gather some information of my own. I’d like to survive this not-so-little fuckup if I could, and “forewarned is forearmed.” Just because I’d gotten that out of a fortune cookie didn’t make it any less valid.
“Charlie is…” I cleared a suddenly thick throat. Damn humidity. “He was an open-minded kid. I imagine he was the same as an adult. But you?” I didn’t bother to look at him. My assessment was already done. “That shit I just don’t buy.”
“Really?” It was an abrupt, humorless laugh. Harsh and bleak. “Well, Charlie always did have a way of changing my mind.” Apparently, both the pushing and the conversation were over with for the moment, as with a savage twist of his wrist, he turned on the radio. Country and western filled the car, and I slid down in the seat with a silent groan. Oh, hell no. Blackmailed, all but kidnapped, and now subjected to audio torture.
As some of my more full-of-shit colleagues would say, some days it doesn’t just pay to leave the astral plane.
Sometime later, a hand on my shoulder shook me back from a light doze to consciousness. Rubbing my eyes, I grimaced at the taste of stale beer in my mouth and checked my watch. Two and a half hours. We were still in Georgia, then. Nice to know. “We there yet, O fearless leader?” I sniped.
“We’re here,” he confirmed, opening the door and climbing out. I followed, more stiffly, and took a look around. The rain had stopped. It allowed me to see my accommodations in excruciating detail. There were several low concrete buildings, blazing bright security lights, and more concertina wire than Gitmo. Oh, joy. Opening the door to the backseat, I retrieved my duffel bag and grunted. “Which way?”
“You’re one cool son of a bitch, I have to give you that,” Hector said with the faintest thread of reluctant admiration. “Either that, or you’re too stupid to live. I haven’t calculated the odds between the two yet.”
He expected questions. He expected demands. Expected the flailing of a drowning man. But I’d learned long ago that when life dumped you in the riptide, you had to ride it out. Tread water until you saw an opportunity; float, keep your eyes open, and wait. Sometimes it was all you could do. I was barely wet. Struggling now would only sink me for good.
“Calculate.” I lifted my eyebrows and added a sarcastic smirk. “Maybe you’re more like Charlie than I guessed, Doc. Maybe that haircut isn’t as military as I thought.” I shot a pointed look at the twelve-foot fence that surrounded us. “Yeah, maybe.” I threw the strap over my shoulder. “Point out home sweet home for me, would ya? Wait, better make that cell sweet cell.”
Not waiting for an answer, I began to trudge toward the cluster of buildings.
“I didn’t have a choice.” The words that came from behind shocked their author almost more than me, I guessed. He bent to explain himself, in an attitude that fit Hector like an ill-fitting shoe. Could be there really was more of Charlie in him than I expected. “People…”
“Are dying,” I finished for him, still walking. “So I heard.” It might be the truth. At this point, who knew? What I did know was that Hector had lied to me in the beginning. Why should I believe he wasn’t lying now? “So I heard. And from such an honest guy, too.”
I had a way of ending conversations myself. Hector moved past me, spine stiff, and led the way to one of the buildings on the right. He may have been several feet in front of me, but I didn’t delude myself into thinking he wasn’t aware of my location at every moment. In other words, decking him with my duffel bag and making a run for the fences was pretty much the fantasy realm of action movies. Even if it weren’t, there was still Glory to consider. Glory and the baby. My sister-she’d shoplift anything that wasn’t nailed down, but apparently she’d missed the birth-control aisle.
“Here we are.” There was the turn of two keys, and a heavy slab of a door was opened as teeth were bared in a humorless grin, paying me back. “Cell sweet cell.”
A hall bathed in subdued light ran for about twenty-five feet, then branched off in both directions. Doors with small glass and chicken-wire windows were evenly spaced on both sides. “Any of my respected associates here? Bunkmates?”
“No. All turned out to be more reasonable than you.” The pale eyes were fixed on me coolly. “Imagine that.” Unlocking a door on the left, he continued brusquely, “Seven A.M. wake-up call. Be ready by seven thirty. It’s going to be a long day.”
Long day. Right now, that was the least of my concerns. I stared past him into the room. It was small and military bare. One narrow bed, a small desk with a chair, and a wall-mounted lamp. There wasn’t room for anything else. Although the walls weren’t pink, I could still taste the chalk and sweat of Cane Lake. It purged the aftertaste of the beer and roiled sickly on the back of my tongue. Not the state home, but it may as well have been. I was a prisoner again. Trapped yet one more damn time.
“There’s a bathroom and shower through the far door.” The eyes were still on me. Assessing now. Measuring. “You will be locked in. I can’t do anything about that. Project regulations.”
“My sister would be enough to keep me here,” I responded tightly, shifting my weight. “You don’t need a goddamn lock.”
“Regulations,” he repeated, unmoved.
Taking a breath, I held it for a second, then blew it out. “Yeah, regulations,” I said colorlessly. I hefted the duffel bag and walked through the doorway. I tossed the bag onto the bed with every expectation of hearing the door slam behind me. When it didn’t, I looked over my shoulder to see Charlie’s brother watching me. Not John Chang, not Hector the blackmailer, but the brother Charlie had talked about with pride more than ten years ago.
“I remember what it was like.” The keys dangled in his hand, catching the dim light. “Being a ‘guest’ of the state.” His lips twisted, and he ran a hand over his short hair as he said with a tone brittle as old glass, “I guess we all do.” The hand dropped to the door handle. “Call if you need anything. Someone is on duty at all times.”
He paused, then added without emotion, “Welcome to Summerland.” He gave the name a special emphasis, but by the time my eyes went to the buttonless and featureless phone on the desk and back again, he was gone. The lock engaged with a metallic click, and I was alone.
In a cage.
I shook it off. It wasn’t my first cage. I’d gotten out of that one, and I would get out of this one. I just had to bide my time. Play the cards I was dealt. Live by all those useless cliches that never helped a damn when they were actually applied to you. Leaning over the desk, I switched on the lamp. The puddle of light was anemic at best, especially compared with the pitiless glare of the overhead fluorescent light. I hit the switch by the door, and the buzzing white light flickered then went dark. Sometimes the dark was better… or the near dark, anyway. I returned to the desk and sat down. Resting my hand flat on the surface, I considered. Time to take the gloves off.
Literally.
7
Morning came. That was the best you could say about it. It came. The phone rang twice promptly at seven and then went silent. I didn’t bother to pick it up. There wasn’t anyone I particularly cared to talk to right now, and I doubted whoever was at the other end would take an order for eggs over easy. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and sat for a moment with aching head in hands. I’d taken the gloves off, all right… for all the good it did. The room was as empty and sterile as the surface of the moon. The cheap furniture was all new, as were the sheets and blanket. The same thin, scratchy wool that I’d slept under at Cane Lake. It made me wonder: Was there, like, one guy who had the market cornered? Was he standing on a street corner hawking his wares? “Institutional blankets! Get your institutional blankets here!” Intimidate children and freeze the asses off adults, what a bargain.
As for the room, I’d gotten exactly jack shit off of it. Even the walls themselves had nothing to tell me. As far as I could tell, I was the first person to have slept here. My buddy Hector Allgood really wasn’t taking any chances. But why? He wanted to use me, use what I could do, yet he was damn sure doing his best to keep me from it. Between trying to puzzle that out and the hangover from trying to suck information out of a place where it simply didn’t exist, the headache was a solid weight behind my eyes. Grimacing, I stood and headed to the bathroom. Maybe I’d luck out and my gracious hosts would’ve left me a bottle of aspirin.
As with the eggs over easy, it just wasn’t happening.
