by Alice Orr
Bennett managed to move her head from side to side. She struggled to breathe while he must have been debating with himself what to do. Then he pulled his hand away from her mouth. She gulped in air and might have used it to scream, but he had moved his free hand from her mouth to her neck. His reach was long enough to circle her throat and so wide that it stretched her chin upward. She had been freed from one death grip only to be caught in another. Tears of fear and frustration rose to Bennett’s eyes. She wasn’t the panicky type, but she felt herself on the verge of doing exactly that. A tear broke loose from her lashes and trailed down her cheek all the way to his hand at her throat. She thought she perceived a slight loosening of his grip, just enough for her to manage a few strangled words.
“I’ll do what you say,” she said. “You don’t need to hurt me.” She hated to sound like that much of a coward with anybody, but her instincts told her it was a better approach than her natural belligerence would be right now.
He clamped his arm tighter around her waist and arms, as if to compensate for the loosened hold on her throat. “You’re damned right you’ll do what I tell you, lady. You haven’t got much choice.”
His grip around her body had pulled her dress up high on her thighs. His own thigh was thrust between hers in a manner that would have been intimate if it weren’t for the circumstances. She had worn stockings and a garter belt because it was unseasonably warm tonight. Now she wished she had on panty hose instead. She was uncomfortably aware of the tops of her stockings coming close to being exposed. She hoped that he was too desperate at the moment to notice. His hard body and intruding thigh told her she wouldn’t have much chance of stopping further invasion if he decided to try it.
“I haven’t seen your face,” she rasped. “You could lock me in here and get away.”
She had already decided what she would do if he took her advice. She would run to the window and call out to the street for help. Somebody was bound to hear her. Her captor hesitated, as if thinking over her suggestion. He loosened his throat hold a bit more, just enough for Bennett to be able to look down at the body on the floor once more. She hadn’t noticed the dark stain on the drapery before. Some of that stain had spread to the gold fringe trim where she could make out the scarlet color. From beneath one edge of that fringe, right next to a small, open evening purse, protruded the long blade of a hunting knife. Its shiny surface was mottled with more crimson stain.
Bennett felt a strain behind her eyes instead of tears this time. The man holding her so roughly and rudely, as if she no longer possessed her own body or had any say over what happened to it, was a brutal murderer. And she was likely to be his next victim.
“If I left you here,” he said, “you’d be yelling and hollering before I was hardly out the door.” She could feel him glancing around the room. “There isn’t even anything to tie you up with. Those curtain ties wouldn’t hold.”
She was tempted to argue that they would hold, but she suspected he wouldn’t go for that. He might be stupid and crazy enough to commit murder, but she sensed that he could be pretty smart otherwise. She felt her last chances of survival slipping away. Her only hope was to stall him till she could make a break for it or until somebody else happened along the corridor outside. She tried not to think that nobody would be likely to come in here even if they were on the third floor. The hour was too late for billiards. The crowd downstairs would be thinning out by now. Even so, she had to do whatever she could to save herself, and stalling for time seemed to be her only choice. Until that moment, it had never occurred to Bennett that she would do almost anything to stay alive. She braced herself against that awareness, but she didn’t deny it.
“Maybe we could work something out,” she said, trying her best to sound conciliatory with his fingers still gripping her throat.
“What we can work out is that you’re leaving here with me,” he said.
“No,” she shouted, loudly enough for him to clamp his hand over her mouth.
Being forced to leave here with him could prolong this ordeal indefinitely. She’d be his hostage, and Bennett knew what usually happened to hostages. They had a habit of ending up dead.
“Shut up and do what I tell you,” he growled, “or you’ll be sorry.”
He dragged her over to the body and let go of her mouth while he stooped down and grabbed the knife from beneath the drapery. At this closer range, Bennett could see the look of surprise in the dead girl’s eyes. Bennett turned her face away, but not before she saw him wipe the knife blade clean on the stained drapery. Her stomach rolled, and for a moment she thought she would be sick. The moment passed, leaving her more shaky than she wanted to be. She needed to stay alert for any chance of escape. He brought the knife blade next to her throat where his fingers had previously been.
“Make one false move, and you’ll end up under that curtain with her,” he said.
“Did you kill her?” Bennett couldn’t help but ask. She was pretty sure he did. For some reason she wanted to hear him say it, though she would probably be more scared than ever once he had.
He wrenched her around toward the door. “Figure it out for yourself.”
He hauled her across the carpet to the door then stopped for a moment to listen. She listened, too, but she heard nothing. He used his knife hand to open the door a crack. She might have screamed then, but she knew that could set him off. She would have to wait for a better opportunity, no matter how desperately she wanted to do something right now to get away from this maniac.
There was no one in the corridor. He opened the door and pulled her out of the room, then shut the door behind them. She had hoped he would leave it open. The murder scene would be discovered sooner that way. Maybe he’d thought of the same thing. He looked first up then down the corridor. She hoped he would take the direction toward the front of the building and the gathering downstairs, but he didn’t. He turned right toward the back elevator and stairs. He dragged her along for a moment, then hefted her clear of the floor and carried her. Bennett was not small, five foot eight to be exact, and more rounded than her mother and lanky brother. Yet, this man carried her as if she had no substance at all. He once again lifted her dress along with her body, well above her stocking hems this time.
“Put me down,” she said. “I can walk by myself.”
She had only whispered that, but she could feel his tension rise at the possibility of being heard.
“I told you to shut up,” he said, and touched the metal of the knife blade to the skin of her throat. He put her down anyway but kept one arm around her waist. “You walk right, or I’ll kill you.”
Bennett nodded and strained away from the knife. She could feel her heart pounding in her throat very near the blade. When he continued down the corridor, keeping close to the wall, she had to scurry along with him. At the end of the hallway, a narrow flight of stairs led downward at their left. The service elevator was straight ahead. That elevator went to the basement. The custodian’s room was down there, Bennett knew. When she was making arrangements for tonight’s event, she had spoken with the custodian about working late. He had said he would be in his basement room if she needed him. She needed him, all right. Now all she had to do was get her captor to take the elevator instead of the stairs.
“Take the stairs,” she said when he hesitated. “It’s safer that way.”
He hesitated only an instant longer before dragging her to the elevator door and pushing the button. “Why would you want me to be safe?”
“Maybe it’s myself I’m worried about. If you run into somebody, I might be in even worse danger than I am now.”
“Shut up,” he said.
She did as he demanded and waited with him for the elevator to arrive. She allowed herself a small sigh of temporary relief. Her strategy had worked. The elevator rattled to a stop and the door slid open. He had to pull the inside cage door back by hand. While he did that, he kept a tight grip on her body and arms. He pushed her ahead of him
into the elevator cage and dragged the heavy, creaking gate closed behind them. She held her breath as he examined the control buttons next to the door opening. She let herself exhale when he pushed B for basement.
She didn’t move or make a sound as they traveled downward. The elevator was an ancient contraption, maybe even as old as the Stuyvesant itself. The cables strained audibly. She hoped that would attract some attention but knew it would more likely be ignored. As they approached the second floor and then the first, she wished for a stop and the doors to open, but that didn’t happen. The cables didn’t make their final groan and clump the elevator cage to a jolting halt until they had reached the basement. Bennett suddenly remembered her earlier wish for some adventure in her life. “Be careful what you wish for,” some obviously very wise person had once told her.
Bennett’s wish had come true. Now she must summon her courage for what lay ahead.
Chapter Three
Bennett hadn’t gotten a clear look at him yet. He was still behind her with his arm clamped around her waist and the knife point at her throat. She could tell he wasn’t the Stuyvesant Club type. The rough material on the thigh he had thrust between her legs was denim not suiting. As for the jacket, some of the younger members of the Stuyvesant set might wear black leather because it was chic, but not the way this man wore it. She guessed it might be his primary uniform.
She had glimpsed his hands. They were broad and strong, with long fingers. He was a head or so taller than she was, maybe six feet or a little over. He smelled, oddly enough, very clean, like freshly washed linens in the breeze. He hadn’t shaved recently. She’d felt the roughness of his whiskered cheek against her face when he leaned over to growl in her ear. His hair was dark, with those reddish highlights she had noticed when she first saw him in the billiard room. He was solidly built. She had been yanked against his body enough times to know that.
He was definitely not a regular in her crowd. She was certain of that. But why was she so certain? The answer to that was immediate and instinctive. She knew he hadn’t been around her before because she would have noticed him. He would have stood out from the rest as far more virile and imposing. Even the ones who worked out and were in good shape, like Quint, didn’t have the same kind of physicality as this man, the way his muscles tensed into urgent tautness ready to spring to action at any moment. The prospect of what that action might be in this situation brought Bennett back to full alertness. She tucked away the details of his description for future reference and reporting.
As they approached the basement level of the building, something other than the man behind her suddenly captured Bennett’s attention. What was the custodian’s name? She intended to call out to him the minute the elevator doors slid open. Her captor didn’t have her mouth covered right now. His hands were otherwise occupied. She suspected he might gag her again with his knife hand once they were out of the elevator. She was bargaining on a few seconds in between when she could scream for the custodian. But what was his name? She had to remember his name!
Bennett had kept her fear at bay until now. She had flipped herself into crisis mode. Keep cool, she’d told herself. She had managed to take that advice till this moment. The blank space in her mind where the custodian’s name should have been was threatening that cool control. She felt the numb grip of panic tighten her chest and reach for her throat, just as her captor’s fingers had done back in the billiard room. With that panic came a more stark awareness of her circumstances than Bennett had thus far allowed herself to acknowledge. She was the all but helpless prisoner of a desperate murderer, and she had slim chance of escaping him.
Her breath caught against the constriction in her throat. She tried to swallow but couldn’t. Every sinew in her body was stretched to maximum tension, as if any attempt to bend might snap her in two. But what she was most aware of and most frightened by was the sensation of her throat being clamped shut, against breath, against sound. What if her voice couldn’t force itself out when she needed it? She couldn’t test that terrible possibility without risking his hand over her mouth once more. On top of that, she couldn’t remember the damned name. As the elevator doors creaked open, Bennett knew that all she could do was try.
She opened her mouth and willed the shout to emerge. He helped by clamping his arm more tightly around her waist. That seemed to force the sound up, pushing a rush of breath past the barrier in her throat. With it came the words her voice had found before her consciousness could realize they were there.
“Help me,” she shouted more loudly than she would have thought herself capable of. “Help me, plea—”
His hand cut her off then. “Shut up.”
He had hesitated outside the elevator. She could feel his head turn as he looked up and down the narrow, dimly lit hallway. He must not know which way to turn. He probably hadn’t been in the basement before. Bennett gasped against the pressure of his hand. She prayed for this precious moment of hesitation to be her salvation.
“Who’s out there?” From the other end of the hallway, the custodian’s voice came like the answer to her prayer. “What are you doing there?”
She couldn’t see him. She was being held too tightly to move her head and look in his direction, but he had obviously seen them.
“You let her go.” The voice was louder but not any closer. He wasn’t running after them as Bennett hoped he would. “Let her go or I’m going to call the police.”
“Stay where you are, old man,” Bennett’s captor growled. “Or I’ll use this on her right now.”
The hand was suddenly off her mouth as he brandished the knife at the custodian.
“Anson, get help,” she cried. The name had popped into her head like magic. “Get help now.”
“Miss St. Simon, is that you?”
Her mouth was covered again before she could answer, but Anson had recognized her. He would run upstairs now for help. She couldn’t expect him to attempt a rescue on his own. He was an old man, just as this brute had pointed out. Meanwhile, she was being dragged down the hall in what was unfortunately the direction of the rear door. He had no choice but to go that way with Anson blocking the other end of the hall that led to the front of the building. This was one of those strokes of dumb luck that had fallen in her captor’s favor. She could only hope that the next opportunity would be hers. She forced her fear into submission. She had to keep herself under control for the moment when that opportunity might arise.
The basement’s rear door opened onto a recessed area below street level with several concrete steps leading up to the pavement. The man pushed Bennett through the door and into the shadowed area just outside. She listened for the sound of Anson following but heard nothing. He would be hurrying, as fast as someone his age could manage, upstairs to tell them what was happening. Meanwhile, there were people on the street, passing less often on this side block than out on Fifth Avenue, but enough for her to attract some attention if she called out. He would have to take his hand off her mouth if he was going to get her out of here without being noticed. She would scream then, even louder than she had to alert Anson.
“If you’re thinking about raising a holler, you’d better think again,” he said, as if he might have read her thoughts. “You took me by surprise with that old guy back there. It won’t happen again. Remember this?” He laid the cold steel of the knife blade against her cheek. “Do you remember it?” he repeated when she didn’t answer.
Bennett nodded her head. The feel of the blade made her breath come faster again in gasps behind his hand.
“Don’t think I won’t use it,” he said, “and not just on you.”
Bennett caught her breath. What did he mean by that?
“You give me trouble, and I’ll grab the first fool I can get my hands on off the street and do to them what happened to that girl back upstairs. And it will be your fault if I do. Do you want that on your head?” He pressed the blade harder against her cheek. “Do you?”
She
shook her head again, more vigorously this time.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to take my hand off your mouth and we’re going to walk up there into the street. One peep out of you and I’ll do some serious damage. I’ve got nothing to lose now. If I go down, I’m taking a few of you with me. Don’t forget that.”
He pulled her with him to the concrete stairs. He didn’t take his hand away from her mouth until they were about to leave the shadows. Bennett gulped in the night air. She sometimes complained of exhaust fumes on the street, but she wasn’t complaining now. The city air tasted country sweet, car exhaust and all.
“See her?”
He jerked Bennett around toward the street just visible above the top of the steps and their wrought iron railing. He was talking about an elderly woman who was walking slowly and laboriously along the side street toward Fifth. She had a small dog on a leash with her.
“She’d make a good target,” he said. “She’s not even moving very fast.”
“Could you really do that?”
“You bet I could. If you don’t believe me, try one false move and you’ll find out I mean every word.”
Bennett understood that she had better take him very seriously. When he pushed her up the rest of the stairs and onto the pavement, she didn’t resist. The elderly woman looked at them for a moment then returned her attention to her dog. She’d be an easy target, just as he said. Bennett couldn’t let that happen.
“We’re going to walk along here real nice,” he said, heading them toward the corner and the busier scene on Fifth Avenue.
“You don’t really think you can get away with this, do you?”
“I think I might as well try.” He walked them faster. He had his arm cinched tight around her waist, pulling her close to his side. To a passerby they might look like lovers out for a stroll. “Like I said before, I’ve got nothing to lose.”
They were at the corner, and the light was about to change. Bennett looked back to see where the older woman might be now. Consequently Bennett’s attention was distracted when he suddenly let go of her waist and grabbed her arm. He was pulling her in a very fast walk, almost a run, off the curb into the street.
