Bad Moon On The Rise (33 page)

I said nothing. He knew anyway. “A
couple of my men work up at Silver Top and they tell me a prisoner
escaped from there yesterday. From the looks of you, I’m guessing
that would be you.”

I remained silent, taking my cue from
Ramsey.

“
I’ve got nothing against
escaped prisoners,” the man added. “I might even be inclined to
offer them a hot shower.”

“
Oh god, yes,” I blurted
out, unable to stop myself.

The man laughed again and, without
raising his voice, issued orders to the asshole guard who had
thrown me to the ground. “Take her to my personal bathroom and give
her some privacy. Give her towels and clean clothes. Then bring her
back here.”

The guard hated being nice to me, but
he didn’t lay a hand on me, at least not until we were out in the
clearing on the way to the head honcho’s cabin. Which meant that
whoever was sitting behind the screen had absolute authority over
them all.

“
No peeking,” I admonished
the guard after he had hustled me into a modern bathroom with a
huge walk-in shower. He shot me the bird and slammed the
door.

Hot water had never felt so good,
ever, and, believe me, I have needed some damn showers during my
thirty-something years. I stood beneath the spray, wondering what I
had gotten myself into but unable to care, so intense was my
pleasure at finally being clean, at the sensation of hot water
swooshing off my body and soap slicking over my skin.

The guard did as he was told and kept
a respectful distance at the door of the cabin until I emerged from
the bathroom, feeling human again, toweling my hair dry. He’d left
me several sizes of jeans and work shirts to choose from, along
with clean socks. I had no underwear and would rather have died
than put my old pair back on. But I‘d gone commando by choice
plenty of times before and I’d do it again now. Nothing was going
to spoil my pleasure at being clean. I even had fresh socks on my
feet.

 “
Don’t I clean up
nice?” I asked the guard.

“
Shut up,” he said. “I
would not have dealt with you in the same manner.”

“
No, but you’re not the
big cheese, are you?” I taunted him. “Although something tells me
you wish you were.”

He grabbed my arm and pulled me out
the door, dragging me across the dirt clearing to the other cabin.
But I noticed he let me walk back into it under my own steam, so no
one would know he’d been manhandling me. Like all bullies, he only
had the nerve to pretend to be a big man with people he was sure
were less powerful than him.

Everyone appeared to be in the exact
same position as when I had left. The only difference was that
Ramsey shifted ever so slightly and hissed, “Traitor!” under his
breath at me when I took my seat again.

“
Thank you,” I said, more
to rub it in with Ramsey then anything else. “That was the best
damn shower I have ever had in my entire life.”

“
We have an excellent
plumbing system here. Two of our men make their living in the
profession.” A plume of smoke spiraled upward from the other side
of the screen, rendering him this strange disembodied voice… that
smoked.

“
What are we supposed to
call you?” I asked him. “The Smoking Man?”

He was not an X-Files fan.  He
said nothing.

“
You’re Grubb, aren’t
you?” I asked. “One of your men called you that. I think he needs
some serious disciplining.”

“
Leave us,” the man said
to his men. The two guards with rifles immediately slung them over
their shoulders and made for the door. But the man who had failed
to appreciate my charms balked at obeying.

“
Leave us now,” Grubb said
louder, his voice taking on an even harsher quality. “I want two of
you to guard the door and one of you to guard the back
window.”

My special friend left—giving me a
look heated enough to dry my wet hair on the way out.

“
Kisses,” I called after
him. He slammed the door behind him.

“
It is not wise to taunt
my men,” the compound leader warned me. “I think perhaps you know
that.”

“
If you mean, do I know
that your men are complete assholes, the answer is ‘yes. I know.’
Especially the ones who work at the prison as guards.”

Grubb was silent. Ramsey gave me a
look that I roughly translated as “Shut the fuck up and play stupid
so we get out of here alive.” I ignored him. The only weapon I had
at my disposal was my big mouth and I intended to use it. If I got
any one of the men pissed off enough, he might make a mistake and
we might be able to take advantage of it. Besides, Grubb had a code
of honor. He had treated me like a gentleman.

“
I suppose you know what
they’re doing at the prison,” I said. “I suppose you authorized
it.”

Grubb remained silent.

“
I know all about the drug
running,” I told him. “I know you use women to sell your drugs to
finance this place. I know you force them to do things they don’t
want to do.”

“
They are paid well for
their services,” Grubb said. “Extremely well. They are eager to
cooperate. Everyone wins.”

“
Oh, yeah,” I said
angrily, ignoring Ramsey’s frantic eye signals, which made him look
like he was having a seizure. “What about the ones who want a
second chance at life with their families when they get out? The
ones who want to walk away from breaking the law, but your men
won’t let them? Do they win?”

“
I repeat: our associates
are eager and willing. They benefit greatly from our
enterprise.”

 “
Does everyone
benefit when the guards pull them into bathrooms at the prison and
rape them?” I asked. “Do they win when your men kill them and
kidnap their children?”

“
Explain yourself,” Grubb
barked, so quickly I flinched. “No one gets raped or murdered under
my orders. My men are disciplined. They do not behave in that
manner.”

Ramsey was squirming so hard his chair
was about to topple over. I realized he was trying to kick me into
silence with bound feet from three yards away. I shrugged my
apology but had no intention of stopping now. I could tell I’d
struck a nerve: Grubb did not know all that his men were doing. He
had renegades on his hands, men who did not adhere to the
compound’s code of honor.

“
Maybe you need to talk
less to me and talk more to your men,” I suggested. “Because they
are damn sure raping women prisoners, and you have right here in
this compound a fifteen year old boy who was taken from his mother
after your men murdered her. Yes, murdered her, in cold blood, then
made it look like a drug overdose, and left her body to bloat and
rot for five days, all because she wanted out of your nasty
enterprise.”

“
We have no one who is not
here under their own free will,” Grubb said. “Yes, we have young
men, but they are all eighteen years old, at a minimum, and quite
capable of making their own decisions about where to
live.”

“
You have a fifteen year
old boy living here named Trey Blackburn,” I insisted. “I was hired
by his relatives to find him and I was working undercover at the
prison, trying to locate him.”

Grubb laughed at me. Meanwhile, Ramsey
was resorting to hissing “ssshhh” at me, like I was talking through
his movie or something. I was too mad to care.

“
I’m telling you the
truth,” I said angrily. “Call Trey in and talk to him. He’ll tell
you. Your men lied to him. They said his mother was going back to
prison, but she’s dead. I can give you her name and where she lived
and you can make a few calls. My story is easily verified. Her
murder is under investigation now.”

Ramsey was shaking his head like I was
the biggest idiot on the planet, but I didn’t care. I’d gotten a
very strong feeling about the man behind the room divider. Yes, he
headed up a compound of kooks, at least they were kooks to us, I’m
sure they considered themselves true patriots. But he ran a tight
ship, and when he let me take my shower, he’d ordered his men to
give me privacy and, well, he seemed like a man who treated women
with respect, as peculiar as that sounds under the circumstances. I
was certain he had not known of everything his men were doing in
his name.

“
Look,” I continued.
“Can’t we talk face to face? This is ridiculous.”

Ramsey rolled his eyes like I was the
biggest idiot on the planet.

“
I don’t think so,” Grubb
said calmly.

“
Why not?” I
demanded.

This time Ramsey lost it and spoke.
“Why do you think, Casey? Gol-durnit, you’re as stubborn as a dead
mule. He doesn’t want us to be able to identify him and that’s just
fine with me.”

“
Oh.” I tried to recover
with some dignity intact. “Look,” I said to Grubb, “I understand
you are running a business here.”

“
Not just a business,” he
interrupted. “I am facilitating the evolution of the human race. If
people want to poison themselves, let them. Have you never read the
works of Charles Darwin?”

“
Fine. You’re only giving
evolution a hand. And maybe some of the women who get out of Silver
Top are more than willing to make a few bucks by selling your
drugs. But your men aren’t sticking with using those women for
their distribution chain. They’re forcing women to work for you.
They’re blackmailing them by threatening to have their parole
revoked, and they’re threatening their families with harm, and they
damn sure are indeed forcing prisoners to have sex with
them.”

“
My men are disciplined,”
Grubb repeated tersely.

“
Then ask some of your
men, men you trust beyond question, if they think my story is
bullshit. I’ll bet you anything they’ll tell you I could be telling
the truth. They’ll tell you that not everyone who lives on this
compound is honorable, not everyone follows your code.”

In the silence that followed, as Grubb
thought over what I had said, Ramsey caught my eye. His eyes kept
darting to his right so I followed his gaze. There, mounted on the
wall, was a neat row of knives, each one nestled carefully in its
place. They ranged in size from daggers to machetes, and I had a
feeling they weren’t just there for show. But I was glad they were
there when I checked out Ramsey’s bindings more carefully. His feet
were tied to the chair with nylon rope and his hands were so firmly
trussed behind his back it would take some serious sawing with one
of those knives to set him free.

“
What you say is
disturbing,” Grubb said from behind the screen. He had thought it
over and decided my words might have some merit.

“
Look, all I want is to
take the boy home,” I said. “I’ll let you deal with the men who
murdered his mother. I’m sure the boy can point them out to
you.”

“
That is not necessary. I
know who they must be.” He paused. “Excuse me a moment. Do not move
while I am gone. My men are watching. You will be shot if you
attempt to escape.”

Grubb moved too quickly for me to see
him. He was only visible for a few feet between the edge of the
room divider and the front door, and he had a green hoodie pulled
low over his face. All I knew was that he was tall and
well-built.

The moment he left us alone, Ramsey
started in on me. “What the everlovin’ hell do you think you’re
doing?” he asked.

“
He has a code of honor,”
I said. “He’s not going to kill us.”

“
He doesn’t need to,”
Ramsey pointed out sensibly. “I am sure any one of his men would be
happy to do it for him.”

“
He wouldn’t let that
happen.”

“
He wouldn’t know,” Ramsey
hissed. “All he has to say is ‘take these people out of here’ and
his men will take us out, all right. That’s the way it works. No
witnesses. No surprises. No survivors. No chances
taken.”

“
I’m sure you
exaggerate.”

“
I’m sure I don’t,” he
insisted angrily, just as the door opened again. Grubb was back,
but he was behind the screen before we could catch so much as a
glimpse of his face.

“
What did I miss?” he
asked smoothly. “Lover’s quarrel?”

Ramsey’s bitter laugh put that theory
to rest.

“
I wouldn’t touch him with
a ten-foot pole,” I said, for my part. “And, trust me, he does not
have a ten-foot pole.”

Grubb laughed. “So you do know this
man?” he said. “How is it you two are together, wandering the
mountains?”

“
I called him from the
woods after I escaped,” I explained grudgingly, not liking to be
reminded I owed Ramsey a debt. “He helped me get away from the
guards and the dogs and told me where to go to keep safe until he
could get to me. Then he drove all night to get me.” I was suddenly
ashamed of my earlier outburst and added, “He’s a man of loyalty
and principle, just like you.”

Hey, it’s not everyone who can mend
bridges with old friends and suck up to new ones all at the very
same time.

“
He did all that long
distance?” Grubb asked. “That takes some skill. I could use a man
like him.”