Десмонд Бэгли - Bahama Crisis

Not that I was intending to escape — not then. But I was looking at the roof speculatively when I heard someone at the door. I sat on the bed and waited, and the door opened and Debbie was pushed in, then it slammed behind her quickly.

She staggered, regained her balance, then looked at me unbelievingly. ‘ Tom ! Oh, Tom!’ The next moment she was in my arms, dampening the front of my Houston Cougars’ teeshirt.

It took some time to get her settled down. She was incoherent with a mixture of relief, remorse, passion and, when she understood that I, too, was a prisoner, amazement, consternation and confusion. ‘But how did you get here?’ she demanded. ‘To Texas, I mean. And why?’

‘I was drawn into it by bait,’ I said. ‘You were the bait. We were all fooled.’

‘The family,’ she said. ‘How are they?’

‘Bearing up under the strain.’ There were a few things I was not going to tell Debbie. One was that her father had just suffered a heart attack. Others would doubtless occur to me. ‘How were you snatched?’

‘I don’t know. One minute I was looking in the window of a store on Main Street, then I was here.’

Probably Robinson had used his NATO gadget; but it did not matter. ‘And where is here? You’re the local expert.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Somewhere on the coast, I think.’

I disentangled myself, stood up, and turned to look at her. The dress she was wearing certainly had not come from a plushy Main Street store — it was more reminiscent of Al Capp’s Dogpatch and went along with my jeans and teeshirt. From where I stood it seemed to be the only thing she was wearing. ‘All right, Daisy-Mae, has anyone told you why you were kidnapped?’

‘Daisy-M...?’ She caught on and looked down at herself, then involuntarily put a hand to her breast. ‘They took my clothes away.’

‘Mine, too.’

‘I must look terrible.’

‘A sight for sore eyes.’ She looked up at me and flushed, and we were both silent for a moment. Then we both started to talk at the same time, and both stopped simultaneously.

‘I’ve been a damned fool, Tom,’ she said.

‘This is not the time — nor place — to discuss our marital problems,’ I said. ‘There are better things to do. Do you know why you were kidnapped?’

‘Not really. He’s been asking all sorts of questions about you.’

‘What sort of questions?’

‘About what you were doing. Where you’d been. Things like that. I told him I didn’t know — that I’d left you. He didn’t believe me. He kept going on and on about you.’ She shivered suddenly. ‘Who is this man? What’s happening to us, Tom?’

Good questions; unfortunately I had no answers. Debbie looked scared and I did not blame her. That character with the automatic shotgun had nearly scared the jeans off me and I had just arrived. Debbie had been here at least three days.

I said gently, ‘Have they ill-treated you?’

She shook her head miserably. ‘Not physically. But it’s the way some of them look at me.’ She shivered again. ‘I’m scared, Tom. I’m scared half to death.’

I sat down and put my arm around her. ‘Not to worry. How many are there?’

‘I’ve seen four.’

‘Including a man whose name isn’t Robinson? An English smoothie with a plummy voice?’

‘He’s the one who asks the questions. The others don’t say much — not to me. They just look.’

‘Let’s get back to these questions. Was there anything specific he wanted to know?’

Debbie frowned. ‘No. He asked general questions in a roundabout way. It’s as though he wants to find out something without letting me know what it is. Just endless questions about you. He wanted to know what you’d told the police. He said you seemed to spend a lot of time in the company of Commissioner Perigord. I said I didn’t know about anything you might have told Perigord, and that I’d only met Perigord once, before we were married.’ She paused. ‘There was one thing. He asked when I’d left you, and I told him. He then commented that it would be the day after you’d found Kayles.’

I sat upright. ‘Kayles ! He mentioned him by name?’

‘Yes. I thought he’d ask me about Kayles, but he didn’t. He went off on another track, asking when we were married. He asked if I’d known Julie.’

‘Did he, by God! What did you say?’

‘I told him the truth; that I’d met her briefly but hadn’t known her well.’

‘What was his reaction to that?’

‘He seemed to lose interest. You call him Robinson — is that his name?’

‘I doubt it; and I don’t think he’s English, either.’ I was thinking of the connection between Robinson and Kayles and sorting out possible relationships. Was Robinson the boss of a drug-running syndicate? If so then why should he kidnap Debbie and me? It did not make much sense.

Debbie said, ‘I don’t like him, and I don’t like the way he talks. The others frighten me, but he frightens me in a different way.’

‘What way?’

‘The others are ignorant white trash — corn-crackers — but they look at me as a woman. Robinson looks at me as an object, as though I’m not a human being at all.’ She broke down into sobs. ‘For God’s sake, Tom; who are these people? What have you been doing to get mixed up in this?’

‘Take it easy, my love,’ I said. ‘Hush, now.’

She quietened again and after a while said in a small voice, ‘It’s a long time since you’ve called me that.’

‘What?’

‘Your love.’

I was silent for a moment, then said heavily, ‘A pity. I ought to have remembered to do it more often.’ I was thinking of a divorce lawyer who had told me that in a breaking marriage there were invariably faults on both sides. I would say he was right.

Presently Debbie sat up and dried her eyes on the hem of her dress. ‘I must look a mess.’

‘You look as beautiful as ever. Cheer up, there’s still hope. Your folks will be skinning Texas to find us. I wouldn’t like to be anyone who gets on the wrong side of Billy One.’

‘It’s a big state,’ she said sombrely.

The biggest — barring Alaska — and I could not see the Cunninghams finding us in a hurry. The thought that chilled me was that Robinson had made no attempt at disguise. True, his face was not memorable in the normal way, but I would certainly remember it from now on, and so would Debbie. The rationale behind that sent a grue up my spine — the only way he could prevent future identification was by killing us. We were never intended to be released.

It was cold comfort to know that the Cunninghams were roused and that sooner or later, with the backing of the Cunningham Corporation, Robinson would eventually be run down and due vengeance taken. Debbie and I would know nothing of that.

Debbie said, ‘I’m sorry about the way I behaved.’

‘Skip it,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter now.’

‘But you could be a son of a bitch at times — a real cold bastard. Sometimes you’d act as though I wasn’t there at all. I began to think I was the invisible woman.’

‘There was no one else,‘ I said. ‘There never was.’

‘No one human.’

‘Nor a ghost, Debbie,’ I said. ‘I accepted Julie’s death a long time ago.’

‘I didn’t mean that — I meant your goddamn job.’ She looked up. ‘But I ought to have known because I’m a Cunningham.’ She smiled slightly. ‘“For men must work and women must weep.” And the Cunningham men do work. I thought it might be different with you.’

‘And the sooner it’s over, the sooner to sleep.’ I completed the quotation, but only in my mind; it was too damned apposite to say aloud. ‘Why should it have been different? The Cunningham men haven’t taken out a patent on hard work. But maybe I did go at it too hard.’