The Doorkeepers Read Free Page B

Frank,” said the suntanned man. “Done yourself proud.”
    Frank Mordant knelt down beside Julia and helped her up into a sitting position. She felt sick and the floor was slowly rising up and down like the deck of a car ferry. She put her head down between her knees and it was only then that she realized that she was naked.
    She looked up, woozy but startled. Frank Mordant was still grinning at her as if she were the victim of a huge practical joke.
    â€œWhat have you done? What have you done to me?” Covering her breasts with her arm, she tried to get up, but she lost her balance and fell sideways. As she fell, the harsh thing around her neck almost choked her and she reached up to pull it free. Except that it wouldn’t come free. It was a thick rope, tied around her neck in a noose.
    She tried again to climb to her feet, and this time shemanaged to get herself into a kneeling position. “What’s happening?” she gasped. “What are you trying to do to me?”
    Frank Mordant took hold of the loose end of the rope and pulled it. Immediately, it tightened around Julia’s neck, and she looked up. The rope ran through a large hook fixed in the center of the ceiling.
    She stared at Frank Mordant in disbelief. Apart from him and the white-haired man with the suntan, there were three other men there, standing in the far corner by the television. They were all middle-aged, wearing respectable suits. A dark-skinned, languid-looking man with a hooked nose. A heavily built man with bushy gray hair. A smaller bespectacled man, who must have been Thai or Malay.
    Three spotlights had been arranged around the room so that they shone directly on Julia. And the video camera was now tilted on its tripod so that it was facing toward her, too. There was a smell of hot light bulbs and alcoholic breath, and a taut, expectant atmosphere.
Yours in anticipation, Frank Mordant.
    Julia’s head was completely clear now, and she looked at the men and the spotlights and the video camera with increasing horror. She felt almost absurdly weak, and completely defenseless, and she was so frightened that her lower lip was juddering and she couldn’t speak clearly.
    Frank Mordant and the suntanned man took an arm each and tried to lift her on to her feet. Immediately her knees buckled, but Frank Mordant pulled the rope until it was tight around her neck again, and then she was forced to stand up.
    â€œYou’re choking me,” she pleaded. “Please don’t choke me. I can’t stand anything round my neck.”
    â€œWell, there’s one way to relieve that choking feeling,” smiled Frank Mordant, “and that’s to slacken the rope. Here, Tun,” he beckoned the Malay-looking man. “Do us a favor and bring us over that little stepladder, please.”
    The Malay carried over a small wooden stepladder and set it down right in front of Julia. He paused for a moment, and scrutinized her through his bright shining glasses. His eyes were dark brown and deeply curious, as if he were lookingat an exhibit in a natural history museum. He stared into her eyes and then down at her naked body.
    Frank Mordant gave the rope another sharp tug. “If you climb the stepladder, Julia, the rope will be slacker. The higher you go, the slacker it will get.”
    â€œYou can’t do this,” Julia protested. “You just can’t do this.”
    â€œAnd who’s to say that we can’t?”
    â€œThe law! This is assault!”
    Frank Mordant thought about that, and then he said, “Yes, you’re right. It
is
assault. But I don’t think that the law is going to be able to help you, do you?”
    â€œLet me
go!” she screamed at him.
“You’re sick! You’re totally sick! If you don’t let me go right now, mister
…!”
    â€œYou’ll what?” said Frank Mordant, and the slowest smile broke over his face as he watched her