“We haven’t got much time,” said Serena. “Are you in or out? You won’t last long here with Boris out to get you.”
“Yeah – I’m in,” said Lacy.
They continued down the hallway and finally reached the bathroom.
“Go on,” said Serena. “I’ll wait here.”
Lacy once again examined her face in the bathroom mirror. Her right eye had opened up a little, and the purple and yellow blotches were a bit less intense. She knew it wouldn’t be long before she would be put to work. The thought horrified her.
As she emerged, Serena was waiting. They walked down the hall the way they’d come, but about half way, after a quick glance around, Serena suddenly pulled her through a door to their right.
“I want to show you something,” she said, as they moved quickly down another corridor. “Do you know where we are?” She asked as they walked.
“No,” answered Lacy. “They’ve never let me look outside.”
“Well, we’re in a high rise – on the eighth floor of a twenty-one storey building. The bottom seven floors have all got people living in them, but the problem is there’s no elevator – on orders from Energy Triage...”
“Energy Triage?”
“Jesus! Where the hell have you been hiding all your life? You’ve never heard of Energy Triage?”
Lacy shook her head.
Rolling her eyes, Serena continued: “Energy Triage are the people who decide who gets electricity and who doesn’t. There’s not enough for everybody, so they have to ration it out. They say it’s because of climate change. Something about the snow-pack in the mountains being almost gone and the rain patterns changing. There’s hardly any water in the rivers, so the old ways of generating power, like Hydro, don’t work anymore. Understand?”
Lacy didn’t, but she nodded anyway.
“Energy Triage says this building can’t have an elevator. I think they wanted to demolish it, but there’s too many people living here who’d have no place to go. Anyway, I think knocking it down is probably too expensive. They don’t have much money. There’s no elevator, so nobody wants to live above the seventh floor. That means we’ve got this floor to ourselves.”
“So everybody has to walk up eight floors?”
“No they don’t. That’s what I’m going to show you.”
They reached a door at the end of the hallway, and inexplicably, Lacy smelled the familiar odour of a horse stall. Serena pushed open the door, and when Lacy looked inside she couldn’t believe her eyes. A few yards in front of them was an open shaft. Near the ceiling, directly above the opening and suspended somehow from points on the shaft walls, was an intricate system of pulleys through which wound a hemp rope about an inch thick.
Hanging from this assembly through a sturdy rope harness was a wooden platform about four feet square, enclosed in wooden railings that reached about chest height. On the side facing them was a wooden gate on hinges.
Attached to the other end of the rope was a live horse, calmly munching on something in a feedbag hanging from its head. The rope was securely fastened to a leather harness buckled in several places around the horse’s body. The animal contentedly swished its tail and whinnied softly as if it were perfectly at home.
“I’ll bet you’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Serena.
“How in the world did they…” said Lacy.
“I’m damned sure these losers didn’t build it. They’re not bright enough to tie their own shoelaces. They probably killed whoever built it and took over the space for themselves.”
“How does it work?”
“See the little bell hanging near the top of the opening?”
Lacy nodded.
“The cage is usually at the bottom of the shaft. There’s a rope that hangs all the way to the ground floor. The Johns get in, pull on that rope and the bell rings. There’s a special code, like two long rings, one short, or something.
“That brings somebody, usually Frank, in here to guide the horse down the hall there.” Serena pointed down a long hallway to their left. “The horse pulls on the rope, and that hauls whoever’s down there up in this little cage. The poor horse is so conditioned it starts moving automatically as soon as it hears the bell.”
“Aren’t there any stairs?”
“Blocked off. They built a wall out of chunks of old plywood and two-by-fours. It’s not that sturdy, but it would take a while to break it down, and it would probably take several people to do it. If the cops ever decided to try to shut this operation down, they’d have to run up eight flights of stairs and break through the barrier just to get up here. By that time these guys could move everything to another floor, or hide everybody somehow. There’s another thirteen floors above us to hide on. Come on,” Serena took her arm and they walked back out into the corridor. “We better get back.”
“So the horse-elevator’s the only way out?” said Lacy as they headed back to the main room.
“That’s right,” said Serena. “But we can’t even use that. It makes a lot of noise and they’d hear us for sure.”
“So how?”
“The rope – we climb down the rope. How are you at rope climbing?”
“We have to climb down a rope for eight floors? I don’t know if I can hold on for eight floors.”
“I made some mitts out of old rags. They’ll protect our hands from rope burn. I’m hoping we can just slide all the way to the bottom. Anyway, we’ve got nothing to lose. They’ll kill us eventually if we stay here. I managed to get two good knives, as well. We might need them in case anything goes wrong.”
“When do you want to go?”
“Soon – tomorrow.”
“What!”
“I’ve been watching them for a long time now. Tomorrow’s Wednesday. Every Wednesday, just before noon, they all take off someplace. They go to pay some kind of tribute to whatever crime lord bankrolls this setup. I’ve heard them talking about it. The Johns know enough not to come around then.
“They leave one person behind, usually Frank, to run the elevator to take them back up, and keep an eye on things. But he doesn’t hang around - he usually goes off someplace and sleeps. They’re always gone for at least a couple of hours. That gives us enough time to slide down the rope, climb down the cage to the ground, and get the hell out of here.”
Lacy didn’t know what to say. It was all happening incredibly quickly, but, she considered, there was really no reason to wait. In fact, the sooner she got out of this place the better.
“I’m going to get them to move me so that I’m sleeping next to you,” said Serena. “They might suspect something, but by tomorrow we’ll be gone anyway.”
As usual, Lacy’s day alternated between sleeping and praying that her face was still repulsive enough to keep the John’s away. Once again her luck held out. That evening, as she had promised, Serena arranged to have her sleeping place moved next to Lacy’s.
“How long have you been here?” Lacy whispered after the lights had gone out. The two women had moved as close to each other as the lengths of chain holding them would permit.
“More than a year,” answered Serena. Lacy swallowed hard, but said nothing.
Serena continued, “I’ve lost count of the number of men who’ve had me – and every one of them were disgusting…”
“How did you get here?”
“Frank.”
“Frank?”
“He was my fiancé.”
“What!”
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Serena laughed bitterly. “I loved him, too. We lived together. I thought he loved me. I thought we were going to get married and live happily ever after. What a chump I was…”
“I’m sorry. What happened?”
“He’d been part of this setup all the time. I guess he thought I was useful for a while. You know, to cook his meals and clean his apartment. Then I guess he just got tired of me, so one day he brought me here. I had no idea where we were going – I just went along like a stupid little puppy…”
Lacy was silent. She remembered how upset Serena had been when Frank had offered her up to be shot by the drunk.
“Well,” Lacy said, trying to sound cheerful. “It’ll all be over soon.” Serena felt for her hand in the darkness and gave it a squeeze.
The next day Lacy was as taut as a wire. She’d escaped the interest of the John’s so far, but her eye was healing rapidly, and she knew it was only a matter of time. The hours crawled by as she waited for their impending escape. Serena talked to her again on their way to the bathroom, and confirmed that they were on schedule.
Meanwhile, she passed the time dreaming about her freedom, and dreaming about seeing Danny again. Danny became the purpose giving her the strength and will to continue, no matter what roadblocks were thrown in her path.
Someday, she dreamed, she would see his angelic face again. He would hold her in his arms, kiss her once again, and her life would be complete. But for now, there was only survival – and escape.
Late in the morning, Frank brought a John to pick out a girl. Like most that came through, he was middle-aged, ugly, unshaven and filthy. Lacy could see the top of a whiskey flask sticking out of his coat pocket. The two wandered through the room while Frank gave the usual spiel. Lacy’s heart almost stopped when they moved in her direction. Her worst fears were realized when they halted in front of her, and the John seemed to show some interest.
“What happened to her face?” he said.
“She got in a fight with another girl,” Frank lied. “She’s a wild one – she’ll go non-stop. Don’t worry about her face. You don’t fuck the face!” Frank laughed and nudged the John with his elbow.
“A wild one, eh…” said the John, licking his lips. “That might be good…”
Frank touched the still-unhealed scar on his nose and stared down at Lacy with a self-satisfied grin.
Lacy’s heart pounded as she hunted desperately for a way to escape. She swore she would die before she’d let this creature lay a hand on her, but there was nowhere to run.
“You don’t want a pasty-faced, gimped-up little bitch like that,” A voice came from beside them. It was Mei-Lien. She tossed her beautiful raven black hair seductively, and unbuttoned her shirt, revealing the soft tops of her breasts. “Why don’t you try a real woman?”
The John stared at Mei-Lien. His breathing became heavy, and specks of drool formed at the corners of his mouth. Lacy knew she should say something, but she couldn’t face the prospect of being touched by this disgusting animal.
“Come on…” said Mei-Lien, exaggerating her Chinese accent. “I fuck you blind, big boy. You be my big strong lover!”
The John was actually trembling. “Okay” he finally said, panting now and pointing at Mei-Lien. “I’ll take that one.”
Frank sneered at Lacy as he unchained Mei-Lien and led her and the John to one of the rooms that, thankfully, Lacy had yet to see. Ashamed, she covered her face with her hands. As soon as the others had left, she broke down and cried.
An Old Acquaintance
After they finished packing, Richard left Carrie in the cafeteria and headed for his office to phone the police. On the way he stopped by the library and checked his email. There was an entry from Amir Gupta. Excitedly, he opened it and read:
Richard,
I did some digging and found this in one of the articles. Check it out:
…while the vast bulk of Wild Rose Energy’s holdings are in the province of Alberta,
the company maintains a branch office in Surrey, British Columbia
, and has interests in Venezuela, Dubai, and Nigeria.
What do you know – even I wasn’t aware of that!
Cheers,
Gupta
Richard dared to feel optimistic. Though he was technically no closer to finding Danny, at least he’d found evidence of where his brother had been, and had some inkling of what Danny was doing. He’d been able to link an entry in Danny’s journal to a real company – one that once had an office in Surrey. He clung to his meager accomplishments, focusing on them in an attempt to drive away any thoughts about what fate might have overtaken his brother. It had now been just over a week since Danny’s disappearance, but it seemed like a lifetime.
As he dialed, he fought to suppress his optimism, but he couldn’t help but dream that the police had somehow succeeded where he had failed. He contacted Detective Leung, and asked about their progress.
“We’re actively pursuing the case,” said Leung. “No new information so far. If there are any developments I’ll keep you informed.”
“
We
– meaning your single, part-time, detective.”
“I explained our situation to you…”
“I’ve started to look for Danny myself.”
“Look – you stay out of this. I told you we’re on the case. All you’ll accomplish by interfering is to get yourself cut into pieces and chucked in the Fraser River. You won’t be of much use to Danny then.”
“I’m not going to sit back and do nothing.”
“This isn’t something you or any other civilian should be mixed up in. It’s a Police matter. In any case – I think you have to face up to some things.”