The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [78]
Marvel thought it was funny, but Old Man got pissed off, yelled at him, and took away the bucket on the old “use it or lose it” theory, Neal supposed. And he supposed that the stench he made was his only form of vengeance, and maybe it would provoke them into killing him, which seemed like a decent option by the end of the second week. Because by the end of the second week he had given up all hope of escape or rescue.
He tried to fight it at first, tried to make himself eat, even though every mouthful meant another spasm of dysentery. He tried to make himself at least sip on the weak tea they gave him, because he knew he was getting dehydrated and that was what would kill him first, but each sip was like liquid flame, and there was that day—which day was it? how many rice bowls?—when he soiled himself and just lay there sobbing while Marvel danced around beneath him mimicking his sobs between peals of laughter and cries of “Red Kryptonite! Red Kryptonite!” and Old Man screamed at him. That was when Neal stopped eating, and the next day he stopped even trying to drink, and started the conscious process of dying. He thought about Li Lan and Kuan Yin, the goddess of mercy, and where were they now? He thought about Simms, the incompetent son of a bitch, and then about Joe Graham.
Then he started crying again. Please, Dad, come get me. Dad. Come get me. Please.
The diarrhea stopped, because there was nothing left, and the cramps became worse. The dry fire in his stomach wrenched him upward like an inchworm crawling. The fevers came and hit him hard, twice a day. He shook with cold, the chains between his hands rattling like Marley’s Ghost, his teeth chattering. He felt as if he were being poked with thousands of icy needles. The fever would suddenly stop, and he would be rewarded with unconsciousness. The dry heaves and cramps were his alarm clocks, and the cycle would begin again, and after a while he lost track of time because there were no rice bowls to count anymore.
So he wasn’t sure when it was that Honcho showed up and threw the fit. Neal was lying in the cave, racked with cramps, when he opened his eyes and saw Honcho standing on the ladder peering at him intently. Honcho grunted with disgust, got off the ladder, and began screaming at Old Man, punctuating his major points with kicks at Marvel, who scrambled into a corner and huddled up. Honcho kept putting the boot into him as he argued with Old Man, who didn’t take the diatribe passively, but also came over and started kicking the kid.
Honcho came back up the ladder, grabbed Neal by the back of the neck, and lifted him into a sitting position. Then he launched into what seemed to Neal like a critique. He jabbed his fingers at Neal’s ribs, pointed at his eyes, and then pinched his own nostrils and made an exaggerated snorting sound. He let Neal drop, came back down the ladder, and pointed back up at him and asked what sounded like a single question.
Neal didn’t need to be a Chinese language scholar to know what the question was: Who’d want to buy a piece of shit like this?
I would, Neal murmured. I have at least eight thousand pound sterling in a bank in London, boys, and if you’ll take me back to my hotel, I’ll write you a check. And I won’t stop payment, I won’t. I promise. We can go to the bank together and cash it. You can have it all, guys.
But Honcho went on like he didn’t even hear him, like Neal was just moving his lips and babbling. Honcho pointed to Marvel, and then back to Neal and asked another question, something like: Maybe you’d like to trade places with him?
Honcho leaned over and slapped Marvel in the face a couple of times and then issued a general order: Take care of the merchandise!
He slammed the door on the way out. Old Man started to grumble, relieved his frustration by slapping Marvel, and then sent the boy out. Marvel came back a few minutes later with a large bowl of water and a rag. It took him a long time to