The Detachment - Barry Eisler [96]
She came out of the bathroom and said, “I’m hungry.”
I nodded. “We’ll give you some food in a minute. First, I want you to lie facedown on the floor.”
“Why?”
“Because it’ll slow you down and keep you from being tempted to do something that might get you hurt. The alternative is, we tie you up again. I need a bathroom break myself, and I don’t want fewer than two people watching you when you’re free to move about.”
She hesitated, then did as I told her. I used the bathroom, then Dox followed suit. When he was done, I told Kei she could sit on one of the beds. She did so.
Dox sat across from her and said, “I apologize for inconveniencing you, Ms. Kei. We’re in a tight spot, and it was your dad who put us here. We need to give him a little incentive to do the right thing. Which I believe he will. Despite the late unpleasantness, he’s always struck me as the kind of man who responds to incentives.”
“That’s what you call this?” she said. “Inconveniencing me?”
“Well,” Dox said, “in the end, I don’t know that it matters so much what we call it. But I do apologize regardless. Now, you said you’re hungry. We’ve got some pretty good chow from a fancy supermarket, if you like. You look like a salad girl to me, am I right?”
“If by salad you mean cheeseburger, then yeah.”
“A cheeseburger’s a tall order at the moment,” Dox said. “But maybe later. In the meantime, we’ve got a few sandwiches in a cooler, left over from yesterday. Not as fresh as you might like, but I expect they’ll taste fine if you’re hungry enough. What would you like? Roast beef, I’m guessing now? With a tasty smoothie to wash it down?”
“Whatever. Yes.”
I sat in the desk chair, watching Dox feeding her and doing what he could to make her comfortable under the circumstances. Women were his weakness, I knew, the lady’s man bluster mostly a cover for the bottom line fact that he really just adored them. And his southern code of chivalry was no bullshit, either. He wasn’t happy about what we were doing, and I realized I’d have to watch him with Kei for the opposite reason I’d have to watch Larison. Where Larison was likely to let his evident hatred of Horton cause him to harm Kei, Dox might get too attached and grow to feel too guilty, and therefore become too susceptible to manipulation.
“Why don’t you tell me what my dad did to you?” Kei asked him at one point. “What difference would it make if you did?”
Dox took a sip of the smoothie he was drinking. I was aware that he’d broken bread with her, and felt uneasy about it.
“Wouldn’t make any difference to us,” he said. “But I don’t want to mix you up in this anymore than we already have. I mean, you’re close with your daddy, right?”
I saw her weigh the pros and cons of possible responses before settling on the truth. “Yes,” she said. “We’re close. Which is why I want to know what he could have done to wrong you. I really can’t imagine it.”
Dox smiled. “I can tell he’s lucky to have you for a daughter. And all I can tell you is, part of the burden of being a man, and the nature of the defect that defines us, is that we sometimes have to do things we can’t tell our loved ones about.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Because sometimes things need to be done in the world, and telling you would make you complicit. By keeping you innocent, we save you from having to join us in hell. It might not sound like much, but it is a comfort when you’re faced with hard choices.”
“But that’s ridiculous. You make women sound like children. You think we can’t decide for ourselves? That’s completely demeaning.”
“Demeaning? Hell, I wish someone would do it for me.”
“No, you don’t. You like keeping it all to yourself because doing so makes you feel powerful.”
Dox looked perplexed. “I don’t think so.”
“I do. You say my dad did something to you, something so horrible that now in your mind it justifies