“Oh! My God, what’s—”
“Shut up!”
Another shock. The voice was male, low, intense, guttural, and not at all friendly. It silenced Suzanne like a hand clapped against her mouth, long enough for the sharp bite of the boot lace around her wrists to bring memory crashing back, with all its terror and all its humiliation.
How could she not have realized that it was the bank robber they’d run into? She had been just so full of her normal assumption, for so many years, that as she moved through the world she was simply going to be mistreated, or ignored, or dealt with unfairly, that when a man suddenly appeared in front of her to wave a gun around and tie people up like political prisoners, then march off without a single word of explanation, it had somehow been normal, somehow what she’d expected from the world all along, even though on most days nothing remotely like this had ever happened.
And now that it had happened? She’d been so locked up in her own feelings of mistreatment, expectations fulfilled, that it hadn’t even occurred to her to wonder who that man might be or why he would act in such a way.
Bank robbers were being hunted all around the countryside, but when this had happened to Suzanne, did she think, bank robbers? No, she thought, now, see what they’re doing to me, and it took Brian Hopwood of all people to tell her, not gently, that this time the story wasn’t about her, it was about him, about that man, the one who’d tied them up and gone away.
Then, of course, once Brian had explained to her what was actually happening here, she’d felt such belated terror, mixed with such humiliation, that the tension had kept her absolutely silent for hours, afraid to make somehow an even bigger fool of herself. Brian, who never said anything to anybody, anyway, was also silent through all this, until, who knows how much later, the phone had rung, and rung, and rung, and Brian had finally said, “By God, I hope that’s Edna, and I hope she’s starting to smell a rat.”
But then the phone stopped ringing, and Brian said nothing else, and somehow, despite the discomfort, despite the fear, despite the embarrassment, Suzanne had fallen asleep. Asleep! To wake up who knew when, with gunshots somewhere outside.
Finished now. Who was shooting guns? Was the bank robber back, had he decided he should kill them, after all? But it had been so long since he’d gone away; still daylight then. Wouldn’t he be miles and miles from here by now, while Suzanne slept like a rag doll on the floor of Brian Hopwood’s filthy gas station, wouldn’t he be deep into some other badness by now?
She tried a whisper: “Brian.”
“Yes.” Gruff but not unfriendly.
“Brian, what’s going to happen?”
His laugh now was bitter, and not friendly at all. “Well, we’re trussed up here like Thanksgiving turkeys. There isn’t a thing for either of us to do until somebody decides to look for us.”
“But they’re shooting out there. Brian? Who’s shooting?”
“How would I know?” He was getting really irritated now.
Looking as much for some way to appease him as for some way out of their trouble, she said, “Would Edna come here?”
“I don’t think that was her, on the phone.”
Struck by a sudden thought, she said, “You know, it could have been Jack. You know, my grandfather.”
“I know who Jack is,” Brian said, very testy. “Why would he call me?”
“Looking for me.”
“Oh.” Brian considered that, then said, “Will he come looking for you?”
“Not after dark.”
“Wonderful.”
The silence now outside was worse than the gunshots; in the silence, you didn’t know where anybody was. Feeling sudden panic, Suzanne shrilly whispered, “Brian, we have to get out of here!”
“Go ahead.” Sardonic, unbelieving, unsympathetic; in other circumstances, rude.
Which she ignored. “No, really,” she whispered. “I know you can’t move in that chair there—”
“Huh.”
“But I can move.”
“You’re tied hand and foot.”
“But I can move. Brian, what if I came over there and—”
“How?”
“I don’t know, crawled or rolled or something. What difference does it make?”
“All right,” he said. “So you’re over here.”
“I tied that knot on your wrists. I know what I did. I think maybe, I think maybe I could untie it.”
“How do you get at it?”
She thought about that. Now that she was awake and oriented, she could see the office more clearly, even though all the illumination came from outside, from the gas pumps and the soda machine and the streetlight. She and Brian were near each other in the front left corner of the room, where no one looking through any window would be able to see them. The chair Brian was in, taped to the floor, was the only furniture near them. Beyond the dark doorway to the service area, Brian’s desk hulked like the recently abandoned headquarters of a defeated army. No, not army; a defeated platoon. An armless kitchen chair, a reluctant acknowledgment that there might someday be a customer to accommodate, stood against the wall on the far side of the desk.
She said, “Brian, is that chair on wheels?”
“No, why should it be?”
“I was just wondering.”
“Suzanne, let it go. In the morning, they’ll find—”
“I can’t wait till morning,” she said, and realized it was the truth. Now that she was fully awake, she needed a bathroom, and soon. “Let me just try something,” she said, though with every movement the need grew more urgent.
“What are you doing?” he asked, testy as ever, as she started hunching herself across the floor toward him.
“Just let me see . . .”
Ankles and wrists tied together, she could only move in strange little lunges, but soon she was where she wanted to be, with her back to Brian, her tied hands down by his ankles, her hunched shoulders against his shins. Exhausted from the effort, she rested her head a minute, until she realized she was resting it against Brian’s thigh and that Brian hated that. So she lifted her head, felt around behind her, and at last came to a part of the duct tape holding the screwdrivers as chocks against the floor, to keep the chair from moving.
Now he grew silent again, and she was aware of his head bent as he tried to see what she was doing and whether or not it would get them anywhere. The duct tape clung fiercely to the wooden floor, but finally she felt far enough along it to reach an end, and could yank that upward. Once started, the tape came more readily, and then the screwdriver itself helped, and, out of breath but triumphant, she could whisper, “I got it!”
“It’ll take more than one,” he said. “But then I’ll be able to help.”
This shift in him from being testy with her, scornful of her, impatient with her, to someone who could help was instantaneous and unremarked-upon. She simply accepted the offer with a nod and scooted backward a bit more until she could find some duct tape to assault.
The second screwdriver was easier to remove, now that she knew how, and then Brian could move his chair, though only in tiny increments, since his ankles were still tied together and to the chair. “Now what?” he said. “I don’t think I can drive this thing through that door.”
“Let me bring that other chair over,” she said. “If I can get up on it, maybe I can reach the knots on your wrists.”
“What good does that do? They’re tight, Suzanne, trust me.”
“I tied them myself,” she said. “Just let me see what I can do.”
“Whatever you want,” he said, disbelieving her.