He walked back out into the main room. The shackles still lay where he had left them on the floor. He stepped around them as if they were a bear trap.
Then, seeing that he was alone, he went into the kitchen. He had wondered how food was stored without electricity. The mystery was solved by the sight of a new propane refrigerator. The rest was more rustic, with the same kind of cold-water porcelain sink as the washhouse, and a huge old Monarch wood cookstove. But unlike the rest of the camp, it was clean and well kept. He suspected the hand of Marguerite.
He quickly opened drawers and cabinets, looking for knives, but the only utensils were plastic, like the ones that Marguerite had given him last night. He went through the couple of dusty, disused-looking bedrooms next, but he found nothing that might work as a weapon. It seemed clear that this was intentional-even the fireplace pokers were charred sticks of pine. There were no other exterior doors, and the few windows were crossed with half-inch reinforcing rod, like prison bars, attached from the outside.
As soon as his shackles had come off, the thought of escape had entered his mind again, as Freeboot must have known it would. But the odds were still almost nil. Without doubt, he was being watched closely. And if by some miracle he did succeed, Freeboot might take out his rage on Glenn-even on Mandrake. There were other cards to be played before any kind of desperate attempt. Freeboot was trying to impress him, and that might just open the way to a resolution.
Freeboot’s book was still lying on the table. Monks leaned over and saw that it was Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra-the treatise in which he propounded his concept of the Übermensch, seized on later by the Nazis and distorted into a superior being with the right to dominate, without regard for law or humanity.
It was another almost ludicrous touch, part of Freeboot’s show-and yet the volume was worn, obviously much handled, with notes written in the margins in an uneven, illegible script. Monks flipped through it, looking for a name or some other identifying mark. The only thing he found was a ripped patch inside the front cover, suggesting that a library pocket had been torn off. Probably the book had been stolen.
The coffee that he had asked for was waiting, in a small blue enamel sheepherder’s coffeepot set at the edge of the fireplace to stay warm. He supposed that Marguerite had left it for him while he was at Glenn’s cabin. There was food, too, this time a sandwich of packaged baloney and cheese on white bread, and a small bag of Cheetos. It was like a boxed school lunch.
He ate standing up in front of the fire, glad for the warmth seeping into his flesh. Then he went back into the kitchen and indulged himself in the luxury of brushing his teeth again. As he was finishing, he heard someone come into the lodge. He looked through the kitchen door and saw that it was Motherlode, Mandrake’s mother, going into the boy’s bedroom. Monks quickly rinsed up and went after her.
Her back was turned to the doorway as he stepped through. She was reaching up to the shelf where he kept the insulin.
When she turned around, she had a plastic-wrapped syringe in her hand. She stared vacantly at Monks, and then jerked in delayed surprise.
So that was where the syringes had been going.
Probably she was crushing the oxycodone pills into a liquid solution, then shooting it. Monks had heard that it was a quicker and more powerful rush than from taking them orally.
“Mandrake’s going to need all of those,” he said.
“Okay. I won’t take any more.” She moved toward the door, still holding the syringe.
“That one, too.”
Her face took on a sullen, hostile look-a transformation so abrupt and complete from her earlier placidness that it was like a special effect in a movie.
“Hey, man, you don’t own this place, okay?” she said. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
“We’re talking about your son.”
She glanced over at the bed, where Mandrake might or might not have been awake and listening. Then she shoved the syringe into Monks’s hand and pushed petulantly through the hanging blanket into the main room.
“Why don’t you stay here?” Monks said, following her. “Play with him, read to him.”
“I can’t right now.”
“Are you HIV positive?” Monks demanded.
She spun to face him, as if she had been shot.
“No,” she spat out. She hurried on outside without looking back.
Mandrake hadn’t moved, but his eyes were open. Monks sat down beside him on the bed and started reading aloud from The Runaway Bunny.
Shrinkwrap walked toward the lodge with a small flashlight in her hand, flicking it on and off in the three-two-three code the group used to identify themselves. Dusk had turned to full night, the moon a faint smudge behind the thick clouds rolling in from the Pacific. Hammerhead was in that darkness somewhere, standing guard, watching her approach. She shone the light on her own face.
“It’s me, HH,” she said. “We need to talk.”
His shape separated from the shadows beside the lodge, rifle in hand, barrel pointed down. Hammerhead trusted her absolutely, and she understood him far better than he understood himself. She had found him, like the others-troubled young men whose aimless aggressiveness would almost certainly have led them to prison. She counseled them as a psychologist, bullied them like a drill sergeant, and nurtured them like a mother. Once that intimacy was established, she took them to bed, deepening the bond by deliciously violating the taboo. Then she weaned them to the care of Freeboot and Taxman, who would channel their wild energy into purpose.
Although once in a while one would come along, with just the right combination of boyishness and insolence, and she would keep him for as long as it was convenient. Right now, that one was Monks’s son.
“You sure we’re alone?” she asked Hammerhead.
He nodded. Still, she spoke in a conspiratorial whisper.
“Freeboot sent me to tell you there’s going to be a scalp hunt tonight. And a chance for you to make maquis.” She smiled. “So if you bring home the hair of a certain person, you’ll be initiated. I think you know who I mean.”
His reaction surprised her. She had expected a show of fierce elation. Making maquis would mean that he would finally have what he wanted most-Marguerite. And a chance to get even with Captain America in the process.
But he only licked his lips anxiously. His big face looked pale, and his eyes were troubled, even frightened. Hammerhead followed orders well but didn’t think fast, and when he was faced with a decision, he tended to get nervous. But she had never seen him scared before.
She stepped closer and touched his face, concerned. “Hey, sweetie. What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing,” he mumbled.
“Come on, you can tell me. You know I’ll stay cool.”
Hammerhead looked around unhappily, as if reassuring himself that no one else was nearby.
“He said I got this thing in my eye. A tic.” His finger rose and touched his face.
“Who said?”
“Him.” Hammerhead jerked his head toward the lodge. “Coil’s old man.”
“A tic?”
“Yeah. You know.” He fluttered his eyelid clumsily.
“Well, what about it?”
Hammerhead swallowed hard. “It means I’m gonna die.”
Shrinkwrap stared at him, hands coming to rest on her hips. “He told you what?”
9
Monks had discovered, twenty-some years earlier, that he made a pretty good mattress whale-stretched out on a bed, rising and falling in undulating motions, with much thrashing and loud blubbering sounds. The clowning had delighted his own kids, and now, for the first time, Mandrake was sitting up and giggling.