“Mason would do that, of course. He’s already moved the setting from New York State to Pasadena, and he wants to turn Jarvis Landry, the Simons Rock student I wanted to take to the prom, into a ping pong paddle fetishist. It’s not Mason but Hal who’s insisting that I apply the skills that won Notes a lot of literary awards. Except, he doesn’t really know what those skills are. It’s not talent he understands, it’s promoting himself. And of course when it comes to Hal’s mother, it’s respectability.”

“It sounds like an impossible situation you’re in,” I said. “I mean, in addition to being kidnapped and threatened with death.”

Wenske heaved a deep sigh. “God. How did I ever manage to get into this—and drag other people into it too? I mean, you two. And Bryan. God. I can’t believe they did that to Bryan and that other guy from HLM. And my poor mom and my sister. Who think I’m probably dead. How could I have underestimated how savage Hal and his people are? I thought they were just hacks and incompetents and cynical crooks.”

“You’re used to the Massachusetts Legislature,” Delaney said. “Hacks and crooks are what you know.”

“Just one clarification,” I said. “When you disappeared, Eddie, a lot of people in Boston and New York, like Marva Beers, were afraid it was the drug lords who had gotten hold of you and done away with you. That you got them pissed off with your Globe drug-gang stories and then Weed Wars.”

“Which did turn out to have a major element of truth,” Wenske said. “It was all the Hey Look cash suddenly pouring out of Siskiyou County, the weed-growing capital of North America, that got me thinking about a connection to something I already knew all about.”

“But your mother and sister,” I said, “were afraid of something else. What they called your dark side. Or your secret life.”

“What? Why would they think that? Because of my undercover work for the Globe and for Weed Wars?”

“Your sister told me that when she stayed with you last year you’d disappear for hours at a time late at night. That’s when you lived your secret life. Something weird or occult or something.”

Wenske slapped his forehead and went through about twenty expressions in fast-forward. “Oh no. Oh fuck.”

“So there were no dark side activities? Grave robbing? Peculation? Sacrificial rituals under the Longfellow Bridge?”

“What’s peculation? I should know.”

“You sure should,” Delaney said. “Having spent so many years around Boston. It’s embezzlement.”

“The word sounds like something racier,” I said. “I only recently learned what it meant.”

“Well, if it’s racy, maybe I did it. I used to go over to the gay peep show in Somerville late at night and hang around and look at the videos and exchange blow jobs with other guys who wanted some uncomplicated sexual adventuring. All perfectly wholesome in a perfectly unwholesome way. But… Jesus! Of course I didn’t tell my sister.”

“She said you always told her who you were dating.”

“Dating, sure.”

Delaney had been listening to this exchange with fierce concentration. He said, “I don’t know. For me, this falls into the area of TMI. Boy oh boy. I mean, I have nothing against fellatio. A whore did that to me in Mexico many years ago. I’ll never forget it.”

With that, the bolt slid back and the door swung open.

Mason Hively appeared in leather chaps and nothing else. He was skeletal and gray. Blanco came in just behind Hively carrying two ping pong paddles. Blanco shut the door behind the two of them.

Hively chimed, “I’ve been bad again, parachuting into enemy territory without a map. Blanco is going to punish me, and I hope while I’m getting what I deserve I don’t scream too loudly and keep you weary travelers awake all night. Wanna watch, boys? I know you’ll want to get a good look at my dragon tattoo. Guess where it is?”

I didn’t see it happen, but I’m sure Wenske, Delaney, and I all shut our eyes at exactly the same instant.

CHAPTER THIRTY

As soon as Hively and Blanco left just after eleven, Wenske said, “Oh Jesus. We have to get out of here. Watching that was brutal, but it’s only going to get worse. A lot worse.”

“There are some people who are going to notice I’m missing,” I said. “Ort Nestlerode, for one. Do you know him?”

“Isn’t he married to one of the salt sisters?”

“Well, both of them.”

“Ah.”

“They’re with you all the way, as you know.”

“You bet they are. They despise Hal and the rest of them. He says awful things about them behind their backs and, worse, he’s skimming the profits off their lucrative weed business.”

“Ort was going to check in with me and then help find Paul. He’ll figure out where I am.”

“He won’t get in here. Nobody gets past Pablo and Blanco. And those three psychos who dragged you up here—they could still be around. From your description, I think they work for one of the Mexican cartels. They’re mules who double as enforcers. They moonlight for Mason and Rover, too, and they are not to be messed with.”

I said, “There must be other doors leading out of this building. Where are they?”

“Not within fourteen feet of this girder there aren’t.”

“Anyway,” Delaney said, “how do we get these manacles off?”

“I’ve tried,” Wenske said. “I’ve been trying for a month.”

“The locks on these things are crap. I could pick them if I had my kit. What’s over there in your pantry?”

“Just a few grocery items. They bring me a hot dinner every night. Hot meaning Spaghetti-Os or fish sticks. There’s some stale bread here and a couple of cans of SPAM.”

I walked over dragging my chain and looked over the items on a folding table: some packaged and canned food, paper plates, utensils, a bucket of water and some plastic cups. One cup had a toothbrush in it, and I wondered if the three of us were going to share it. I was just grateful Timmy wasn’t there, as he gets grossed out at the thought of using even my toothbrush.

“The SPAM can has a pull tab instead of the kind of key that tinned meats used to have. I can’t do anything with this tab. But this fork might work. I might be able to do something with one tine. The lock has a simple pin and tumbler mechanism.”

The fork was a cheap stainless steel job, and with a little effort I was able to bend back three of the four tines. Then I bent the tip of the fourth tine back an eighth of an inch using the table edge and a metal rod that was part of one of Hively’s torture machines. I sat back down and propped my right ankle up on my left knee.

“Do you need more light?” Wenske said. “I can bring the reading lamp over.”

“No, it’s done by feel. Though the tine might be too thick.”

The manacle appeared to be a farm implement, probably designed for restraining animals—animals that were not going to be adept at picking locks.

“This might actually work,” I said. “Give me another minute.”

It actually took three or four minutes, and then the lock disengaged and the manacle slid open.

Wenske and Delaney were gape-jawed.

“Wow!”

Delaney said, “I’m impressed.”

“To think that if I’d known, I could have done that myself weeks ago.”

It took another ten minutes of concentrated effort to get Delaney and then Wenske freed. It was close to midnight now, and Wenske said he guessed everybody in the lodge was asleep. He said no one had ever come into the dungeon late at night. He slept on the big padded platform where Hively had gotten his spanking earlier, and presumably that’s where Delaney and I were expected to bed down also.

I said, “Blanco and Pablo are usually on a bench outside the main door. But would they be out there twenty-four hours a day? And if not, are there others who take the night shift?”