Part 29 (1/2)
Valentine flashed his breast-pocket wad. ”I want to see the girls first. I'm willing to pay, but I don't want anyone whose already used up. Someone kind of innocent and fresh,” Valentine said.
”Hey, Pillow, you want innocent and fresh, you have to come to the special show tonight.
When I saw her, I almost decided to come out of retirement. But I'll let Clubber and Valkyrie and my two best Grogs do her.”
Walker took Valentine to the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs.
”This'll be private, right?”
”Kid, there's curtains on the cells. Don't worry about noise; no one's going to disturb you.”
They came up against the metal bas.e.m.e.nt door. Walker thumbed through a ring of keys and opened it. They pa.s.sed though to a s.p.a.cious lower level.
It reminded Valentine of a stable, except for the dirty white tile everywhere. A series of cells with barred doors lined the walls. Valentine smelled blood, urine, and feces without even using his hard sense of smell. Another man in a khaki uniform sat at a desk, talking animatedly over a phone.
”Hey, Burt! There are problems up top. There's a fire in the Grog pens, and the stables. Can you believe it?”
”Oh, fine,” Walker said, disgusted. ”Stupid Grogs. ”Cause they're cheap and eat anything, we gotta employ 'em. They're more trouble than they're worth. Find Clubber and go help out at the stables. I don't give a s.h.i.+t if the Grog pens burn right to the ground. They can spend the winter under Lakesh.o.r.e Drive for all I care.”
The man nodded and disappeared up the stairs to the first floor.
”Okay, kid. Check out the cells, and then we'll talk price.”
One of the doors slid open, and Jimmy King staggered out. He was nude, hollow chested, with spindly arms and legs. His face was covered in blood, and it ran down his chest into a mat of sticky black hair. He wiped blood from his eyes with slow, tired movements.
”Hey, King,” Walker called. ”Go use the hose, will ya? You're dripping all over the place.”
The Twisted Cross man went to a washbasin with a floor drain beneath and began to hose himself off. Valentine walked up and down the cells, looking at the battered, pathetic figures behind the bars. Most of the stable-stall-size rooms were empty, and one held the remains of King's purchase, lifeless legs spread wide and throat torn messily open. Valentine reached a smaller hallway, empty of cells with another gate at the end of it, and wandered down it.
The sliding barred door blocked his way, and he could see a long, poorly lit tunnel on the other side of the bars.
Something from down the tunnel tickled at his nostrils. He hardened his sense of smell and sniffed at the air. His heart skipped a beat as he recognized the odor of rose-petal soap. He returned to the tiles of the wide central hallway.
King had dressed again and was leaving, almost scuttling out the door to the upstairs.
Walker shook his head and hefted his bulk up from behind the desk.
”Okay, boy. I'm a busy man. Which one? King's left me with a mess for the Grogs to clean up.”
”Sir, how about you let me have the one for tonight's show? I won't even bruise her.”
”Naw, sorry, kid. I'm already in Dutch about her. One of the guys got a little rough when she first got here, and I caught h.e.l.l. They want her with a lot of energy for the show, you know? The guys always like it better if they aren't half-dead to begin with.” Valentine looked in one of the pens at a curled up, sleeping black woman. ”This one looks unspoiled.
But I think she might be dead. I can't see her breathing.”
”Eh? What's that?”
”I don't see anything moving. And her head's at sort of a funny angle.”
Walker came over to the cage, reaching for an old-fas.h.i.+oned key. He looked inside.
”What the h.e.l.l are you talking 'bout, junior? I can see- graak!”
Walker's last choked cry came as Valentine whipped the thin leather belt, wrapped tightly in each fist around the man's neck. The chief's ma.s.sive frame heaved, and latissimus muscles the size of halved watermelons bulged against his s.h.i.+rt. Valentine leaped onto Walker's back, wrapping his legs around his thick waist, and pulled on the leather garrote until his muscles flamed in agony. Walker crashed over backwards onto Valentine, trying to crush him with his weight, but the Chief of One-Way Exhibits weakened. Valentine rolled him onto his stomach with a heave, digging his knee into his opponent's kidneys. Walker flapped like a landed fish as the muted crackling of his throat's collapsing cartilage sounded through his gaping mouth. Valentine continued pulling until he could no longer hear a heartbeat. Then he stood, the odor of Walker's feces and urine rank in his nostrils.
He turned the chief over, avoiding looking into the bulging eyes. Removing the key ring and a club from Walker's belt, he pulled the body feetfirst into an open stall, closed the curtains, and slid the door shut, locking it. His hands shook as much from nerves as from muscular exhaustion as he went to the smaller corridor. The rose smell cahned him as he tried the barred gate. It did not yield until after he tried several different keys.
Perhaps the corridor had been brightly lit once, but now only a dank gloom filled his eyes.
He used his nose to guide him, following the homing beacon of the rose smell to a cell door.
The sound of quiet breathing behind the door rea.s.sured him.
”Molly, it's me, David... I'm here to get you out,” he whispered, trying the keys. She did not respond, and he grew frantic. The lock finally yielded. He pushed the squealing door open.
The cell was bare and dark, the cracked cement floor sliding down to a drainage hole.
Molly Carlson lay curled up in a corner, arms around her drawn-up legs, head resting sideways on her bare knees. She wore the tattered remnants of her white s.h.i.+rt from yesterday-yesterday, he thought, or a year ago?-and blood smeared the side of her face where it had dried from a b.l.o.o.d.y clot of pulled-out hair. Valentine's heart ached at the purple bruises on her face and in her eye sockets. He knelt next to her.
”Molly, Molly! Molly,” he almost shouted, gripping her hand. He patted the side of her pallid cheek and futilely searched for a response. He felt a strong, steady pulse under her wrist.
Was she drugged?He reached around her shoulders and under her knees. ”I'll carry you out, then, Melissa,”
he said, lifting her into his arms.
Like a jinni summoned by the use of its name, her eyelids fluttered open. ”David?” she croaked. ”No... yes... how?”
He bore her out of the cell and down the tunnel, away from the bas.e.m.e.nt. ”Explanations will have to wait. We're both in a fix. But we're getting out of here,” he said, quietly but with all the confidence he could muster.
Tearing himself away from the smell of roses on her skin, he caught the scent of fresh air and followed it like a bloodhound on a trail. Soon they reached a small corridor, jutting off from the main one at an empty doorframe. Following the now stronger odor of the outdoors, Valentine reached a short set of stairs.
”Can you walk?” he asked.
”I think so, David. I thought I was dead. I made my mind die-Valentine looked into her battered features. He wanted to kiss her, but something in her haunted eyes held him back.
”Did they hurt you? Were you-?”
”Don't ask, David. Maybe I'll tell you someday. Now... now it's out of my mind, and it's staying out for a while. Where are we?”
”Chicago. The Zoo.”
”That's where they said they were taking me. They said some big shots from downstate were going to come here and watch me... die.”
”You're going to disappoint them, Molly.”
”But you can't get out of Chicago. Not with me, anyway.”
”Watch us.”
”David, just shoot me. Shoot me and go, because after... I want you to get out, no matter what.”