“Wouldn’t mind that.” She wasn’t so much worried about the escapee; she just liked the idea of spending more time with Gutierrez.
They walked along the main street in downtown Alvarado. Now it was the home of restaurants, tourist shops and coffeehouses—a lot different from the Wild West avenue it was a hundred years ago, when soldiers and Cannery Row workers drank, hung out in the brothels and occasionally shot it out in the middle of the street.
As Gutierrez and Susan walked along, their conversation was subdued and they both looked around them. She realized the streets were unusually deserted. Was that because of the escape? Now she began to feel uneasy.
Her office was next to a construction site a block from Alvarado. There were piles of building materials here; if Pell had come this way, she reflected, he could easily be hiding behind them, waiting. She slowed.
“That’s your car?” Gutierrez asked.
She nodded.
“Something wrong?”
Susan gave a grimace and an embarrassed laugh. She told him she was worried about Pell hiding in the building supplies.
He smiled. “Even if hewas here he wouldn’t attack two of us together. Come on.”
“César, wait,” she said, reaching into her purse. She handed him a small, red cylinder. “Here.”
“What’s this?”
“Pepper spray. Just in case.”
“I think we’ll be okay. But how does it work?” Then he laughed. “Don’t want to spray myself.”
“All you have to do is point it and push there. It’s ready to go.”
They continued to the car and by the time they got there, Susan was feeling foolish. No crazed killers were lurking behind the piles of bricks. She wondered if her skittishness had lost her points in the potential date department. She didn’t think so. Gutierrez seemed to enjoy the role of gallant gentleman.
She unlocked the doors.
“I better give this back to you,” he said, holding out the spray.
Susan reached for it.
But Gutierrez lunged fast, grabbed her hair and jerked her head back fiercely. He shoved the nozzle of the canister into her mouth, open in a stifled scream.
He pushed the button.
Agony, reflected Daniel Pell, is perhaps the fastest way to control somebody.
Still in his apparently effective disguise as a Latino businessman, he was driving Susan Pemberton’s car to a deserted location near the ocean, south of Carmel.
Agony…Hurt them bad, give them a little time to recover, then threaten to hurt them again. Experts say torture isn’t efficient. That’s wrong. It isn’telegant. It isn’ttidy. But it works real well.
The spray up Susan Pemberton’s mouth and nose had been only a second in duration but from her muffled scream and thrashing limbs he knew the pain was nearly unbearable. He let her recover.
Brandished the spray in front of her panicked, watering eyes. And immediately got from her exactly what he wanted.
He hadn’t planned on the spray, of course; he had duct tape and a knife in the briefcase. But he’d decided to change his plans when the woman, to his amusement, handed the canister to him—well, to his alter ego César Gutierrez.
Daniel Pell had things to do in public and, with his picture running every half-hour on local television, he had to become someone else. After she’d wheedled the Toyota out of a gullible seller with an interest in a woman’s cleavage, Jennie Marston had bought cloth dye and instant-tan cream, which he’d mixed into a recipe for a bath that would darken his skin. He dyed his hair and eyebrows black and used Skin-Bond and hair clippings to make a realistic moustache. Nothing he could do about the eyes. If there were contact lenses that made blue brown, he didn’t know where to find them. But the glasses—cheap tinted reading glasses with dark frames—would distract from the color.
Earlier in the day Pell had called the Brock Company and gotten Susan Pemberton, who’d agreed to meet about planning an anniversary party. He dressed in a cheap suit Jennie’d bought in Mervyns and met the events planner at the Doubletree, where he got to work, doing what Daniel Pell did best.
Oh, it had been nice! Playing Susan like a fish was a luxurious high, even better than watching Jennie cut her hair or discard blouses or wince when he used the coat hanger on her narrow butt.
He now replayed the techniques: finding a common fear (the escaped killer) and common passions (John Steinbeck and jazz, which he knew little about, but he was a good bluffer); playing the sex game (her glance at his bare ring finger and stoic smile when he’d mentioned children told him all about Susan Pemberton’s romantic life); doing something silly and laughing about it (the spilled cinnamon); arousing her sympathy (his bitch of an ex-wife ruining his son); being a decent person (the party for his beloved parents, his chivalry in walking her to the car); belying suspicion (the fake call to 911).
Little by little gaining trust—and therefore gaining control.
What a total high it was to practice his art once again in the real world!
Pell found the turnoff. It led through a dense grove of trees, toward the ocean. Jennie had spent the Saturday before the escape doing some reconnaissance for him and had discovered this deserted place.
He continued along the sand-swept road, passing a sign that declared the property private. He beached Susan’s car in sand at the end of the road, well out of sight of the highway. Climbing out, he heard the surf crash over an old pier not far away. The sun was low and spectacular.
He didn’t have to wait long. Jennie was early. He was happy to see that; people who arrive early are in your control. Always be wary of those who make you wait.
She parked, climbed out and walked to him. “Honey, I hope you didn’t have to wait long.” She hungrily closed her mouth around his, gripping his face in both her hands. Desperate.
Pell came up for air.