Twistor (42 page)

He erupted from the bathroom, a reddening towel wrapped around his hand. He fumbled with his keys at the front door, got it open, and ran. He ran and ran. He was still running when the police car stopped him a long time later.

David was PEEKING as the balding man, bottle of beer in hand, cursed as he locked the front door. He turned, walked to the living room, and put on the ski mask. Then he walked up the stairs, still muttering to himself. Damn, thought David, he's going to be out of reach. And the bastard's planning to do something to Vickie. From where he stood he could only reach to the high ceiling of the first floor.

David
stuffed the twistor unit through his belt again and climbed a nearby tree. Its treebird owner glowered down at him from a high branch. Shadow led the way as usual. They stopped on the lowest limb. David removed the twistor unit from his belt and PEEKED through the field sphere. An empty room. He moved further out on the branch and sighted again. He was looking down from a point near the high ceiling. He drew a sharp breath.

Vickie was there. She was tied in a chair, some pink rubber thing wrapped around her mouth. She was awake and looked very frightened. She was struggling against the ropes, and David could see where they had rubbed her wrists raw. He felt a rush of helpless anger and frustration. The balding man, now wearing a ski mask and still holding the beer bottle in his hand, was standing in front of her.

From his precarious perch on the tree limb David lacked the control to do the ghost routine again, and the balding man looked to be more difficult to frighten. His mind raced. He decided on another approach. He pressed the TALK button and spoke into the sphere in a loud commanding voice. 'All right, you're all finished here, fella. This is the police. The house is surrounded now, and there's a sharpshooter with a rifle pointed right at your heart. If you don't wanna get hurt, untie the lady! Now! Move!'

The man jumped and looked around. Then he took a small white-handled pistol from somewhere behind his back and walked over to Vickie. He pointed it at her head. 'I don't know where you are or how you're doing that, buddy,' he said, 'but you're obviously not the police. You sound more like that smartass at the university. I have a nice hostage here, a good friend of yours. Show yourself now, or I'm going to put a nice round hole right through this lady's head.' His thumb clicked the pistol's safety off.

David realized that his police routine was not going to work. He spoke once more into the sphere. 'This is your
last
warning, fella. Untie the lady now, and you won't be hurt. Otherwise, we're going to have to kill you.' He looked back at the man. Stubborn bastard.

'C'mon,' David said through the sphere, 'you look like a reasonable guy. Why take chances, when you don't know what you're dealing with. I don't want to kill you. Let her go. Now!' Then he edged out on the limb to a spot right over Vickie's head. He tied a length of climbing wire around the limb, slipped into his sling seat, and lowered himself until he hung sideways just above the man's ski mask. 'Last chance,' he whispered near the man's ear. The man jumped and shoved the gun tight against Vickie's head. David was close enough to see the man's finger tightening on the trigger. There was no time left, no choice. He might shoot her. And even if he didn't, the others would soon be back with the drug. It was now or never. Dangling upside down now, David struggled to position the hazy twistor sphere at the rear center of the man's head, the muscle-control area. His hand trembled as he pressed the TWIST button. A reddish-gray lump of hair, skull, and nerve tissue dropped to the forest floor, making a soft
plop
as it landed among the leaves below.

In another universe the man in the ski mask collapsed to the floor, a gaping wound at the back of his head. Bright red blood flowed out on the wooden floor in a spreading pool. Vickie peered down at him, her eyes wide, then looked around. 'Mmfff!' she said through the rubber gag. 'Mmmmmmfff!'

David felt sick. He'd just killed a man, another human being. He pulled himself back upright and sat for a moment, fighting the waves of nausea. Finally he leaned over and spoke into the sphere. 'Vickie!' he called to her, 'It's me, David. The kids and I are OK, but we're still in this shadow universe. We can't get back, yet, but I've got a small portable twistor unit working. I was using it on your friends. You're safe for the moment, but some more of those guys will be coming back very soon.'

She
turned in the direction of his voice and nodded.

'I'm going to send a little friend of mine to help you. His name is Shadow. You'll like him.' Then David took out his little red Swiss army knife, opened the knife blade, and reminded Shadow how to cut rope with it. Then he moved to a point on the limb which would put him next to the curtained window and sent Shadow through. He watched as Shadow went through, caught the curtains, descended, and strode centaurlike over to where Vickie was tied. He seemed very interested in her, and sniffed her thoroughly. David directed Shadow with the voice commands he'd been trained to follow, and soon the little creature was sawing away at the ropes.

As Shadow worked, David explained to Vickie where she was and what Flash had told him. He suggested that she call the police as soon as she was free. As he was talking, he noticed that the view through the sphere seemed to be washing in and out. He put his fingers on the power transistors along the side of the twistor unit. Five of them were cool, but one was quite hot to the touch.

'This damned thing's going out on me!' he yelled through the fading field. 'Be – ' The dim sphere in the cup abruptly winked out. ' – careful!' He switched off the power, spat and blew on the hot transistor to cool it, then tried to produce the field again. The copper cup had no dark sphere inside. 'Shit!' said David. The only power transistors in this entire universe were back at the treehouse.

He climbed down from the tree and headed back there at a dead run.

The doorbell rang. Flash carefully opened the door of David's apartment, keeping the chain latch on. Two men stood on the doorstep. One was very large. Flash looked out at them, ready to bolt. Somehow they didn't look like Megalith goons or FBI.

'
Hi, I'm George Williams,' the big man said, 'and this is Rudi Baumann.' He indicated his companion, smaller, darker and with ruddy cheeks. 'Paul Ernst sent us over when you called. We'll take you to get the stuff on your list. We're friends of David and your sister, and we want to help.'

'Great-o!' Flash said, taking the chain latch off and opening the door wide. It was wonderful to be with real human beings again after almost a week of isolation. Before David, or at least the voice of David, had taken the little animal back and gone to investigate the house in Laurelhurst, he'd dictated a long list of items for Flash to buy. He'd sent through credit cards and a bank card, given Flash his bank access code number, and told him to use those for the purchases. Then, almost as an afterthought, he'd suggested that Rash try calling Paul Ernst at the university to get help.

Flash, not wanting to run the risk that the calls could be traced to David's telephone, had slipped out over the deck and walked across the University Bridge to a pay phone. There he'd called Paul. He'd also called 911 to declare that kidnap victim Victoria Gordon was being held at an address in Laurelhurst that he gave them. George and Rudi had been at the door within fifteen minutes after Flash arrived back at the apartment.

They all got into George's station wagon, which was parked outside. 'David suggested that I go out on Aurora Avenue North,' Flash said. 'Most of the stuff on the list should be available at Sears or the big discount stores out there. But first I'm gonna need some of the el cash-o.'

'No problem,' said George. 'Paul Ernst is bankrolling this. Wants his kids back, I guess.' They crossed the Ship Canal, then headed west.

Victoria, with Shadow nestled in the big pocket of her jacket, was at the front door ready to leave the house. Shadow still held David's little red knife in one tiny hand.
After
her new friend had freed her from the chair, Vickie had been able to remove the gag and run downstairs. She had tried to call the police, but she couldn't make the telephone work. The front door wouldn't open. She examined the deadbolt lock mounted on it. It had no knob, and couldn't be opened without a key. She checked the back door and the door from the kitchen to the garage. They were all the same.

Frustrated and feeling desperate, she climbed the stairs to the bedroom where she'd been held captive for almost a week. Mandrake was still on the floor, his head and shoulders in a large pool of blood. His eyes were open. Could she make herself touch him? Her stomach churned. It was the only way.

Steeling herself, Victoria walked to the side away from the pool of blood and searched Mandrake's pockets. The bundle of keys was in his trousers. In his jacket pocket she found the little disk recorder and several used disks. She took them all. She considered also taking the white-handled gun still clenched in his hand, but she was inexperienced with such weapons. She kicked it under the bed instead.

As she stepped from the bedroom into the hall, she heard low rambling speech. Allan Saxon! Sorting through the keys, she selected a likely candidate and inserted it into the lock. The door clicked open. She entered the room.

Saxon was on the bed just as before. He stared at the small brown creature peeking at him from her pocket. 'It's Vickie again,' he said, 'and she has an animal. What kind of animal is it. It's brown. It has hands and a knife. I wonder where she got it.'

'Allan,' she said, 'we're leaving this place. Come on!'

'I am going to leave,' he said. He put his feet on the floor. They were bare, and he was wearing a hospital gown that exposed a stripe of bare flesh down the back.

Vickie
looked in the bathroom and found some clothes. She gave him shoes, trousers and a coat. 'Put these on quickly,' she said. 'Keep the gown on and don't worry about socks.'

'I won't worry about socks,' Saxon said as he moved to obey her. 'I never worry about socks. I don't worry about anything anymore. You put one leg through the hole and then the other. The whole is the sum of its parts. Some of the parts are shoes. Are these shoes on right? One is right and the other is left. One is the mirror image of the other. Which is the real one and which is the image? I never could work that out. Out is where we want to go. Let's go out now.' He stood.

As they reached the foot of the stairs, Vickie heard the crunching sound of tires on the gravel driveway outside. Saxon followed her to the back door, muttering as he went. 'What's that sound? Are the men coming back? They like to hurt me. Vickie, I feel afraid.' He looked afraid, too. She heard the sound of the electric door opener working in the attached garage.

She fumbled with the big key ring, searching for a key that would match the deadbolt lock. Finally she found it and they walked into brilliant sunlight. She turned and closed the door quietly. As she did, she heard a key snick in the lock of the door leading from the house to the garage. She looked around. There were high walls on both sides, blocking access to the front yard and running downhill to Lake Washington. She led Saxon that way.

'We're outside now,' he said. 'It's good to be outside. There is sunshine and water. We can swim in the water. It's cold and wet. When you wet the bed, first it's warm and then it gets cold. But I didn't wet the bed. Joyce did it.'

Victoria wondered who 'Joyce' was. She saw a boat dock on the lakefront and an inboard motorboat nestled against a piling. As they reached the dock, she could hear shouting from the house.

She
helped Saxon into the boat, undid the front mooring rope, and climbed in herself. Shadow leaped to the seat beside her. Saxon sat erect in the rear seat, still talking to himself. 'We're going for a boat ride. I like boat rides. I went on a big boat once. It was the
Queen Elizabeth II.
The food was good. I screwed five different women. There's something about a boat trip that makes them want to fuck. It was nice.'

Fumbling with the ring of keys, Vickie found one that might fit the boat ignition. It did fit. She started the engine, let it idle quietly, and eased the boat away from the dock. There were more shouts from the house, and two men emerged from the back door. There were guns in their hands.

The boat lurched and stopped. Victoria looked back. A rope at the stern was still tied to the dock! Leaving the engine to idle, she crawled over the front seat to the rope, only to find that at this end it ran through a bracket eye with a loop secured by three crimped metal rings. It could not be untied. She would have to get off the boat, and there was simply not enough time. The men were hurrying down the long back yard toward them now at a dead run.

She felt something and looked down. Shadow was at her side, offering her the little red knife. She took it and sawed at the rope. It gave a little. She sawed harder. The rope parted, and they were idling slowly away from the dock.

Vickie vaulted the seat, grabbed the wheel, gunned the engine, and they were off. At least now she couldn't hear Allan's ramblings over the sound of the engine. Sounds of gunfire came from behind them. She steered from side to side to spoil their aim. Looking back, she saw the two men, legs spread, arms locked and extended, firing at them from the dock. Bullets made splashes on the water beside the boat. Shadow had joined her in the front seat now, and seemed to be enjoying the ride enormously.

Soon
they were out of range. Vickie, with Shadow on her lap, steered the boat straight across Lake Washington at top speed, heading for Kirkland, a suburban town on the east shore. She picked the target of the old
Lightship Relief
to steer for, a red-painted relic permanently anchored near the Kirkland pier. When she was close enough, she slowed the boat to a crawl and edged up against the Moss Bay Public Pier, then tied up the little boat at the broad dock. As she was climbing out with Shadow to stand on the pier, she looked back at Allan Saxon. He had not moved since they left the Laurelhurst dock.