Man on a Leash - Charles Williams(6)

“And I always loved sex,” she said. “Do you suppose I’ll ever
be capable of it again?”
“Sure,” Romstead replied. “Barnyard matings never bothered
you before, did they?”
She lighted another cigarette. “It’s a wonder the great genius
didn’t put a TV camera in here so they could watch us as well as
listen.”
“Oh, we’re being watched.” He gestured toward the front
wall. “The mirror’s a phony.”
She looked at it with interest. “You mean like those they’re
supposed to have in some of the casinos? How does it work?”
“You just have to have more light on the front side than the
back. It’s probably in a closet out there, or there’s a curtain over
it.”
“Oh. What was all that about a burro?”
He explained about finding the skeleton with its broken ribs.
“It was a demonstration, to put the old man in a receptive frame
of mind. They strapped a bundle of dynamite to the poor little
bastard, tied some tin cans to his tail to make him run, and then
blew him up several hundred yards away.”

“Oh, my God! How sick can you get? And they took movies of
it?”
“So he says.”
“But how could they get them developed?”
“Some bootleg lab that does processing for stag movies.”
Man on a Leash — 111
She gave him a speculative glance. “For an ex-jock and a
prosaic businessman, you seem to know some of the damndest
things.”
He shrugged. “I read a lot.”
“Yes, but I wonder what.”
He made no reply. Two million dollars, she’d said; he’d had no
idea she was that wealthy, but Kessler must have, and
apparently he was right. His intelligence operations must have
improved since they’d kidnapped his father. He thought of Jeri;
maybe that had been her job and she’d bungled it. But how in
hell did they expect to collect any such sum and get away with
it, when the FBI would be turning over every rock west of the
Mississippi? He, Romstead, was supposed to pick up the
ransom, she’d said. What did that mean? Go into the bank, as
the old man had? No, this was supposed to be something
entirely different. The only things for sure were that it would be
somewhere on the border line between brilliance and insanity, it
would involve electronics, and at the end of it, unless he could
find some way out of here, he’d be dead, the same as his father.
He wondered if they’d rented this place or if they’d bought it
with some of the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. No
doubt after it was over, they’d remove the bars, the steel plate,
the mirror, and all the rest of it, and plug up the holes, but if
they knew anything about the FBI, they’d better do a good job.
With two million paid in ransom and two people dead, the
country was going to be sifted, and sifted very fine.
There was the sound of a latch being released, and the narrow
panel above the chest of drawers slid open. A hand reached in
holding a pair of handcuffs and two strips of black cloth. It
deposited these on top of the chest. Then the twin barrels of the
sawed-off shotgun protruded from the opening, and a voice said,
“Romstead, go to the back of the room and face the window.”
Dramatic bunch of bastards, Romstead thought, with a real
flair for the theater. Next thing he’ll gesture with the gun the
way they do on TV. He turned and walked back, and stood
facing the window. Behind him, the voice went on, “Mrs.
Carmody, take these things back there. Blindfold him and
handcuff his hands behind him.”
“I don’t know how to handcuff anybody,” she replied. “I must
have been absent that day at the Police Academy—”
Man on a Leash — 112
“Shut up and do as you’re told. The cuffs are open. All you
have to do is put them around his wrists and push in until the
ratchets catch. And if you’re fond of him at all, put that blindfold
on right.”
It wasn’t the same voice they’d heard on the intercom; it was
a little deeper in pitch and the delivery more aggressive. There
was no trace of regional accent that “he could hear, so it
couldn’t be Tex. Then there were at least three. Call this one
Top Kick.
He heard her come up behind him and put his hands back.
The steel rings closed over his wrists, and then she knotted the
blindfold around his head. “Now stand beside him and blindfold
yourself,” the voice said. Romstead heard her move and then
the sound of a bolt being drawn and the turning of a lock.
“Got him heah,” another voice said. So that was Tex. That
meant he also had a gun of some kind and was covering from
the door. Theatrical they might be, but they played it close to
the chest when it came to taking chances, though what they
thought he could do handcuffed and sightless was beyond him
at the moment. The floor was bare except for a throw rug
between the beds, and he could hear footsteps coming up
behind him. Then another set nearer the door. They were both
in the room now.
“You jist go wheah I point you, Sugarfoot,” Tex said. His and
Paulette’s footsteps retreated toward the door, and then
something poked into Romstead’s back.
“Twelve-gauge double, loaded with number two’s,” Top Kick
said. Romstead made no reply. A big hand grasped his left arm
above the elbow and turned him around. “Straight ahead.” They
crossed the room. He already had the dimensions of that fixed in
his mind, and he felt his right arm brush against the door facing
just when he expected it. “Right,” Top Kick ordered, and pushed
his arm. Hallway, Romstead thought, with at least two
bedrooms opening onto it. He silently counted the steps. They
should be opposite the mirror now, and he pushed the right
elbow out just slightly and felt it brush against cloth. So it was
curtained on this side.
“Left,” Top Kick commanded. So the entrance to the bedroom
hallway would be just about opposite the see-through mirror.
Romstead turned and began counting again, taking the short
steps that would be natural to a sighted person temporarily
Man on a Leash — 113
unable to see but at the same time would be as near exactly two
feet as he could make them. He heard a refrigerator motor start
up and a dripping sound that could be a leaky faucet. There was
the smell of coffee in the air here and the residual odor of fried
bacon. The floor was still bare, but he could no longer hear Tex
and Paulette ahead of him. Then a screen door opened
momentarily, stretching its spring, and Tex said, “Short step
down, Honeybunch.” The screen snapped back, the latch
rattling against the wood. They’d just gone out, so there must be
carpet ahead. Then he was on it, twelve feet from the rear wall
of the bedroom hallway.
Three steps in on the carpet, they turned obliquely left, and
after nine more Top Kick stopped him and he could feel the
threshold under the toe of his shoe. Top Kick pushed the screen
door open, still holding the shotgun at his back. “Down,” he
said.
So the front door of the long room was offset slightly to the
left of the hallway door, and they’d had to skirt something, a
table or sofa, instead of going straight across. He wondered why
he was doing it; it must be purely automatic. The information
would be invaluable to the FBI afterward, but who was going to
give it to them?

He stepped down carefully and felt a cocoa mat under his foot.
Bare planks then for six feet, and then another two steps down
onto the grating crunch of pea gravel. There was the resinous
fragrance of pine in the air, but no wind at all to give him any
aural indication as to how near the surrounding trees were or
how dense. No sound of traffic in any direction. A bird he
thought was a jay scolded them from somewhere nearby.
Sunlight on his head. Remote, peaceful, he thought. Sure, great.
“Left,” Top Kick ordered. He turned and began counting
again, feeling the rasp of the gravel under his shoes. They were
apparently going to another building for some reason, so this
direction and distance would be the most important information
of all from an investigative standpoint, assuming anybody ever
received it. With aerial photography you could cover thousands
of square miles in a few hours, looking for two buildings of
approximately XY and XY dimensions and separated from each
other by Z distance in Z-Prime direction in a clearing in some
pines, breaking them down into impossibles, possibles, and
probables as fast as you could develop the film.
Man on a Leash — 114
It seemed highly unlikely that the technological genius didn’t
know this himself, so the fact that he didn’t seem to care was as
chilling as the rest of it.
Man on a Leash — 115
10
There were twenty-one steps in the pea gravel, and then he felt
a header under his foot. Then five steps across hard-baked
ground, and they were on gravel again. Top Kick turned him in a
left oblique, and in three steps he felt concrete under his shoes,
and simultaneously the sunlight was off his head. Left again,
which should put them about ninety degrees from their original
direction, and eight steps back. “Hold it,” Top Kick ordered. He
stopped. Garage, he guessed, oriented in the same direction as
the house and approximately fifty-five feet from it. He heard the
creaking of springs as an overhead door came down. Right on.
“Interesting trip,” Paulette said beside him. “Like a sorority
initiation, and about as intelligent.”
“Shut up,” Top Kick said. “And turn around, both of you.”
He did an about-face and heard Paulette turn beside him. Top
Kick should be in front of him now, but another gun prodded his
back. “Like the monkey said in the lawn mower, don’t make no
sudden moves, ole buddy.” Tex. Somebody was throwing rope
around his ankles, hobbling him. He thought of the photograph
of his father and was swept with cold rage for an instant but
controlled it.
“I’m still here, Romstead,” Top Kick said in front of him then.
“All right, unlock the cuffs.” He felt the handcuffs being lifted.
They clicked open. “Put your hands in front of you,” Top Kick
ordered. He held them out. “You too, Mrs. Carmody.” The cuffs
closed over his wrists again, and he heard another pair click
Man on a Leash — 116
shut beside him. The pictures, he thought. Realism, artistic
detail, the director’s touch. Footsteps receded across the
concrete. He heard the rustle of cloth somewhere.
“All right, turn them on.” This was the intercom voice,
presumably Kessler. “And take off the blindfolds.”
There was a soft swishing of cloth right beside him. Tex, or
whoever it was behind him now, was removing Paulette
Carmody’s blindfold. He felt fingers working at the knot of his
own. Then, from the middle distance somewhere in front, a
feminine voice said, “You mean you really would ball that old
thing?”
“What an adorable child,” Paulette said.
“Who-eee, would I?” It was Tex behind him, all right. “Be like
ridin’ a Braymer bull.” He went on, in imitation of a rodeo
announcer, “—comin’ out of chute number five on Widow-maker
—”
“Get on with it,” Top Kick ordered somewhere off to his right.
“For Christ’s sake, don’t you ever think of anything else?”
The blindfold came off then. He blinked, momentarily unable
to see anything in the almost painful glare of light burning into
his face. Then he could make out that there were four of them,
high-intensity floods on standards, two in front and two off to
his right. Everything beyond them was indistinct and shadowy,
though he could vaguely make out the swing-up door of a twocar
garage directly facing him. To his left was a car, a two-door
sedan several years old, and on the other side of it, across that
whole wall, was a backdrop that appeared to have been made
from a cheap plastic dropcloth sprayed with a thin coat of green
paint. He looked around in back and saw the wall behind them
was covered the same way. He had to admit for the second time
that for all their theatricality they didn’t miss a bet. They knew
as well as he did that the second set of people to see these
pictures was going to be a room full of FBI special agents, and
they weren’t going to see a hell of a lot. No knotholes, no
distinctive grain patterns, stains, old nails, or anything that
would identify the place later.
He looked to the right. Tex or Top Kick was standing just far
enough back to be well out of the picture, holding the sawed-off
shotgun. Six feet two, at least, and heavy in the shoulders,
wearing a black jumpsuit and a black hood. By squinting his
eyes against the glare he could just make out three more
Man on a Leash — 117
shadowy figures now, slightly behind the lights in front and on
his right. One was obviously the girl, not over five five, the
second could very easily fit Kessler’s description as to build,
while the third was as big as the man with the shotgun. They all
were dressed the same way.
All those lights weren’t necessary for the pictures, of course;
they could have used flash bulbs just as well, but the object was
to keep him from seeing very much beyond them. His eyes
jerked back to the car then; he’d seen something before that
hadn’t registered at the time. It had two short whip antennas
installed on it, one on the roof and one on top of the trunk. And
now he saw something else; a half-inch or three-quarters-inch
hole had been drilled in the left-hand door, and on the concrete
floor beside the car was a steel rod about six feet long threaded
at both ends.

“Go ahead, Romstead, take a good look at it,” the intercom
voice said. “It’s yours.” The slender figure stepped out of the
shadows then, holding a Polaroid camera. He came forward a
few steps, sighted through the viewfinder, and moved back a
step, presumably to get the handcuffs in the frame.
The camera clicked, and there was a wait while the picture
developed. Romstead continued to study the car. The two
antennas suggested that basically it was the same operation as
before except that it had been transferred to wheels. One would
be a transmitter tied to one or more bugging devices inside the
car to monitor anything he said or did, while the other would be
a receiver for the radio signal that constituted his tether. He’d
just grasped the function of the steel rod when Kessler—it was
bound to be Kessler—removed the film, peeled off the backing,
and studied the result. He nodded. “Perfect the first time.”
Romstead noted that he was wearing nylon gloves.
“All right, in the car now,” Kessler said. “Both of you.
Romstead at the wheel.” With the shotgun prodding his back,
Romstead hobbled over to the car. The other of the two big men
opened the door, and he got in behind the wheel, while Paulette
was helped into the seat beside him.
“I don’t know what we’re doing,” she said, “unless we’re
shooting a commercial for mental disease.” Nobody paid any
attention. Romstead said nothing; he was too intent on what
they were doing, probing the setup for any flaw that would offer
the slightest ray of hope. Apparently she was to go, too; he
Man on a Leash — 118
hadn’t expected that. While the man with the shotgun covered
him from Paulette’s side, the other unlocked his handcuffs and
produced a short length of chain with steel rings at both ends.
One cuff was replaced on his left wrist and the other was
snapped into one of the rings on the chain. The doors were
closed, and Romstead noted there was a hole drilled through the
right one too. He’d been right about the rod. The man beside
him reached down for it. The end of it appeared in the hole at
his left, just over the armrest on the door. It was threaded
through the ring at the lower end of the chain, then between
Paulette’s shackled wrists, and on through the hole in the righthand
door. He heard washers and nuts being applied and the
nuts being tightened with wrenches. Nothing, he thought. There
was no way they could get out of the car until they were let out.
The rod was half-inch steel, and it passed in front of them
between the bottom of the rib cage and the lap, pinning them
down and back against the seat. Even without the shackles you
couldn’t get past it any more than you could get out of the seat
with the safety belt fastened. And the doors couldn’t be opened,
of course, with that rod locking them shut. His right hand was
free, and there was enough length to the chain to permit him
normal positioning on the wheel with the left, so he could drive,
but drive was all he could do. He wouldn’t be able to rise from
the seat far enough to reach anything else in the car.
“Does she have to go, too?” he asked.
“She shore does.” It was Tex who was on the right. “Ain’t inny
glass in them doors now, Sugarfoot, but you won’t be thinkin’
about yore hairdo nohow.”
She ignored him. One of the light standards was brought
around in front of the car to shine in through the windshield.
Kessler positioned himself to Romstead’s left with the Polaroid.
“Left hand up on the wheel, Romstead,” he said. “And both of
you face this way.” They turned. He snapped. Very careful,
Romstead thought, not to get any of the exterior of the car. Just
the two of us and the backdrop on the other side. When the
picture was developed, Kessler nodded with satisfaction. He
moved in closer then, shooting downward at an angle to get the
detail of the bar and the manacles.
The bar was removed then, and they were taken from the car.
Romstead’s hands were cuffed behind him again, and they were
covered by the ever-vigilant Tex with the shotgun while Kessler
Man on a Leash — 119
photographed something on the floor of the car behind the front
seats, using flash bulbs this time because the floods couldn’t be
brought to bear. When he had two shots to his satisfaction, he
nodded to Tex.
“All right, show it to him.”
Tex gestured with the gun and nodded. Romstead hobbled
forward and looked in around the front seat, which was tilted
forward. There was enough peripheral light from the
surrounding floods to make it out, though except for one chilling
item, none of it made much sense to him. A square aluminumcased
piece of electronics equipment that was obviously
homemade because it bore no manufacturer’s nameplate was
mounted on foam rubber and strapped in place on the floor on
the far side. On this side what appeared to be a whole bank of
batteries was likewise secured in place, and in between were
several interconnecting cables lying loose on the floor. The
dynamite was just barely visible, but he was sure that Kessler
had framed it in the picture exactly as he wanted it.
There were two bundles of it, one under each seat with only
the ends protruding. There were seven sticks in each, strapped
together and somehow secured to the floor, and the center stick
was armed with a detonating cap whose bare copper wires were
connected to some of those running across the floor.
“Just for the pictures,” Kessler said behind him. “We’ll disarm
it until you’re on station.”
The great-hearted nobility of that, Romstead thought, was
somewhat diluted by the fact that one of them would also be in
the car to that point, to drive it. He’d be shackled and
blindfolded. They had now raised the lid of the trunk, and
Kessler was photographing the interior with flash bulbs. The
second shot appeared satisfactory.
“All right,” he said. “Let him see it.”
Tex gestured with the shotgun. Romstead duck-walked around
in back. There was more arcane electronics equipment foam
rubber mounted and lashed in place around the peripheral
areas of the trunk, again homemade and interconnected with
lengths of insulated wire and cables, but it was the chest or box
that immediately caught his eye and was in its own way as
ominous as the dynamite. It took up most of the space in the
trunk and was large enough to hold two big suitcases,
constructed of welded quarter-inch steel plates lined with
Man on a Leash — 120
asbestos. There was a hinged lid, also of steel plate and
asbestos, and a heavy latch on the front of it.
“You see?” Kessler asked.
“Sure,” Romstead replied bleakly. “So why should we go?”
“You’re misinterpreting it. We just want you to know we’re not
bluffing; we’ll blow it if you force us to. You’re a dangerous
man, Romstead; we admit it. You’re too much like that old son
of a bitch to begin with, and we’ve learned a little of your
background. If you thought we’d hesitate for a minute in
sending it up because we’d also be blowing the money all over
half the state, you’d take the chance. So we took the temptation
away from you. If you force us to make it jump, as the French
put it, that’s too bad, but the money’s still safe.”
Romstead said nothing, but his face, largely concealed under
the blindfold, was intensely thoughtful as they were herded
back to the house and into the bedroom. Apparently even a
genius could make a small mistake now and then, and maybe if
he boasted and embroidered long enough, he might make a
bigger one.
* * *
He lay stretched out on the bed looking at the passbook and
withdrawal slip from the Southland Trust and listening to
Kessler’s voice on the intercom. At the moment it was
addressing Paulette Carmody.
“—just so you won’t waste any of our time hoping we don’t
know what we’re talking about and trying to bluff, I’ll give it to
you fast, chapter and verse. Your husband left an estate of just a
little over three million dollars after taxes, all of it to you. About
seven hundred thousand of this is real estate, a house in La
Jolla, the one in Coleville, some waterfront in Orange County,
and the tax-shelter ranch near Elko. About a half million is stock
in the land development company he founded in 1953. The rest,
pretty close to a million nine hundred thousand, is in bonds,
some tax-free—municipals, school district, and so on—some
industrials, and some government. The executor of the estate
was your husband’s younger brother, Jerome Carmody, a La
Jolla attorney who’s also your attorney.
“The ransom note is addressed to him, to verify the phone call
he’s already received. It goes out tonight airmail special
delivery from some place we’ll just say is north of the
Man on a Leash — 121
Tehachapis, along with the pictures to prove we’re not lying or
bluffing. We want a million eight hundred and thirty thousand
from you. It’s not his money, so there’s no strain. That’s what
makes this a rather unique kidnapping—you’re both paying your
own way.
“He’ll get the note early tomorrow morning, and he can do the
whole thing in one business day. We want delivery of the money
day after tomorrow. There are two ways he can do it. He can
either mortgage all your holdings for that amount, or he can sell
the bonds—”
“Forget it,” Pauline Carmody interrupted. She was sitting on
the other bed, smoking a filter tip. “The bonds are in my name,
and nobody can sell them except me, so he couldn’t if he wanted
to. And a mortgage form has to be executed before a notary—”
“Nice try,” Kessler’s voice interrupted in turn. “But we
happen to know he has your power of attorney.”
Romstead saw her wince a little at this, but she recovered
fast. “Which is void the minute I’m dead,” she replied. “And as a
graduate of Stanford Law School he might conceivably know
that.”
“But you’re not dead, and we’ve just taken some pictures to
prove it. But you will be if we don’t get that money, so let’s get
on with it. He’s to deposit it in the Southland Trust and make
arrangement for it to be available in cash by day after tomorrow
at noon. These things can be expedited when there’s an
emergency and enough big-money clout behind them.
“And now, Romstead. We want a hundred and seventy
thousand. All you have to do, naturally, is sign that withdrawal
slip. It’s not the bank’s money; it’s yours, and what you do with
it is your business. We’ve already contacted your friend Carroll
Brooks there by telephone—.”
“No.” It was Romstead’s turn to interrupt. “The signature
doesn’t mean a thing. The bank is obligated to turn the money
over only to me or somebody I’ve designated as my authorized
agent.”
“Which is exactly what the bank is going to do. Deliver it to
you personally.” Kessler’s voice was smug. “Along with Mrs.
Carmody’s, since she’ll be there too. Carroll Brooks is going to
do it.”
Man on a Leash — 122

So now he’s made the second one, Romstead thought, but he
kept his face impassive, knowing he was being watched through
the mirror. “It’ll like hell be Brooks,” he said scornfully. “You
know as well as I do it’ll be a special agent of the FBI. You don’t
think they’re going to hold still for this, do you?”
“Oh, I don’t doubt the wires to Washington are red-hot right
now. But it won’t be an FBI agent. That’s taken care of.”
“Look, use your head, will you? It’ll be D, B. Cooper all over
again, and if they let you get away with it, every lamebrained
creep in the country who can change the batteries in a flashlight
is going to become an electronics supercriminal, demanding
millions and blowing people up all over the place. This time
they’re going to get the first one, believe me, if it takes every
man in the bureau, and they’re going to skin him very slowly
with a dull knife and nail his hide on every front page in the
country before the imitators can start crawling out of the
woodwork.”
“If you’ll remember,” Kessler’s voice said, “D. B. Cooper got
away with it, precisely because he was first and he was
qualified.”
The bed was beginning to creak on the other side of the wall.
Romstead and Paulette Carmody looked at each other and
shrugged.
“So sign it, Romstead,” the voice went on. “And Mrs.
Carmody, just write ‘Dear Jerry’ comma ‘send it’ period ‘He
means business’ period on that sheet of paper. I want that note
on its way in the next ten minutes.”
“And if we don’t sign?” Romstead asked, knowing it was a
futile question and what the answer would be.
“We bring Mrs. Carmody out here and work on her. We’ll do it
in front of the intercom, so you can listen.”
Romstead thought of the burro. He signed the withdrawal slip
and handed her the pen. The sheet of paper was on the
nightstand between the beds. The little gasps and outcries
filtered through the wall. “I’ll be glad to sign it,” she said
wearily to the intercom, “if you’d just move that riding academy
to some other room.” She wrote the message he had dictated
and put her signature to it. Romstead put the two pieces of
paper on top of the chest under the panel, along with the
passbook. A hand came through and picked them up. The slide
closed and he heard the latch being refastened. The ecstasy on
Man on a Leash — 123
the other side of the wall reached climax, died with one final
shriek, and silence returned. Paulette Carmody didn’t even try
to evade it anymore; maybe, Romstead thought, she had
accepted it as part of the process of breaking them down and
decided that escape from it was hopeless.
He wondered if the girl could be Debra, but it didn’t seem
likely. Debra was presumably on heroin, which was supposed to
inhibit all sexual desire; if anything had ever eroded this chick’s
libido, he’d hate like hell to have run into her in a dark alley
before she began to cool down. He heard a car start up
somewhere in front. The ransom note was on its way.
“What was all this about D. B. Whatsisname?” Paulette asked.
“You remember,” Romstead replied. “D. B. Cooper—at least
that was supposed to be his name. He started the wave of plane
hijackings for money; bailed out over the Pacific Northwest with
two hundred thousand dollars, and so far he’s either got away
with it or he’s dead. I’m all for his being dead, and there’s a
good chance of it. Jumping into heavy timber in the dark will
never make you the darling of the insurance companies.”
“Oh, sure,” she said. “I remember it now. And you figure if
this dingy creep gets away with it, electronic extortion will be
the latest craze to sweep the country? I see what you mean. And
what do you think his chances are of getting away with it?”
“Damned good,” Romstead said. “For the short term. They’ll
get him in the end, of course, but I don’t know how much good
that’ll do us.” There was no use raising any false hopes; also,
they were being overheard.
There was no further word from the intercom. The day
dragged on. At noon two bowls of some kind of stew were
handed in through the sliding panel, along with some cans of
beer and a carton of Paulette Carmody’s brand of cigarettes.
They began to hope the girl had gone off with the bearer of the
ransom note, but shortly after noon she was back in action
again.
“Do you suppose,” Paulette asked, “there are any convents
that take neophytes my age?”
Romstead smiled but said nothing. He was only half listening
to her. He wished Kessler would come on the intercom with his
plan for the ransom pickup. There was little or nothing to work
on until he did. After a while he went over and spoke into it.
“When do we get some idea of what we have to do and where
Man on a Leash — 124
we do it?” There was no reply. Maybe it was going onto a tape.
How many were left out there now? There had been complete
silence for more than half an hour. Had they all left on business
in connection with the pickup? He took off one of the heavy
brogues, went over to the chest, and raised the shoe as if to
smash in the mirror. The panel slid back, and the barrels of the
shotgun came through, aimed at his chest.
“Okay?” a voice asked. It was Top Kick.
“You answered my question,” Romstead said. He put the shoe
back on and paced the room, goaded by restlessness and
frustration.
“I’ve never been able to understand,” Paulette Carmody said,
“what the relationship was between you and your father. If
there was any.”
“There wasn’t much,” Romstead replied.
“I know. Let’s face it, parenthood must have weighed about as
heavily on him as it does on the average ram or stallion or seed
bull, and somehow I can’t quite see him as today’s suffering
blob of guilt on the head candler’s couch weeping and beating
his chest and asking, ‘What did I do wrong?’ He supported you
until you were old enough to support yourself, and if he
happened to run into you now and then he’d buy you a drink,
but that was about it. But still he liked you and admired your
athletic ability, and it all seemed to turn out all right. Did you
resent the fact you hardly ever saw him? Did you feel rejected?”
“No.” He stopped pacing and thought about it. People had
asked him the same question before, and he’d never known how
to answer it. There had been respect between them and a good
deal of mutual admiration, but they’d simply never needed each
other. Maybe, actually, neither of them had ever really needed
anybody; the self-sufficiency was inherited, built in, and perhaps
that was the only thing they shared.
“Have you got a girl?” she asked.
“Yes. Quite a girl.”
“I’d like to meet her sometime. But God help her if she ever
marries you. You’re simply too much like him.”
He shrugged. “That’s what Kessler said.”
“And I wonder what he meant. They killed your father in the
end, but I’m not sure that’s all that happened. They’re very, very
careful.”
Man on a Leash — 125
He started to tell her that you always had to be careful of
people who didn’t have much more to lose, but there seemed no
point to it. She was tough-minded and realistic enough to handle
it, but why belabor the matter?
They were given some more of the stew for dinner. The
overhead light was turned on at dusk. Sleeping under it was
difficult, but, Romstead reflected, it would have been a little
difficult anyway. All they could do was endure it and wait. It was
eleven o’clock the next morning when they heard a car drive up
in front. A few minutes later Kessler came on the intercom.
“You’ll be glad to hear that Jerome Carmody and the bank
have agreed to the two million,” he said, “and to the terms of
delivery.”
“What about the police?” Romstead asked. “And the FBI?”
“They swear they haven’t called them in, and there’s nothing
in any of the papers or on TV; but of course they have. I have no
doubt that right now whole roomfuls of them are playing the
telephone tapes over and over and tearing their hair out in
handfuls trying to get voice patterns or something in the
background. A cordless vibrator against the throat doesn’t help
them much.”

Keep going, Romstead thought; embroider. Egomania’s about
all we’ve got going for us—egomania and greed.
“At first we thought of having Jerome Carmody deliver the
money,” Kessler’s voice went on, “but we found out he’s got a
serious heart condition, and I don’t want somebody crapping out
on a freeway at seventy miles an hour with two million dollars of
my money in his car—”
“You ought to guard against that streak of sentimentality,”
Paulette interrupted.
“Shut up, if you want to hear this. So we decided on Brooks.
He works for the bank, so the bank is simply delivering your
own money to you. Two of us have seen him up close, so they
can’t run in an FBI ringer on us.
“They have the pictures and the facts of life as they are. You’ll
be on the leash, with enough explosive in the car to blow it all to
hell and only the transmitted radio signal keeping the
detonating circuit from closing and setting it off. I’m using a
lower frequency this time for longer range of operation and so
there’ll be no reception blind spots when you’re behind hills or
Man on a Leash — 126
in canyons. And I won’t be at the transmitter; that’ll be in
another part of the forest and remote-controlled itself. They can
locate it with direction finders and get up there where it is with
mules in five or six hours, but why would they? If they turn it
off, they’ll kill you. They’ve been warned that any deviation at
all from the procedure I’ve given them and you’ll go up, and
they know that anywhere along the line we can get a look at the
vehicle to be sure it’s Brooks in it.
“Delivery of the money will be in the Mojave Desert between
Barstow and Las Vegas. If any other vehicle follows him off the
highway or if there’s a plane or helicopter in sight anywhere the
deal is off and we go back to square one and start over—”
“All right,” Romstead interrupted. “Let’s say they give you
that—Brooks alone, nobody following him. You’ve got enough
clout at this point that they probably have to. But for Christ’s
sake, use your head. In the first place, you should know as well
as I do that Brooks is going to be in constant contact with the
FBI by radio. The United States government has access to
maybe a little electronics expertise itself. Second, the car,
whatever it is, is going to be carrying a homing device of some
kind so they can track it with direction finders, and in the third
place—and this is the one you can’t beat—wherever you take
delivery you’re going to be quarantined. You’re going to be
surrounded on all sides to the point of saturation, by police,
sheriffs deputies from a half dozen counties, and FBI agents.
They’ll block every exit a jackrabbit could squeeze through. And
don’t think they can’t.”
“Of course they can.” Kessler sounded amused. “Blockade,
cordon, or whatever you want to call it, is one of the oldest law
enforcement tactics in the world, and it works—provided you
know what area to blockade. They won’t, until it’s too late, and
it’s a long way from Barstow to Las Vegas. Over a hundred and
fifty miles to be exact ... All right, pass him the maps.”
This latter was obviously addressed to whoever was on the
other side of the mirror. Romstead went over by the chest. The
panel slid open. Oil company highway maps of California and
Nevada were deposited on top of the chest, followed by a large
sheet of white paper folded several times and some thumb
tacks. The panel closed, and Romstead heard the latch being
fastened.
Man on a Leash — 127
“Unfold the large map, and thumbtack it to the wall,” Kessler
ordered, “so you can follow this.”
Romstead unfolded it. It was meticulously hand-drawn and
inked, and he assumed it was a large-scale blowup of some
section of the highway from Barstow to Las Vegas. He stuck it
to the wall between the beds with the tacks.
“Those highway maps you’ve got don’t show all the desert
roads,” Kessler said. “Mine does, even the ungraded ones. It’s
drawn to scale, and I’ve run all those roads myself, the ones
we’re going to use. It extends for thirty miles east and west
along a section of Highway Fifteen east of Barstow and covers
the area from ten miles south to twenty miles north of the
highway, or nine hundred square miles in all.
“Now. Brooks doesn’t know yet where he’s supposed to go,
only that he’s to use an open Toyota Land Cruiser so we can see
there’s no FBI joker concealed in it. Ten minutes before he’s
due to leave the bank with the money he’ll get a phone call, the
last one, which will throw all the Efrem Zimbalist Juniors into a
third-degree flap trying to trace it. It will be long-distance-dialed
from one of a room-long bank of pay phones at Los Angeles
International by a girl in a wig and dark glasses, and the
message will take five seconds, so lots of luck—”
“Accomplished young lady,” Paulette Carmody murmured.
“She operates vertically, too.”
Kessler paid no attention. He went on. “It’ll simply tell him to
go to Barstow, which will take less than four hours, and register
at the Kehoe Motel under the name of George Mellon. There’s a
package there for him that was delivered two days ago by a
parcel service with instructions to hold for arrival. It’s a radio
receiver, single channel, crystal-controlled. The object of all this
scrimshaw, of course, is to keep the Zimbalists from getting
hold of it enough in advance of when he has to use it so they can
find out what frequency it’s tuned to. They’ll descend on the
Kehoe the minute they hear this, of course, and they’ll have the
receiver before Brooks gets there; but there’s still not time, and
they wouldn’t have the lab facilities in Barstow anyway. There’s
a note with it telling Brooks to proceed east on Highway Fifteen
with the phones plugged into the receiver for further
instructions.”
Man on a Leash — 128
Romstead broke in. “It won’t do any good. They’ll be in front
of him and behind him, and even if they can’t pick up the
channel themselves, they’ll see where he leaves the highway.”
“Sure.” Kessler went on. “But it takes time to surround an
area of several hundred square miles. And when they do, they’re
going to surround the wrong area. Brooks is going to leave the
highway headed south, but you’re going to be waiting for him on
the opposite side, to the north. In that six hundred square,
miles.”
Romstead whistled soundlessly. That was going to be rough to
handle if he could pull it off. But how could he?
“The radio message,” Kessler went on, “will simply tell him to
take that exit I’ve got marked A on the map and proceed five
point eight miles straight down that road, where he will receive
further instructions. But not by radio this time. One of us will
have him under visual surveillance with a telescope—we’ll have
two of them in operation, with our own communications setup.
If anybody follows him off the highway, the whole deal is off.
And after a little over four miles he’s in very rough country and
completely out of sight of the highway.
“When the five point eight turns up on his odometer, there
will be a pickup truck parked a little distance off the road, just a
dusty, beat-up old truck like a thousand others in the area. It’s
stolen, and so are the plates. The ignition key will be in it, along
with a note and a change of clothes, Levi’s, blue shirt, and
rancher’s straw sombrero. He’s to leave his Toyota there,

change clothes, transfer the two suitcases of money to the
truck, and go on in it. After a mile he takes a road to the right;
four and a half miles farther on there’ll be another road running
right again, back toward the highway. He’ll cross the highway at
that exit I’ve got marked B and continue on to where he’ll meet
you in a little over six miles. Even if the highway is still running
bank to bank with FBI men, they’ll never recognize him.”
“Except,” Romstead said, “that they’ll have a complete
description of the new vehicle, including the license number,
plus the information that he’s now headed north, and on which
road. When he transfers the money to the truck, he’ll also
transfer the FBI’s communication gear and the squealer—the
radio beacon ...” His voice trailed off then, and he felt a little
chill begin between his shoulder blades.
Man on a Leash — 129
“Sure he will,” Kessler agreed. “Only now they’re completely
useless. I’ve been monitoring that whole end of the spectrum
with some very sophisticated gear, and before he’s even left the
highway the first time, I’ll know his communications and beacon
frequencies. And from the time he starts south, before the
transfer, I’ll be sitting right on both of them with a couple of
wide-band jamming signals. Communications blackout.”
Man on a Leash — 130
11
He’d long since lost all track of time, but Romstead guessed
they’d been off pavement for more than an hour now. They must
be approaching the pickup area from the back. The road was
rough, with a great many turns, and they were driving fast,
bouncing and swaying while dust filtered into the vehicle,
whatever it was, and rocks and gravel clattered against the
undercarriage. The heat was stifling, very near to unbearable.
He was blindfolded and gagged, his hands cuffed behind him,
and his ankles were bound with rope. Paulette Carmody was
beside him. They were lying on a mattress in what he believed
was the bed of a pickup truck with a steel or aluminum cover.
He had raised his feet when he was first shoved in, hours ago,
and had felt the cover above them, too low to be the roof of a
panel truck. A panel would be conspicuous out here, anyway,
where everybody had a pickup.
They hadn’t used the sedative drugs this time, he supposed,
because there could be no certainty he’d regain consciousness
in time. They were efficient, all right; he had to admit that in
spite of the rage and the desire to get his hands on Kessler and
kill him. Sometime later today it would be seventy-two hours
since they’d been kidnapped, and not once had he seen one of
the four of them as anything but a shadowy figure in a black
hood; he couldn’t describe any of their vehicles, the exterior of
either of the buildings, or even the interior except for one room
Man on a Leash — 131
that would be completely done over after the thing was pulled
off.
He wondered at these precautions, since it was certain they’d
be killed anyway for knowing Kessler’s identity. More
embroidery? A flair for drama? Or did they think he was stupid
enough to be lulled by all this window dressing into an idiot’s
belief that they would be turned loose afterward? No, he
decided, it was more likely the others had insisted on it in case
he should escape, as impossible as that might be. He didn’t
know any of them, though he had a hunch that Top Kick might
be the Delevan that Murdock had mentioned, the corrupt
private detective who’d done a stretch in San Quentin for
extortion.
They were slowing. The vehicle came almost to a stop, turned,
and began to crawl, swaying and lurching over uneven ground
as though they had left the road. This continued for a minute or
two, and then they stopped. The noise of the motor ceased. He
heard a door slam on another car nearby. They must be there.
One of them had driven the deadly two-door sedan, and this was
their rendezvous point. He heard the driver of their vehicle get
out and then the sound of voices, though he could make out
nothing that was said. Then the tailgate of the pickup was
dropped, and he heard the door being opened.
“We’re here.” It was Top Kick’s voice. “All out.”
He heard Paulette being helped out; then they were hauling
on his legs. He managed to get his feet on the ground and stand,
swaying awkwardly and stretching cramped muscles after the
hours of constriction. He could feel the sun beating on his head
now as it had on the metal cover over them.
“Pit stop,” Top Kick said. “You’re going to be in that car quite
awhile. This way, Mrs. Carmody; nobody’ll watch.”
“You’re shore you don’t need no help?” Tex asked. He’d be my
second choice, Romstead thought, after Kessler. Just five
minutes alone in a locked room.
“Get on with those antennas,” Top Kick ordered. “We haven’t
got all day.” So they’d removed them for the trip. Smart.
Anybody might notice a car with two whip antennas.
Two pairs of footsteps went away and one came back. The
bonds about his ankles were loosened so he could hobble.
“Cover him while I unlock the cuffs,” Top Kick said. The
Man on a Leash — 132
handcuffs were removed and then replaced with his hands in
front.
“Okay, Mrs. Carmody?” Top Kick called.
“Yes,” she replied from somewhere off to his left. They had
removed her gag. Her voice was strained, and he could sense
the shakiness under it. She was fighting hard to keep from
breaking. “Keep him covered,” Top Kick said, and went to get
her. They came back. Top Kick took him by the arm and guided
him off to one side. The ground was rocky and uneven. “Fire at
will, Romstead. She’s still blindfolded anyway.”
He urinated. Top Kick led him back, shuffling in his hobbles.
He heard the rattle of tools against metal over to his right. Then
in a minute Tex said, “Okay, the ears is on. You can do yore’s,
an’ welcome to the mother-lovers.”
“Right. Watch him.”

He heard the door of the car being opened. In back of him,
Tex said, “ ‘Member how he said, y’heah? Watch that relay
when you turn the radio on. Be sure it pulls over an’ holds tight
as a bull’s ass in flytime before you start wirin’ them caps.”
“I know how to do it,” Top Kick’s voice said from inside the
car.
“I shore as hell hope you do, ole buddy, ‘cause we’d all go
with you. Be hamburger for miles around.”
Romstead realized then that Paulette was right beside him. A
hand groped along his arm and slid down it to his. Hers was
trembling. He squeezed it. You did what you could. It wasn’t
much.
“All right, the baby’s born,” Top Kick said. “Put her in.”
She was whispering, very softly, against his ear. “I won’t—I
won’t break down—in front of—these goddamned animals. . . .”
Then she was being led away. In a moment that car door
slammed.
The shotgun prodded his back, and somebody had hold of his
arm. He was led forward and stopped, and he could feel the car
against his right arm. Somebody was untying his ankles. “In you
go,” Top Kick said. He slid in on the seat. The door closed. The
handcuffs were unlocked then, and one was resnapped about his
left wrist. He heard the rattle of chain, and then the sound of
the rod’s being fed through the hole in the left door. It pushed
past his stomach and went on. There was the rattle of nuts and
Man on a Leash — 133
washers and then a little pop when the thin sheet metal of the
door buckled slightly under the pressure of the tightening nuts
as wrenches were applied. “That’s good,” Top Kick said.
Fingers worked at the knot at the back of his neck, and the
gag was removed. His jaws ached, and his mouth was dry as he
worked the tight ball of cloth out of his mouth.
“Leave the blindfolds on until I tell you,” Top Kick said beside
him. Then, apparently to Tex, “All right, take it away.”
Romstead heard the other vehicle start up and move off, going
toward their rear. In a minute it apparently stopped, for he
could hear the idling motor some distance away but no longer
fading.
“All right, remember what he told you,” Top Kick said. “You’re
out of sight of the road here, so you won’t be able to see it
either. It’s off to your right, just the other side of this hill.
Brooks won’t know where you are, but he’ll be watching his
odometer and when the specified mileage turns up, he honks his
horn, twice, as he goes by here, if there’s nobody else in sight,
ahead or behind. When you hear him, start up, go on around the
end of the hill, and you’ll be on the road with him ahead of you.
He’ll see you in the mirror, and after a mile he’ll pull off the
road twenty or thirty feet to the right and stop. You go on by,
and he’ll fall in and follow you a quarter mile behind. Check
your odometer here. At five point three miles from this point you
stop. Brooks has instructions to stop a hundred yards behind
you. You’ll both be in the field of a telescope, and a hand will be
on the switch of that transmitter that’s keeping you from
blowing up, so remember it.