Rob said, “From where I sit, my chances don’t look too good anyway.”
“Why not, Rob?”
“I can still make an identification.”
For a moment the big man’s eyes were cold and hard, then he said ominously, “You keep crowding your luck and you just might never show up in circulation again. This river’s about forty feet deep out in the channel and we could put weights on you so that after the bubbles quit coming up nothing else would ever come up.”
Rob said, “You could do that just as well no matter what I said. What assurance do I have that you’d play fair?”
“You’d have to take my word for it.”
“I don’t think your word’s very good.”
The big man slowly got down off the table, removed the cigar from his mouth, placed it carefully on the edge of the table, took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, said, “All right, young fellow, you’re going to get hurt. You’re asking for it. Any time you want to quit that’s all you have to do, just say so.”
The big man bent over him. His face had undergone a complete transformation. It was a hard, wicked, ruthless face, and the right hand, with the fingers open, was moving, towards Rob’s face, paused for a moment with the thumb over Rob’s left eye. Then abruptly the man stopped and said, “Say, you got a fountain pen in your pocket?”
“Well?” Rob asked, striving to keep his voice firm.
“What the hell. They haven’t even frisked you,” the big man said. “That’s a hell of a way to run a business. The boys are getting on edge, and when they get on edge you can’t seem to depend on them for anything. Let’s take a look and see what you’ve got in your pockets, son.”
He rolled Rob over, casually placed his right foot on Rob’s bound wrists, bore down with so much weight that Rob winced with the pain of it.
His hands started through Rob’s pockets. “Handkerchief,” he said. “Money... why, the damned fools, here’s a knife. You know, Rob, I get tired risking my neck trying to do the brain work for a bunch of dumb eggs like that... the boys just do not think.
“Now you take that business of putting your car out of commission. Sticking something in the ring and pinion gears... the stupid fools. They could have let the air out of your spare tire and then loosened the valve in one of your rear tires so the air would ooze out. Then they’d have happened along just when you were up against it with two flats. It would have been a cinch then to have picked you up.
“After they’d grabbed you, one of the boys could have screwed the valve back in the tire, pumped it up, driven your car away, and that would have been all there was to it. Then your car would have been out of sight. The way it is now, what’s the garage man going to think when he finds that somebody deliberately stuck something in the gears? You’ll have disappeared and your car will be there.
“The other way, you’d have disappeared and your car would have disappeared and everyone would have figured you’d taken a powder. Of course, they tied you up pretty well, but you could easily have hooked your heels up on the table and jiggled until that knife fell out of your pants pocket. Then you could have twisted around and got your fingers on it and cut the ropes, without anyone knowing about it.”
Rob felt his face getting red with self-anger as he realized how simple it would have been for him to have done exactly what the man had said. Yet he had never thought of it.
The big man removed the ball of his foot from Rob’s wrists. “Okay, Rob,” he said, “let’s roll over and see what we’ve got in the other side... Hold it a second, let’s take a look in that inside coat pocket... Oh, yes, a wallet, driving license and... hey, wait a minute. What’s this? A notebook!”
The big man picked up the notebook, moved off a short distance and turned so that the light came over his shoulder. He said, “You’re one of these meticulous chaps. You probably keep complete, accurate records. Yes, here we are. Expenses... the numbers of your traveler’s checks, the number of your passport. Now, Rob, you know, if you’d hidden anything, I’ve a hunch you’d have made some note about it... particularly if you’d had to hide it along the highway. Now let’s see, Rob, we’ll turn through all these pages of expenses and look for the last page in the notebook. The last one where... well, well, well! Here’s a little sketch map of a road intersection and — well, now, Rob, I think we’re beginning to get somewhere. If you’ll just loosen up and tell me about what these marks mean — no, wait a minute. You don’t have to. They’re fence posts, and these numbers must be the numbers of the highways, just so far from the intersection. That must be the count of the fence posts, and this diagonal with distances on it — why, bless your heart, Rob, that will be a road sign, right on the highway, and we can locate that road sign mathematically from these distances. Well, now, Rob, that’s better, that’s a lot better. Just a whole lot better.
“Well, now, Rob, it’s going to take a couple of hours for us to investigate this thing, but I think we’re really on the right track now. I think we really and truly are. Of course, it could be a trap, but I don’t think so. Now, look, Rob, I’ll put it up to you. You’re a grown man and we may as well be frank. I’m going to send one of the boys to take a look.
“If this is a trap it’s going to be pretty bad for you, Rob. You know, I don’t want to be melodramatic and make a lot of threats, but if this is a trap, Rob, things are going to happen to you that you won’t like. There are a couple of old drive shafts that weigh about eighty-five pounds apiece down in the engine-room, and there’s lots of baling wire. We’ll just wire you to these shafts so you’ll stay there for ever, and drop you in about forty feet of good, deep river water, Rob. We’re just going to risk one person on this. If the stuff is there, one person can find it. If it’s a trap... well Rob, we’ll be here, and you’ll be here.”
The big man paused and looked down at Rob, then he pulled back his right foot and calmly and methodically kicked Rob in the ribs, hard.
“Speak when you’re spoken to,” he said.
“It’s not a trap,” Rob Trenton groaned.
“That’s better,” the big man said. He walked out and locked the door behind him, leaving the light on.
Chapter 15
The state trooper lay crouched in the ditch, covered with a dark blanket, so that just his forehead, eyes and nose were exposed. He was cold. The damp chill of the ground seeped through his clothes and the blanket.
Out on the highway, cars went droning by, first making themselves audible by a distant whine caused by tires and motor. The whine would grow to a snarl, then headlights would briefly become visible, flash past, and the car would hurtle on into the night.
The state trooper shifted his position two or three times to avoid cramped muscles. He looked at the luminous dial of his wristwatch, anticipating the hour when he would change places with Moose Wallington.
At the moment, Moose was sitting on a side road parked in a cruiser, and on another side road two miles below two men waited quietly, under orders so strict that not even the glowing tip of a cigarette was permitted to betray their presence.
A car coming from the west slowed down perceptibly, then pulled to the side of the road, crawled along in low gear. The beam of a spotlight, dancing out across the irregular shoulder of grass, caused the state trooper in the ditch to drop down entirely under the blanket.