Soft Touch

by John D. MacDonald

  “Make yourself comfortable, Joe. We got some bourbon. You want a drink?”

  “No thanks. I’ve had all I can handle.”

  “Well, you don’t act it. Mind if I fix myself one?”

  “Go right ahead.” I sat in the only chair. It was small and uncomfortable. She knelt in front of the tiny kitchen unit, put two cubes of ice in a green plastic glass, dumped bourbon in liberally, carried her drink to the bunk and sat on it, facing me.

  “Here’s lookin’ up your address,” she said. She drank and sighed and said, “I needed this one.”

  “Do you drive and haul this trailer around?”

  “They won’t let me drive. I’m a lousy driver they keep telling me. That’s Charlie and Carol Ann. Charlie is Carol Ann’s boy friend. Charlie owns the Whip and the Caterpillar. I tell you they’re the only honest to God friends I ever had. They’ve been swell to me. There’s nobody taking a slice off the top so I get to pick and choose. I wouldn’t wanna bring no bums in here, you understand. No rough stuff. I liked the way you looked, you know.”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  “That’s okay. You’re welcome.” She set the empty glass aside, yawned and began to unbutton her blouse. “You want we should have the light on?”

  “Hold it, Bobbie. That isn’t what I have in mind.”

  She tensed and her eyes turned hard and suspicious. “What the hell do you have in mind? I don’t go for any specialties, buster.”

  I took out my wallet. I found a five and a twenty and handed her the two bills. She took them and said, “Now what?” She was still suspicious.

  I took out the claim check on my car. “I want you to do me a favor. I’ll give you another twenty bucks.”

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “You know the Sidewheeler?”

  “Sure. Just down the road. I never been in it.”

  “I’ve been trying to get away from some people who’ve been bothering me. I don’t want to run into them. I want you to take this claim check to the doorman and ask for my car. I’ll give you a full description of it and the license number. He’ll probably ask. Tell him the owner is sick and sent you after his car. He’ll let you have it. Give him this dollar. Then bring the car back here.”

  “It is a hot car?”

  “No.”

  “Let me see the registration.” I took it out of the wallet and handed it to her. “You’re Jerome Jamison?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of trouble can I get into on this deal?”

  “No trouble. I just want to get away from those people.”

  “They’ll recognize your car, won’t they?”

  “Keep an eye out and see if you’re followed. If you are, don’t come back here with it. Put it in the lot across from the carnival and come back through the midway and bring me the car keys.”

  She thought it over and shook her head. “I won’t do it. Not for twenty bucks.”

  “What will you do it for?”

  “I’ll do it for fifty bucks.”

  “What makes you think it’s worth fifty bucks?”

  “I’m just guessing.”

  I took out two more twenties and a ten. Handed them to her. She put the money away and said, “So okay, friend. Only I better be dressed a little different to go up to the front of that joint, don’t you think?”

  “It might make it easier.”

  “I got a suit I can put on.” She opened the very narrow door of a tiny closet, took out a dark blue suit on a hanger and laid it on the bed. The trailer was so small that I could have reached out and touched her as she stood with her back to me and unzipped the red bullfighter pants and peeled them down. She turned and sat on the bed to pull them off her legs. As she stepped into the skirt, pulled it up and zipped it, she said, “You sure this hasn’t got anything to do with the cops?”

  “I’m certain.”

  She tucked the satin blouse into the waistband of the skirt, put the jacket on and gave her hair a couple of quick pats. “Okay?”

  “Fine.”

  I walked out into the night with her. “Which direction will you come from, Bobbie?”

  “Over there. You have to go all the way around in back and come in over the railroad tracks.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” I said.

  I saw her go. The night swallowed her. Then she reappeared again in the carnival lights, walking quickly in her blue suit. Five minutes to walk to the Sidewheeler. Three minutes to get the car. Five minutes to drive back. Certainly no more than fifteen minutes if it went smoothly.

  I opened the trailer door and turned the orange light out. I closed it and leaned against the side of the trailer. I lit a cigarette. The blare and rumble of the carnival was softened by distance. The sky was clear, the stars bright. Two women with hacksaw voices quarreled in a near-by trailer. You said you did. I never said I did. You wasn’t listening or something. I damn well heard you say you did. Oh, shut up, for once. I won’t shut up. I heard you tell Pete you did it. I never told Pete nothing.

  After about ten minutes had gone by, I moved away from the trailer, snapped the butt away, moved into the deeper shadow by a battered stake truck.

  The headlights appeared suddenly as the car came across the railroad tracks. It moved slowly across the open field toward the trailer. I saw that it was my wagon. But I wanted to be certain no other car followed it. It stopped forty feet away from me, next to Bobbie’s trailer. She left the lights on and the motor running and got out.

  Just as I started to move toward her, she turned and said, “I told you he said he’d wait right here.”

  “Ssshh!”

  I turned to move away as quickly and silently as I could. I tripped and fell headlong across a flat bed trailer into a mass of jangling metal. I scrambled to my feet. I heard the running footsteps close behind me. I tried to dodge away but someone ran into me and we both went down on the rank grass. I struck out at him and hit him once and then there was a great blow against my head, just behind my ear. It flashed behind my eyes like near-by lightning. I did not go out completely. I was aware of being pulled to my feet. I knew there was one on each side of me, that both my wrists were painfully locked against the small of my back. I could walk in a spongy way.

  Then we were beside my car. The headlights against the aluminum trailer made a reflected glow. Bobbie said, “What’re you doin’ to him? What’re you gonna do to him? You didn’t say you were goin’ to …”

  And a blurred shadow moved quickly and savagely, and I heard the wet crunch of the blow against her face, saw her run backward into the side of the trailer and fall. And heard her begin to whine, a helpless animal sound. I tried to plunge away from them, but they held me effortlessly. The first blow had weakened me.

  “Turn him a little. Okay. Hold it.”

  The side wall of my head tottered and fell in upon itself with a prolonged rumbling crash that turned out every light in the world.

  14

  I woke up in the middle of the night with a horrible headache. I looked at a familiar light pattern on the ceiling and realized that Lorraine had gotten up to go to the bathroom and had left the bathroom door ajar. Wherever the party had been, it had been a dandy.

  Best thing to do is roll over and try to go back to sleep. I tried to roll over and I could not. It startled me. As I began to investigate I found that I was fully dressed, that I lay spread-eagled on my bed, wrists and ankles tied somehow to the four corners of the bed.

  So the party had been at our house and I had passed out and some comical type had tied me up.

  “Lorraine?” Then, a bit louder, “Lorraine!”

  No answer. No guarantee that she was even in the house. If the party had moved on somewhere, she would be with it. Maybe she had dreamed up the idea of tying me up. It would certainly give her more freedom of action.

  Try to sleep anyway.

  I tried. I could not. I was too uncomfortable. I heard a noise downstairs. Somebody down there.
>
  “Hey!” I yelled. “Hey, anybody!”

  And footsteps came up the stairs fast. More than one set. Somebody came in and fumbled around for the light switch and finally found it. I blinked at the sudden brightness and smiled sheepishly and said, “Somebody with a cute sense of humor fixed me up good. Untie me, will you, please?”

  Three men had come into the bedroom. I didn’t recognize any of them. One was big and beefy and blond. Maybe one of Lorraine’s new friends. The other two weren’t her type. Small and dark and wiry, and too sharply dressed. Nobody smiled.

  “Get me loose, will you? Where’s Lorraine?”

  The big blond one stood at the foot of the bed and looked down at me. The side of his face looked as though he had recently taken a bad fall.

  “That was real cute, Jamison, sending that little tailpiece back after your car. But for another thirty bucks she co-operated very very nicely.”

  I stared at him blankly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who the hell are you? Where is my wife?”

  “Nice act,” the big one said. “We want the money. Where is it?”

  And then I got the picture. This was robbery. They had a lot of nerve to come in and tie me up like this. I wondered what they’d done to Lorraine.

  “Listen,” I said. “We don’t keep money around the house. A few bucks, but not important money. You’re welcome to what we’ve got.”

  One of the small dark ones spoke to the other in a language I couldn’t identify. The one spoken to reached into his inside pocket and pulled out the thickest wad of hundred dollar bills I’d ever seen outside a bank. He fanned them and said, “We found this much, Jamison. Where’s the rest of it?”

  “The rest of what? You never found that much in this house.”

  They all looked down at me for a little while, and then they moved away from the bed and talked in low tones. I was worried about Lorraine. If she was still out, she might walk in on this. They might hurt her. She wouldn’t know how to handle a situation like this. The smart thing was to let them have what they wanted.

  They made a decision. They got a blue plastic sponge out of the bathroom. The bedroom blinds were closed. The big one pressed hard with his thumbs against the hinges of my jaw, forcing my mouth open. One of the others forced the sponge into my mouth. They tied it in place with one of my neckties. They took off my right shoe and sock, and tied my ankle more firmly. One of the dark ones opened a pocket knife, sat on the bed with his back to me, and began to work on my naked foot.

  Until the pain began I could not help thinking it was some kind of an involved joke. I was wondering if one of my friends had hired these boys to scare me half to death. But when the pain started, it all became real. I tried to keep it away from me. I tried to push down, so the pain would stay there in my foot. But it came up and it became a part of me and there was nothing but pain. I roared against the sponge. I bucked and screamed, eyes bulging, but he didn’t stop. And I swung hard around a dizzy curve and slammed down into darkness. And came to with the tears drying on my face, and they looked at me and he started again, his narrow back hunched over my bare foot. The other two did not watch him. I tore at the bonds until my shoulders creaked and my hands went numb. I made soundless shrieks and passed out again. When I came to the sponge was gone. My foot felt as though I were holding it in a bed of coals, but the pain was dull enough to bear.

  “The rest of the money,” the big one said.

  I had little wind, as though I had run a long way. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. This … is some kind of a mistake. You can have anything you want. Don’t … hurt me again like that.”

  “You get hurt again and again and again,” the big one said. “We’ve got all the time there is. Again and again and again, until we get the money.”

  One of the small dark ones, the one who hadn’t worked on my foot, said, “Hold it a minute.” He turned on the bed lamp, put his hand on my chin and turned my face toward the light and looked into my eyes.

  “What is the date, Jamison?” He had an accent I couldn’t place.

  “Let me think. April. Sometime in April.”

  “What did you do yesterday?”

  “Yesterday? I worked, I guess.” I tried to remember yesterday. I could not remember anything about it with any distinctness.

  “When did you last see Vincente Biskay?”

  “Vince? My God, it’s been … thirteen years. But …”

  “But what?”

  “I just had the funny feeling that I’d seen him recently. Just for a moment. With a ring on his finger with a red stone in it. But that’s nonsense.”

  “Are you falling for that?” the big one asked.

  “You are too heavy handed, my friend,” the one who had questioned me said. “I don’t think our friend is bright enough to simulate a classic case of traumatic amnesia. I suspect you gave him a nice little concussion. And I do not think he would stand so much pain so well.”

  The big one looked dismayed. “What does it mean?”

  “It means there will be a return of memory, either bit by bit or all at once. In ten minutes, ten days, or ten weeks. Until then there isn’t a thing we can do.”

  “Memory of what?” I asked.

  The little one looked down at me with no expression. He glanced at his wrist. “It is three in the morning on Saturday the fourteenth day of June,” he said.

  I stared at him without comprehension. “Are you crazy?”

  “I’m not lying to you. You have a lot to remember. Start with Biskay. Try to remember Biskay. And try to remember money. A great deal of money.”

  “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “We’ll wait until you remember.”

  “Where’s my wife?”

  “She’s no longer here. She hasn’t been here for over a month.”

  “Where is she? Where the hell is she?”

  “Nobody seems to know.”

  They had another whispered conference in a far corner of the room. The one who had damaged my foot dressed it deftly, using gauze from the medicine cabinet. He and the big one left. I heard them go down the stairs. The other one stared at me for a little while, lips pursed, and then followed them, turning the light out as he left the room.

  Biskay and money. I wondered how Vince was, wondered what he had been doing all these years. The fourteenth of June. Two months gone. I could not believe it. I tried to make myself believe it, tried to capture lost memories. When I was small we had a small gray cat for nearly a year. Its name was Misty. For weeks after it was run over, I kept seeing it out of the corner of my eye, just out of my range of vision. And I would turn, but of course it was not there because I had watched my father bury it, and I had put up a cross for it.

  These memories were like that gray cat. They seemed to be there, but as soon as I could catch the hint of one and try to face it directly, it would be gone.

  One memory, or pseudo-memory, was clear, long enough for me to grasp it. There was sunlight in the bedroom. Tinker Velbiss sat naked at the dressing table, brushing her red hair. That, of course, was absurd.

  And then something about a copper screen, holes in a screen. But that was gone too.

  I wondered if the man had lied to me about Lorraine. Why would she go away? Where could she go?

  My foot throbbed and burned. And I felt the growth of a cold anger, an anger born of pain and humiliation and indignity. No matter what had happened in the lost months, these men had no right to do this to me. And it seemed easier and more satisfying to think of how to untie myself than to try to explore memories that were not there. I tested my good foot and my hands carefully, each in turn. I could touch the bonds with my fingers. It felt as though they had used neckties. It was a Hollywood bed with a stubby headboard, no footboard. From the angle of my wrists, it seemed that the other ends of the bonds were tied to the frame. They had left the bed lamp on the bedside table lighted, but I could not lift my head high enough to see either wrist.


  I pulled myself as far to my right as I could. I pulled until I felt that I was dislocating my left shoulder. It gave me a few inches of slack on the right wrist. I moved my right arm back and forth as far as the slack permitted, rubbing the binding against the metal edge of the bed frame. It slid smoothly. I strained to change the angle. After several attempts I felt a small catch of fabric on an edge or roughness of metal. I worked at it, resting from time to time. I felt the tiny rippings, the threads being pulled loose. Yet when I yanked hard at it, it held firm. The frequent yanking had forced the wrist loop so tight my hand was numb. The awkward position made an agony in the stretched muscles of my arm and shoulder.

  I felt that I could not free myself. I gave a final convulsive effort, using the last of my fading strength. There was a sudden rip and pop of taut fabric and my arm was free. I laid it across my belly and rested for a time, breathing hard, feeling the strain and pain go out of the muscles. I loosened the wrist knot with my teeth and then lay quietly, working my numb fingers, feeling the needles of sensation return.

  I rolled onto my left shoulder, reached over and, in a few minutes released my left wrist. I sat up, massaging my hands, rubbing my arms. And heard footsteps on the stairs.

  There was a heavy glass ash tray on the bedside table. I picked it up with my left hand and lay back, spreading my arms as before, the ash tray out of sight over the far edge of the bed. I could only hope that it was one of them, and he would not turn on the main lights. I turned my head toward the door and closed my eyes, not completely, left them open just enough to see him vaguely. And as he came in, I groaned.

  He came to the bed. He leaned over me, just enough to be within the sweeping circle of my right arm. I swung it around and caught the nape of his neck and smashed the heavy ash tray full into his face. It fell from my hand onto my belly. He made a pale sound, moving weakly. I picked it up again and swung it against his face. This time it shattered. He was one of the dark ones, not the one who had worked on my foot. He collapsed across me, slipping back toward the floor. I held him and lowered him gently to the floor beside the bed. His face was finished for all time. I strained over the side of the bed and went through his clothing. There was no gun on him. There was a pocket knife, a tiny gold thing, flat, with a single blade. I used it to cut my ankles free. I hitched myself to the end of the bed and sat there for a moment steeling myself to the point where I could chance putting my weight on the damaged foot. I stood with all my weight on my left leg and tentatively pressed my right foot against the floor. The room swam and tilted and I sat down again. I tried again. I was able to bear it, though it made me sick and dizzy.