Captors

by Farris, John

  "What do you think of your stepchildren, Mr. Holland?"

  "Why the personal questions?" Sam asked, cleaning his glasses again.

  "I've met Kevin, but I've only seen photographs of Carol. I'd like to know something about her."

  "I wouldn't claim to be an expert on Carol; girls her age change personalities with almost every breath they take. Because I travel so much I saw her quite often at Berkeley. She's enthusiastic, impetuous—engaged three times already, if I recall—"

  The FBI man said quickly, "Engaged now? Or recently?"

  "No. She broke up with a boy named Dev Kaufman about five months ago. I think they were planning to be married. They were living together. Her mother doesn't know this, by the way."

  "I understand. But this Kaufman is out of the picture now?"

  "And out of the country. Traveling around Europe. He wants to be a painter."

  "Sorry to have interrupted you."

  "It must have been important," Sam said, looking closely at Gaffney. "If Carol were simply missing, I could suspect Dev. He's impetuous too, and he is crazy about her. He might conceivably lock her up someplace until she agreed to marry him. But he doesn't need the money. His father is in the movie business: producing, distributing. Are you trying to say someone Carol knows may have grabbed her? What about the ransom note?"

  "Ransom notes don't always mean what they say. Sometimes they don't mean anything. Kidnappers are frequently complex and devious people."

  "And unbalanced?"

  Gaffney lit a cigarette. "There's no need to overstimulate our imaginations. I have no reason to believe that this is anything but a snatch for ransom, well planned and so far well executed. Why don't you go on about the kids? Apparently you get along with them very well."

  "I'd say so, considering I'm not their father. Carol confides in me; I think she has a high regard for my opinions. She's appalled by some of the things that are happening in our increasingly closed society. Four years at Berkeley have made a political activist of her. We enjoy bouncing ideas off each other. Kevin is more reticent, scholarly. At the moment he's fascinated with marine biology. I taught him skin-diving and fishing,

  and his grandfather taught him to shoot and handle hawks. I'm happy to say Kevin prefers the water. The General tried to give him a two-thousand-dollar shotgun for his birthday recently. I had a long talk with Kevin, and he agreed not to accept it. That didn't improve the old man's attitude toward me, but it was the right thing to do."

  "I suppose Carol and Kevin know about your present marital difficulties?"

  "They know enough; neither of us has really talked it out with them."

  Gaffney took his glass to the sink and rinsed it. "This is a rough time for you and you've been more than patient with me, Mr. Holland."

  Sam said, "I want an answer to one question. No hedging, no qualifications. Carol's in danger, isn't she?"

  "Yes."

  Sam took a deep breath. "I appreciate that."

  "You'll have to decide for yourself how much your wife should know. You might try getting some sleep now, if you can. Pete Demilia and one of my agents will be here through the night. I'll be along bright and early in the morning."

  "If I take some work upstairs with me I might get drowsy." Sam added, with a humorless grin, "And that quart of Beefeater I just opened might help too."

  They walked together to the library and Sam gave Demilia his Coke. "By the way, the telephone on my desk is a business phone. After three rings an answering service cuts in."

  "We noted the difference in numbers," Demilia said. "Thanks, Mr. Holland."

  Gaffney asked, "Is that K-a-u-f-m-a-n? Where's he from?"

  "Los Angeles, I think," Sam said absently. "No, Beverly Hills. You aren't going to bother Dev, are you?"

  "That shouldn't be necessary," Gaffney assured him. Sam put the bottle of gin under one arm, stacked several folders and a tall glass filled with ice on his clipboard and left the library.

  As soon as he was gone Demilia picked up the receiver of the direct-line telephone, looked inquiringly at the agent.

  "Dev Kaufman," Gaffney told him. "He and Carol Watterson were living together while she was at Berkeley. I assume he was a student there too. We ought to know where he is now, what he's doing, what he has to say about Carol Watterson."

  "Maybe," Demilia said, with a hint of eagerness, "he's with Miss Watterson now."

  "That would be damned unfortunate for him."

  It started after he opened the bathroom door, when the light from the bath angled across the canopied Victorian bed, across the naked unevenly browned back of his wife. Apparently she had resisted sleep long enough to unpin her hair, which was a streaky ash blonde. Carol's hair was pale, uncoarsened, feather-light, but they were of the same build, mother and daughter, their bones were the same.

  That was enough to start Sam thinking of Carol; it was enough to bring on an unpleasant spasming of muscles in his chest and upper arms, the pincerlike squeezing of his heart, renewed sweat after his cold soak in the tub. He took off his glasses and the room slipped out of focus, high shadows and vaporous light, like pale morning sunlight glistening on frozen snow. Felice became remote, inert, undetailed in her slumber.

  "Stay with me, Sam," she had pleaded, and he felt an eagerness to be in bed with Felice, to sleep with his hands on her firm and smoothly muscled body.

  But as he approached her, he became myopically aware of the white eagle, guardian eagle, emerging from shadows by the foot of the bed, wings frozen in beginning flight, and he drew back with a snort of distaste. Felice thought it was kicky and she had paid the antique dealer too much for it, in Sam's opinion. He despised the bird, and tonight, because of the kidnapping, he seemed to see a special menace in the off-white, out-thrust head, the porcelain claws. It was foolish, but if he stayed, slept with Felice as she wanted, he was certain he would dream of birds more evil than this one cast in porcelain: birds in motion, swirling darkly at him, smothering him with heavy wings.

  Sam turned away shakily and closed the bathroom door. You're tired, boy, he thought derisively. It was a fair reminder that he was not getting off the merry-go-round any too soon. He couldn't afford to get that tired again.

  He sat on the edge of his own bed. The muscle spasms continued, making it difficult for him to pour the shot of gin over ice. His first swallow tasted as bitter as hemlock; he was afraid he would heave it up. But he drank a little more, and the taste was smoother, appealing, benumbing. He drank still more and sighed, losing apprehension, escaping panic. When he'd finished the first shot he poured another and at last, drinking sparingly for the better part of an hour, Sam felt dead calm.

  He had no heart or mind for work tonight. He turned off the bedside lamp and lay back in his dressing gown, eyes on the raked moonlit ceiling. He was nerveless, but a million miles from sleep. Morning would be dreadful; morning would be an impossibility. But somehow they would all have to endure it.

  Chapter Three

  Tuesday, June 25

  The sunrise was lovely.

  From the white bed Carol watched the sky change very gradually, star-flecked gray to a tea-rose shade to a few minutes of clear, glistening amber before the normal early-morning blue began to assert itself.

  It was quiet, had been quiet, except for the flushing of a toilet earlier. Now a woman was singing, in some distant part of the house—if that's what it was—singing in a sweet soprano voice about Suzanne by the river. She also heard a rattle of pans.

  The double sash windows through which she had observed the dawn were closed, but the room was cool enough, even a little chilly. There was a blanket across her bed. She could feel the rough texture of it against her bare arms. She had slept comfortably, Carol supposed. Hadn't moved a muscle. She had no desire to move even now, although she had been awake for some time. There was a growing pressure in her bladder, though; she would have to do something about that before long.

  At some time during the night they had
removed the wet medicinal bandage from her eyes. Though they were still inflamed and somewhat swollen, her eyes felt much better. From time to time her vision was blurry, but blinking cleared that up.

  The girl soprano down there—down? It was hard to tell; Carol couldn't say for certain if she herself was "up" or "down"—the girl was really very good, and the song was poetic, wistful, melancholy. Carol knew some of the words, but not many. She felt like humming along, but her throat was a little sore. Also that thing was around her neck. It wasn't uncomfortably tight, but she did become aware of it when she swallowed hard, or coughed in an attempt to clear her throat.

  Some water would be a big help, Carol thought.

  She turned her head on the pillow, to the left. Beside the white bed was a white iron pedestal table with a round, white marble top, and on the table there was a milk-glass plate with an old china pitcher on it. White, of course. So much white, Carol thought, displeased. Like a hospital. But she was certain she wasn't in a hospital: this room was large and had odd angles, a ceiling that sloped in different directions, interesting furniture. And in the strengthening light it was apparent that total "whiteness" consisted of a blend of different shades of white, from rich ivory to a stark eggshell.

  Intent on the pitcher, Carol sat up and instantly felt giddy; her stomach flexed like a rubbery hand. She heard the slipping rattle of a lightweight chain.

  When she could she turned her head curiously and saw the close-linked chain snaking brightly over her right shoulder, across the spacious bed, falling out of sight into the last of the shadows in the room. She traced the chain with the fingers of one hand to the place where it joined the band around her neck, a band made of heavy padded leather—like a dog collar.

  A dog collar. Her fingers appraised it. There was the buckle. She raised her other hand and tried, experimentally, to undo the buckle. But it was fixed in some way so that she couldn't.

  Oh, well, she was thirsty. Carol forgot about the chain and collar and reached for the pitcher, which to her delight was filled with cold water. She sipped it gratefully. As delicious as spring water, she thought. Her giddiness had passed and it was no effort for her to sit up, crosslegged. She noticed that she was wearing a man's white shirt, the sleeves rolled past her elbows, and faded denim shorts, the color of the sky outside, that came down to just above her knees.

  But hadn't she been wearing—

  Carol sat very still. She had come to dread those moments of blankness, of bleakness, when something unpleasant, even frightening, seemed to be trying to squirm loose in her mind. But if she didn't move, just fixed her attention on some neutral thing—the sky, the colorless water in the heavy old pitcher—the moments would come to an end, and she would feel like herself again. Her neutral, undemanding, uncaring self.

  Now then. That was much better. What difference did clothes make, as long as she was clean and comfortable?

  Carol put the pitcher down carefully on the antique plate. Her mother had collected milk glass, Carol recalled, she'd had tons of it at one time. There were still a few good pieces in the display cabinet in the kitchen at home. She wondered how her mother was this morning. She hoped Felice had slept well. She had certainly slept well herself, would've been feeling just fine except for her eyes, which watered and blurred occasionally, and the sore throat was a nuisance. Undoubtedly she had caught a cold somewhere. Well, you can't have everything, Carol sternly reminded herself—and it was a pretty day. Carol looked around the room, now that she could see it well. There were cheerful patterns of sun on two walls. She approved of what she saw.

  The headboard of the bed was elaborately made from heavy wrought iron and there were two faces in the center of the design, or rather masks: Janus masks, comedy and tragedy. The bed itself, and the pretty little white table, sat on a platform which raised them about eight inches from the floor. Directly above the bed, at least eight feet from where she was sitting, was a small recessed window, like a dormer window. The other windows, through which she had watched the sunrise, were diagonally to her left, and approximately fifteen feet away. The wall in front of her contained an unscreened fireplace with a mantel. There were birch logs for ornament in the fireplace.

  To her right Carol saw a tall, narrow door—she decided the bathroom must be behind it—and, diagonal to that, where two walls met obliquely (it was certainly a strangely shaped room) there was a stairway, descending. So I'm up, Carol thought, pleased with this discovery. From her position on the bed she could see only the top step of this stairway. The ceiling, she noted, continuing her inventory, was about fifteen feet at its highest point. From this point hung the single light fixture in the room, a severe white globe with a large glass lens in the bottom of it. The floor was completely carpeted, in white, of course. Over by the windows there were two sling chairs in white stitched cowhide, shiny, looking like Kevin's baseballs before he used them. Separating the chairs was a huge polar bear rug, its fur thick and tufted like whorls of whipped cream. The yellow eyes and fangs and pink tongue were the only spots of color to be found. A big, white, double-doored chiffonier was angled between two walls to her left—and that was it. No other furniture. It was a room for sleeping.

  Carol swung her legs to the opposite side of the bed and stood up beside it. The chain slithered down one arm. There was a lot of chain, and it seemed to be fastened to the frame of the bed. She gave it a yank. Fastened firmly. She frowned. It seemed absurd to her, unnecessary. I'm not going to run away, she thought.

  And instantly the blankness, the sensation of something uncoiling, threateningly, in the cool, sunless back regions of her mind. She put both hands to her face to steady herself. Carol shuddered, but it was a small shudder, as isolated and meaningless as a lone bubble rising to the surface of a still pond. As soon as it was gone she was calm again, no longer annoyed.

  There was some perfectly good explanation for the collar and chain, otherwise she would be worried about it. And she wasn't. That was the truth. She was not worried about anything—except, perhaps, the possibility that she might flood the nice carpet unless she reached the bathroom quickly.

  So she ignored the chain and collar, which chafed her neck slightly, and walked to the door nearby. Sure enough, the john. She undid the snap of the denim shorts and made another discovery—no pants. Also no bra. Whoops! Oh, well. She shifted the chain, which was tauter now, no longer slumped over one shoulder, from left to right and sat down. Urinating was unexpectedly painful, it burned her at first. Carol concentrated on the make-up of the old-fashioned bathroom. White, all white. That was beginning to be tedious. The tub was an obvious antique. There was no window. But there was something to look at, on the wall facing the toilet, an unframed oil painting, possibly very old. The surface was crazy-cracked. It was a painting of a hunchbacked dwarf having sexual intercourse with a buxom coarse-featured peasant woman.

  Carol stared at it, both fascinated and repelled by the gross sensibilities of the artist. There was also a little dog in the picture. Carol hadn't noticed him right away. It was an ugly picture, not so much pornographic as downright ugly, but she couldn't help grinning. Because in the picture the little dog was about to—he was going to—

  She gasped and chuckled and began to laugh aloud, partially smothering the laughter with her hands. And, without warning, the laughter turned to formidable sobs, and she cursed the man warped enough to hang a thing like that in his bathroom.

  Tears still falling, her breast heaving with hiccups, Carol stood and pulled up her shorts, groped for the toilet chain above her head and yanked it, went stumbling back into the bedroom, the chain she wore sagging to her feet, almost tripping her up. She sank down on the edge of the bed, used a corner of the sheet to dry her wet and burning eyes. She held her breath to get rid of the hiccups, but that didn't do any good, and neither did a long drink of water. She began to prowl the room, jerking the chain free whenever it hung momentarily on something.

  She discovered that she could approach w
ithin three feet of the high windows, close enough to glimpse an empty stretch of pasture below, between green woodlots. There were hills, blue with haze, in the distance. On tiptoe and with her arms outstretched, her neck pulled against the collar, Carol could barely press her fingertips against the glass. A bird flew near, and quickly out of view. The sunlight streaming in was all but blinding: she covered her sensitive eyes and retreated, gulping air, and kneeled on the bearskin feeling thwarted, cross and despondent.

  When she looked up a young man was standing at the top of the stairway. His hair was black and curled thickly over his shirt collar. He wore dark glasses. He was also wearing Levi's with a tooled leather belt and a bell-sleeved, fancy white shirt, front unbuttoned to the middle of his tanned hairless chest. He looked very dark-skinned and tribal against the white background. He was carrying a tray.

  "I want to go outside," Carol complained.

  He came on into the bedroom. He was barefoot, like Carol. He put the tray on the bed. She watched him closely. Her hiccups had stopped.

  "What's that?" she asked.

  He looked at Carol for only a moment, inscrutably; the dark glasses bothered her, as if they concealed something terrible—a bad scar, a broken mind. She lowered her eyes momentarily. He turned to go.

  "Wait a minute," Carol said anxiously, jumping up. He paused. He was wide-shouldered, lithe, slightly bowlegged, and he waited with an athlete's calm containment, an ease that was reassuring. She felt less intimidated by him. She approached slowly.

  "What would you like?" he asked.