Shackles

by Bill Pronzini

  I’d already broached the idea to Kerry, in a tentative way, and she seemed all for it. In the time we’d been together, she had seen me shot up, beaten up, used up psychologically, and she’d grown to hate the kind of work I did. So why shouldn’t I retire, make us both happy? Money was no problem. The last few years had been good and I had some cash in the bank; I could draw a token salary out of the agency, and Kerry would willingly supply any more I might need. I had no male hangups about that sort of thing, because it had nothing to do with charity or an incapacity in me. She was much younger, talented, and more ambitious; the odds were good that she would one day be made a junior partner at Bates and Carpenter. And we were practically living together anyway, practically married even if she didn’t care to make it legal. She had her apartment and I had my flat in Pacific Heights, but we spent lots of nights together in one place or the other. None of that would have to change.

  As for my time, I could find plenty of ways to fill it. Spend more hours with Kerry, doing the things we enjoyed doing together. Read, go fishing, take little trips, get out to sports events. Maybe teach a criminology course at UC Extension or take on some consultancy work if I found myself getting bored. In any case, relax, enjoy the rest of my life. Fifty-six years old, I’d put in my time, I was entitled, wasn’t I? Damn right I was. Damn right.

  The whole idea scared hell out of me.

  I couldn’t forget the period, not so long ago, when I’d lost my license for two and a half months. It had seemed as though I’d lost my reason and zest for living along with it: I had done little more than vegetate during those weeks. I kept telling myself this was different because it was voluntary, because I was older, more financially secure, and ready and willing to get shut of the full-time investigating grind. And yet there was the nagging fear that I would have the same reaction if and when I did get shut of it—the same sense of displacement, uselessness, emptiness. That I would be like the old firehorse put out to pasture and chafing constantly because he knew there were fires he could be helping to put out, and never mind that he might get burned in the process. Well, maybe I couldn’t do it; maybe I had grown so used to the harness that I could no longer live without it. But I felt that I had to try. And so I had set an arbitrary target date of January 15, a little less than six weeks from now. Holidays would be over then, and I’d have some things I was working on wrapped up. I hadn’t told either Kerry or Eberhardt yet, but I would before too much longer. Eb would need a few weeks’ notice to get used to the idea. He wouldn’t like it at first but he’d come around; eventually he would see it as a challenge, a way to prove what he’d always believed—that he was the better detective. And maybe he was, at that. Things didn’t bother him, fester in him the way they did with me. He did his job with a minimum of emotional involvement. I envied him that, because in the long run it is the one quality more than any other that allows you to survive in our profession.

  I watched the starlight and the city lights burn in the surrounding dark. And I thought: This is the right away to look at the city, from a place where you can’t see the ugliness. Yeah, I’ve got to try.

  It was too cold to sit on the balcony; when Kerry reappeared with the drinks we had them inside. Then, without hurry, we went to bed and made love, and it was particularly good because of the kind of night this was.

  Kerry’s digital clock said a quarter of one when I got out of bed and pulled on my clothes. She said sleepily, “You really want to go home?”

  “No. What I really want to do is hump you all night long.”

  “So why don’t you?”

  “An old man like me? I’d be dead by morning.”

  “Nice way to go.”

  “I’ll consider it when I’m eighty-seven and you’re seventy-four.” I tucked in my shirt and zipped up my pants. “You have to get up early, remember? And I’d like to sack in tomorrow. Won’t hurt us to sleep alone one night this weekend.”

  “Damn Saturday meetings,” she said. “I hate to work on Saturday.”

  “You’re on your way up, kid. It’ll be Bates, Carpenter and Wade before long.”

  She muttered something; she was half-asleep already. I leaned over and kissed her and said I’d call her around five, and she said, “Mmmm,” and turned over. I put on my jacket and overcoat, left the bedroom, and managed not to make any noise letting myself out.

  Outside the street and sidewalk were both deserted. The wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped a few more degrees, but the night still had that hard, brittle clarity: December in San Francisco. Kerry and our love-making were still on my mind; I started to whistle off-key as I walked down toward my car. I felt fine—free and fresh, not sleepy at all. Alert.

  Even so, I had no inkling that I wasn’t alone. He must have been waiting in the shadows in one of the cars parked along the curb, and he was quick and light on his feet. He didn’t give me a second’s warning as he came up behind me.

  I was at the driver’s door of my car, getting the keys out of my coat pocket, still whistling, wondering idly if Eberhardt had managed to talk Bobbie Jean into bed, when I felt the sudden sharp pressure against my lower spine, heard the voice sharp and whispery close to my right ear, “Don’t move. This is a gun and I’ll use it if you force me to.”

  I stood still, very still. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that my mind went blank for three or four seconds while it shifted gears. When it began functioning again I sucked at the inside of my mouth, to get saliva flowing, and said, “My wallet’s in the inside jacket pocket, left side. If you want me to take it out—”

  “I don’t want your wallet,” the whispery voice said. There was something odd about it, something stilted, as if he were making a conscious effort to disguise it. “This isn’t a mugging.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “You’ll find out. Turn away from the car. Walk back uphill until I tell you to stop.”

  I had an impulse to twist my head, try to get a look at his face, but I didn’t give in to it. Turned and began to walk instead. The pressure remained tight against my lower spine; I could feel him crowded in close behind me. There was a faint medicinal odor about him, one that I couldn’t quite place.

  My mind was hyperactive now, and one thought it whirled up was: Jesus, one of those random street things. Psycho out looking for an easy target. But he didn’t act or sound like a psycho: no edginess, no excitement. Calm, almost businesslike. Man with a purpose.

  “Stop,” he said, and I stopped. The street was still deserted, the night hushed except for the murmur of the cold wind blowing in off the ocean. “The car on your immediate left—walk to it, open the rear door, and get inside. Lie facedown across the seat.”

  “Listen, what—”

  “Do as you’re told. I won’t hesitate to shoot you. Or don’t you believe that?”

  I believed it. I pivoted without saying anything, walked slowly to the car at the curb. Medium-sized, dark-colored, probably American made—that was all I could tell about it in the starshine. There was fear inside me now, a cold steady seepage like trickles of icewater, but it was as much a fear of the unknown as any other kind. Who was he? Why was he doing this? Those two questions were raw in my mind as I tugged open the rear door, hesitated with my hand still on the handle. The dome light hadn’t come on; he must have unscrewed the bulb.

  “Get inside,” he said in that odd whispery voice. “Lie facedown across the seat with your hands clasped behind you.”

  “And then what?”

  “Do as I say.”

  He prodded me with the gun … I had no doubt it was a gun. I ducked down, dry-mouthed now, and crawled onto the seat and flattened out with my cheek against cold leather, my arms splayed back and the hands joined on my buttocks. He took the gun out of my back while I did that, but not for long; he shoved in after me, leaving the door open, and jabbed my spine again. I tried to turn my head enough to get a look at him, but it was thick-dark in there and the angle was wrong. He was ju
st a peripheral man-shape hulked above me, doing something with his free hand.

  Metal clanked and rattled; I felt the cold bit of it around my left wrist, heard a sharp snicking sound. Christ —handcuffs. He snapped the other circlet tight around my right wrist. But he wasn’t finished yet. The gun muzzle stayed firm against my spine.

  I smelled the medicinal odor, sharper this time—and realized what it was just before he leaned forward, pressed something rough-textured and damp over my nose and mouth. “Don’t struggle,” he said, but I struggled anyway, fighting helplessly against the suffocating dampness, knowing I would lose consciousness in a matter of seconds. And then losing it, feeling it swirl away on the sickening fumes from a cloth soaked in chloroform….

  * * *

  Part One

  Ordeal

  * * *

  * * *

  The First Day

  * * *

  EARLY MORNING

  I came out of it feeling dizzy, disoriented, sick to my stomach. It was seconds before I remembered what had happened, realized I was still lying prone on the backseat of the car, my hands still shackled behind me. We were moving now at a steady pace, not fast and not slow, traveling in a more or less straight line on an even surface. Highway of some kind, probably a freeway: I could hear the faint desultory passage of other cars. But when I opened my eyes I couldn’t see anything except heavy blackness. There was something over me, covering my head—a blanket of some kind. I could smell its coarse, dusty fabric, and the odor stirred the roiling nausea in my stomach.

  I tried to move, to throw the blanket off. Pain erupted in cramped muscles all along my body, sharpest in my drawn-back shoulders and arms. More pain, a quick blaze of it, seemed to sweep through my head from temple to temple, then modulated into a fierce throbbing. That goddamned chloroform….

  Bile pumped up into the back of my throat. I managed to twist my body enough to get my head off the seat, hang it down close to the floorboards, before the vomit came boiling up—spasm after spasm that left me weak and shaking. A thick hot sweat oiled my skin. My head felt as if it would burst from the thunderous banging pressure within.

  “Christ, that stinks.”

  Him up there behind the wheel, the son of a bitch with the whispery voice. He sounded offended. I heard him crank down his window, heard more clearly the sounds of light traffic outside. Chill air came into the car, but it didn’t reach under the blanket, didn’t ease the sweaty feverishness.

  I needed that air, needed to breathe it; I was beginning to feel claustrophobic with the coarse wool of the blanket still draped over my head. Painfully I clawed up at the fabric with my fingers, got a grip on it and dragged at it until it came away from my head and neck. The wind was like a rejuvenating drug. I struggled onto my side, turning and raising my head, and sucked the cold air open-mouthed.

  Reflected headlamps and highway signs made occasional flickering patterns of light and shadow across the headliner, the seatback. The light hurt my eyes; I narrowed them down to slits. And then lifted up onto one elbow, trying to see over the top of the seat.

  He whispered out of the darkness, “Don’t try to sit up. If I see you in the mirror I’ll stop the car and shoot you through the head. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.” The words came out thick and moist, as if they had been soaking in the same oily sweat that filmed my body.

  “Good. Lie back and enjoy the drive.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  “When? How far is it?”

  “Quite a ways. Do you like snow?”

  “Snow?”

  “A white Christmas,” he said, and laughed. There was nothing wild or crazy about the laugh; it was low-pitched, wry. He seemed to be enjoying himself, but in a grim, purposeful way.

  I said, “Who are you? Tell me that much.”

  “Don’t you have any idea?”

  “No.”

  “My voice isn’t familiar?”

  “No.”

  “Keep listening, keep thinking about it.”

  “We’ve met before then?”

  “Oh yes. We’ve met before.”

  “When?”

  “A long time ago.”

  “Where?”

  “Think about it. You’ll have plenty of time. And don’t vomit anymore, will you? I really don’t like that stink.”

  I shifted around on the seat, trying to find a less cramped position. Lying supine was impossible because of the shackles and the folded-back arrangement of my arms; but I managed to get turned enough onto my right hip so that I was able to tilt the back of my head against one armrest. That way, I could look out through the opposite window on the driver’s side. Not that there was anything to see, just starlit darkness and intermittent flashes of light as cars passed going in the other direction. Once a highway sign flicked past but I couldn’t read the lettering on it. I had no idea where we were or how long we’d been on the road.

  The cold air had helped my head, lessened the throbbing somewhat so that I could think more clearly. Why was it so important to him to keep his identity a secret? No idea. No idea, either, where or when or under what circumstances he and I might have crossed paths … except that it must have been in connection with my work. Possibly while I was on the SFPD, but more likely at some point during my twenty-odd years as a private investigator. But twenty years is a long time, and I had made so damned many enemies….

  I gave it up when the mental effort began to resharpen the pain in my temples. Bile still simmered in my stomach; I locked my throat and jaws to keep it down. And don’t vomit anymore, will you? I really don’t like that stink. All right, you bastard. You’re in charge for now. But I’ll find a way to turn this around. Then we’ll see how you like lying back here with handcuffs on.

  “What time is it?” I asked him, to break the silence.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “It must be late. There’s not much traffic.”

  “It’s not late. It’s early.”

  “How early?”

  “The beginning,” he said, and again he let me hear his laugh. “Tell me, are you afraid?”

  “No.”

  “You’re lying. You must be afraid.”

  “Why must I?”

  “Any man would be in this situation.”

  “Just what is the situation?”

  “You’ll find out. I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

  My mouth tasted raw and bitter from the vomit; I worked saliva through it, swallowed into a dry, scratchy throat. The fear was still inside me—he was right about that. But it was dull now, with nothing immediate to feed on; I had no trouble keeping it at bay. Not until a thought worked its way to the surface of my mind, a thought that ignited the fear like dry tinder under a match.

  I tried to keep it out of my voice as I said, “How did you know where to find me tonight?”

  “Kerry Wade, advertising copywriter, Twenty-four-nineteen Gold Mine Drive, Apartment Three. You sleep with her off and on, have for years. You see? I know a great deal about you and your lifestyle.”

  “How do you know so much?”

  “Oh, I have my sources.”

  “Does Ms. Wade know you?”

  “We haven’t had the pleasure. Are you worried about her?”

  “No,” I lied.

  “Of course you are. You’re afraid I’ll do something to Ms. Wade.”

  I didn’t say anything. I did not want to provoke him.

  “She’s attractive, isn’t she?” he said. “Yes, very attractive.”

  This time I had to bite my lower lip to keep words from coming out.

  Deliberately he allowed the silence to build. After a minute or so he said, “I could torture you with the idea. Make you think I intend to harm your woman. It’s tempting, I’ll admit … but I don’t think I’ll do it. No need for it, really. There’s such a thing as overkill, after all.” Another laugh. “Overkill—that’s very
funny,” he said then. “Don’t you think so?”

  I let myself say, “We were talking about Kerry Wade.”

  “Yes, we were. I told you I won’t torture you that way and I meant it.”

  “Does that mean you’ll stay away from her?”

  “You needn’t worry. I have no interest in her now that I have you.”

  He could be lying, playing head games with me. How could I believe anything he said? And yet, I had to believe it. If I didn’t, if I tortured myself with thoughts that Kerry might be in jeopardy, I would not be able to concentrate on the jeopardy I was in.

  I said, “So you’ve got me. Now what?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  “You keep saying that. Why keep it a secret? I know what you plan to do with me.”

  “Do you? I don’t think so.”

  “Not the details, no. The end result.”

  “And that is?”

  “My death.” The words were as bitter in my mouth as the vomit taste.

  “You think I intend to murder you?”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it.”

  “Not to me. You’re wrong, you see. I’m not a murderer. When you die it will be of natural causes. Or by your own hand. You may want to commit suicide after a while—but if so it will be your decision, not mine.”

  That last sentence frightened and repulsed me more than anything else he’d said. You may want to commit suicide after a while…. My mind cast up all sorts of nightmare visions. Sweat broke out on my body again and my skin crawled and prickled with it. This was what it was like for the helpless victims of psychotic serial killers. This was what it was like when hell opened up and you saw what lay in the Pit.

  For a few seconds a kind of wildness took hold of me, a mixture of hatred and fear and impotent rage. I thought of trying to work my hands under my buttocks, down around my shoes and up in front of me; of rising up, throwing them around his neck, throttling him with his own handcuffs—and take my chances on surviving the wrecking of the car. But it was a crazy idea, even if it were possible. And it wasn’t. My arms and lower body were so cramped it would take long, agonizing minutes to make the switch, if I could do it at all. And there was no way I could manage it without making noise, without having to rise up on the seat. Once he heard or saw me he would realize what I intended to do and stop the car and either shoot me or administer another dose of chloroform.