Unlikely. The first thing he would do-intelligent or not, he has a certain criminal cunning-would be to recoup his losses. At least the ten thousand he had invested, and possibly the entire twenty I had agreed to pay him. Once he had done that, he might well kill me. But what would be the purpose?

  If it's money he wants, I'll promise to get it for him. Under these circumstances, I will be certainly motivated to find it somewhere.

  But wait a minute! If this, whatever this is, has something to do with Amos Williams amp; Company, he would have sent his man Baby Brownlee. The people who are doing this to me are white men!

  Could this be a case of mistaken identity?

  For that matter, could I be hallucinating? This does feel like a bad dream. Am I going to wake up in just a minute?

  Or could I really be hallucinating? I did a couple of lines… what, forty minutes ago? Was it bad stuff?

  No. That was from my next-to-last packet of emergency supplies. I've been into it twenty, perhaps thirty, times without anything unpleasant happening.

  Ketcham became aware that the sound of the vehicle's passageway over the roadway had changed. For one thing, he sensed that they were moving more slowly than they had been.

  The vehicle stopped.

  Ketcham heard the sound of the vehicle's door opening, and then it moved as if someone had gotten out.

  He heard a metallic screech and decided, after a moment, that it was the sound of a door opening, and then changed that to suspect strongly that it was the sound a gate in a Cyclone fence-as those surrounding a tennis court-makes when being opened.

  The vehicle moved a short distance forward. Ketcham heard the sound of the squeaking gate again. The vehicle tilted as if someone had gotten in the front seat. The door slammed shut and the vehicle drove off.

  Ketcham sensed that they were no longer on a paved road, and confirmation of this came when the vehicle, moving slowly, encountered one hole in the road after another.

  What are they doing? Taking me out in the woods someplace to kill me?

  But if they wanted to kill me, they had ample opportunity in my garage.

  If they're not going to kill me, then what? They must want something from me. What?

  If this is a case of mistaken identity, which seems as likely an answer as anything else I've been able to come up with, then there will be the opportunity to clear things up, to let them know I'm not who they are looking for.

  Or, even if it's not a case of mistaken identity, if they want something from me-maybe they know I'm a stockbroker, and think we keep large amounts of cash around the office. They're Italian, they could be the Mafia. That sounds like something the Mafia would do. And they might not know the only cash around the office is in the petty-cash box, and I don't even know of any negotiable instruments at all. Anyway, if they do want something from me, there will certainly be an opportunity to talk, to negotiate.

  Those thoughts made Ketcham feel better.

  After two or three minutes of lurching down what Ketcham was now convinced was an unpaved road, the vehicle moved onto a solid, flat, and thus presumably paved surface and stopped.

  There was the sound of two doors being opened, the sense of shifting as if two persons had left the vehicle, and the doors slammed shut.

  Then Ketcham heard the rear doors of the vehicle being opened.

  "Cut that shit off his legs," a voice ordered.

  There was a clicking sound, which Ketcham decided just might be the sound of a switchblade, and a sensation of sawing around his ankles. He felt the pressure that had been holding his ankles together go away.

  Ketcham was dragged out of the Suburban and set on his feet. He felt a hand on each arm, as if there was a man on each side of him.

  He was pushed into motion. Without quite knowing why, he sensed that he had entered some kind of a building. The sense grew stronger as he was guided down what he now believed to be a corridor, and confirmation came when he was stopped, and heard the sound of a door-a heavy metal door, he deduced. Where am I? In a factory? Or a garage? — being opened.

  Ketcham was pushed through the door, led fifteen feet inside, and stopped.

  "Cut his hands loose," the same voice ordered, and again there was the sort of slick clicking sound a switchblade knife made, and again the sawing sensation, this time at his wrists.

  And then they were free.

  "Without taking the coat off your head, take off your clothes," the same voice ordered.

  "What?" Ketcham asked incredulously.

  This earned him a blow in the face.

  That wasn't a fist. That was something hard. A stick perhaps. Or perhaps a gun.

  "Without taking the coat off your head, take off your clothes," the same voice repeated.

  The one thing I cannot afford to do, Ketcham told himself, is lose control of myself. They want me to take off my clothes, very well, I will take off my clothes-meanwhile, waiting patiently, and carefully, for my opportunity.

  With some difficulty, Ketcham removed the jacket of his dark blue, faintly striped blue suit. Without thinking what he was doing, he held the suit jacket out, as if waiting for someone to take it from him and hang it up.

  A snicker made Ketcham realize that no one was going to take the jacket from him. He let it slip from his fingers.

  Ketcham next removed his necktie, and tried to drop that on top of his suit jacket. Then he pushed his braces off his shoulders, loosened the snap and opened the fly of his trousers, and somewhat awkwardly removed his trousers, which he then attempted to drop atop his jacket, tie, and shirt.

  "I won't be able to remove my undershirt," he began, trying to sound as polite and reasonable as possible.

  Ketcham was then struck upon the face again, which caused him to lose his balance and fall backward onto the floor.

  "What he means," a new voice said, "is that he can't get his undershirt off without taking the overcoat off his head."

  "Fuck the undershirt, then," the first, now familiar voice replied. "Take off your shorts and your shoes and socks."

  Ketcham complied. He was now naked save for the overcoat over his head and upper body, and his undershirt, sitting on the floor. The floor was cold.

  From its consistency, Ketcham decided the cold floor was concrete, which tended to buttress his suspicion that he was in a garage, or a factory of some sort.

  "Get up," the familiar voice ordered.

  Ketcham complied.

  "Hold your hands out in front of you, together," the familiar voice added.

  Ketcham complied, and almost immediately felt his wrists again being tied together.

  There was a short burst of derisive laughter.

  "Christ, look at his cock," a third voice, previously unheard, said. "Angelina's Chihuahua's got a bigger cock."

  There were chuckles of agreement.

  "Shut your fucking mouth!" the familiar voice said.

  I will remember that when this is over and I'm out of here, Ketcham decided with some satisfaction. One of these thugs has a wife, or girlfriend, named Angelina, who has a Chihuahua.

  Then nothing happened, except for what Ketcham believed to be the sound of shuffling feet, and what could have been the sound of the door being closed.

  It was cold wherever he was, and Ketcham felt himself start to shiver.

  That should really please the thug who thinks my penis is funny, when he sees me standing here naked and shivering.

  I will not lose control. I will wait until whatever is going to happen happens.

  Five minutes later, very carefully, Ketcham uttered one word.

  "Hello?"

  There was no reply.

  Thirty seconds after that, Ketcham spoke again:

  "Hello? Is anyone there?"

  There was no reply.

  Obviously, there is no one here. If there was, and I was not supposed to have spoken, they would have hit me again.

  Will someone be coming back?

  What would they do to me if they came back and found that I had somehow been able to remove the overcoat over my head?

  Two minutes after that, after having debated the question with himself carefully, Ketcham decided to attempt to remove the overcoat that covered his head and upper body.

  Doing so was easier than he thought it would be. By maneuvering his shoulders while holding one side of the coat with his bound-together hands, he was able to get the coat off first one shoulder and then the other, and when that was done, he was able to untie the tape holding the coat around his neck.

  But when Ketcham had removed the coat, he could see absolutely nothing. There was no light of any kind whatever in the room. He suddenly felt faint and dizzy, and dropped to his knees, and then moved to a sitting position. The floor under his buttocks was rough and cold.

  Ketcham raised his wrists to his mouth, and with some difficulty, using his teeth, he managed to untie the tape binding his wrists together. That done, he groped for the overcoat, found it, and put it on. It was too small for him; he could button only a few of the buttons, and the cuffs were six inches off his wrists.

  Ketcham then went back on his hands and knees and began looking for the clothing he had been forced to remove and had dropped onto the floor.

  It was not where he remembered having dropped it, and Ketcham decided that he had become disoriented when he had felt faint and dizzy, and decided he would have to search for it methodically.

  Ketcham crawled on his hands and knees until he encountered a wall. Then he moved along the wall hoping the find a door, or something else. He didn't, but eventually he found a corner. He moved from the corner to the next, and estimated that the room was about fifteen feet in that dimension. Then he followed that wall until the next corner, and the next. Along that wall, to one end of it, he encountered a door.

  He stood up then and ran his hands over the door. He found a hole, which presumably had at one time held a doorknob. Ketcham put his index finger in the hole and felt around, but encountered nothing. Next Ketcham ran his hands over the concrete on both sides of the door. His fingers encountered a square box, a shielded cable running to it, and then, on the box itself, two toggle switches.

  Ketcham closed his eyes so that he would not be blinded by any sudden light. He threw both switches several times, but there was no light.

  Walking erect now, Ketcham proceeded along the wall until he came to the corner from which he had started. Then he made another circumnavigation of the room, walking erect and rubbing his hands in slow wide arcs over the cold rough concrete. Midway down one wall, he encountered another shielded cable, and followed it to a plug box near the floor. There was a similar arrangement on the next wall.

  Ketcham realized that while he was, literally speaking, still totally in the dark, he was no longer in complete ignorance of his surroundings. He was in a room he estimated to be probably fifteen feet by twelve. There was one door, no handle, and electrical circuits that were dead-or alive. Someone could have removed the bulbs from the light fixture-fixtures; there were two switches-they controlled.

  There were no windows, which meant that he was more than likely in some kind of basement.

  But they didn't lead me down any stairs, and the truck or station wagon, or whatever that was, didn't descend an incline; I would have sensed that if it had.

  So where the hell am I?

  Where are the people who brought me here?

  Why did they bring me here?

  What happens next?

  Ketcham began to shiver again.

  Where the hell are my clothes?

  Ketcham dropped to his knees and began a methodical search of the room, rubbing his hand over the concrete in wide arcs. His confidence that it would be just a matter of time until he found his clothing took a long time dying, but eventually, after twenty passes, he gave up.

  Ketcham rested his back against the wall.

  His fingertips, and the palms of his hands, and his knees were raw from the concrete.

  And I have to take a leak!

  Jesus, what do I do about that?

  Ketcham got to his feet and moved along the wall until he came to a corner.

  I will piss here. This corner will be the toilet.

  What the hell am I going to have to do when I have to take a crap?

  Ketcham held the too-small overcoat out of the way and voided his bladder. Moments after he had begun to do so, he felt warm urine on his bare feet. He spread his legs as far apart as he could until he finished.

  Fuck it, I'd rather get beaten up than put up with any more of this shit!

  Ketcham made his way to the door and shouted "Help" and "Hello" and beat on the door with his fists, which caused the door to resound like a bell.

  No one responded.

  Ketcham made his way to the corner opposite from the toilet, and rested his back against the wall, and started to weep in the darkness.

  The parking lot of the country club was nearly full, and Matt lost sight of Susan's Porsche while finding a place to park the Plymouth. After three minutes of wandering around the parking lot, he found the car, but not Susan.

  "Thank you ever so much for waiting for me," he muttered, and headed for the brightly lit entrance to the club-house.

  He found Susan in the center of the large entrance foyer, talking to a man whose dress and manner made Matt guess-correctly, it turned out-that he was the steward, or manager.

  "Good evening," Matt said, smiling.

  "Matt, this is Mr. Witherington, the manager."

  "Claude Witherington," the man said as he put out his hand to Matt. Then he was unable to resist making the correction: "Executive Manager, actually. Welcome to River View, Mr. Payne. We hope you'll enjoy our facilities. "

  "Thank you very much," Matt said.

  "After Mr. Reynolds called," Witherington said, "I had your guest card made out." He handed it to Matt.

  "Thank you," Matt said.

  "This is a no-cash club," Witherington said. "I thought I should mention that."

  "How am I going to pay?"

  "Have you a home club?"

  "I belong to Merion, in Philadelphia, if that's what you mean."

  "Splendid. Merion, of course, is on our reciprocal list. Actually, had I known that, I wouldn't have had to issue a guest card at all. In any event, all you will have to do is sign the chit, and if you think of it, add 'Merion, Philadelphia. ' "

  "Actually, I think it's in Merion," Matt said. "What should I do, write 'Merion, Merion'?"

  Susan Reynolds shook her head, but there was the flicker of a smile on her lips. Mr. Witherington looked distressed, but after a moment smiled happily.

  "You just sign your name, Mr. Payne, and I'll handle it from there. You'll be billed through your club."

  "You're very kind, thank you very much."

  "Not at all," Witherington said. "Enjoy, enjoy!"

  He walked off.

  Susan put out her hand.

  "Good night, Matt."

  "Good night?"

  "Good night."

  "That wasn't our deal, fair maiden. Our deal was that I help you deceive your parents-and that was difficult for me; they're nice people-and in return you keep me from being overwhelmed by loneliness here in the provinces. I kept up my end of the deal, and I expect the same from you."

  "Matt, if you go into the bar, and hold your left hand up so that people can see you don't have a wedding ring, a half dozen-what did you say, 'fair maidens'?-will fall over themselves to get at you."

  "I know, that happens to me all the time. But I'm not that sort of boy. I don't let myself get picked up by strange young ladies. And I don't kiss on the first date. Besides, if you went home now, so soon, your daddy and mommy might get the idea our romance is on the rocks."

  "We don't have a romance."

  "You wouldn't want to break your mommy's heart, would you? From the way she was looking at me, she's already making up the guest list for our marriage."

  "That's not true!"

  " 'The truth is a shattered mirror strewn in myriad bits, and each believes his little bit the whole to own,' " Matt quoted, and when Susan gave him an incredulous look, added, "That's from the Kasidah of Haji Abu el Yezdi-in my judgment, one of the wiser Persian philosophers."

  "You're unbelievable!"

  "So my mother tells me," Matt said.

  "What do you want to do?"

  "Let's go in the bar and have a couple of quick stiff ones," Matt said. " 'Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.' I believe Mr. Ogden Nash said that."

  Susan shook her head again. "One drink," she said.

  "Three. We can then compromise on two."

  Without replying, she walked toward what turned out to be the bar. It was a large, dark, and comfortable room, with a bar along one paneled wall, and tables with red leather-cushioned captain's chairs scattered around the room.

  Matt did not miss the eight or ten attractive young women in the room, sitting in groups of two or three at tables and at the bar.

  Maybe I should have let her get away. I think the odds to make out in here look pretty good. My chances with Susie range from lousy to zip.

  Not that I would, anyway. Could, anyway. Peter was right about that.

  I will not, Boy Scout's honor, make that mistake.

  A waiter appeared as soon as they sat down.

  "Good evening, Miss Reynolds," he said.

  "What do you drink, Matt?" Susan asked. "Let your imagination run loose. Da-my father will expect me to make this my treat."

  "Daddy's going to pay?" Matt asked.

  "That's what I said."

  "Would you bring us the wine list, please?" Matt said.

  "The wine list?" Susan asked incredulously.

  "It's a list of the available fermented grape juices," Matt said seriously, "generally stapled into some kind of artificial leather folder."

  "Miss Reynolds?" the waiter asked in confusion.

  "Go get the wine list," Matt ordered. "If the lady's going to welsh on her offer to spring for the booze, I'll pay for it myself."

  "Get the wine list, please," Susan said.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Susan looked at him.

 

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