A Darkness More Than Night

losing power quickly. He tried to yell. Maybe Buddy would hear. But his voice was gone and nothing came out.
    He remembered another defensive measure. He raised his right foot up and drove it down, heel first, toward his attacker’s foot, with the last strength he could muster. But he missed. His heel hit the floor ineffectively and his attacker took another step backward, violently pulling McCaleb off balance and unable to attempt the kick release again.
    McCaleb was quickly losing consciousness. His vision of the marina lights through the salon door was being crowded by a closing blackness with a reddish outline. His last thoughts were that he was in the grip of a classic choke hold, the kind taught at police departments across the country until too many deaths resulted from its use.
    Soon even that thought drifted away and he saw no lights. The darkness moved in and took him.

Chapter 42
    McCaleb came awake to tremendous muscular pain in his shoulders and upper legs. When he opened his eyes he realized he was lying chest down across the master cabin’s bed. His head was lying flat on the mattress, his left cheek down, and he was staring at the headboard. It took him a moment before he remembered that he had been on his way to visit Buddy Lockridge when he was attacked from behind.
    He became completely conscious and tried to relax his aching muscles but realized he could not move. His wrists were bound behind his back and his legs were bent backward at the knees and were being held in that position by someone’s hand.
    He lifted his head off the mattress and tried to turn. He couldn’t get the angle. He dropped back to the mattress and turned his head to the left. He lifted up once again and turned to see Rudy Tafero, standing next to the bed, smiling at him. With one gloved hand he was holding McCaleb’s feet, which were bound at the ankles and folded back toward his thighs.
    Comprehension rushed over him. McCaleb realized he was naked and that he was bound and held in the same posture as he had seen the body of Edward Gunn. The reverse fetal pose from the painting by Hieronymus Bosch. The cold chill of terror exploded in his chest. He instinctively flexed his leg muscles. Tafero was ready for it. His feet barely moved. But he heard three clicks behind his head and became aware of the ligature around his neck.
    “Easy,” Tafero said. “Easy now. Not yet.”
    McCaleb stopped his movement. Tafero continued to press his ankles down toward the back of his thighs.
    “You’ve seen the setup before,” Tafero said matter of factly. “This one’s a little different. I strung together a bunch of snap-cuffs, like every L.A. cop carries around in the trunk of his car.”
    McCaleb understood the message. The plastic strips first invented to bundle cables together but found to be useful by police agencies faced with occasional social unrest and the need to make mass arrests. A cop can carry one set of handcuffs but hundreds of snap cuffs. String them around the wrists, slide the end through the lock. Tiny grooves in the plastic strip click and lock as the tie gets tighter. The only way to remove it is to cut it off. McCaleb realized that the clicking sound he had just heard had been a snap cuff tightening around his neck.
    “So you be careful now,” Tafero said. “Hold real steady.” McCaleb put his face down into the mattress. His mind was racing, looking for the way out. He thought if he could engage Tafero he might buy some time. But time for what?
    “How’d you find me?” he spoke into the mattress.
    “Easy enough. My little brother followed you from my shop and got your plate. You should look around more often, make sure you aren’t being followed.”
    “I’ll remember that.”
    He understood the plan. It would look as if Gunn’s killer had gotten McCaleb when he had gotten too close. He turned his head again so he could see Tafero.
    “It’s not going to work, Tafero,” he said. “People know. They’re not going to buy that it was Bosch.”
    Tafero smiled down at him.
    “You mean Jaye Winston? Don’t worry about her. I’m going to go pay her a visit when I’m done here with you. Eighty-eight-oh-one Willoughby, apartment six, West Hollywood. She was easy to find, too.”
    He raised his free hand and waved the fingers as though he were playing the piano or typing.
    “Let your fingers do the walking through the voters registration – I’ve got it on CD-ROM. She’s a registered Democrat,