Sanctuary (15 page)

“Well, I guess that depends.”

“It does, does it? Depends on what? ’Cause I’d hate to see a pretty girl like you lost in a bar like this. Are you all right?”

“Of course I am. Do you know Bear?”

He cocked his head. “Bear? Can’t say that I do.”

“That man behind you in the bear T-shirt. You don’t know him?”

He threw a glance over his shoulder, saw that the man in the bear T-shirt was staring at us, and offered a curt nod. “Yup. That’s Bill.” He turned back to me. “Why, you know him?”

“Should I?”

A knowing smile slowly formed on his face. “Well that depends if you like three hundred pounds of man smothering you.”

“You ever see him wear that shirt before?”

He looked again and shook his head. “Nope. Can’t say that I have. You want him? Because I think he could be persuaded.”

“That depends.”

Without waiting for me to lead the conversation any further, the man turned and called out, “Hey, Bill, I think the pretty girl here likes you.”

The cacophony of background voices faded, leaving the sounds of AC/DC blaring alone.

“Well, heck, send her over,” Bear roared. “Come on over here, sugar.”

That was one way to approach Sicko’s test. I was now fully committed, and I let my impetuous nature lead me on. With only a moment’s hesitation, I stepped past the man who’d offered to buy me a drink and walked up to the table where Bear and his three friends sat, wearing impish grins. They needed baths, all of them. And, hairy as they were, they should have at least had the decency to trim the hair poking out of their ears.

“Are you Bear?” I asked.

The man scooted his chair back and patted a thigh as thick as an oak trunk. “Come to papa, sugar.”

Now, I could have told him where to shove his sugar, but I refused to let my disgust distract me from what I’d come to do.

“Actually, I’d rather dance,” I said.

That earned a chuckle from the man to his right, a thin fellow who looked half Bear’s age. “That’s right, Bear. She wants to dance for us. Honey, you can dance for me anytime you like.”

“Shut up, Steve. Don’t you listen to him, sugar.” He paused, eyeing me with round, bloodshot eyes, then spoke in a lower voice. “How much you charging?”

Heat washed over my face and it took all of my focus not to kick him in his shin and leave. But that didn’t stop me from helping him understand that I wasn’t a prostitute and that I hadn’t offered him a lap dance.

“On the floor, you buffoon.” What if he wasn’t the right man? “A friend told me I should dance with a man called Bear. Either you’re that man, in which case I would like to dance with you, or you’re not, and I can leave you to your beer.”

His smile softened, but he didn’t immediately acknowledge that he was in fact the bear. My patience was all but gone. I’d gotten the note and followed what I thought were the instructions. Either there was a bear in the bar or there wasn’t. I looked up and saw the whole room was now watching our exchange.

“Is anyone else here called the bear?”

They all just stared at me, some grinning, either pleased with my show of chutzpah or embarrassed for me.

“No? No one?”

Not a soul spoke up.

I turned back to the hairy man. “That leaves you. Now either you want to dance with me or you don’t. Your call.”

He nodded, tongue poking against the inside of his cheek. “Sure, sugar—”

“Can you please not call me that?”

Beside him, Steve stifled a laugh.

“You wanna dance, then let’s dance.” Bear started to push himself up, and seeing his lumbering form rise, I felt a sudden urgency to know without a doubt that this thug really was working with Sicko.

“You sure you’re the bear?”

“I am for you, sweet cakes.”

“Don’t call me that either,” I said.

He loomed over me, belly out like the nose of a submarine, and gave me half a bow. “If it’ll get me a dance.” To one of the men behind the bar, “Give us something romantic, Harry. Foreigner or something.”

“You sure you’re Bear?” I asked again, needing to be sure.

“Don’t worry, sugar, you’ve found your man.”

The music stopped midsong and then started with the intro to “I Want to Know What Love Is.” Satisfied, he pulled his oversized jeans up by the belt and walked out onto the dance floor. Spreading his legs, he waved his arms like a belly dancer and began gyrating his hips.

Hoots and whistles filled the bar. “Swing those hips, Big Bear. That’s right, show her what you got, Bill.”

I stood like a fence post, suddenly terrified by what I had gotten myself into. But this was exactly what Sicko wanted. He was testing me, leading me down a path to see if I would break. Dancing with Bear was the least of my concerns.

I walked out to Bear and stood three feet from him as he moved to the music. My jackknife was in my pocket. I could have it out in two seconds if he started slobbering in my ear. The wire was under my jeans, but I couldn’t see jumping on his back and strangling him out here on the dance floor. But I was overthinking the situation. He only wanted to dance.

“Come on, sugar, dance with the Bear. Show me what you got.”

I was tempted to slap him, but I didn’t. Instead, I began to shift my weight to the beat of the music as the chorus swelled.

“That’s it, baby. Ooo, yeah. Show me what you got.”

“Shut up,” I said, loud enough for only him to hear over the music.

He moved closer and reached for my hand. “Move that skinny little butt like you want it, baby.”

That was it. I stopped. “Okay. I’ve danced with you, now what?”

“You call that a dance? I don’t think so. You show me what you have or you don’t get what I have.”

“So you do have something for me?”

“Maybe. But you’re going to have to dance with me, sugar. And I do mean dance.”

“Is
sugar
the only word you know for ‘woman’?”

He winked. “Melts in your mouth and in your hands.”

I couldn’t help thinking it would be pretty easy to poke him in one of those big eyeballs of his. But that wasn’t what Sicko had in mind, so I reluctantly let him take my hand and went through a few motions with his bulbous belly pressed against me.

Slow now. “That’s it. That’s the way you dance with the papa bear.” He pulled me closer and whispered into my ear. “I have what you want but not out here. Follow me after the song.”

He pulled back, lifted both hands above his head, and swayed to the music. More whistles and catcalls. I could barely hear the music over the surge of encouragement. But I now knew I’d found the right man, and I played my part, offering a forced smile for the benefit of the onlookers.

The song began to wind down and Bear took my hand. “Come with me, darling.” He led me toward the hall and the bar began to settle behind us, punctuated with a holler from Steve: “Bill’s gonna get himself some.”

I assumed Bear was simply leading me into the hall so that he could give me whatever he’d been paid to give me. But I was wrong.

He waddled down the hall and entered the women’s bathroom. Left with no clear option, I followed him in. The woman who’d occupied the stall earlier was gone. I was alone with the hairy and now sweaty bear, and with the smells of a badly cleaned bathroom.

“I got what you want, sugar,” Bear said, eyeing me as if I were a piece of candy. “But it’s not going to be that easy.”

He was making no attempt to hide his interest and my thoughts flashed to the knife in my pocket. Then to the wire around my waist. But if I pulled either out now, he would only pull out whatever hidden weapon he had, and I would either leave empty-handed or not at all.

He drew one hand through his beard. “How about a little kiss. Hmm?”

“How about you give me what you were paid to give me. I danced with you, didn’t I?”

“Oh, yeah you sure did. But that wasn’t the deal.”

“Well that was
my
deal, so please, just give me whatever you have for me and no one gets hurt.”

Bear chuckled. “Is that what you think you’re going to do to me? Hmm? You gonna hurt me?”

He shouldn’t have said that. He couldn’t have known it, but he’d put me in a whole new frame of mind, no longer as concerned with what weapon he might have hidden in his pocket.

But he’d also opened a door for me, hadn’t he? Bear was a pervert, and there’s more than one way to deal with a pervert. Summoning my full reserve of control, I forced my mind off the knife in my pocket and offered him a thin yet seductive smile.

“Is that what you want?” My stomach turned. I placed a hand on his chest, then gave him a gentle shove.

“And how do I know you have what I’m looking for?” I asked in the same tone. I closed the space, leaving only six inches between us. “How do I know you’re not just an imposter trying to step in on another man’s fun?”

“Because I have it,” he said.

“Have what?”

“The note.”

“Show me.”

He hesitated. Then reached for his jeans without removing his eyes from mine. Wearing a coy smile, he slowly pulled the leading edge of a folded note out of his pocket. “See? It’s right here.”

I smiled and slowly slipped my hand up his thigh toward the note while I leaned in and gazed into his eyes. Every nerve in my body was on fire, but not in the way he hoped.

“Good,” I purred. And then I closed my fingers around the note and brought my knee up into his groin with enough force to break a watermelon in half.

He gasped and I let my rage get the better of me. I slapped him across his face. Hard.

“Shame on you!”

Bear roared in pain, more from my knee than from my slap, I guessed, but I didn’t hang around for clarity. With the note firmly in my left hand, I flew to the door, ducked out, took one deep breath, and headed back out to the bar.

I have no idea what the patrons thought I’d accomplished in such a short time alone with Bear, but a few of them whistled and called out their congratulations. I simply smiled courteously and walked past them all without a backward glance.

The moment the door swung closed behind me, I was running for my car. I can’t lie, I felt a strange euphoria—the kind you might feel after narrowly escaping a rushing rhino. What was more, I’d maybe helped Bear gain a new appreciation for women, especially those who were a third his size. For a moment there, I came close to whooping and pumping a fist above my head. I had the note. I was alive. Danny was safe.

Victory.

But a few other words quickly pushed the thought of victory from my mind.

I’m serious as the devil in hell.

I turned into the parking lot and pulled up, breathing hard. This was just the beginning, wasn’t it? And Danny…My heart broke thinking about him. Danny had no clue. If he knew, he would carve Sicko up into small chunks and throw his body parts into the ocean.

In that moment, standing alone ten yards from my Toyota, I wanted Danny to do just that. I wanted it with all of my heart.

DEEP MEDITATION.

Prisons were not simply constructed at the whim of one man, but subject to committees’ reviews for approval, always under the scrutiny and guidelines established by the Corrections Standards Authority.

In the Basal case, Warden Marshall Pape had been involved prior to the prison’s construction, but he answered to a director in the Division of Adult Institutions. Who in turn answered to the chief deputy secretary of Adult Operations, who answered to the man at the top: the secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, appointed by the governor of California to his cabinet.

The entire system was closely watched by the Office of the Inspector General, the equivalent of an internal-affairs watchdog. Scrutiny, more scrutiny, and even more scrutiny.

The question that first presented itself to Danny when he was led into the bowels of the prison was how the section Bostich called deep meditation could have possibly been constructed under so much scrutiny.

The answer was plain: it couldn’t have. The room had initially served some other purpose, only to be modified after the prison was opened. And it was likely done so with the knowledge of the director in the Division of Adult Institutions, perhaps also with the agreement of someone in the inspector general’s office. Surely nothing short of such cooperation would have allowed the warden to create, much less operate, deep meditation with impunity.

The man might be a tyrant, but he wasn’t stupid. Rigorous control of the staff, the inmates, and the flow of information in and out of the prison was critical.

The captain and a CO named Mitchell Young had placed a spit hood over Danny’s head—typically used to keep prisoners from spitting on corrections officers, as the name implied—then cuffed his wrists, chained his ankles, tied both into a strap around his waist, and led him from the administrative holding room to a flight of stairs. Where the flight of stairs was, he didn’t know, because they walked some distance before descending.

It was steep, like the stairwell that led to the meditation wing where he’d spent his first few days. It led to a second door, which creaked on its hinges and opened to a much cooler room.

They took two right-angle turns, then stopped. Bostich demanded he stand still, then proceeded to open an entrance that required a full minute and included scraping and pounding not associated with the simple opening and closing of locked gates or doors.

“Hold still.”

It took only a moment for them to cut through his clothing, strip him bare, and remove his shoes.

They led Danny through the entrance into an even colder space before suggesting he watch his step because they were going down. The leg irons allowed him just enough movement to negotiate the concrete steps. Only when they passed through yet one more door, which they closed behind them, did Bostich remove Danny’s hood.

A single caged bulb shed very dim light on the room. The bare concrete space was perhaps fifteen feet to a side and may have once been used for storage or as a cistern. A single wooden table that held a small crate sat against the wall to his right. He could see no doors, but the back wall was nearly obscured by darkness.

“What’s a matter, you were expecting worse?”

Danny blinked, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

“I asked you a question.”

“I didn’t have any expectation,” Danny said.

The red-faced man wore a sneer. “You will. We reserve deep meditation for the worst of the worst, and you’re about to learn why. There’s two ways to do this. We can either knock you out, or you can go willingly. Either way, you’re going. Clear?”

Going to where, Danny had no idea.

“Yes.”

But then the restraints on the back wall emerged from the shadows and he did know. They were going to strap him up on the wall.

The captain saw his stare and smiled. “They never see it when they first come in. It’s a pain getting you up there when you’re out cold, but it’s your choice.”

“I’ll go willingly,” Danny said.

“We’ll see. One wrong move and you get a Taser in the neck, you hear? I’m gonna take off your restraints, but Mitchell’s quick on the trigger. Keep that in mind. No sudden moves.”

Danny nodded. He had no intention of showing any aggression. It would only prove pointless.

“Walk to the wall and turn around.”

Danny shuffled forward, eyeing eight eyehooks set in slats that could be adjusted to fit varying body sizes. He turned around a couple feet from the stained concrete wall. The CO named Mitchell, a rail-thin man with a long face that held too-big eyes, stood with his legs spread and Taser ready, as if he was facing off with a bear.

“Don’t move,” he snapped.

Bostich approached, holding a single strap in his left hand. He reached behind Danny, tied the restraint at his waist off to an inset eyehook, and cinched him tight against the wall. He released the irons on Danny’s wrists and ankles before stepping back.

“Sit tight.”

The man retreated to the crate on the table and withdrew a fistful of cables with leather cuffs. In less than two minutes each of Danny’s wrists, knees and ankles were snugged firmly in padded, three-inch leather restraints. Each of these six cuffs were then hooked into cables that latched into the sliding eyehooks on the wall.

Working now in silence but for their heavy breathing, Bostich and Mitchell pulled first his arms, then his feet, then his knees wide into a spread eagle on the wall. They returned to the arm cables one at a time and stretched him wider. They repeated the same exercise on his legs, pulling them up off the ground and away from each other.

Danny said nothing. All of his attention was on pressure in his joints and tendons. He was a strong man, but Bostich seemed determined to mitigate any advantage Danny might have.

As of yet, he felt no pain, but he knew that would soon change.

When they were done, the facilitators stepped back and studied their handiwork.

“Good enough?” Mitchell said.

Bostich smiled. “Oh, yeah. Two things you should know,” he said to Danny. “One, you’re in here for forty-eight hours. Don’t you worry, we’ll check on you and give you water. You’re going to need it. Two, this is just for fun. Every second you’re on that wall, you remember one thing: it can get worse. Much worse.”

Danny just stared at the man.

Evidently satisfied, they turned their backs on him, turned off the light, exited the room, and shut the door. The
thud
reminded Danny of a heavy crypt being sealed, and hanging on the wall in the pitch darkness, he couldn’t escape the subject of his own mortality.

Already his arms and legs, with which he supported most of his weight, began to tire.

The only thing he could see was inky darkness. The only thing he could hear was his own breathing. The only things he could feel were the stretching of his muscles and his naked skin, which had already started to shiver as a means of generating body heat to ward off the cold.

But these weren’t the most unnerving to him. The fact that he was even
in
such a predicament reserved that place in his mind.

And the fact that such a place even existed in a free country that despised abuse. The fact that word of this room would bring a thousand human-rights advocates and their fully armed attorneys running. The fact that no human being deserved this kind of treatment, much less a simpleminded boy like Peter.

And yet here Danny was, strapped to a wall in Basal’s bowels. If the warden inflicted such punishment on the members, it was only because he could. How, Danny wasn’t entirely sure, but his adversary was far more organized than even Danny had imagined.

No one of Pape’s intelligence would dare open the doors to this place without taking every precaution to mitigate fallout that might threaten either him or his precious sanctuary. Any objection from any member subjected to such treatment would likely bear terrible consequences or death, the threat of which would follow them into their old age.

Corrections and rehabilitation at its finest, a shining example for the rest of the world. California’s prison system was being fixed by someone who thought himself far wiser than the politicians who ran society, all to one end: the salvation of that society.

Punishment and reward, as it had been demonstrated throughout history. Basal: heaven and hell in one building.

The first half hour was quite tolerable. The next was less, forcing him to use more of the muscles in his arms and shoulders to take the weight off his burning calves and quads. During the second hour, his strength began to fail. His weight shifted from his muscles to his tendons and joints, which increased his pain.

And then Danny began to lose his sense of time, because every minute seemed to stretch far beyond its capacity. It was cold but he was sweating. His muscles were toned and strong, but he was trembling like a frail reed. His intelligence and stoic reasoning had served him through the worst of human experiences, but now they began to fade.

Danny shut down his pain to the best of his ability and hung on the wall, naked, stripped of all thoughts but the worst of all.

What were they doing to Renee?