by J. Thorn
Must be a janitor. Except even a janitor ought to dress better than this guy. He wore what looked like an ill-fitting white uniform, gray with stains. The dome of his head shone in the grim light, a few greasy strands of hair stuck to the bald spot. The eyes were blank and empty.
He looked like a drunk or a bum. Still, he was a grown-up, and Freeman had learned that, in the homes, the lowest rank of grown-up was still way above that of the kids. Freeman waved to him, but the man continued his silent approach.
“Say, sir, do you know where my bag is?” Freeman asked, not putting any defiance into his voice. Sometimes strange janitors could be turned into allies. If they weren’t perverts.
In Durham, Tony Biggerstaff had bribed the weekend supervisors so that they smuggled in all the R-rated videos the kids could stomach. Freeman never knew how Tony paid them off, whether with cash, drugs, his sister, or himself. He never asked and Tony never confessed. But without Tony’s sacrifice, Freeman would have never come to appreciate the Holy Trinity: Eastwood, De Niro, and Pacino. Beat the hell out of Smurfs and Japanime, and taught you a few life lessons in the bargain.
The janitor drew closer, pale lips quivering. The man’s hands trembled. There was something odd about his gait. His bare feet protruded beneath the ragged hem of his trousers, making no sound on the tiled floor.
What kind of a janitor goes barefoot?
“Do you work here?” Freeman looked up the hallway to see if Starlene was coming back.
The man didn’t answer. He was close enough now that Freeman could see the pores on the waxy face. Dark half-moons lurked in the shadows beneath the staring eyes. A strand of drool hung from one wrinkled corner of his mouth. The legs moved on, the arms limp at the man’s side. The smell of dusty old meat wafted over Freeman.
The man passed Freeman, close enough to reach out and touch, but Freeman didn’t dare. You never knew which of these home employees would snap, which one was important, which one you might need to impress at some time or another. You never knew which of them held your future in his hands. True, this dried-up geezer didn’t look like a counselor, but you also never knew which little game was actually one of their staged tests.
And if this guy was with the Trust, he definitely had games behind his eyes.
Freeman waited to be asked why he wasn’t in class with the others. But the man shambled past, staring ahead as if Freeman didn’t exist. The feet were creased with a mapwork of turgid purple veins, the bones knotted and calcified, but they rose and fell steadily. The man walked as if he had a destination just beyond the wall and didn’t realize that the wall stood in the way.
Freeman had another thought. Maybe this man wasn’t an employee of the home. Maybe he was somebody who’d never left, never found a permanent placement. Maybe this was what happened to unwanted people when they grew old. For a moment, Freeman imagined himself in that soiled uniform, condemned to a lifetime of directionless trudging.
Freeman thought about triptrapping him, getting into the geezer’s brain, but the manic buzz of an hour ago had faded to zilch. Plus every read came at a price, in headaches and confusion and loss of identity. For one thing, he’d learned that everybody was screwed up, everybody’s thoughts and emotions were strange and twisted. One voice in his head was plenty enough, and maybe even one was too many.
The old man disappeared around the corner. Freeman stepped back into the Blue Room and let the door slip closed with a whisper of air. He felt more alone than he had in years. It was almost as bad as the closet Dad used to lock him in, where the wires and weird lights and pain first caused him to triptrap. And caused him to do bad things, think bad thoughts.
He went to his cot and sat quietly, like a death camp inmate, until the other kids arrived.
CHAPTER FOUR
Bondurant stood outside the padded room known as Thirteen, though no number was posted by the door. The room seemed to him more like “Room 101” from the George Orwell novel 1984. In the novel, Room 101 was where characters faced their ultimate fears. Here at Wendover, the room was where Dr. Kracowski practiced his alternative therapies. Similar end results.
“Is she conscious yet?” he asked through the open door.
“She’s fine.” Kracowski straightened from leaning over the bed that held the patient. The doctor was six-four, thin and pale, eyes bright and intense. He put his hands in the pockets of his white lab coat as if he’d read an instruction manual on scientific posturing.
On the bed, a cotton blanket pulled up to her chin, was the girl. Bondurant noted with relief that her chest rose and fell evenly with her breathing. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyelids twitched, but other than that, she looked like any healthy thirteen-year-old. He wondered what she was dreaming.
“She responded to the therapy,” Kracowski said. “She suffered a little trauma, but when she comes around, she’ll be farther along the road to recovery.”
Bondurant wasn’t sure he wanted to know more about the technique the doctor had used this time. Womb therapy, Kracowski had explained, where they smothered the subject in pillows and urged her to be reborn. It sounded as sacrilegious as all his other therapies. Bondurant might as well enter a metaphysical bookstore and throw a dart at the shelves. Reiki, qi gong, channeling, past-life regression, primal scream, and dozens of other healing modalities made their way into the alphabet soup of Kracowski’s treatments. Some of those were marginally accepted, but to Bondurant’s mind all were as flaky and godless as traditional psychotherapy. And Kracowski did it all in the name of that ultimate devil’s tool, science.
Kracowski also had his own original techniques, crafted from pieces of obscure disciplines and arcane spiritual beliefs. Those were the ones that scared Bondurant the most, but Kracowski kept them hidden away in his mental medicine bag. All Bondurant knew was the new treatments were linked to the machinery in the basement and the solemn-faced visitors who checked on Kracowski’s progress. Silent investors, with silent motives.
But they weren’t Bondurant’s concern. His primary job was damage control. The rest of the time, he served as the front man for Wendover, the smiling puppet with the smart tie and glib handshake, the manicured gent who waved away drinks at social functions. “How many know about this?”
“Four. Swenson. You. Me.” He pointed at the girl on the bed as if he’d almost forgotten her. “And her.”
Swenson. The knot in Bondurant’s stomach loosened slightly. Paula Swenson was carrying on an affair with Kracowski. She’d certainly not want to mess up her chances at marrying into the doctor’s millions by blabbing about a little mishap. The woman’s marital odds were as poor as those of the several others who’d shared Kracowski’s bed and research methods over the past few years. But Swenson didn’t know these things, so she would keep her lips tight, if no other part of her vulgar body.
Kracowski felt under the blanket for the girl’s wrist and checked her pulse. “Fifty-five,” he said. “She won’t remember a thing.”
“You didn’t drug her, did you?” Bondurant felt the edge in his voice, and knew his tone was bordering on insubordinance.
“You know I’m not a believer in drugs, Francis. For many of these children, that’s part of their problem.”
“I didn’t think so. I’m just always afraid of things that will leave a . . . trace.”
“The only trace I want to leave is the mark of healing.” Kracowski’s eyes grew cold as he looked at the girl. She may as well have been a rare moth pinned to a cork board.
Bondurant paused at the door and looked down the hall to make sure no one was coming. Few of the staff were allowed access to the counseling wing. But some were too inquisitive for their own good. Starlene Rogers, for one. Always asking why the kids were taken from group therapy for individual treatment.
“I’m just being careful, Doctor,” Bondurant said. “That’s what you hired me for.”
Kracowski made a scissoring motion with two fingers. “And don’t forget how easily the strings ca
n be cut.”
Bondurant looked up at the younger man, hoping his hatred was concealed. Kracowski was a philanthropist, but his philanthropy ended with the giving of money. He rarely spoke of the spiritual work of Wendover Home, that of setting children on the path to God.
Bondurant suspected that Kracowski was a Catholic, or, heaven forbid, a Jew. But without Kracowski’s backing, Wendover Home would have folded years ago, and the children would be scattered among various institutions, their chances for salvation further dimmed. And the doctor’s new-found supporters had made the accounting ledgers a good bit healthier.
The girl’s eyelashes fluttered and she rolled her head back and forth. A small moan escaped her lips. She tried to sit up, and Kracowski nodded in approval. Her eyes snapped open. She looked scared and confused, like a trapped animal.
“It’s okay, Cynthia,” Kracowski said. “You’re safe now. We won’t let them hurt you.”
Bondurant wondered who they were.
Cynthia stared at the bare, padded walls as if expecting them to close in on her. She shivered under the blanket, though the room was warm. Bondurant thought he heard footsteps, checked the hall, and saw it was empty.
“Where did they go?” the girl asked, her voice brittle.
“Away,” said Kracowski. “Far away.”
“Are they coming back?”
“No,” said the doctor. “Not anytime soon.”
Bondurant tried to remember more about the girl. Cynthia. Cynthia Sidebottom. Bondurant wasn’t good with details, since that wasn’t part of his mission. But this child was one of the most damned, truly troubled, an unrepentant sinner. Her case file said she suffered from depressive disorder, but her arrest for prostitution told Bondurant more about her than did the reams of psychiatric analyses. This child was clearly hellbound.
Cynthia sat up and rubbed her head as if wiping away some half-remembered dream. She leaned forward, dangling her legs over the edge of the bed. “Where’s the dyke?”
“You mean Dr. Swenson?” Kracowski asked.
“Whatever, yeah.”
“Dr. Swenson wants to help you. We all want to help you.”
Cynthia stared at the walls again. For a moment, nobody spoke, and Bondurant heard the bell in the opposite wing. The children would be returning to their dorms for a little community time before supper.
“If you want to help me, give me a fifty-dollar job and let me catch a bus back to Charlotte.” She licked her lips in an obscene gesture. Bondurant pretended to ignore her, knowing she was only trying to shock them.
Kracowski’s fists clenched, then he smiled and put a hand on her shoulder. “Cynthia, you’re resisting. You know that’s not appropriate.”
“Neither is your father act,” she said. “Why can’t you just use big words like all the other doctors, talk around me a while, then let me go?”
Kracowski knelt before her, his frame folded up like a sleeping stork’s. “Because I’m the doctor who wants to fix you.”
“What if nothing’s broke?”
Kracowski leaned his face closer to hers and whispered something that Bondurant couldn’t hear. The girl grew pale and glanced wildly at the walls.
“Don’t let them get me,” she said. “Doc, you got to help me.”
Kracowski’s mouth creased into a smile, a sick thing that seemed to throw the rest of his face into shadow. “That’s why I’m here, Cynthia. To help.”
To Bondurant, the doctor said, “I think it’s time Cynthia returned to her room. We’ll monitor her condition over the next several hours, but I believe she’s fine.”
Bondurant waited nervously while Kracowski scribbled a few notes on a clipboard. Cynthia raised herself from the bed and Bondurant took her arm to help steady her. As the blanket fell away, Bondurant noted with satisfaction that the girl was fully dressed. Not that he suspected Kracowski would delve into such distasteful sins. But strange things happened in this room, some of which might eventually spread their blight onto Bondurant himself.
Kracowski said, “Remember, Cynthia, your treatments won’t be effective if you speak to others about them. It’s just between you and me and Dr. Swenson. Understand?”
The girl nodded, the color slowly returning to her cheeks. “Yeah. Like a secret. I’m good at keeping secrets.”
“So I’ve discovered.” Kracowski gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “You’re coming along fine.”
“I’ll get born one of these days,” the girl said, then gave another furtive glance at the corners of the room. “If they let me.”
Bondurant didn’t understand the strange relationship that Kracowski had with the children. He wasn’t sure what to make of the coded language used in the treatments, and he didn’t want to know too much. But the doctor insisted that Bondurant bear witness, perhaps as a special punishment, but more likely to make sure that Bondurant was aware of the stakes.
If any state officials came snooping around, Bondurant’s job was to show the benevolent face of Wendover. As for what happened in the shadows of the old building, that was a matter for God to pass judgment upon. Bondurant was certainly in no position to judge, not with a six-figure salary and a respected place in the community at stake.
He led Cynthia down the hallway toward the opposite wing. They passed Starlene near the intersected corridors of the main entrance.
“Hello, Cynthia,” Starlene said, throwing a quizzical look at Bondurant.
“Hey,” the girl said, sullen now, as if the treatment and near-death had left her too weak to make her usual biting remarks.
“Cynthia has been receiving tutoring today,” Bondurant said. “She’s going to be one of our shining students.”
“By missing class?” Starlene said.
Bondurant evaded the woman’s gaze. She couldn’t read minds. She was a worker bee, one of the counselors, nothing to worry about. She hadn’t worked at Wendover long enough to learn not to ask questions. And if she got too curious, it was a simple matter to dig into her background records and find some excuse to fire her. If worse came to worse, accusations and allegations about her could surface.
“Dr. Kracowski is an expert in several fields, Miss Rogers,” Bondurant said. “Ph.D.’s in Physics, Education and Psychology with an emphasis in Child Development and Behavioral Science. Not only that, he finished the pre-med program at Johns Hopkins. I think he, of all people, is qualified to make decisions in the best interest of the child. Isn’t that right, Cynthia?”
The girl nodded, staring down the dark hall that led to the Green Room, the dormitory where the girls lived.
Starlene said to the girl, “You look ill, honey. Are you feeling okay?”
Bondurant fumed. The counselor was practically ignoring him, displaying open disregard for his authority.
“I’m all right,” Cynthia said. “They said they would leave me alone.”
Starlene cupped the girl’s chin and looked into her eyes. “If you ever have any problems at all, you just come see me, okay?”
A small speaker mounted in the hall clicked on, and after a few seconds of hiss, Miss Walters’s voice said, “Starlene Rogers, you’re wanted in the Lake Cottage.”
“Remember what I said.” Starlene walked down the short flight of steps to the rear door, her sandals echoing off the lathe walls. Bondurant couldn’t resist watching in anger. Despite her charitable manner, she wasn’t properly beholding to her superiors. Bondurant would have to talk to Kracowski about her.
Bondurant’s stomach clenched. Starlene was beyond the reach of his rage, at least for the moment. But the girl was available, and her short-term memory was scrambled.
“Come,” he said, pulling her by the arm toward his office. “We’ve got some paperwork to look over.”
Bondurant’s palms sweated in anticipation of gripping “The Cheek Turner” and delivering one more child unto salvation.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Shoo. Hey, Dipes, did you drop a load or something?”
F
reeman looked at the boy who had spoken. The teenager had a broad, beefy face and a crew cut. His eyes were small and piggish, gleaming with that cruel cunning that Freeman had seen in dozens of faces in group homes across the state. The porcine gaze was fixed on a thin, pale boy who looked to be about ten.
“I didn’t do nothing, Deke,” the thin boy said, a reaction so quick and rehearsed that Freeman could tell he had been the target of Deke’s bullying before.
“Sure, Dipes. Better go change yourself, or we’ll have to get the nurse to do it.” At the word “nurse,” Deke had launched into a mocking, effeminate tone. “Don’t want to her to see your stinky, do you?”
Since the boys had come into the Blue Room, Freeman had said nothing. He’d been sitting on his cot, pretending that the other boys didn’t matter. One of the guys gave him an appraising, new-kid look, and another started to wave, but Freeman turned his attention to the book he’d swiped from Bondurant’s office. The book was boring, one of those inspirational and motivational hardbacks that told you how to prosper with the help of the Lord. But holding the book allowed him to watch the room out of the corners of his eyes while trying to size up the pecking order. Deke seemed to be the biggest pecker of them all.
Deke began dancing around the thin boy, making a motion as if he were wiping himself with toilet paper. A few of the others were watching, and Deke grew bolder in front of his audience. “Come on, Dipes. Don’t be a poopie pants.”
Laughter rippled across the room. The boy who had tried to wave to Freeman was biting his thumbnail, glancing nervously at the door. Freeman wondered where the house parents were. He’d been in enough group homes to know that the children were never supposed to be left unsupervised, though it happened way too often.
Dipes retreated from the teasing, passing Freeman’s bunk. Deke pursued his quarry, giving Freeman a smirk that said, “Watch me have a little fun.”