The man behind the wheel drove back to the highway and turned west. We rapidly overtook the train and in minutes it was far behind. The driver pulled a wrinkled pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket and gave them to Eleanor with an unintelligible grunt. She put three between her lips and lit them, after which she placed one in the driver’s mouth, handed one to Paul and kept the last for herself. Then she put the pack in the coat pocket. I gazed out the window and watched the snow banks zip by.
We drove perhaps ten to twelve miles without a word being said. Abruptly the driver glanced at Eleanor and grunted, “Now.”
She held out her hand to Greasy and he gave her the Colt automatic. She handled it the right way, with a bead on the bridge of my nose. The eyes behind the gun were cold and hard once more. I sat without moving.
Paul said to me, “C’mere,” and yanked a long white scarf from a side pocket of the car. He wrapped the scarf tightly around my head and face, covering my eyes and nose. When he finished I had to breathe through my mouth if I wanted to breathe at all. And I did. It wasn’t easy.
The driver grunted a question. Paul struck a match. I felt myself growing panicky and gulped in a great mouthful of air. The heat of the match was near my lips. There was a moment’s silence.
Then Paul answered, “Okay.”
The sedan whirled sharply and sped down a gravel road, the tires throwing up tiny rocks against the underside of the car. I had fallen over against the greasy gunman and he pushed me upright.
The road curved several times in long easy glides; at other times the driver would make sharp turns around the square corners common to country crossroads. He was robbing me of my sense of direction and doing a good job of it. The pace was kept up for the better part of ten or fifteen minutes and then the sedan straightened out and leaped ahead. After that there was only the natural, slow curves of the roads.
Someone in the front seat, and I guessed it was Eleanor, turned on the car radio. It was set at a Croyden station which came in strong. She listened to some dance music interspersed with inane commercials until the end of the fifteen minute program and then just played around over the dial to see what could be found. Her choice finally settled on some soft chamber music out of Chicago.
The car dipped down a shallow incline and the radio completely blanked out for a few seconds. It came in again as we sped up the other side of the incline.
I puzzled over that.
Suddenly I remembered the obvious answer. We had passed under a solid bridge. There is a huge, cement railroad bridge just outside Boone that knocks out automobile radios like that. A two-lane highway dips underneath while a couple of railroads pass overhead. Radio waves don’t follow the cars under the bridge.
The one we had just passed under was not the one on the outskirts of Boone. I didn’t know where it was but it could be found again in a hurry, if need be, by simply following the railroad lines between Boone and Croyden. With Pleasantfield not too far in the background.
It was funny to think of their elaborate safety precautions being tossed to the winds by a little quirk like that.
The car slowed to a crawl, turned sharply to the left, and the gravel road was behind us. Outside a barking dog bounded alongside the sedan. In short minutes we stopped.
Paul took my arm, “C’mon.”
I stumbled out into the snow; the dog sniffed at my feet. Eleanor took my other arm to guide me along a brick wall, digging strong fingers into my wrist that might have been a message of some kind. The dog stayed close to my heels.
Paul instructed, “Four steps up.”
We went up. A door opened, let us through, and closed again behind us. A spring lock snapped.
Eleanor said, “Pull the blinds.”
Somebody answered, “Aw, the shutters are closed.”
“Pull the blinds!” she snapped.
They were pulled, three of them. The white scarf was unwound from around my head and the first thing I did was to suck in great gobs of air — through my nose. It was like coming out from under a blanket.
I was in a room. That’s all, an ordinary room with old wallpaper. There was an enameled-top table, plain chairs, an old fashioned cook stove such as advertised in mail-order catalogues, a tall cabinet, and a white pail of water.
Eleanor and three men stood around me: Paul, the driver, and a stranger. The stranger examined me.
“He don’t look so tough,” was his opinion.
Eleanor told him, “You go back with the car.”
The guy squinted at her in disbelief. The farmhouse kitchen was quiet; we were all waiting to see if the man would do as Eleanor ordered. Outside the locked door I heard the dog sniffing at the crack.
The man stared at me and turned to Eleanor.
“No kiddin’? Don’t I get to stay and—?”
Negative waggle from Eleanor. “You go back.”
