Bill Pronzini: Shackles

He was there, on the other side of the room. In one hand he held a chair, a straight-backed chair, and he put it down and stood beside it. Average height, slender. Wearing a bulky knit Scandinavian-style ski sweater, dark trousers, some kind of boots.

Wearing a ski mask.

It covered his entire head, hiding everything but his eyes-and I couldn’t see those in the half-light beyond the reach of the pale lampglow. The mask and the gloom gave him a surreal look, as if he were some sort of phantom I had conjured up out of the dark recesses of my subconscious. I stared at him for long seconds in the room’s cold silence. And the fear came back, not all at once but in a slow, thin seepage like liquid flowing through cloth.

Finally he moved the chair a little, scraping its legs on the floor, and said, “Taking a nap, were you?” He was still speaking in the whispery voice, and the ski mask muffled it and added another dimension of surreality to him.

“No.”

“Well, I had a good long one myself-in one of the bedrooms. Did you suspect I was here in the cabin all this time?”

“The possibility didn’t occur to me.”

He laughed. “Tell me, how do you like your new home?”

“I don’t. Is this your cabin?”

“It doesn’t matter whose cabin it is.”

“I’d like to know.”

“Of course you would. But I’m not going to tell you.”

“Tell me where we are, at least.”

“No,” he said, “I don’t think I will.”

He sat down on the chair in a posture that was almost formal: legs together, back straight, hands resting palms down on his knees. I tried to look at the hands, to see if there was anything distinctive about them, but they were just pale blobs in the weak light.

For a time we sat motionless, watching each other. Then he said. “I see you put the heater on. Work all right, does it?”

“Yes.”

“Better use it sparingly. It’s old and the coils might burn out on you.”

“How long are you going to keep me here?”

“Well, that’s up to you.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t you?” There was a sly edge to his voice now.

“No.”

“It all depends,” he said. “There is enough food on those shelves behind you to last thirteen weeks. But if you’re careful, eat only one or two small meals a day, you might stretch it out to, oh, four months or so.”

“And then?”

“Then you’ll starve to death. Unless, of course, you decide to take your own life before that happens. I haven’t provided you with a knife, but the lid from one of those cans would be sharp enough to open the veins in your wrists.”

The words were calculated to draw a reaction; he leaned forward slightly as he said them, anticipating it, because he could see my face clearly in the lampglow. I made sure that he didn’t get it. The one thing I would not do, not now, not at any time, was let him see my fear.

I said, “I’m not going to kill myself. And I’m not going to starve to death either.”

“Really?” He laughed again and sat back, not quite as stiffly as before. “You can’t possibly escape, you know.”

“Are you a hundred percent sure of that?”

“Oh yes. You must have already examined the leg iron, the chain, the wall bolt. Escape-proof, wouldn’t you say?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“The brave exterior-just what I expected of you. But underneath you must know the truth. The padlock on the leg iron is the strongest made; it can’t be opened except with the proper key. And I’ve given you nothing you could use to saw through the chain or remove the bolt from the wall.” He paused, and then said matter-of-factly, “You could try cutting off your leg with one of the can lids. The equivalent of an animal chewing off a limb caught in a trap. But I imagine you’d bleed to death long before you were free. Besides, a can lid won’t cut through bone, will it?”

I didn’t say anything. I thought: If I could get my hands on him right now, I’d kill him. No hesitation, no compunction. I would kill him where he sits.

He said, “Your only other hope is that someone will come and rescue you. But that won’t happen.”

“What makes you think it won’t?”

“This cabin is isolated, more than a mile from its nearest neighbor. No one would have any reason to come here in winter. No one but me, and once I leave I won’t be back until after you’re dead.” Another pause. “I have a burial spot all picked out for you. And you mustn’t worry-I’ll dig your grave deep so the animals won’t disturb you.”

I said in a flat, emotionless voice, “How long are you going to keep me company?”

“Not long. I’ll be leaving this afternoon, as soon as we’ve finished our talk. Did you think I would wait around and watch you suffer? No, that wouldn’t be right, that isn’t the way it’s done. You’ll be here alone, all alone, until the end comes.”

He waited for me to say something to that, and when I didn’t he went on in his sly way, “I wonder how you’ll stand up to it. The aloneness, I mean. Some men would go insane, chained up as you are, all alone here for three to four months. But you’re not one of them… or are you?”

“No. But you’d like it if I were.”

“That isn’t so. I wouldn’t like it. I’m not without compassion, you know.”

I said nothing.

“Well, I’m not,” he said. “That’s why I’ve given you the radio, the books, and magazines. The paper and writing tools, too. Why, with all that paper you could write your memoirs. I’m sure they would make fascinating reading.”

I had nothing to say to that, either.

“At any rate,” he said, “if I hadn’t provided all those things to occupy your mind, you surely would go insane. So you see? That isn’t what I want at all.”

“I know what you want,” I said. “If I stay sane, then I suffer even more. Right?”

“Suffering is what punishment is all about.”

“Punishment. All right, why? Why all of this?”

“You still don’t know?”

“No.”

“Think hard. Try to remember.”

“How can I remember if you don’t give me some idea of who you are, what you think I did to you?”

“What I think you did to me?” Suddenly, violently, he came up out of the chair, almost upsetting it, and pointed a shaking finger at me. “Damn you, you destroyed me!” he said in a voice shrill with rage-his normal voice, I thought, but still too muffled by the ski mask to be recognizable. “You destroyed my life!”

“How did I do that?”

“And you don’t even remember. That’s the kind of man you are. The kind of detective you are. You destroyed me and you don’t even know who I am!”

“Tell me your name. Take off that mask and let me see your face.”

“No! You’ll remember on your own. Sooner or later you’ll remember and then you’ll know and then you’ll be dead and I’ll have my peace. That’s the only way I’ll ever have my peace, when you’re dead, dead, dead, dead!”

He spun on his heel, half ran across to one of the closed doors, yanked it open, disappeared into the room beyond. Reappeared seconds later, and he had his gun-a snub-nosed revolver-upraised in one hand. He stopped alongside the chair and pointed the gun at me. I saw his thumb draw the hammer back and heard the click it made, saw the way his arm was shaking, and I thought in that moment he was going to shoot me. Thought he’d lost his tenuous grip on sanity, forgotten his purpose in bringing me here, and in a matter of seconds I would be dead. It took all the will I possessed to sit still, keep my eyes open, keep the fear dammed up so it wouldn’t leak through to where he could see it when he pulled the trigger.