to the defeat.”
Her hands now free, Liz began to work on the bindings on her legs. “Floyd showed up about two hours ago. I let him in. I was sure he wouldn’t risk… Oh hell!” Her voice began in outrage and faded.
“He told me you broke into his house, looking for me. I knew you were looking for Mother, of course. He said he shot you, and that you’d run off into the woods to die like an animal. He said his ceiling was soaked in blood.”
The thunder of the engine starting delayed his reply. Acceleration pushed the prisoners against the back wall. The air was close and sour with metal and gasoline. “He hit me. That much is true, at any rate.”
“Are you badly hurt?” Her hands blundered through the darkness. Found him.
“It’s bandaged,” said Mr. Long. One slim hand touched his injured shoulder. He enclosed it in his own hand and put it gently aside. “We have other things to worry about, now.”
“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth repeated helplessly. “If I had not gotten involved with Rasmussen in the first place…”
“If any one of an infinite number of events had not happened in their sequence, the present would be a different place.” He yawned. The trunk was getting warmer.
“Elizabeth, blame is a useless gesture. Regret is worse. Yet I regret that I am so weak and weary I may not be able to break the lock of the boot.”
As he spoke his fingers tapped against metal, seeking the point of attachment.
“Break the lock? Of course you can’t. It’s steel.”
“I can do a few parlor tricks,” Long said drily. “Even against steel. But now…” He flattened his hand against the top of the rear wall of their prison.
“Ugh! I have nothing to brace against.”
“Here.” She put her back to the far wall and her hands pushed against the middle of his back.
“I think your bones would give before the steel lock,” said Long, and at that moment the car turned right, rising onto two wheels, and the two of them were flung sideways and into one another’s arms.
The intimacy was involuntary, and lasted only as long as the turn that caused it. When it was over the dark air was filled with silence. Then Long began to laugh.
It was a heavy, deep, spontaneous laughter, incongruous in a man so slight and lean, impossible from a man so injured. Mr. Long’s laughter was like the cool thunder of a summers afternoon and Liz Macnamara found herself smiling in the middle of her dread.
“Ah! Elizabeth. It’s a very odd thing, to be a man.”
His words challenged her and she found herself replying, “I’ve often thought so myself, but of course my knowledge is secondhand.”
Without warning Long slammed the palm of his hand against the trunk lid. The lock snapped and a crack of light penetrated their prison. “Easier than I expected,” he said.
Elizabeth wasted no time in compliments. She peered through the crack. “We’re on 280,” she stated. “Going north.”
“Where is the Caroline docked?”
“North Beach. The marinas down here couldn’t accommodate her.” She settled back. “What are we going to do?”
Pushing with his feet against the trunk wall. Long edged closer. “We wait for an opportunity to jump.”
“Out of a moving car?”
“When it stops, preferably.” She saw a gleam of teeth in the darkness.
“You’ve never driven with Floyd Rasmussen,” she retorted, feeling stung. Remembering the earlier interchange, she added, “What did you mean—when you said wasn’t it funny to be a man?”
For a moment he did not respond, but rolled from his side to his bac
k and lay staring at the metal ceiling. “I was referring to the species, not the sex. A man is an unusual being. He is capable of tremendous precision of thought. What is more, he creates—languages, philosophies, poetry… In short, he is the paragon of the animals. Yet he is so eminently—what is the right word?—distractable. During the most concentrated moments he may—no he will—float off like a butterfly and scatter all he has gained. Yet this is not a flaw in man, I think. This is what makes him man. And I must believe there is a value in that.”
“Are you talking about me, or mankind in general?” she asked in a small, hurt voice.
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