Enough Rope

  She drifted then, and her mind wandered up one path and down another, and then she came to with a start when he turned off the radio in the middle of a song. She opened her eyes and saw that it was getting dark out. And they had left the interstate.

  “I was sleeping,” she said.

  “Like a log. Where do you suppose that expression comes from?”

  “I don’t know. I never thought about it. Where are we?”

  “On our way to Chicago.”

  “What happened to the interstate?”

  “It was putting me to sleep,” he said. “Too much traffic, too little scenery. Too many troopers, too. It’s the end of the month and they’ve all got their quotas to make.”

  “Oh.”

  “I like back roads better,” he said. “Especially at night. You’re not afraid, are you?”

  “Why should I be afraid?”

  “I just wondered if you were. Some people get agoraphobic, and just being out in wide open spaces bothers them.”

  “Not me.”

  “I guess you’re not scared of anything, huh?”

  She looked at him. His eyes were on the road, his hands steady on the wheel. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing in particular. It’s pretty daring of you, though, when you stop to think of it.”

  “What is?”

  “Being here. In this car, out in the middle of nowhere with someone you don’t know from Adam.”

  “You’re a college student,” she said.

  “Am I? You don’t know that for sure. I said I was, that’s all. I’m the right age, more or less, but that doesn’t make me a student.”

  “You’ve got a KU decal on your window.”

  “You don’t have to pay tuition to get one.” She tried to look at him, but his face was hard to read in the dim light. “You were the one who put the notice up,” he reminded her. “I called you. I gave you a name and said I was a student and I’d be heading for Chicago when the term ended, but I never gave you my phone number or told you where I lived. Did you check up on me at all, find out if there was a student registered under the name I gave you?”

  “Hey, cut it out,” she said.

  “Cut what out?”

  “Cut out trying to freak me out.”

  “You’re not scared, are you?”

  “No, but—”

  “But you’re wondering if maybe you should be. You’re in a car with someone you don’t know on a lonely road you don’t know either, and you’re starting to realize that you don’t have much control over the situation. In fact you don’t really have any control at all, do you?”

  “Stop it.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I’m not upset.”

  “Well, whatever. I’m a psych major and sometimes I tend to get into head games. It’s nothing serious, but if I increased your anxiety level I want to apologize.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “I’m forgiven?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. He yawned.

  “Are you tired? Do you want me to drive?”

  “No, I’m fine,” he said. “And I’m the kind of control freak who uses up twice as much energy when somebody else is driving.”

  “My dad’s like that.”

  “I guess lots of men are. Could you do me a favor? Could you get me something from the glove compartment?”

  “What?”

  “Right next to the flashlight there. That leather pouch. Could you hand it to me?”

  It was a black leather pouch with a drawstring. She gave it to him and he weighed it in his hand. “What do you suppose is in this?” he asked her.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Not even a far-fetched one? Take a guess.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Drugs, do you suppose?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Not drugs,” he said. “I don’t use drugs. Don’t approve of them.”

  “Good.”

  He reached to set the pouch on top of the dashboard. “You were scared before,” he said.

  “A little.”

  “But not anymore.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, because—”

  “When you stop to think about it,” he said, “nothing’s changed. The situation’s the same as it was. You’re alone with a stranger in a dangerous place, and you don’t know anything about the man you’re with, and what could you do if I tried something? You’ve got a purse. Do you happen to have a gun in it?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Don’t say it that way. Lots of people have guns. But not you, evidently. How about some chemical Mace? Paralyze attackers with no loss of life. Got any of that stuff?”

  “You know I don’t.”

  “How would I know that? It’s not as though I searched your purse. But I’m willing to take your word for it. No gun and no Mace. What else? A nail file? Some pepper to throw in my eyes?”

  “I have an emery board.”

  “That’s something. You could sort of saw me in half with it, I suppose, but it’d take a long time. You’re really essentially defenseless, though, aren’t you?”

  “Stop it.”

  “It’s true, though, isn’t it? If I tried something—”

  “What do you mean, tried something?”

  “Want me to come right out and say it, huh? Okay. I could stop the car and overpower you and rape you and you couldn’t do a thing about it, could you?”

  “I could put up a fight.”

  “What would that get you? I’d just have to hurt you and that would take the fight right out of you. You’d be better off giving in from the start and hoping I’d take it easy on you.”

  “Look,” she said, “cut it out, huh?”

  “Cut what out?”

  “You know damn well what you should cut out. Quit doing a number on my mind.”

  “It’s getting to you, isn’t it?”

  “Look, I told you—”

  “I know what you told me. Maybe you ought to consider the possibility that I don’t much care what you want.”

  “I don’t like this,” she said. “I just want to get out, okay? Just stop the car and let me out.”

  “Are you sure you want me to stop the car?”

  “I—”

  “Of course it’s not a good idea to get out while we’re sailing along at fifty miles an hour, but you’re safe as long as the car’s moving, aren’t you? If I was going to do anything, I’d really have to stop the car first.”

  “Why would you want to—”

  “To rape you? I’m a man and you’re a woman. An attractive one, too. Isn’t that enough of a reason?”

  “Is it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re not being very nice.”

  “No,” he agreed, “I guess I’m not. You’re really scared now, aren’t you?”

  “Stop it.”

  “Why do you have so much trouble answering that question? ‘Cut it out. Stop it.’ What’s such a big deal about admitting that you’re scared?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You are scared, though. Aren’t you?”

  “You’re trying to scare me.”

  “Uh-huh, and it seems to be working. You’re terrified, aren’t you? I guess you have a right to be. I mean, there’s a very good chance that you’re going to be raped. At least you think there is, and all on the basis of a brief conversation. You’re beginning to see just how powerless you are. I could do whatever I want with you and you couldn’t do a thing about it.”

  “You’d be punished,” she said.

  “They wouldn’t know who to punish.”

  “I could tell them.”

  “You don’t even know my name.”

  “You’re a student.”

  “Are you sure
of that?”

  “I could describe you,” she said. “I could describe the car, I could give them the license number.”

  “Maybe it’s stolen.”

  “I bet it’s not. I could work with a police artist, I could have him make up a sketch of you. You really wouldn’t get away with it.”

  “Hmmmm,” he said. “I guess you’re right.”

  “So there’s no point in doing anything, and you can stop playing mind games, okay?”

  “You could describe me,” he said. “I guess I’d have to kill you.”

  “Don’t even say that.”

  “Why not? That’s the best policy anyway, and it’s part of the fun, isn’t it? If it weren’t so much fun there wouldn’t be so many people doing it, would there?”

  “Stop.”

  “ ‘Stop, stop, stop.’ You don’t look very strong. I bet you’d be easy to kill.”

  “Why kill me?”

  “Why not?”

  “The police would be after you. People don’t get away with murder.”

  “Are you kidding? People get away with murder every day. And they wouldn’t have any idea who to look for.”

  “You’d leave evidence behind. They have these new techniques, matching the DNA.”

  “Maybe I’ll practice safe sex.”

  “Even so, there’s always physical evidence.”

  “They could use it to convict me after they caught me, but it wouldn’t help them catch me. And I don’t intend to be caught. They haven’t caught me so far.”

  “What?”

  “Did you think you were the first?”

  She closed her eyes and tried to breathe evenly, regularly. Her heart was racing. Evenly she said, “All right, you’ve got me frightened. I suppose that’s what you wanted.”

  “It’s part of it.”

  “Are you satisfied now?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say I was satisfied,” he said. “I wouldn’t use that word. I won’t be satisfied until I’ve got you raped and strangled and lying in a ditch. And incidentally there’s not a lot of physical evidence unless they find you fairly quickly, and I’m pretty good at hiding things. They may not find you for months.”

  “Oh, don’t do this to me—”

  “By then you’ll be nothing but a memory to me,” he said. “That’s all I’ll have of you, that and your little finger.”

  “My little finger?”

  “The little finger of your left hand.” He shrugged. “I’m the kind of sentimental fool who likes to take a souvenir. I won’t cut it off until afterward. You won’t feel a thing.”

  “My God,” she said. “You’re crazy.”

  “Do you really think so? Maybe this is just a joke.”

  “It’s not a funny one.”

  “We could argue the point. But if it’s not a joke, if I’m serious, does that necessarily mean I’m crazy? And what act would serve to identify me as crazy? Am I crazy if I rape you? Crazy if I kill you? Or only crazy if I cut off your finger?”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “I don’t see anything fundamentally wacko in wanting a souvenir. Something to remember you by. Remember the song?”

  “Please. Please.”

  “Now I’ll ask you a question I asked you before. What do you think’s in the pouch?”

  “The pouch?”

  He took it from the dashboard, held it in the palm of his hand. “Guess the contents,” he said, “and you win the prize. What’s in the bag?”

  “Oh, God. I’m going to be sick.”

  “Want to see for yourself?”

  She shrank from it.

  “Suit yourself,” he said, returning it to the dashboard. “Because of our conversation, because of a chance remark about little fingers, you’ve jumped to the conclusion that the pouch contains something grisly. It could be full of cowrie shells, or horse chestnuts, or jelly beans, but that’s not what you think, is it? I think it’s time to stop and pull off the road, don’t you think?”

  “No!”

  “You want me to keep driving?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then take off your sweater.” She stared at him. “Your choice,” he said. “Take off the sweater or I put on the brakes. Come on. Take it off.”

  “Why are you making me do this?”

  “The same reason some people make other people dig their own graves. It saves time and effort. First unhook your seat belt, make it easier for yourself. Oh, very pretty, very pretty. You’re terrified now, aren’t you? Say it.”

  “I’m terrified.”

  “You’re scared to death. Say it.”

  “I’m scared to death.”

  “And now I think it’s time to find a parking place.”

  “No!” she cried. Her foot found his and pressed the accelerator flat against the floorboards, while her hand wrenched the wheel hard to the right. The car took flight. Then there was impact, and then there was noise, and then there was nothing.

  She came to suddenly, abruptly. She had a headache and she’d hurt her shoulder badly and she could taste blood in the back of her throat. But she was alive. God, she was alive!

  The car was upside down, its top crushed. And he was behind the wheel, his head bent at an impossible angle. Blood trailed from the corner of one eye, and more blood leaked from between his lips. His eyes were wide open, staring, and rolled up in their sockets.

  The passenger door wouldn’t open. She had to roll down the window and wriggle out through it. She felt faint when she stood up, and she had to hold on to the side of the car for support. She looked in the window she had just crawled through, and there, within reach, was the leather drawstring pouch.

  She had not willed her foot to press down on the gas pedal, or her hand to yank the steering wheel. She did not now will her hand to reach through the window and extract the leather pouch. It did so of its own accord.

  You don’t have to open it, she told herself.

  She took a breath. Yes you do, she thought, and loosened the drawstring.

  Inside, she found a small bottle of aspirin, a package of cheese-and-peanut-butter crackers, a small tin of nonprescription stay-awake pills, a bank-wrapped roll of quarters, and a nail clipper. She looked at all of this and shook her head.

  But he’d made her take her sweater off. And it was still off, she was bare to the waist.

  She couldn’t find her sweater, couldn’t guess where it had landed after the car flipped and bounced around. She tried one of the rear doors and managed to open it. When she did so the dome light went on, which made it easier for her to see what she was doing.

  She found a sweatshirt in one of her bags and put it on. She found her purse—it had somehow ended up in the backseat—and she set that aside. And something made her open one of his bags and go through it, not certain what she was looking for.

  She had to go through a second bag before she found it. A three-blade pocketknife with a simulated stag handle.

  She cut off the little finger of his left hand. This was harder than it sounded, but she kept at it, and she seemed to have all the time in the world. Not a single car had passed on that desolate road.

  When she was done she closed his knife and put it in her purse. She dumped everything else from the drawstring pouch, put the finger inside it, and tucked the pouch into her purse. Then, her purse on her shoulder, she made her way to the road and began walking along it, toward whatever came next.

  Some Things a Man Must Do

  Just a few minutes before twelve on one of the best Sunday nights of the summer, a clear and fresh-aired and moonlit night, Thomas M. “Lucky Tom” Carroll collected his black snap-brim hat from the hat-check girl at Cleo’s Club on Broderick Avenue. He tipped the girl a crisp dollar bill, winked briskly at her, and headed out the front door. He was fifty-two, looked forty-five, felt thirty-nine. He flipped his expensive cigar into the gutter and strolled to the Cleo’s Club parking lot next door, where his very expensive, very large car waited in the parking space r
eserved for it.

  When he had settled himself behind the wheel with the key fitted snugly in the ignition, he suddenly felt that he might not be alone.

  Hearing a clicking sound directly behind him, Carroll stiffened, and then the little man in the backseat shot him six times in the back of the head. While the shots echoed deafeningly, the little man opened the car door, jammed his gun into the pocket of his suit jacket, and scurried off down the street as fast as he could, which was not terribly fast at all. He peeled his white gloves from his tiny hands, and managed to slow down a bit. Holding the white gloves in one hand, he looked rather like the White Rabbit rushing frenetically to keep his appointment with the Duchess.

  Finney and Mattera caught the squeal. The scene was packed with onlookers, but Finney and Mattera didn’t share their overwhelming interest in the spectacle. They came, they looked, they confirmed there were no eyewitnesses to question, and they went over to the White Tower for coffee. Let the lab boys sweat it out all night, searching through a coal mine for a black cat that wasn’t there. Fingerprints? Evidence? Clues? A waste of time.

  “Figure the touch man is on a plane by now,” Finney said. “Be on the West Coast before the body’s cold.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So Lucky Tom finally bought it. Nice of him to pick a decent night for it. You hate to leave the station house when it’s raining. But a night like this, I don’t mind it at all.”

  “It’s a pleasure to get out.”

  “It is at that,” said Finney. He stirred his coffee thoughtfully, wondering as he did so if there were a way of stirring your coffee without seeming thoughtful about it. “I wonder,” he said, “why anyone would want to kill him.”

  “Good question. After all, what did he ever do? Strong-arm robbery, assault, aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon, extortion, three murders we knew of and none we could prove—”

  “Just trivial things,” said Finney.

  “Undercover owner of Cleo’s Club, operator of three illegal gambling establishments—”

  “Four.”

  “Four? I only knew three.” Mattera finished his coffee. “Loan-shark setup, number-two man in Barry Beyer’s organization, not too much else. We did have a rape complaint maybe eight years ago—”