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“You’re an educated man. Profanity is the tool early man used to ward off situations he couldn’t change—in other words, a confession of inadequacy. Does it bother you that you’re such a predictable fellow?”
Chapter Thirty-seven
THE HOODS WERE removed from our heads, and we were marched down a passagewa
y to a forecastle that had leather-padded bulkheads and blue plastic tarps spread on the deck. There were no portholes, and I had no way to get a bearing. Chains with sheep-lined leather cuffs hung from the bulkheads.
“How do you like my arrangement?” Shondell said. “Roomy, soundproof, and with an array of items that go back perhaps five hundred years.”
At the far end of the compartment were primitive machines and worktables covered with metal instruments. The machines were constructed of brass and iron and oak and heavy bolts and spikes and pulleys and cogged wheels with long wood handles attached to them.
“Anything to say, Mr. Purcel?” Shondell said.
“Eat shit,” Clete said.
“When it’s your turn, the man whose finger you shot off will be here to cheer you along,” Shondell said. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“What are you going to tell Johnny about all this?” Clete said.
“He’ll know you went away. He’s a good boy. He’ll stay that way.”
“What about Isolde?” I said.
“Believe me, these are not your concerns. In the next twenty-four hours, you’re going to be extremely preoccupied.” Shondell gazed at the machines and instruments that represented the darkness I had tried to plumb in Marcel LaForchette. How could I have mistaken the torment in poor Marcel for the disease that lived inside Mark Shondell?
“I love the names of these things,” he said. “The scold’s bridle for loquacious housewives, the choke pear for expansion of the mouth and other places, the iron maiden, the scavenger’s daughter for compressing people who need size reduction, the rack, and the thumbscrew. How about my favorite, the brazen bull? The victim is inserted inside and slowly boiled. There’re pipes inside that make his screams sound like the roaring of a bull.”
Carroll LeBlanc was crying.
“Nothing to say, Dave?” Shondell said.
“It looks like a junk pile that your average pervert would probably appreciate,” I said.
“I think you’ll change your tune.” Shondell looked at the brazen bull and grinned. “That’s a hint.”
“Here’s one thing that won’t change, Shondell,” I said. “No matter what happens to us, you’ll remain the same. You’re trash, your family is trash, and your ancestors were trash. I think God keeps a few people like you around to remind the white race we’ve got some serious problems. I heard the Shondells worked as pubic-latrine cleaners for Robespierre during the Reign of Terror. Is that true?”
Maybe it was the light or my imagination, but the creases in his face seemed to deepen, with an effect like soil erosion, the blood leaving his lips. He exuded an odor that smelled like an unchanged bandage. There were whiskers showing above his collar, the way they do when an old man cannot shave adequately.
Then he seemed to collect himself. “A young woman awaits me now,” he said. “After a nap and a shower and a fine breakfast, I’ll return, and we’ll continue our talk. General Mendoza will be accompanying me.”
“Mr. Shondell, you promised you’d get my daughter into a hospital,” Carroll said.
“Oh, yes,” Shondell said. “Thank you for reminding me. A lovely girl.”
* * *
WE WERE TAKEN back to the compartment where we had woken up, the ligatures on our wrists. Bell locked us in. We sat on the deck in the white bareness of the compartment, hands bound behind us, the engines humming through the bulkhead. I was reminded of the play No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre. The characters find themselves in a windowless room and discover they are not only dead but in hell.
“Hey, you guys, I know this won’t mean much, but I’m sorry I sold you out,” Carroll said.
Neither Clete nor I could bring ourselves to look at him.
“Y’all hear me?” he said.
“Yeah, we heard you,” Clete said. “That means you don’t need to say any more.”
“We saw all their faces,” Carroll said.
