Dead and Gone - Andrew Vachss [94]
“Sure,” I said. But, this time, Gem snatched her little suitcase before I had a chance.
The blonde went first, climbing on what looked like random cuts in the rock. Normally, watching a woman climb stairs is one of life’s great treats, but the muffling of her camo-suit and the fading sun’s occasional glint off her scattergun killed any of that for me. Gem was behind me, with the Latina bringing up the rear.
As we topped a ridge, I could see down into a cleft in the rocks big enough to hold a large building. And when I looked closer, that’s what it was. Like a Quonset hut, a damn big one, painted the same color as the rock formations surrounding it. The only thing that drew my eye was the antennas. There were enough of them to bring cable to a small city. All different heights and thicknesses, with a random assortment of satellite dishes as well.
“He’s in there,” the blonde said.
We had to stoop to get through the door. Inside was a small, square room, as antiseptic as a decompression chamber. The women racked their shotguns on either side of the doorway, took off their camo-suits, and stood silently, hands clasped behind their backs, like some parody of parade rest.
“Have a seat,” the Indian said, pointing to what looked like a transplanted church pew against the far wall. “He’s working on something now, but he’ll see you soon.”
“Would you like some coffee, or something to eat, while you’re waiting?” the blonde asked.
“Please!” Gem said, making it clear she was saying yes to all the above.
The Latina glared at the blonde, but she didn’t say anything.
The blonde went out of the room, came back in a few minutes with a coffeepot in one hand and a tray of fancy cookies in the other. “Just a second,” she said, and went back out again. When she returned, she had coffee cups and saucers, and plates for the cookies. Which was a good thing, since it prevented Gem from simply putting the tray in her lap and going to work on the goodies.
I passed on the coffee, but I had a couple of the cookies. “These are wonderful!” Gem told the blonde, her mouth full.
“Aren’t they? Juanita makes them.”
The Latina rewarded her with a glass-cutter look—apparently, her domestic skills were supposed to be a secret. But before she could acid-tongue a response, the Indian returned.
“You can go in now,” he said.
Gem and I both stood up. The Indian shook his head. “Just you, Burke.”
The place was a lot bigger than I’d been able to tell from the outside—a labyrinth of rooms opening off other rooms, most of them loaded with equipment: file cabinets, computers, something that looked like a giant periscope. There were people around, too, but they all seemed too busy to look up from what they were doing. I kept my eyes down, not knowing the rules. At the end of one of the long corridors was a pair of swinging doors, like saloons used to have in old Westerns. The Indian pushed through. I was right behind.
A man was seated behind what looked like a triple-size drafting table. He looked up. Studied my face for a second, and … connected. Flashing us both back to where we’d started.
Inside, it was. Not the orphanage where they’d started me off, not the juvie joints I’d graduated to. This one they called a hospital.
It was different, all right. Everything was softer. The words, I mean. They didn’t call the windowless cells “solitary.” Even padded the walls for you. And, instead of clubs, the guards carried hypos full of quiet-down juice.
My trip to the crazy house started when I was locked up for thieving. One of the look-the-other-way “counselors” said they had a new program for kids like me. I was too young to be paroled to the streets, and I had no parents, so they had these special foster homes. For kids who’d had “trouble with authority,” as he put it, not even bothering to hide the sneer.
And I was just a kid then. Foster home—it sounded pretty good to me. At least the “foster” part. I already knew what a “home” was. I’d been in a couple of them. They were the same as the institution, only they didn