Forever and a Death

by Donald E. Westlake

  They walked ten minutes before they reached the seawall, where the building manager explained that the blank end wall they saw was three courses of brick behind the visible sheathing of concrete. Where the pipes vanished into the wall there were thin black grommets.

  They hadn’t spotted anything out of the ordinary, but they repeated the flashlight inspection on the return trip, moving even more slowly than before. Luther still trailed, not really with the group, following them but not a part of them, not studying the wall as the others did, his thoughts far away.

  Then he heard a sound. A faint scraping sound. He moved on another step before the sound registered, and the fact that it had come from behind him. Behind him. But the others were all in front.

  Luther turned to frown at the empty tunnel behind him. Would they have rats in this place? No, it was all kept very clean, and the whole tunnel was sealed, no way in or out except that door down there that the group was converging on, and then the flight of metal stairs leading upward.

  But he had heard something, he knew that. He took a step back the way he’d come, seeing only the converging lines of the pipes overhead, the dim lights at regular intervals, the pools of darkness between, the seawall now only a vague blur, far away. He took a second step back, trying to see, trying to hear.

  Again. The tiny brushing sound of someone trying not to move, but unable to stay forever still.

  Luther looked up, and the man hurtled onto him from on top of the left side pipe. He’d been hiding up there, on that too-narrow space, out of direct light, above the area they’d been searching with the flashlights. He hadn’t expected anybody to come in here, and had only managed to hide just barely out of the way, but the pipe was narrow and it had been difficult to maintain his balance, so he had made that sound.

  And now he was committed. Luther looked up, and had only time to register with blank astonishment that it was the man Bennett from Singapore, the man who’d killed Jerry, when the weight of him knocked Luther back and down, hitting his head against the curved-in concrete wall just above the metal floor. Bennett’s weight stayed on him, Luther dazed from the hit on the head, Bennett’s hand clamping down hard over Luther’s nose and mouth, his other hand closing on Luther’s windpipe.

  The others were too far away, they were almost to the door. Luther had been behind them, and then he’d stopped, and then he’d turned back, and by now they were too far away, they couldn’t have heard the small thud of the bodies falling, the small scrapes and grunts of the struggle.

  Luther was tall and slender, strong but not as powerful as this big man bearing down on him, his weight pressing down, his hand squeezing shut Luther’s throat, Luther feebly struggling, not really conscious.

  Far away, they started through the doorway. Even if one of them were to look back, what would they see? Shadows, between the dim lights.

  Luther’s hands pulled helplessly at the man’s hand on his throat, he tried to kick the floor but Bennett’s legs held his legs down, he tried to twist his head this way or that way, but the other hand stayed clamped on his nose and mouth.

  The door down there shut. The lights switched off.

  4

  Mark had been terrified for so long that it had become dull, like an old wound that wouldn’t heal. It was dulled by fatigue, and by hunger, and by physical pain, and the despair that comes from knowing they are going to kill you, when they please, how they please, and that by the time it happens you’ll be relieved that at last it’s over. So the terror was dulled, and familiar, and no longer struck at him with such sharp pangs of agony and disbelief, but it was still there, inside his head, every waking second and every second of exhausted sleep; absolute unrelenting terror.

  It had begun—it felt as though it had begun years ago, that he’d been a slave in this underground place most of his life, but it had begun less than a week ago, when he left Singapore with Richard Curtis. Curtis had told him they would fly to Sydney, but when he got to Changi Airport Curtis handed him a first-class ticket to Taipei instead.

  Mark expressed surprise, naturally, and Curtis said, “This is to throw the competition off the track.” And he never thought a thing about it.

  He’d trusted Curtis, he’d believed in Curtis, and more than that, he’d believed in himself, in his own decision to be loyal to Curtis from now on. Having made that decision, everything should have been all right.

  He still hadn’t been worried when they got to Taipei and the plans changed again. They took the transit passenger route through the terminal, as though to pick up their Sydney flight, neither having checked any luggage, but then they were met by a pilot from a small charter company, and Curtis had explained to Mark they would be making a small sidetrip to Okinawa to see someone there who was a part of the new secret enterprise. Tomorrow they would fly from there on to Sydney. And still Mark had believed him.

  This was a night flight, so it had taken him longer to realize they weren’t traveling over water. If they were on the way to Okinawa, shouldn’t there be water below? Clearly, they were on their way to some other part of Taiwan.

  That was when doubt first touched at Mark, and a little shiver of fear. What was going on? He was alone in this small plane with Richard Curtis and the pilot. Had Curtis found out that Mark had been spying on him? Was he going to open the plane’s door and hurl Mark out into the jungle below?

  But then he would rather throw Mark into the ocean, wouldn’t he? To be sure no body was ever found. So it had to be something else. But what?

  As they were about to land—somewhere—Curtis had given him another explanation: “I like it that you don’t ask a lot of questions, Mark,” he’d said. “That shows you can keep quiet, keep discreet.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’ve probably noticed we’re flying over land.”

  “Yes, sir, I did.”

  “We’ll be landing at Kaohsiung, it’s a port on the southern coast of Taiwan.”

  “Are we taking a ship, sir?”

  “Good man,” Curtis had said, and smiled at him, and patted his arm. “This thing I’m doing is absolutely hush-hush, Mark,” he’d explained, “but you can’t keep your movements private when you travel by commercial air. A boat it is.”

  And a boat it was. A black Daimler met them at Kaohsiung airport and drove them to the port, where a cabin cruiser waited for them. Not as big as Curtis’s yacht, it probably slept six, had a very small galley kitchen, and a crew of two, husband and wife, both Chinese. The ship was called Granjya, it flew the Chinese flag, and it was aboard her that the terror began.

  The instant they were aboard, the wife cast off and the husband steered them away from the dock and toward the harbor mouth. Curtis led the way through the small common room to the cabins aft, saying, “I’m in the cabin on the right, and that’s yours on the left. You might as well unpack, we’ll be aboard for nearly twenty-four hours.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Curtis closed his cabin door behind himself, so Mark did the same, noticing the clean simplicity of the cabin, with its bunk-beds, built-in drawers and minimal floor space. Out the round porthole, the lights of Kaohsiung swiftly receded, black night rushing in, and he felt the difference underfoot when they cleared the harbor and moved out onto the open sea.

  He was in the cabin only a minute or two, laying out his possessions on the top bunk, deciding he’d sleep on the lower, when there was a sharp rap at the door. Expecting Curtis, he crossed to pull the door open, and the man from that day in Curtis’s office shouldered in, shoving the door out of the way, punching Mark very hard in the stomach.

  Reeling, doubled over, bile in his throat, Mark felt panic and blank astonishment. The man he’d delivered the money for, the one who’d been following Jerry and Luther, who’d done something to Jerry, was here! In this room, shutting the door behind himself. And when Mark stared upward at him, mouth strained open, air all shoved out of him, the man punched him in the face.

  Oh, Luther, t
ell them! Tell the police, force me to change my mind, convince me, make me stay in Singapore and tell the police what I know, make me stay, anywhere but here! Luther, let me not be here!

  The second punch had knocked him to the floor, and now the man kicked him, time after time, wherever there was an opening. Mark curled into the corner between the bunk and the porthole wall, trying to protect himself with arms and legs, but the kicks kept on and kept on; and then stopped.

  Dazed, Mark lifted his head, blinking through tears, and the hulking man was just going, carrying Mark’s luggage with him. The door snapped shut behind him. A lock snapped into a hasp out there.

  He was bleeding, cuts and bruises on his face and head and hands and arms. Every movement hurt, and he thought certain he’d throw up, but it never quite happened. He lured me here, Mark thought, really afraid now, really afraid, he lured me here to get revenge. And there’s nothing I can do.

  * * *

  They didn’t feed him at all on the trip, and for a while it seemed as though they wouldn’t let him sleep either. Twice he fell asleep, and both times his tormentor came in and woke him again, with fists and feet. Mark was shaking, he was babbling, he was begging a chance to speak to Curtis, see Curtis, just a word with Curtis, but the man ignored him as though he hadn’t spoken at all.

  They didn’t let him out to use the ship’s only toilet, though he begged and pleaded, and finally there was nothing to do but use the lowest of the built-in drawers, closing the drawer afterward but still aware of the stench, still aware of how they were destroying him, making him less than human. And fear had loosened his bowels, so he had to keep opening the drawer, even though he wasn’t being fed.

  But then they did at last at least let him sleep, the next afternoon, and it must have been so he’d be unconscious when they made their way into the new harbor, so he wouldn’t raise any alarm, attract any attention. The ship was at anchor in the harbor and it was night again when they came back, the big man kicking him awake, dragging him to his feet, shoving him out of the cabin. He was pushed and prodded to the common room, where Curtis, dressed in black pullover and slacks, turned away, saying, “Bring him along, Bennett.”

  Mark started to speak, to beg, to explain, to talk, but a heavy hand cracked him across the right ear, and Bennett said, low and menacing, “Not a sound.”

  There was ringing inside his ear, pain everywhere.

  Not a sound. Mark went out on deck, after Curtis, and there was a motorboat there, with a dark figure at the wheel. All around them was a city, huge, towering, great glass walls reflecting back the stars and the city lights and the thousand movements of the water.

  Where was he? While he was trying to make sense of it, Bennett casually cuffed him to the bottom of this new boat, and he lay there, defeated, finished, knowing it didn’t matter what city this was. He’d die in it, that’s all.

  * * *

  He hardly knew how or where they went. The motorboat thudded across the harbor, the hard ride of it increasing all of his pains, and then it stopped at some unlit pier and Bennett leaned down to squeeze Mark’s jaw and whisper again, “Not a sound.”

  Mark knew he didn’t need an answer, didn’t want an answer, already knew the answer. Bennett dragged him up onto his feet, and again he followed Curtis.

  They went up a wooden flight of stairs and along a dark passageway between buildings and out onto a dim-lit street of warehouses or factories. A black van was there, with Chinese characters in white on the side. As Curtis went up front to sit beside the driver, Bennett opened the van’s rear door, picked Mark up by the shoulder and the belt, and tossed him into the van. There were coils of rope in there, large plastic cans. Mark lay on them, stunned, and Bennett climbed in, shutting the door behind himself.

  Mark could see almost nothing. They drove through dim streets, and then more brightly lit streets, and then paused, and then bumped over some barrier and into somewhere, and Mark heard what sounded like a large gate being closed. Bennett got up as the van stopped, opened its rear door, and clambered out. Mark, not wanting to be thrown around again, scurried after him, but Bennett slapped him on the head anyway, to knock him down on the dirt behind the van.

  The van drove off, spurting stones and dirt onto Mark’s face, and then Curtis came back and said, “Put him on his feet.”

  There was no point trying to do it himself, they wouldn’t let him. Bennett yanked him upright, and Curtis said, “Look at me.”

  Mark looked at him. Everything else was blurry, but Curtis’s eyes were clear, and very cold.

  Curtis said, “You’re still working for me, Mark, but now your job will be a little different.”

  “Mis—”

  Bennett hit him openhanded but hard, across the ear. Mark flinched and whimpered, and stayed silent.

  Curtis went on as though there’d been no interruption. “I have a lot of work to be done here,” he said, “and I’m shorthanded. I would have enough people, if I had enough time, but because of you I don’t have all the time I need, so I’m shorthanded. Naturally, you want to make up for the trouble you’ve made—”

  Mark opened his mouth, but then caught himself and shut his mouth again.

  “—and happily you can.” To Bennett, he said, “Take him where I showed you on the map, give him to Li. At least you two can speak the same lingo with each other.”

  Curtis went away, and Bennett pointed. “Walk over there.”

  Mark took a step, and another, and managed to walk.

  And now he saw that he was in some sort of large construction site. The thing must take up half or more of a city block, with wooden fence all around the perimeter, blue plastic sheathing on the three or four stories already built, many construction vehicles parked here and there, but only the sparse worklights left gleaming.

  Put me to work, he thought, put me to work? Where?

  Bennett prodded him to the building under construction and through the blue tarpaulin. It was darker inside, only a few bare bulbs lit on the meager superstructure of the lower part of the building. Bennett shoved Mark over to the big square vertical tube of a cage where the construction elevator would be, and pushed the button.

  Is he going to take me to the top, Mark wondered, and throw me off? He hadn’t the strength to resist.

  The elevator came up, not down, rising from some basement level. Bennett pulled back the accordion gate, shoved Mark aboard, followed him, and started them down again. The elevator, a cage in a cage, moved slowly downward, through an excavation only minimally built on, beams and posts to support the work above. Then it ran through a kind of floor, which should have been the bottom of the excavation but was not, and descended through darkness, and then into a different kind of light, an interior dim light, as the elevator descended into a tunnel.

  The tunnel was very rough, the earth walls and floor uncovered, the plywood sheets of the ceiling crudely shored up. Temporary electric wire sagged from light fixture to light fixture along one side. The tunnel started here at the elevator and continued for about twenty-five feet into darkness. At the other end was a massive bulldozer with a deep scoop mouth, faced this way and filling the tunnel, looking impossible here.

  A side tunnel led off from this one, and that’s where Bennett moved Mark, with pokes and prods. In the smaller tunnel stood a low rubber-wheeled tram. Two men with shovels were filling the tram with dirt and rubble thrown back to them by four other men digging at the face of the tunnel. The men wore only shorts and shoes; it was hot down here.

  Bennett spoke in an Asian dialect to one of the men filling the tram, who stopped, nodded, and looked at Mark with pleased interest. He was thin and harsh-eyed, and the sweat ran down his face and chest.

  Bennett turned away without a look at Mark, and the worker came over to push his shovel into Mark’s hands and point at the pile of dirt. Mark understood; this is my new job with Curtis Construction.

  He stepped over to the dirt pile, which kept growing from the work of the men
at the tunnel face, and started to dig, throwing the dirt into the tram. The dirt was surprisingly heavy, the job an immediate strain on his back and shoulders. He watched the other man working here, and tried to imitate his moves; stand where he could throw the dirt to the side, which used only the arms, instead of to the front, which strained the back.

  The man, Li, waved a hand to attract Mark’s attention, and then did a little hand-running gesture: work faster. All right. Mark worked faster, and Li went off to get another shovel.

  * * *

  There was no day or night. There was no time passing, it was all the same; dig and dig and dig. The crew he’d been working with went away, replaced by another, but they didn’t let him stop working. He was exhausted, he fell down sometimes, but they would merely give him angry kicks and make him get back to it.

  From time to time there was food, and they let him join them, and it was always cooked rice and bowls of lukewarm water. He was starving, he ate everything they gave him, and it was never enough. They aren’t feeding me as though I’m a prisoner, he thought, they’re feeding me as though I’m a work animal that must be kept in fuel for a little while, until it dies.

  Back in the main tunnel there was a portable toilet, so at last he could go to the bathroom like a human being, but if he stayed in there more than a minute they pounded on the door, and cuffed him on the side of the head when he came out.

  Sometimes he would fall and simply be too weak to rise, no matter what they did, so then they would let him sleep where he was, for a while; never for long enough. His body, not used to this kind of labor, screamed with pain. His hands were bloody shreds, but he had to keep holding the shovel, bending, lifting, throwing. The pain was awful, but when he stopped the pain they gave him to force him to go on was worse.

  The tunnel they were digging was almost as large around as the main one behind them, but even more primitive, as though no one intended to use it for long. While the men at the face dug, burrowing downward and forward from the top, and Mark and one other man filled the tram, other men removed and replaced and emptied the tram, and other men worked with the beams and the plywood to shore up the ceiling and hold back the bulging walls.