He stood up and walked away from her. At the doorway he turned and looked back. She was so vulnerable that he could hardly stand it. He knew he should return and take the ropes off her and send her home. But he had to trap Roy, get the truth on tape, and this was the easiest way to accomplish that.
He left the room and went down the stairs to the first floor, then out of the mansion by way of the front door.
The plan would work.
It had to work.
If something went wrong, his and Heather’s bloody heads might wind up on the mantel in the Kingman house.
41
Colin stepped into a telephone booth at a service station, four blocks from the Kingman mansion. He dialed the Borden number.
Roy answered. “Hello?”
“Is that you, blood brother?”
Roy didn’t respond.
“I was wrong,” Colin said.
Roy was silent.
“I called to say I was wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
“Everything. About breaking our blood-brother oath.”
“What’re you after?” Roy asked.
“I want to be friends again.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“I mean it. I really want to be friends again, Roy.”
“It isn’t possible.”
“You’re smarter than all of them,” Colin said. “You’re smarter and tougher. You’re right; they’re all a bunch of jerks. The grown-ups, too. It’s easy to manipulate them. I see that now. I’m not one of them. I never was. I’m like you. I want to be on your side.”
Roy was silent again.
“I’ll prove I’m on your side,” Colin said. “I’ll do what you wanted to do. I’ll help you kill someone.”
“Kill someone? Colin, have you been popping pills again? You aren’t making sense.”
“You think I’ve got someone listening in on this,” Colin said. “Well, I don’t. But if you’re worried about talking on the phone, then let’s talk face to face.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Where?”
“The Kingman house,” Colin said.
“Why there?”
“It’s the best place.”
“I can think of better.”
“Not for what we’re going to do. It’s private, and that’s what we need.”
“For what? What are you talking about?”
“We’re going to screw her and then kill her,” Colin said.
“Are you crazy? What kind of talk is that?”
“There’s no one listening in, Roy.”
“You’re a lunatic.”
“You’ll like her,” Colin said.
“You must be full of dope.”
“She’s foxy.”
“Who?”
“The girl I’ve got for us.”
“You lined up a girl?”
“She doesn’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s my peace offering to you,” Colin said.
“What girl? What’s her name?”
“Come and see.”
Roy didn’t respond.
“Are you scared of me?” Colin asked.
“Hell, no.”
“Then give me a chance. Let’s meet at the Kingman house.”
“You and your doper buddies are probably laying for me,” Roy said. “You planning to gang up on me?”
Colin laughed sourly. “You’re good, Roy. You’re real good. That’s why I want to be on your side. Nobody’s smarter than you are.”
“You’ve got to stop gobbling pills,” Roy said. “Colin, dope kills. You’re going to ruin yourself.”
“So come talk to me about it. Convince me to go straight.”
“I’ve got something to do for my father. I can’t get out of it. I won’t be able to get away from here for at least an hour.”
“Okay,” Colin said. “It’s almost a quarter past nine. We’ll meet at the Kingman place at ten-thirty.”
Colin hung up, opened the telephone-booth door, and ran like hell. He went back up the steep hill, fast as he could, arms tucked close to his sides.
He reached the Kingman house, went through the gate, up the walk. Inside, he climbed the creaking stairs and heard Heather hesitantly calling his name before he reached the second floor.
She was still in the first bedroom on the left, sitting as he had left her, roped, ravishing.
“I was afraid it was someone else,” she said.
“You okay?”
“One flashlight wasn’t enough,” she said. “It was too dark in here.”
“Sorry.”
“And I think this place has rats. I heard scratching noises in the walls.”
“We won’t have to stay here much longer,” he said. He bent over the cardboard box and snatched out the two long strips of dish towel that he had brought from home. “Things are moving fast now.”
“Did you talk to Roy?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s coming?”
“He says he’s got things to do for his father and can’t get out of the house right away. He says he can’t make it before ten-thirty.”
“Then it wasn’t necessary to tie me up before you made the call,” she said.
“Yes, it was,” he said. “Don’t pull the ropes apart. He’s on his way now.”
“I thought you said ten-thirty.”
“He was lying.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know. He’s trying to get here ahead of me and set a trap. He thinks I’m as naive as I used to be.”
“Colin … I’m scared.”
“It’ll be all right.”
“Will it?”
“I have the gun.”
“What if you have to use it?”
“I won’t have to.”
“He might force you to.”
“Then I will. I’ll use it if he forces me.”
“But then you’d be guilty-”
“Of self-defense,” Colin said.
“Can you use it?”
“In self-defense. Sure. Of course.”
“You aren’t a killer.”
“I’ll just wound him if I have to,” he said. “Now we’ve got to hurry. I’ve got to put the gag on you. It has to be tight if it’s going to look convincing, but tell me if I make it too tight for comfort.” He fashioned a gag from the two pieces of the dish towel, then said, “Okay?”
She made an unintelligible sound.
“Shake your head-yes or no. Is it too tight?”
She shook her head: no.
He could see that her doubts were growing by the second; she wished she’d never gotten into this. Genuine fear sparked in her eyes, but that was good; it made her look as if she really were the helpless victim that she was pretending to be. Roy, possessed of the instincts of a cunning, vicious animal, would instantly recognize her terror and would be convinced by it.
Colin went to the tape recorder, lifted a piece of trash that was covering it, switched it on, carefully replaced the camouflage, and looked at Heather again. “I’m going out to the head of the stairs to wait for him. Don’t worry.”
He left the room, taking the pistol, one flashlight, and the cardboard box that now contained only the squeeze bottle of ketchup. He put the ketchup and the box in another room, then went to the head of the stairs and switched off his light.
The house was very dark.
He tucked the pistol under his belt, against the small of his back, where Roy couldn’t see it. He wanted to appear unarmed, defenseless, in order to sucker Roy upstairs.
Colin was breathing noisily, virtually gasping, not because he was physically exhausted, but because he was afraid. He concentrated on breathing quietly, but it wasn’t easy.
Something crashed downstairs.
He held his breath, listened.
Another noise.
Roy had arrived.
Colin looked at his read-out watch. Exactly fifteen minutes had passed since he’d left the telephone booth.
It was exactly as Colin had told Heather: Roy had lied about not being able to make it until ten-thirty. He had just wanted to be sure he was the first person in the house. If a trap was going to be laid for him, he intended to be there in the shadows to watch it being set.