Rob heard soda squirt into the whisky glasses, then one of the men said, “Well, we’ve got to figure it out inside a couple of hours. We have to think of a getaway.”
“I’m not making any getaway that leaves all our profits behind.”
“Forget it, we’ve made enough.”
“You mean we will have made enough when we get this deal over. Until then we’re just suckers. We’ve pyramided our profits on this. The big pay-off is all tied up in this deal.”
“The big pay-off with me is keeping out of stir. You haven’t done time. I have. I don’t want any more of it.”
There was silence save for the tinkle of ice against glasses, a sound which tortured Rob Trenton’s ears, made him even more conscious of his burning throat.
Rob heard the sound of quick, excited steps in the passage outside the room. Then the doorknob was twisted and the door burst open.
One of the men at the table said angrily, “Knock when you come in here. What the hell...”
A voice in the doorway interrupted in a hoarse whisper, “There’s a man out in the bushes, over on the point, studying the place with binoculars, he’s built a regular blind like a duck blind, right in the edge of the brush, and...”
Two chairs scraped back as though the action had been rehearsed. A calmly authoritative voice said, “Well, take another one of the boys with you, sneak up behind him, throw down on him with a rod and bring the guy in. We want to talk to him.”
Rob heard above the sound of feet on the bare boards someone saying, “How about this guy here?”
“Lock him in,” someone said. It was a voice of command. Rob thought it was the voice of the heavy-set man who had been perched on the edge of the table smoking while Rob had been fighting, but he couldn’t be sure. “Get that electric spark device connected with the gasoline,” the voice went on. “If we clean out of here we want to be sure the boat isn’t left for the bulls to prod around in. Shake the lead out and let’s go.”
The men hurried out, paused once more for a huddled conference in the corridor, then pounded upstairs.
Rob, his ears straining to listen, lay absolutely motionless, with his eyes closed, keeping his breathing slow and regular.
Two of the men remaining behind discussed strategy in a low voice.
“We’re getting in deeper and deeper,” an anxious voice said.
“Well, you can’t help it now.”
“We started out with dope, now we’ve gone in for kidnapping. You know what that means.”
“All right. Quit now and get caught,” the other voice said savagely and sarcastically. “You can figure it out for yourself. What we’re going to do now, is to keep from getting caught.”
“Well, if we go on from here, let’s be damned certain we don’t get caught.”
“I tell you this is the wind-up. We can get out but we’ve got to get this thing cleaned up and cashed in. Did you ever try being on the lam when your dough had run out? If I’m taking a powder I want to be dough-heavy. Now get your knees so they’ll work and get the hell out of here.”
The door closed and Rob heard the click of a key on the outside. Then he heard swift activity below decks on the boat and someone giving orders.
A man climbed to the deck, and Rob heard steps moving along the dock. After a brief interval a figure walked past the porthole on the outside, temporarily shutting out a bit of the late afternoon sunlight... Four or five minutes later another man walked to the deck and moved casually along the planks. Then two more left quietly.
Rob opened his eyes, squirmed and tried to take stock of the situation.
His arms were tied behind his back, the rope running from his wrist down to his ankles. He couldn’t straighten out but had too keep his knees slightly flexed in order to keep the rope from biting into the flesh of his wrists. He could, however, roll to his stomach and then stand on his knees; but this accomplished nothing, and after a few seconds the pain of supporting his weight on his knees against the bare floor caused Rob to settle back with his weight on one hip and then after a moment he fell down on his side.
He had had an opportunity to take stock of the room in which he found himself. It was evidently a species of storeroom, the shelves being well-stocked with canned goods. There was a table, two or three chairs in the room by way of furniture, and nothing else.
Rob tried to twist his wrists around inside the ropes but the ropes were knotted with a nautical cunning that made the knots tighter and firmer the more Rob moved.
Lying on his side, he tried to double his knees so that he could reach the knots at his ankles, but found that only the tips of his fingers could work on knots which were far too tightly tied to yield to any such treatment. He explored several different positions and finally found one where he was in a measure comfortable, and settled himself to waiting.
Outside the light lessened until dusk settled and deepened into darkness.
Rob heard running steps on the little wharf to which the boat was moored. Then he heard a bustle of activity aboard, which was followed by another long period of silence.
When it was completely dark, so that Rob could see stars through the porthole, he heard a shuffle of steps on the dock outside. It sounded as though a compact group of men were carrying something to the boat. The boat swayed slightly as men boarded it, and Rob heard a brisk struggle taking place on the deck directly above him. There was the pounding of feet, the noise of men straining and cursing, the sound of blows, then suddenly the struggle ceased. Rob heard something being dragged for a few feet, then the shuffle of steps and then another long period of silence.
Chapter 12
Big Ed Wallington, known to fellow troopers in the State Police as “Moose”, hitched his chair around in front of the typewriter at the barracks and held big ham-like hands over the keyboard as he pounded out a condensed report of his activities on the previous day’s patrol.
Never particularly adept at punching the keyboard, Moose Wallington paused from time to time to take the cramps out of his fingers.
Seated beside him, a fellow trooper, who had a flair for conversation but no gift for written reports, was finding the going tough.
“Getting so there’s so much paper work in this organization,” he said, “they’ll have to list writer’s cramp as an occupational hazard.”
“Uh-huh,” Moose said, flexing his fingers. “Had a blow-out last night. Guess it was soft for a while before it went out. But she let go with a bang. Surprising how hot one of those tires get when it lets go. Believe me, I could hardly handle the thing.”
He returned to the keyboard, started writing names under the classification “Routine checks of driving licenses.”
He came to the name Trenton, aged twenty-five, Noonville. Then as he started to type the name in his report he suddenly stopped, his middle finger held poised over the letter he had been about to hit.
“What’s the matter?” the other trooper asked. “Suddenly got a cramp, or is it an inspiration?”
“Darned if I don’t think it’s an inspiration,” Wallington said thoughtfully.
“How come?”
“This business of the tire getting hot when there’s been a blow-out.”
“Well, what about it?”
“I came on this car last night,” Wallington said, “pulled off to the side of the road, and the driver said he was just getting ready to move on after changing a tire. He’d had a blow-out all right... and something kept pounding away at the back of my mind about that guy all night. Something seemed to be wrong. I couldn’t figure what it was. Now it’s just occurred to me.”