Bill Pronzini: Schemers

He could feel the sudden tension in Henderson’s body, the tight coiling of muscles. Heard him say, “You,” in a voice that sounded more angry than scared. Well, that would change. Oh, yes, it would.

“Start walking, Cliff.”

“You bastard, you won’t get away with this-”

Devries dug the barrel into his ribs, hard enough to make him grunt. “Walk, I said. Or you’ll never walk again.”

“… Where?”

“North side of the building. Cut through the rows away from the lights. If anybody comes out before we get there, don’t stop or slow down. We’re just a couple of buddies on the move.”

“What’re you going to do?” Still angry, but scared enough of the gun not to try any heroics.

“You’ll find out. Walk!”

Henderson walked. Jerkily, at first, then at a more even pace. Devries stayed in close, holding on to the sleeve of Henderson’s jacket with his left hand so he could keep the automatic’s muzzle tight against the ribs. Nobody showed before they reached the corner, went ahead into the shadows.

At the rear of the van he jerked Henderson to a stop. “Listen. Step ahead a couple of paces. Don’t turn around.”

Henderson obeyed. In the cold stillness, the sound of his breathing was loud, raspy. Vapor came out of his mouth in hard little puffs, like tobacco smoke.

Devries started to open the rear door. Voices stopped him-two bowlers with bags, yakking to each other, heading around the corner toward them. He said, quick and low, “Move or make a sound, I’ll kill you.” Henderson looked over his shoulder, but that was all he did.

Devries shifted position so he could watch the two men and Henderson at the same time. Neither bowler paid any attention to them. They deposited their bags in the backseat of a car parked up near the front of the lot, got in. The engine rumbled, exhaust spumed out, backup lights flashed. If they came this way… But they didn’t. The driver backed around sharply, so that the headlights splashed out in the other direction, and the car rattled off through the main lot.

Quickly Devries opened the van’s rear door. Dark inside; he’d unscrewed the bulb. “Back up two steps,” he said to Henderson. “Then get in and lie on your belly, head toward the front.”

“You son of a bitch, I’m not going to-”

“Inside.”

“Whatever you’re planning, you won’t get away with it. The police know who you are.”

“Shut up and get inside. Last time I’ll say it. If you don’t, I’ll shoot you and put you in dead. Don’t think I don’t mean it.”

Henderson made a low, growling sound, but he backed up, hunched a little now, and turned sideways and looked into the dark interior as if he were looking into a pit. The sound came out of him again.

“Hurry up! Facedown, feet together, hands behind you.”

Henderson did as he was told. Squirmed on the mat, breathing heavily as he brought both arms around behind him.

“Where’re you taking me?” Voice muffled against the carpet mat.

Devries said, “You’ll find out,” and went to work with the roll of duct tape.

I dreamed the answer to the locked-room trick.

Feed your subconscious enough data and set it to work on a problem before you go to sleep, and sometimes you’ll wake up with the solution. That had happened to me before, but this was the first time my subconscious had kicked one up in a jumble of sleep images and metaphor.

In my dream I was in Gregory Pollexfen’s brightly lit library. Others were there, too, Pollexfen and his wife and Jeremy Cullrane, and I seemed to be watching them from an elevated position, as if from the top of one of the bookshelf ladders. At first I couldn’t tell what was going on, but the longer I stared down the clearer the scene became. Then there was a sudden flash and a burst of silent noise, like you sometimes get in a dream, and all at once I was out of it and sitting up in bed wide awake, the images still clear and sharp.

I must have done some thrashing around or made an involuntary sound because Kerry woke up and rolled over and said with groggy alarm, “What? What is it, what’s the matter?”

“Got it,” I said. “I know how it was done.”

“How what was done?”

“The murder. How Pollexfen worked it-the only way it could’ve been done. Drugging the two of them, that’s the key. Ingenious, simple-and as nasty as it gets. A sick new way of killing somebody. He can even pretend there’s no blood on his hands because technically it’s not a homicide at all.”

“What’re you talking about? How can a homicide not be a homicide?”

“When it’s murder by suicide.”

JAKE RUNYON

He was awake as soon as the bedside phone rang. Alert, with the receiver in his hand before a second ring. Product of self-training when he was on the Seattle PD, so any late-night calls wouldn’t disturb Colleen.

The digital clock on the nightstand read 2:29. He registered that before he said, “Runyon.”

“I know it’s late, Mr. Runyon, I’m sorry to be calling so late, but I’ve been half out of my mind.” Woman’s voice, distraught, breathless. Tracy Henderson. “The police, Lieutenant St. John, they don’t seem able to do anything and I thought you might have some idea-”

“Slow down, Mrs. Henderson. What’s happened?”

“It’s Cliff. He… oh God, he went to bowl in his league tonight like he does every Thursday. I begged him not to, I begged him to stay home, but he said he’d be with people, friends, nothing could happen-”

“Slow,” Runyon said again.

Stuttery inhale, whistling exhale. “He didn’t come home. I called the police when he wasn’t here by eleven and they… his truck was still at the lanes but they can’t find him anywhere.”

“Last seen when?”

“Right after he finished bowling. He told his teammates he was going straight home.”

“What time was that?”

“Quarter of ten.”

“Was there anything wrong with the truck?” Acid, he was thinking, but he didn’t want to use the word.

“No, it was just parked there, unlocked. Cliff wouldn’t have left it like that, he always locks it, always. His bag and ball were in the back.”

Caught by surprise as he was about to get into the pickup. Hurt in some way? Possibly, but not with any weapon that would cause noise, bring attention.

“I don’t understand,” Mrs. Henderson said. Sobs in her voice; she was on the ragged edge of hysteria. “All those other terrible things that madman Devries did, the attack on Damon, and now this…”

Escalation, sure, but not the expected kind. Kidnapping instead of hit-and-run assault. Change in Devries’s pattern. Why?

He said, “The police know about Devries, the kind of vehicle he drives-”

“A white Dodge van, yes, Cliff told me. Lieutenant St. John said he already knew about it from you.”

“Did he put out an APB on Devries and the van?”

“APB? I don’t…”

“All points bulletin. To police agencies statewide.”

“I don’t know, he didn’t say anything about that.”

Maybe St. John had, maybe he hadn’t. He was the extra-cautious type. Even if Henderson’s sudden disappearance had convinced him that Devries was the perp, it might be too late.

“I asked him what they were doing,” she said, “but all he’d say was everything possible, everything possible. What does that mean?”

It didn’t mean anything. Copspeak. Synonym for frustration and lack of clear direction. Whatever Runyon could say would be more of the same, so he left her question unanswered.

“Why would Devries kidnap Cliff? Where would he take him?”

The cemetery was one possibility. Put the son down with the father, burn him the way he’d burned Lloyd Henderson’s ashes. But Cliff was only one son. Devries was after both.