Shackles Read Free Page A

something; she was half-asleep already. I leaned over and kissed her and said I’d call her around five, and she said, “Mmmm,” and turned over. I put on my jacket and overcoat, left the bedroom, and managed not to make any noise letting myself out.
    Outside the street and sidewalk were both deserted. The wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped a few more degrees, but the night still had that hard, brittle clarity: December in San Francisco. Kerry and our love-making were still on my mind; I started to whistle off-key as I walked down toward my car. I felt fine—free and fresh, not sleepy at all. Alert.
    Even so, I had no inkling that I wasn’t alone. He must have been waiting in the shadows in one of the cars parked along the curb, and he was quick and light on his feet. He didn’t give me a second’s warning as he came up behind me.
    I was at the driver’s door of my car, getting the keys out of my coat pocket, still whistling, wondering idly if Eberhardt had managed to talk Bobbie Jean into bed, when I felt the sudden sharp pressure against my lower spine, heard the voice sharp and whispery close to my right ear, “Don’t move. This is a gun and I’ll use it if you force me to.”
    I stood still, very still. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that my mind went blank for three or four seconds while it shifted gears. When it began functioning again I sucked at the inside of my mouth, to get saliva flowing, and said, “My wallet’s in the inside jacket pocket, left side. If you want me to take it out—”
    “I don’t want your wallet,” the whispery voice said. There was something odd about it, something stilted, as if he were making a conscious effort to disguise it. “This isn’t a mugging.”
    “Then what
do
you want?”
    “You’ll find out. Turn away from the car. Walk back uphill until I tell you to stop.”
    I had an impulse to twist my head, try to get a look at his face, but I didn’t give in to it. Turned and began to walk instead. The pressure remained tight against my lower spine; I could feel him crowded in close behind me. There was a faint medicinal odor about him, one that I couldn’t quite place.
    My mind was hyperactive now, and one thought it whirled up was: Jesus, one of those random street things. Psycho out looking for an easy target. But he didn’t act or sound like a psycho: no edginess, no excitement. Calm, almost businesslike. Man with a purpose.
    “Stop,” he said, and I stopped. The street was still deserted, the night hushed except for the murmur of the cold wind blowing in off the ocean. “The car on your immediate left—walk to it, open the rear door, and get inside. Lie facedown across the seat.”
    “Listen, what—”
    “Do as you’re told. I won’t hesitate to shoot you. Or don’t you believe that?”
    I believed it. I pivoted without saying anything, walked slowly to the car at the curb. Medium-sized, dark-colored, probably American made—that was all I could tell about it in the starshine. There was fear inside me now, a cold steady seepage like trickles of icewater, but it was as much a fear of the unknown as any other kind. Who was he? Why was he doing this? Those two questions were raw in my mind as I tugged open the rear door, hesitated with my hand still on the handle. The dome light hadn’t come on; he must have unscrewed the bulb.
    “Get inside,” he said in that odd whispery voice. “Lie facedown across the seat with your hands clasped behind you.”
    “And then what?”
    “Do as I say.”
    He prodded me with the gun … I had no doubt it
was
a gun. I ducked down, dry-mouthed now, and crawled onto the seat and flattened out with my cheek against cold leather, my arms splayed back and the hands joined on my buttocks. He took the gun out of my back while I did that, but not for long; he shoved in after me, leaving the door open, and jabbed my spine again. I tried to turn my head enough to get a look at him, but it was thick-dark in