Билл Пронзини - The Bags of Tricks Affair

Her hips would not fit through the gap. No matter how much she squirmed, the boards held her in a tight grip.

A frustrated cry formed in her throat; she bit her lip so that the only sound she made was a low moan. She wiggled and pulled herself out and onto the floor, lay panting from the exertion. The next time she made the attempt she would have to succeed. She wouldn’t have enough strength left by then to extricate herself from the hole a second time.

Shivers brought on by the cold roused her. The rough wood had torn her undergarment, scraped her skin raw in places. She swept up the cape, encased herself in it. When the shivering subsided, she rewrapped her hands with more strips from the hem of her dress, then set her jaw and once more picked up the pipe.

More lost time while she gouged, rested, measured. And felt herself growing weaker and weaker. Dimly she wondered if she ought to give it up for the time being, crawl back onto the cot in the office, sleep until some of her vigor was renewed... no. No. She was not going to get any stronger; lack of food and water would see to that. And as exhausted as she was, if she let herself sleep, God only knew how long she would be unconscious. It was only afternoon now; she might wake up in the middle of the night, and the prospect of another night in the place was intolerable. If she had any chance at all of escaping, it had to be soon, very soon.

She felt along the edge of the board again. Better than half of it had disintegrated. A little more, just a little more...

The pipe slipped out of her grasp, fell through the gap into the gurgling water below.

Oh God, now she had no choice. Now she had to make the one last effort.

She said a silent prayer, removed the bloody strips from her hands, shed the cape again. But she had the presence of mind to place it close to the edge, where she could reach it when she lowered herself into the opening. If she succeeded in getting through, she would pull it with her. The bay water was bound to be freezing; without something to cover her near-nakedness, she would die of hypothermia. If she didn’t succeed, she wouldn’t need the cape — she would die here anyway.

Into the hole then, bracing herself with her elbows as before, the fingers of her right hand clutching the cape. She wiggled lower. The floorboards held her again. She squirmed, twisted—

Let go of me, let go!

— and her hips scraped through. Instinctively she raised her arms, pulling the cape with her, as the weight of her shoes sent her plunging downward.

The fall was short, no more than six feet, and the water shallow so that her feet jarred through it into soft mud. The icy shock took her breath away. Gasping, she lost her balance, fell sideways into a nest of marsh weeds. Salt water poured into her open mouth, choking her. She coughed it out as she fought upright. The cape had slipped out of her clutch, but she could see it floating next to one of the slimy pilings.

The mud sucked at her shoes; she had difficulty pulling free, staggering ahead to gather the cape and then to where the shoreline slanted upward. The ground was more solid there, matted and thickly grown with weeds and marsh grass. She stumbled upward past the last of the pilings. Just as she emerged from under the building, something caught her ankle and sent her sprawling.

She lay facedown in the grass, laboring to catch her breath. Tremors racked her. But the frigid water had had a revitalizing effect, too, clearing her mind and giving her back some of her strength. She rose up onto her knees. The grass was wet from the fog, she realized then, and the cupped leaves on some of the weeds glistened with moisture. Water, fresh water. She bent her head to the leaves, lapping at the dew like a cat at a bowl of cream. Then she tore up handfuls of grass and sucked on the stems. Her thirst still raged, but the moisture alleviated a little of the terrible burning in her mouth and throat, allowed her to swallow again.

She gained her feet and, dragging the cape, slogged out to where she had a more or less clear view of her surroundings. The area, overlaid with a thin, windblown fog, was every bit as desolate as she’d imagined. There was another, smaller building besides the one in which she’d been imprisoned, less well built, one wall leaning near collapse. A ghostlike confusion of erections that had something to do with boat storage loomed beyond that. That was all there was to see except for acres of barren marshland and gray, white-flecked water, the outer reaches of both land and bay obscured by mist. The only sounds were the fog warnings and the distant cry of a gull.

The cape was sodden; Sabina twisted some of the water out of it, swirled it around her. Its clamminess increased her trembling. Still, it provided some protection from the wind. Without it, in nothing but her thin, torn undergarment, she would soon freeze.

She slogged to the front of the repair shop, tearing up and sucking more wet grass on the way. There must be some sort of road that led in here... Yes, over there — half-hidden parallel ruts, the grass and weeds between them trampled by the passage of the brougham or whatever conveyance Gaunt had used to bring her here.

How far to the nearest habitation? No way of knowing. She hadn’t the stamina to trek very far in the open, but there was no choice except to try. There was no shelter here, and once night came...

She set off along the ruts. At first her legs were so stiff she felt as though she were moving in place, without progress, as if in a nightmare. But then, gradually, the stiffness eased and she was able to walk without stumbling. Her legs were wobbly but she managed to quicken her pace a bit.

She hadn’t gone far when she heard the clattering.

It came from somewhere in the mist ahead of her. She came to a standstill, listening. The noise was faint at first, then progressively louder. A vehicle of some kind, moving rapidly. She knew that for certain when the wheel clatter was joined by the whinny of a horse.

Her first reaction was one of relief, elation, but it lasted only a moment or two. A spiral of fear replaced it. Gaunt! Come back to check on her after all. Who else would be out on this wasteland at this time of day?

The equipage was still unseen, somewhere just beyond a mist-shrouded line of trees. Close now, very close.

Sabina flung herself off the rutted trail, into a patch of high grass prickly with thistles. And lay hugging the ground, trembling again, waiting for Gaunt to pass her by.

D. S. Nickerson made a strangled-chicken sound, his eyes crossed and bulging as he stared at the gun barrel tickling his nose. His moon face had gone as white as clabbered milk.

“Answer my question, Nickerson, and be quick about it. Where’s Gaunt?”

“I... I... I... I...”

“Where, damn you!”

“I... I... don’t know...”

Quincannon marched him backward into what was evidently his private office, shoved him into a desk chair, and then loomed over him with the Navy now pointed a half inch from his chin. “No more lies, blast you, and no more evasions. My partner has disappeared and Gaunt is surely responsible. I have no qualms about shooting him and none about shooting you or anyone else who aided and abetted him.”

Nickerson swallowed audibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a cork on a string. “I’m not... not l-lying,” he stammered. “I’d t-tell you if I knew where he went, but I don’t, I s-swear I don’t! Please, you have to believe me—!”

“When did you last see him?”

“S-Saturday morning.”

“Where?”

“Here, when he returned my equipage.”

“What equipage?”

“Brougham. My... brougham.”

“You gave him the use of it? When?”