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“Yeah,” Lars said. “Shit is right.” He paused for a moment. “I freaked, yelled, screamed, but it became real clear that no one was gonna answer. So I calmed down and went Zen. You know what Zen means?”
“Uh ... like Buddha Zen?”
“That’s right. Zen is all about transcendent virtues. Moral training. Patient endurance. Meditation. Wisdom. I was a POW in Nam, and a guy I met there taught me about it. Kept me sane until my guys got me out.”
Damn.This man had been a prisoner not once but twice? Three times, as a matter of fact, if you counted his present circumstances, and Evan had to figure he absolutely did.
“So anyway,” he went on, “I remembered those teachings. Funniest thing, because I’d been through some shit since I got back to the States, and never once had I thought to practice some Zen. I guess I associated it with war, and waking in that cage definitely applied.” He shook his head as though clearing it. “When the lights came on, there was another cage in the cellar with me, and there was a guy in it.”
All the hair was standing up on Evan’s arms. This was it. Exactly what he’d experienced. It had to be connected.All these years later.Evan’s head was spinning. “Who was he? The guy?”
“Hanh. I don’t know his last name. Don’t even know how to spell his first name, so in my head I pictured it h-a-n-h.”
Evan picked up his phone and opened the notes app, typing in the name. “Have you seen him? Do you know where he is?”
“Not a clue. We got separated during the escape, and I don’t even know if he went to the police. He wasn’t a legal citizen, for one thing, so he might not have for fear of being deported.” He gave a low chuckle that held little humor. “Like that would be worse. I’dwantto get the hell out of Dodge after that, but ... evil shit happens everywhere. I told all of this to the cops, by the way,” Lars said. “As for me, the police thought I was having a psychotic episode. I’d spent some time in the mental ward, diagnosed with PTSD. A few times, I even wondered myself if I’d imagined it all.”
“I don’t think you did,” Evan said. “Although whether that’s a comfort or not ...”
Lars gave a distracted smile. “No, I know I didn’t. Those memories have edges, just like the ones from Nam.”
“You don’t have to go through every specific, obviously,” Evan said. “But if you could sum up what they did to you and Hanh, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Sick mind games is what they did. They tried to make us sell each other out to avoid something worse. Just like you, it sounds like.”
Words failed him for a moment. A nod sufficed.
“See, but I wasn’t gonna do that,” Lars went on. “I saw enough sick shit in that jungle over there, and I knew what giving in to the monster inside would do to you. Maybe not right away, but later.”
“Were you ... rented?”
“Rented? You mean like sex trafficked?”
Evan nodded.
“Not me. Maybe Hanh. We didn’t talk about what had happened to us when they took us out of our cages. Hanh was ... prettier, though, let’s say. And definitely younger. If any of that even makes a difference to sick fucks who do stuff like that.”
Evan swallowed. He figured there was a market for everything. But, yeah, youth and attractiveness were always going to be hot commodities in the trafficking business. Some people simply had less of a likelihood of being victimized in that specific way. Case in point: a seventy-year-old man. And yet ...
“So what’d they do to you to try to get you to betray Hanh?”
“Betray,” he said, as though testing the word. “Huh, yeah, I guess that’s what it would have been, right?” He paused. “Scare tactics, mostly. They put me in a locked room with three hungry pit bulls. Told me I had to stay in there for an hour, and if I wasn’t mauled, I could change my mind at any point before the time was up and they’d take Hanh’s hand or a leg or something.”
“Fuck,” Evan said. He felt sick. “Zen?” he asked, and his voice croaked slightly.
Lars smiled. His teeth were strong, just like the rest of him. “Zen,” he confirmed. God, this big dude, a Vietnam veteran who’d spent time in the mental ward, hadmeditatedhis way through an hour in a room with three hungry pit bulls. People surprised the hell out of him sometimes.
“Did you see any cameras in any of the rooms you were in?”
Lars shook his head. “No, but I knew someone was watching. The guy who came to get us out of our cage and toss us back in said things he could only know if he’d been watching us.”
He pictured the guy who had played the same role with him and Noelle. Red shoes. He’d worn red shoes. He wondered if that had been part of some uniform as it was very distinct. “Did anything stand out about that man?” he asked. “Anything specific that he wore that you remember?”
Lars shrugged. “Ugly son of a bitch. Face like a pug dog. But other than that? No.”
“No red shoes then?” Evan hadn’t wanted to lead him, but he had to make sure mentioning it wouldn’t jog a memory.
“Red shoes? No. He wore black boots.”
