Ordeal by Terror. Lloyd Biggle jr.
to do with the maze we’re caught in. This one could be a conglomeration or something unique. And you’re talking about mazes used for scientific experiments where there’s a way in and a way out. What if the only exit is through the ceiling? Wouldn’t it be more useful to figure out why we’re here? If we knew that, we’d have some notion of our chances of getting out and maybe even how to go about it. Why is it that no matter how bright a man is, he has to assert his masculinity by acting stupid?”
The two men were glaring at her. “Have you got a sister?” Dolan demanded.
“No, and I wouldn’t introduce you if I had.”
“I merely wanted to make certain the world has only one of you. If you could find it possible to assert your femininity without arching your back and spitting—”
“Just a moment,” Mondor said. He turned to Adelle. “Brothers?”
She resisted the temptation to ask him if he wanted a date. “None. Thank God.”
“Mother or father living?”
“Neither. Would you like a sketch of my family tree?”
“Just a few branches. Any close relatives living?”
She shook her head.
“And you recently moved to Michigan?”
“I arrived here the day before I got my job,” Adelle said. “It was the first one I applied for. Anything else you want me to confess?”
“How many friends or close acquaintances do you have in Ann Arbor?”
“One, a student at the University, but she’s gone home for the summer. I came here because she told me how easy it would be to find work.”
“What about all those dates?” Dolan growled.
“Since when does a date have to be a friend or an acquaintance?” Adelle asked sweetly.
“So you’re a pickup,” Dolan said disgustedly.
“Quiet!” Mondor snapped irritably. “This is serious and maybe even important. Same questions for you.”
“Roughly the same answers. I came to Ann Arbor a month and a half ago to visit a friend, a fellow named Ed Smolett. I had just enough money for gas to get me here. I lived with my friend and did a few odd jobs, mostly manual labor, so I could pay my share of the beer bill and buy typing paper. Ed and I got along well, but he had a few irritating habits. One of them was to ceremoniously read the day’s ‘help wanted’ ads to a jobless friend. ‘Look here, Craig,’ he would said. ‘Starting salary thirty-eight thousand. All you need is five years’ experience and a master’s degree in civil engineering.’ One night he chanced to see the Z-R Publications ad, and he twisted my arm until I agreed to apply. Both of us were shocked when I got the job. Then he committed matrimony and moved to Cleveland, and I took over his apartment. I spend my free time working on my novel. The few acquaintances I have, male and female, are of the beer-talk variety. I see them at the Boheme and a few other places, but I don’t go out regularly, and I don’t always see the same people when I do. Also, I don’t even know the names of most of them, and they probably don’t know mine.”
“No relatives?” Mondor persisted. “No close friends at all?”
“Just the one who moved to Cleveland. Otherwise, only beer-talk acquaintances.”
“Are both of you living alone?”
Adelle and Dolan nodded.
“My answers are similar,” Mondor said. “No relatives, no close friends, few acquaintances. And I live alone. I came here from Nebraska to attend the University of Michigan, and the few friends I had moved on when we graduated. The one person I know well is my landlady, and that’s only because we’re both vegetarians and she wanted bookkeeping lessons. Right now she’s probably cursing me over a warmed-up gourmet vegetarian feast. Except for her, no one will miss me if I don’t go home tonight, or tomorrow, or next week. How about you two?”
Dolan gestured expansively. “It pains me to admit it, but if I fail to see the light of day again, the world will never know what it’s lost. My friend in Cleveland is much too preoccupied with his new wife to waste time wondering what’s happened to me. Even if he found out I was missing, he’d just assume I’d got restless and hit the road again and eventually he’ll get a postcard from somewhere.”
Adelle said, “I have a date with a young man in my apartment building to attend a concert on Sunday. If I stand him up, he’ll wonder why.”
“How long have you known him?” Mondor asked.
Adelle reflected. “I’ve seen him almost every day since I moved in—to say hello and mention the weather. I just got acquainted with him yesterday.”
“Pickup,” Dolan muttered.
“Would he be likely to go to the police because a girl stood him up?” Mondor asked.
“I wouldn’t think so,” Adelle said. “He’d probably draw a few apt conclusions about my character and let it go at that.”
“The same applies to my landlady. She’ll be furious about my not showing for dinner, and I don’t blame her. But the most drastic action she’s likely to take is to carefully rehearse a speech telling me off for not letting her know.” He asked Dolan, “Will anyone let the police know you’re missing?”
“No way,” Dolan said. “It won’t even be noticed, let alone reported.”
“I think that’s another reason we were chosen. All of your predecessors were kept for one week or at most two—just long enough for a thorough investigation—and then fired. There was a word processor who lived with her girl friend and a writer who lived in a co-op. Both of them would have been missed immediately. I must have fit the pattern they wanted, so they kept me while they hired and fired writers and word processors until they found two that matched me. Even so, they’ve moved carefully. It’s been three weeks since they hired Adelle.”
“Score one for Adelle’s devastating female intuition,” Dolan said with a grin and a half bow in her direction. “They wanted people who met certain requirements. When I was hired, I was living with the friend I mentioned, but he’d already made plans to move to Cleveland and get married. They didn’t have to do much investigating to find out I’d soon be living by myself.”
“They’re being stupid if they think we’re all alone in the world,” Adelle said confidently. “We have landlords and landladies, and rent that comes due, and next-door neighbors who know something of our habits—” She broke off because she wasn’t convincing herself. If her neighbors missed her, which was unlikely, they would think she was gone for the weekend. The landlord would respond to a missed rent payment with a reminder, and then a warning, and eventually with an eviction notice. She had no notion of how long it would take before anyone became aware that she had disappeared.
Dolan echoed her thoughts. “If your walls are thin enough for your neighbors to know anything about your habits, they’ll be relieved that you’re gone. If not, they’ll never miss you. Anyway, on Monday morning, Madam herself will report us missing. I’d bet on it. She’ll say it seems puzzling that three employees as punctual and reliable as us would neither show up nor telephone. Can’t you hear her telling a detective, ‘It seems so peculiar, Darlink!’ Of course Madam and all five of the goons will claim they saw us leave work today promptly at five o’clock. They’ll tell the police we were lined up at the door in sprinters’ crouches waiting for one of the many clocks to strike so we could dash out and spend our paychecks.”
“Our cars!” Adelle exclaimed. “They’ll still be in the parking lot!”
“Oh, Christ, don’t be so innocent,” Dolan said impatiently. “You don’t need keys to drive a car. They’ve probably been hidden already, and tonight they’ll be abandoned in three different states just to give the police something to think about.”