Brett Halliday: Last Seen Hitchhiking

She understood now. He had loosened the cuff to be sure the data wouldn’t be compromised by what he had called the masochist effect. He wanted her to think about escape, not about pain. A masochist would submit to restraint, and respond to that. But his guess had been a bit off. The cuff was too loose. Pulling hard while trying to conceal the effort, she felt it slip over her wrist-bone and along her hand. And then she had it.

Watching his eyes, she continued to pull and struggle, contorting her mouth. He resumed what he had been doing.

“Don’t, don’t, please, please don’t, Bruno, don’t.”

“You can’t plead with Bruno,” he said, lifting his head. “He likes cunnilingus too much. So pretty. So silky.”

Then he stopped talking.

She waited, telling herself to let him commit himself fully, to let his excitement take over, before showing him that she was no longer helpless. The recording instruments oscillated wildly. The green cap came off, and his long hair spilled out on her thighs.

“Wait,” he said, perhaps speaking out loud. “Not yet.”

But she couldn’t wait. Dropping the cuff, she seized his hair. The rope whipped beneath the table. Her knees tightened convulsively. She clawed at the buckle holding the strap across her chest. It was under one arm, nearly out of reach. An electrode pulled loose, and the machine sparked and hissed.

She twisted, emptying her lungs so there would be less pressure on the strap. Her fingers slipped. Bruno was thrashing between her legs, hurting her with his teeth. She had a handful of hair, and she held on desperately. With all this going on, it was impossible to get the free end of the strap back through the buckle loop.

The loose rope with the empty cuff attached skittered around on her wet body. Giving up her attempt to open the buckle, she worked the rope under Bruno’s chin and looped it around his neck, pulling it tight. He was trying to force her legs apart with both hands, but he was in a bad position to develop leverage. As the rope tightened, the sputtering sounds he was making changed in pitch. He raked at her hands with his fingernails. He began to stab awkwardly at her abdomen, trying to find some place that would hurt her enough to make her let him go.

She held on, the rope snug around her fist. Her mind was sharp and clear. If he managed to get away from her now, she knew she was done for. She hadn’t believed him at first. There had been a playfulness about some of those speeches, as though the Bud side was mocking the Bruno side. It was all too extreme, and she expected her usual luck to come to her rescue. The gynecologist whose equipment they were using would come back early, or someone would be curious about the lights, or the building would catch fire and the firemen would chop their way in and unfasten her. The earth rotated on schedule. Things like this didn’t happen.

Now she knew for sure it was happening. She was in the power of a lunatic who had every intention of killing her.

Somehow, as they changed position, the rope loosened enough so he could get his chin inside the loop. Air rushed back into his lungs. She still had him in a convulsive grip, with both hands and thighs, but she could feel her strength going. He planted himself more firmly and strained backward, pushing the table. His face slipped several inches along the damp flesh on her thighs.

“Hurts, hurts,” he said.

Her grip on his hair was already less secure. Abandoning the rope, she clutched his hair with that hand as well and brought him back. He grabbed one wrist from below, and with a convulsive effort broke her hold.

At that moment the chest strap let go.

She sat up abruptly. The sudden change was unexpected by them both, and she went partway off the table, held only at the ankles. She could bend her knees now, lessening the strain on her thigh muscles, but he, too, had better position, and as soon as he adjusted he would pull her up and over. Throwing himself to the floor, he could break her grip, at the cost of leaving bunches of hair in her hands.

His back was pimpled. The soft buttocks were covered with unhealthy-looking fuzz. At the last possible moment, she closed herself on his head like a folding jack-knife. He pivoted his heavy shoulders and began to slide. He hung for an instant, and Meri released his hair, snatched up the squat cardiograph in both hands and clubbed him with it. There was a quick spurt of flame.

She pounded at him again. Blood spurted, making them both more slippery.

He went backward on his haunches, peering up through a red mist while she worked frantically at one stirrup. She freed it. With a shout, he flung himself at her. Seizing the whipping rope, he pulled her off the table. She was still attached by one ankle. The back of her head struck the floor.

The air around her quivered. For a moment she was unable to do anything about the strain on her twisted leg. Music poured over them.

He groped for her, but he seemed to be having trouble seeing, and his movements were sluggish.

Now her long hours on the ten-meter platform paid off. She flipped herself upward, straightened her leg and at the same time caught his nose smartly with her knee. It was a tricky movement, not one of those required in intercollegiate competition. As he sagged, she hit out at his defenseless-looking eyes with stiff fingers. He jerked back blinking.

The buckle holding her ankle was on the far side, where she couldn’t reach it. He wavered away, and came back pushing at her with the tall low-backed stool. He didn’t hurt her with it, but it got in her way. In a desperate maneuver that took all her coordination, strength, and timing, she unkinked and sprang erect on one foot. Now the buckle opened quickly, almost by itself.

Feeling movement behind her, she whirled. He was holding the stool high with both hands. He brought it down hard. She saw it coming and moved, but not quickly enough. There was an explosion of light.

She fell against him and they grappled clumsily. Then they were apart. The stool came at her again. She raised her hand too late. The pain was worse this time, much worse. It pierced her and made her helpless.

He went off balance and fell heavily against one of the machines, which seemed to blow apart. As she went down herself she heard him yell. All the lights went off and the music stopped.

Harry Field, when he was an FBI agent working out of the Miami office, had been one of Michael Shayne’s few friends inside that suspicious, close-mouthed organization. On one occasion, Shayne had disarmed a demented youth who was holding Field hostage with a sawed-off shotgun. Shortly after that, following a dispute with the district director, Field resigned from the bureau and set up his own detective agency.

More and more in recent years, independent operators in this field had been moving the other way, closing their one-man offices to join a big nationwide firm that could provide a variety of services and send a single bill, usually a large one. Except for a few established people like Shayne, the independents who managed to survive did so by becoming experts in a single area and working it intensively. Field’s was property insurance, particularly jewelry and art objects. He and Shayne worked together once or twice. Field was cool and patient and likable. He also liked to drink. For a time he and Shayne were part of the same floating poker game. His business broke even from the start, and soon began making money. Shayne sometimes recommended him when he himself was too busy for something, or not interested enough. On one such case, which appeared to be a routine jewelry theft in a Miami Beach hotel, Field was shot and killed.

His widow, Frieda, elected to continue the agency.