“Hey, none of that,” one of the men said. “Go on back to where you were.”
“I can’t. I’m too cramped.”
The man on the other side of the rear seat interposed a comment, “He’s been down there quite a while. Let the guy roll over if he wants. Don’t try to get up, buddy, or we’ll kick you into a headache you’ll remember as long as you live.”
Rob, feeling easier now that he had rolled over on the side away from the tortured muscles, settled down to wait.
The car swung into a right-angle turn, jolted over a rough road. The smell of greenery, vegetation and dampness came to Rob’s nostrils. The car slowed, jolted painfully, then, after some ten minutes, came to a stop.
One of the men opened the door, said, “Okay, buddy out you go.”
Rob tried to get to his feet but with his hands handcuffed behind his back he could only flounder around like an awkward fish in death-struggles on a wharf.
The other men partially lifted him to the ground. Rob had a brief glimpse of trees, the shimmer of afternoon sun on water, and then a blindfold was whipped over his eyes and tied tightly into position.
Rob wondered how prisoners ever endured the torture of handcuffs. The pressure of the metal against the bone had become a steady, insistent torture.
“For heaven’s sake, take these handcuffs off!” he said.
“Take them off,” the quiet voice ordered. “He’s had a pretty rough time of it.”
A man took Rob’s right arm. Another moved over to take his left arm. The handcuffs were unlocked and clicked open.
“Now just walk quietly and straight,” the quiet voice ordered.
They started walking. After a few minutes Rob realized he was walking on planks. The hollow sound led him to believe it was a pier of some sort. Then a moment later one of his guards said, “Take it easy now, Trenton. Lift your right foot high. Now a long step.”
Trenton thrust out his right foot, afraid for the moment that he might find nothing but water underneath. Then this foot came on the deck of a boat. From the motion of the boat as the five men boarded it, Rob judged it was perhaps fifty or sixty feet in length — a big shallow-draft houseboat.
Rob was guided down a steep flight of stairs and into a room. The blindfold was removed. Rob found himself in a small, sparsely furnished room. Through a port-hole he could see the tops of a thick clump of trees and a patch of blue sky.
He rubbed his wrists, sparring for time.
The man who was wearing the overalls and the man who had occupied the right-hand corner of the rear seat remained in the room. The other left.
The man with the overalls did the talking.
“Well?” he asked.
“That’s what I want to know,” Rob said. “I have no idea what this is all about.”
“Forget it,” the man with the overalls cut in. “We’re interested in that Rapidex automobile. We took it from your place last night. Something had happened to it between the time it left the Customs shed and when it arrived at your place. Now I want to know what.”
Rob tried to keep from showing that he had any idea of what the man was talking about. “You mean you took that car?”
“That’s right.”
“You had no right to touch it without my permission. That’s theft, that...”
“Sure it’s theft,” the man agreed. “Don’t bother talking about that. We want to know what happened to the car.”
“What do you mean? What happened to it? You’ve just admitted you stole it. That’s what happened to it.”
“You know what I mean.”
“What time did you take the car?” Rob countered.
“What does that have to do with it?”
“It may have a lot to do with it,” Rob said. “I left that car parked in my driveway. And if all this fuss is over a blown-out tire — but no, all this wouldn’t be over a tire. It couldn’t be.”
The men exchanged glances.
“Where was it when you had the blowout, Trenton?”
“I can’t tell you. It was... well, I can’t remember the exact place.”
The chunky man, who had been in the back seat, said, “When you come right down to it, Rex, someone could have beat us to it there at the driveway and...”
“Oh, nuts,” the man in overalls said.
He got up out of the chair, took off the blue denim jumper, hesitated a moment, then took off his shirt and undershirt. Naked to the waist, he walked towards Rob and, suddenly pivoting on the hip, smashed Rob flush on the jaw.
Rob’s head shot back on his neck. He saw a shooting procession of stars and staggered back against the wall. A red rage enveloped him. He went charging blindly at the blurred image of the man’s naked torso, and a straight left snapped his head back.
Abruptly Rob became deadly cool.
The man stepped in, hooking a vicious right to the chin. Rob stepped back, avoided the blow, then moved forward with a swift left and had the satisfaction of feeling his whole arm tingle with the shock of impact.
The heavy-set man sat with one hip propped on the table. He was smoking a cigar and seemed to be enjoying the fight.
“Why, you little squirt,” Rex said, and came forward, weaving back and forth with the unmistakable manner of a professional boxer.
He feinted with his left, his right whipped into Rob’s ribs,
Rob swung slightly and crashed a straight right with lots of force behind it. He felt the fist strike squarely on his opponent’s nose.
The man who had been sitting on the table, watching the fight with amusement, carefully laid down his cigar, slid down off the table.
Rob’s opponent stepped back.
A red stream came from his nose, down across his lips and chin, spattered to his naked chest.
His eyes narrowed with rage; he closed in, Rob ducked.
The heavy-set man kicked Rob in the stomach. Rob pivoted but the pain of the kick robbed his punch of its power. He hit the other man in his ribs, then went down.
The heavy-set man opened the door, whistled a shrill summons. Two men came running down the corridor. Rob heard an exclamation of incredulous surprise at the bloody nose of the man in overalls, then felt the bite of ropes on his arms.
They tied Rob with the thoroughness of sailors who are accustomed to doing a workmanlike job with ropes.
Rob was trembling now with the reaction of rage and physical effort. He saw a battered, bloody face and for a moment could hardly realize that his own fists had wrought that havoc. It was the first time he could remember that he had smashed at a man with his fists in rage.
Somewhere above him a man said thickly through puffed lips, “Now you damn little jerk, if ye think we’re going to let you play ring-around-the-rosy with a half million dollars’ worth of powder, you’re nuts.”
A foot crashed into his jaw and he lost consciousness.
Rob had no way of knowing how long he had been unconscious. As he came to, he heard low voices. Slowly the sounds made words. Almost unwillingly Rob’s mind translated those word sounds into meaning. Two men were sitting at the table, a bottle of whisky, two glasses and a siphon of soda water between them. Rob heard the clink of ice and it emphasized the thick dryness of his tongue. His head was throbbing with one vast ache. His whole body was racked with pain. Having dared open his eyes just enough to see the men, he closed them again, lay motionless.
One of the men said casually, “I tell you, I think the guy’s right. He isn’t the type to have pulled a stunt like that. If he’d found it, he’d have gone to the police.”
“Well, then,” the other man said, “there’s only one possible solution, and that is someone high-graded it while it was in the driveway before we got there, and I don’t think that’s possible.”