The Girls He Adored

85

“Pender!” Maxwell's voice, from somewhere in the direction of the house. “Pender!”

Miss Miller, her hands and feet bound with towels from her bathroom and a sock stuffed into her mouth under the surgical mask, kicked ineffectually at the boards of the loft. Pender had tried to talk with her a few times, but she didn't seem to want to do anything but scream, so for now he ignored her-and Maxwell- and kept working. He was stacking books at the edge of the hayloft, which smelled of dust and vomit, until he had built himself a barricade two feet high, three feet thick, along the edge of the loft. From behind it he had a clear view of the barn door, and a clearer shot at Maxwell than Maxwell had at him.

It wouldn't be an easy shot, though. The range from the edge of the loft to the door was close to sixty feet, and he'd have to figure in the downward trajectory. He'd also have to try for the kill grid: there was no guarantee that a nine-millimeter round, even a hollowpoint, would knock a man down from that distance.

But at least his target would be backlighted in the doorway. And even if Maxwell did manage to squeeze off a round, Pender figured he'd be safe enough ducking behind three feet of books. Unless of course Maxwell was packing something in the nature of a. 357.

Hurriedly Pender added one more layer to the barricade-a leather-bound set of the complete works of Joyce, Kalat's Biological Psychology, Barlow and Durand's Abnormal Psychology, and twelve volumes of the Handyman's Encyclopedia — then settled down for a long wait.

If Maxwell entered the barn before nightfall, Pender would have the drop on him. If he didn't, Pender could go back on the offensive under cover of darkness while Maxwell was out looking for him. And if they didn't find each other before morning, Pender would return here and wait for the Hostage Rescue Team that McDougal would undoubtedly be dispatching as soon as Pender's fax reached him.

However it worked out, Pender liked his chances-until he heard a woman's voice calling him from the same general direction.

“Agent Pender? This is Irene Cogan. Max says he's going to kill me if you don't show yourself.”

Pender didn't want to believe it. Surely Maxwell understood that a dead hostage is no hostage at all. He decided to wait it out.

“Pender!” Maxwell. “Looks like I underestimated you-again. Obviously I'm not going to kill my hostage.”

Obviously, thought Pender.

“What I'm going to do now, I'm going to burn her with a cigarette lighter until you show yourself.”

Oh fuck. Pender could feel the sweat breaking out on his forehead again. Things don't get any easier, do they?

He took off his bandanna and wrung it out, then tied it around his forehead again. Another question presented itself: was Dr. Cogan still a legitimate hostage, or was she now acting as an accomplice? She'd been Maxwell's prisoner for over a week, more than enough time for the Stockholm syndrome to have taken effect. Especially with such a charming seducer as Maxwell-most if not all of the missing strawberry blonds were believed to have gone off with Casey voluntarily, at least initially.

Pender now faced perhaps the most difficult decision of his career. He decided to wait it out a little longer, see if he could gauge whether Dr. Cogan was really being tortured by the tenor of her screams.

Sure enough, the first one was more of a yell-a full-voiced shout, with plenty of lung power. But Pender knew he had to discount it. Maxwell might have merely threatened her into screaming the first time-that was what Pender would have done in Maxwell's situation.

But after the second scream-it rose and fell and rose again and bubbled in her throat, ending in a heartfelt

“Oh God, oh God, stop, please stop, please make him stop!”-there was little doubt left in Pender's mind. Some anguish and shame, but little doubt.

“Leave her alone!I'm in the barn!”

“I thought you might be!” shouted Maxwell.

“The hell you did,” Pender muttered.

“Where's miss Miller? If you've hurt her, I'll make you pay.”

Oh-ho. “SHE'S SAFE FOR THE MOMENT-BUT SHE'S SCARED, AND SHE MISSES YOU. GIVE YOURSELF UP.”

“NICE TO KNOW YOU HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR, PENDER.”

“I try to keep myself amused.” Pender settled in behind his barricade of books, steadying the barrel of his pistol on a copy of Finnegans Wake and sighting in where the two sliding barn doors met, at a point approximately three and half feet from the concrete floor.

“I'm sorry I had to do that, Irene,” said Max as he marched her down the blacktop to the barn. “He left me with no choice.”

Irene could no more have replied at that point than she could have flown. For the first time she understood the use of the word “insult” as a medical term meaning a bodily injury, irritation, or trauma. There was no other word to describe how it had felt to have Maxwell snatch her out of the drying shed, drag her naked across the meadow and up to the chicken coop-a more or less centralized location-then bend her wrist behind her back and hold his Bic lighter to her forearm for an agonizing eternity, until her scream finally met Agent Pender's standard for sincerity. At that moment she had hated both of them, Maxwell and Pender, with equal intensity.

When they reached the barn, Maxwell forced Irene to pry open the sliding doors just wide enough to admit them, and remained crouched behind her as she entered. The barn faced to the west; the late-afternoon sun behind them cast the elongated black shadow of a four-legged woman across the dusty cement floor.

Irene looked up to the hayloft at the other end of the barn, saw the barricade of books, saw the black of the gun muzzle pointing at her, saw the top third of Pender's massive bald head above and behind it, a blue bandanna knotted around the forehead. It wasn't how she'd pictured him at all.

Maxwell saw the head too, raised his pistol, and fired a shot at it over Irene's head. The report was deafening. Instinctively she threw herself forward onto the cement floor. Maxwell was unprotected for a moment, but Pender had already ducked behind his barricade. By the time Pender raised his head again Maxwell had seized Irene by the elbow, dragged her over to the side of the barn, behind the passenger side of the blue Cadillac, then fired another shot up at the hayloft.

Pender fired a round over the de Ville. He now had ten left-one in the chamber and nine in the clip. He had no idea how many rounds Maxwell had-or how many weapons.

“Are you going to come down here, or do I have to burn her again?” called Maxwell.

Irene, lying on her bare back on the rough concrete floor, ears ringing, stared up into the rafters. That hopeless, defeated feeling came over her again. If Pender came down, Maxwell would kill them both. If Pender didn't…

But she couldn't let herself think about that. Because she knew that given the choice, she would choose death over burning-she just couldn't face the pain again.

Jonathan Nasaw

The Girls He Adored