Something thick and pimply, full of tiny little knots, suddenly blanketed itself around her face from behind. A Turkish bath-towel wound into a bandage-arrangement, most likely, although she had no leisure to identify exactly what it was. She reared up galvanically, and lost one hand behind her, secured at the wrist by some powerful grip. The Bristol woman had jolted to her own feet in time with her, and she secured the other. The two were brought together at her back, crossed over, and tied crushingly with long thin strips of something, perhaps a dismembered pillow-case or linen face-towel.
She couldn’t draw free breath for a moment, the rough-spun towelling muffled her whole face. The horrible thought that she was about to be smothered to death then and there occurred to her — but she realized dimly that they wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of tying up her hands if that had been their purpose. That alone kept her from going into an unmanageable paroxysm of struggle that might have brought about the very result it was trying to evade, as has happened in so many countless cases before.
Then a rough hand, heavier and larger than the other woman’s, fumbled a little with the towel, brought it down half-face, freeing her eyes and nostrils. The remainder was tied far more tightly than the whole had been, with such constriction at the back of her head that she had a feeling as though her entire skull was going to be crushed with the pressure. But at least she could get air into her lungs and relieve the bursting coughing that had already started in.
Bristol was still in front of her eyes, as they came clear, addressing someone unseen behind her back. “Watch her mouth now, Griff. You can hear everything through these walls.”
A man’s voice growled: “Get her feet — them high heels are barking my shins.”
The woman crouched down out of sight — the snowy mantle of the towel prevented acutely downcast vision — and Bricky felt her ankles knock together and some more thin strips whip dexterously in and out around them, lashing them together. She became a helpless sheaf, tied at both ends.
Joan Bristol came up into sight again. “What’s the play now?” she asked.
The man’s voice said: “Don’t you figure we ought to—?” He didn’t finish it. Bricky got the uncompleted meaning by indirection, via the suddenly-taut look on the woman’s face. Her blood ran cold. He’d said it as calmly as though they were talking about lowering a shade or putting out a light.
The woman was scared. Not for Bricky’s sake, just for their own. She must have known him better than anyone, whoever he was; known just how capable he was of doing it.
“Not here in the room with us, Griff,” she said bleakly. “They know we were
“Naw, you don’t get me,” he argued matter-of-factly. “I don’t mean chop-chop, that kind of stuff.” He went over to the window, drew the sash up carefully, like one of those men who are handy to have around the house, suggesting an improvement. A patch of electric-lighted mold was revealed, on blank brickwork opposite. He edged his head forward a little and looked speculatively downward. Then he turned and spoke to the woman quietly. “Four floors ought to be enough.” He motioned expressively with one hand. “The three of us get drinking up here, she goes over to the window to try and open it, get a little air in, it jams and— How many times does that happen?”
Bricky’s heart was burning its way out through her chest like a blow-torch.
“Yeah, but there’s always a follow-up. That’s no good for us this time, Griff. We’d get hooked here for hours, answering all kinds of police questions, and they’re liable to work their way back a little too far — and before you know it,
She shot him a look that was only meant for the two of them, but there were three of them there that understood it.
“What’re we gonna do, leave her behind us here?” he snarled.
The Bristol woman raked distracted fingers through her hair. “Look at the mess I got us into now,” she bleated querulously. “What the hell did y’have to—”
“Shut up,” the man answered flintily.
“She knows already. What d’you suppose brought her down here?”
“Then why the hell didn’t you handle it right in the first place, like you were supposed to?”
“I couldn’t manage him, he got out of hand. I only went down to the door and let you in thinking you could throw a scare into him, get him to come across. That didn’t mean you had to sign off on him!”
“What’d you expect me to do, when he made a grab at it like he did, let him take it away from me? You saw what happened. I had to cork him up in self-defense. Anyway, what’s the good of talking about it now? You loused it up and the damage is done. It’s this twist we’ve got to think about now. I still think the smart thing would be to—”
