For a moment the man stood silhouetted in the open doorway — she had an impression of size: big shoulders, a squarish head, legs too short for the powerful torso. Then the door closed and the man came down the steps under the exterior light; she saw then that he was quite young. The lights glinted off the insignia on the collar of his fatigues.
“My God in Heaven,” Glenn Anders whispered. “Him!”
“What?”
“That’s the guy. That’s the guy who killed her.”
Harry paused with his hand on the door handle. “Nothing stupid now, Glenn.”
“What? Come on — let’s go, what’s holding you up?”
“We don’t want him dead,” Harry said in a firm but quiet way.
The big youth was crossing the street toward the Trans Am, tossing a casual glance at the Bronco. He took car keys out of his pocket and stooped to find the lock in the door.
Harry was out of the Bronco by then; Anders clambered over the tilted driver’s seat and squeezed out after him, hurrying. Carole felt everything tighten — muscles, gut, throat. She saw the big young man recognize the gun in Harry’s fist and straighten up beside the car, going bolt still, his face rising into the light — fear, but defiant stoic acceptance with it.
Anders was moving in fast from one side and Harry spoke quickly, harshly: “Glenn.” Anders slowed down and looked back briefly — a head-shaking frown like a puzzled baffled bull.
“Easy.”
The big youth’s eyes flicked back and forth from one to the other. He looked once toward the armory and she thought he might yell but Harry spoke again, his words too soft to reach her ears this time, and the youth slowly deflated. Anders was right beside him then and she found she was holding her breath expecting a shot from Anders’ pistol but he only showed the handcuffs to the young man and the youth slowly turned around and crossed his wrists behind his back, staring into the muzzle of Harry’s revolver.
Anders fitted the handcuffs onto him and propelled the prisoner into the back seat of the Trans Am and then Harry crowded Anders aside and climbed in alongside the prisoner. Anders spoke — some sort of objection — and Harry must have answered him from within the car, for Anders threw his head back and she saw his chest rise and fall with a full slow breath. Then Anders looked back at her, at the Bronco, and made a vague signal with his hand: He managed to convey both instructions and bitterness with that gesture; then he got into the driver’s seat of the Trans Am and pulled the door shut. The exhaust puffed smoke and the lights came on.
Trembling, Carole turned the key. The Trans Am rolled away and she put the Bronco in gear and followed it.
She still didn’t know the way; she had to follow closely through the forest. Ahead of her the Trans Am, low-slung and sporty, bottomed several times in the ruts — she heard the clanking. The Bronco pitched her around on its hard springs but she had no trouble handling it and her only moments of fear came when, for brief intervals, she lost sight of the car’s red lights in the deep woods ahead. Each time, however, Anders waited for her. Then finally they were running down the bumpy track into Santana’s yard.
By the time she’d parked Harry and Anders had the prisoner out of the car. She saw that Harry had tied a black cloth blindfold over his eyes. The big youth stumbled as they guided him across the weedy ground and hustled him inside. She followed them in through the back door and the kitchen.
In the front room Santana switched off the television and looked at them all with a commendable lack of visible surprise. Santana must have been out in the fields; he smelled of it. He stood picking sunburnt skin shreds from his nose.
Harry said, “You probably won’t want to know about this.” And Santana with a shrug and a nod picked up his can of beer and left the house.
Anders went around turning off all the lights except one in the kitchen, which threw enough light into the front room to see by. When Anders came back into the front room he was trembling visibly, anger coursing through him and flooding his face with color.
The prisoner, head high, hands shackled, waited with tight-mouthed endurance. The black velvet over his eyes gave him a slightly comical look — like a blindfold trick-shooting act in a county-fair carnival.
Harry said, “In here,” and turned the prisoner toward the door of the cell Carole had been using as a bedroom.
She waited at the door while Anders went in past her; she stood in the doorway to watch, too ambivalent about this to enter the room. Harry looked up at her — he had sat the prisoner down on the cot and was locking another pair of handcuffs, fastening the youth’s ankle to the crossleg of the cot. It wouldn’t prevent him from hobbling around but it would be an unpleasant anchor to drag — no chance he’d get far with that hanging from his foot.
Harry took a wallet out of the pocket of the young lieutenant’s fatigues. He looked through it and held it up so Anders could see it. Anders’ face never changed; it was as if he feared any shift in expression might break the tenuous skein of his spurious dispassion.
The young man was making surreptitious attempts to explore his boundaries: a tug and shift of the shackled ankle, sly shiftings of hip and elbow. He said, “Do you people know who I am?”
“Emil Draga.” Harry tossed the wallet into the young man’s face. It was a gentle toss but Emil Draga, blindfolded, jerked away from it violently, almost upsetting the cot.
“How much ransom do you plan to get for me?” It was mostly a snarl.
Harry got to his feet. Anders watched him: “You going to make the phone call?”
“Maybe we won’t need to.”
“Now there’s a thought.” Anders thrust his automatic pistol toward Emil Draga. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Why don’t you stop waving that thing at him? He can’t see it and you’re not going to use it until we’ve found out what we want to know.”
Anders didn’t lower the pistol. “Ask him fast, then.”
Carole said, “You’d better take it away from him,” to Harry, and afterward she was surprised because she had no doubt he could.
Anders looked at her — a wry sour face — and then at Harry, who only stood there monolithically; Anders put the pistol in his pocket with a rueful show of reluctance. “Ask him now,” he said again, and stalked out of the room.
Under the black blindfold Emil Draga had a waxen and slightly concave face — ugly but shrewd and arrogant, a rich youth who must have learned early that everything had a price and could be purchased — probably the only sexual love he’d ever had was the kind you bought.
“I suppose you people know what the penalty for kidnaping is.”
Carole said, “Maybe you should have thought of that before you kidnaped—”
“Let us handle this part, ducks.”
“All right.” She propped her shoulder against the wall, folded her arms and smiled at Harry to show her trust. “I’d just as soon be watching this part from an airplane anyway.”
Emil Draga blurted, “Who the fuck are you people?”
Carole only watched Harry; and Harry shook his head, mute. The whole scheme was Harry’s: We’ll keep him blindfolded throughout. For one thing we don’t want to put Santana in jeopardy, do we. For another thing if the kid knows anything we’ll want to get it out of him. Deprive a man of one of his senses and he’ll begin to go up the walls pretty fast. The blindfold stays on.
The plan had been to telephone the old millionaire and force him to come out of his lair. But that was before Anders had identified Emil Draga as one of Rosalia’s killers. If he was that deeply involved then he probably knew everything and that suggested there might be no need to drag the old millionaire into this.