CHAPTER 40
IF
there’d been food in his stomach, Payne was confident that he would’ve vomited; the strong stench of urine that engulfed him pretty much guaranteed that. But as it was, Payne was only forced to deal with dehydration, severe hunger pains, and intermittent episodes of dry heaves.
“Now I know what Gandhi must’ve felt like,” he croaked, his throat burning from the act of speaking. Yet it didn’t matter to Payne. He would continue to speak all night if he had to. It was the best way to stay in touch with reality. “Gandhi probably didn’t smell like piss, though.”
Payne leaned his head against the box, a position he had been in all day, when his right hamstring started to cramp again. He hastily tried stretching, doing anything to prevent the muscle contractions from striking, but the shackles on the floor made it impossible to move. He would be forced to ride out the wave of agony until the spasm passed.
As Payne suffered, Bennie Blount peered into the hole of the Devil’s Box. “You ain’t got enough
possium
in your body. That’s why you crampin’ like that.”
The voice stunned him, yet Payne quickly replied. “No,” he groaned. “I’m cramping like this because I’m locked in a Rubik’s Cube in the middle of a heat wave, not because I didn’t eat enough bananas.”
“I don’t know. I still think it’s the
possium
.”
Payne continued fighting through his cramp, in no mood to discuss the merits of potassium. “Nothing personal, but I have a policy about talking to traitors.”
Blount turned on a small flashlight and placed it under his chin. He wanted Payne to see his face as he talked. “I sorry about that, Mr. Payne, but I didn’t have no choice. I wasn’t allowed off the island unless I agreed to do it, and I really wanted to see the fireworks. . . . As it be, I didn’t even get to see ’em.”
Payne shook his head in pity. Blount was just a helpless pawn in this, caught up in something that he didn’t know how to control or escape from. And even though Blount worked for the Plantation, Payne could tell he wasn’t as sadistic as the others.
“Hey, Bennie, I don’t want to get you into trouble, but I was hoping you could give me a hand.”
“You mean free ya? They’d never trust me with the key. I’d probably lose it.”
“That’s okay. I don’t need a key. There are other things you could do for me.”
Blount lowered his face to the top of the box. “Like what?”
“Some food and drink would be nice.”
Blount frowned, then suddenly stood from his perch.
Payne could hear the servant walking away and was afraid that he was abandoning him for a second time. “Bennie? What’s wrong? Come back! Where are you going?”
The servant’s face filled the top of the box one more time. “I wasn’t going nowhere. When ya mentioned you could use some vittles, it helped me remember something. The reason I came up here was to bring ya some chow, but with all the talking I forgot to gives it to ya.”
Food! Mouthwatering food! Payne couldn’t believe his luck. The image of a thick, juicy steak suddenly popped into his mind, causing his stomach to rumble like a subwoofer. “Thank you, Bennie. I’m starving.”
“First things first. I heard what Master Ndjai did to ya, and I thought ya could use a bath.” The dreadlocked servant held up a big pot of liquid, explaining what he had in mind. “Now, don’t ya be drinking this stuff while I pour it on ya. This ain’t normal water.”
“What the hell is it then?”
“Don’t ya be worrying none. I mixed up an old family recipe, one that we use to bathe babies when they be young. Not only will it makes ya clean, but it’ll make ya smell like an infant.”
“Thanks, but I already smell like piss.”
Blount smiled. “That’s not what I meant. You be smellin’ April fresh when I done with ya. I promise.” He carefully tipped the pot until the liquid flowed over Payne, surging through the grate like a great flood, washing away the stale scent of urine and the lingering stench of sweat.
“I’ll be damned!” Payne chuckled, suddenly feeling a lot better. He took a deep whiff, breathing in the fragrance. “You’re right. I smell like the goddamn Snuggle Bear. What’s in that stuff? It smells great!”
Blount’s smile quickly faded. “Trust me, Mr. Payne. You don’t wants to know. I know it made me sick the first time I found out. Yuck!”
Although he was curious about the secret ingredient, Payne quickly changed subjects. “Bennie, now that I’m clean, what do you have for me to eat?”
“I gots ya lots of stuff, but the most important stuff be the liquids. We gots to get ya full of fluid or you’s gonna melt away like lard in a skillet.”
Payne attacked his meal with zeal, smiling the entire time. Bennie Blount, the dreadlocked servant from the bayou, had saved his life—if only for the time being. Technically, Blount had only provided Payne with food, juice, and a much-needed shower, but in reality he had given Payne something even more important than sustenance. He had given him hope. “Bennie, I can’t thank you enough. I can’t even begin to explain how much I needed that.”
Blount grinned as he tidied the area around the box. He needed to make sure that there was no sign of his visit, or he’d get in serious trouble. “Well, I be feelin’ bad about the trick that we played on you and Mr. Jones. I figure it be the least I can do.”
“Speaking of D.J., how’s he doing?”
Blount took a deep breath, pausing ever so slightly. “I don’t mean to scare ya none, but I heard that Master Greene roughed him up somethin’ fierce.”
“What?”
“Before ya get too worried, I didn’t get a chance to find out if that be true or not, but I just thought it be best if I done told ya what I had heard.”
Payne considered the information. If it was true, it would make things doubly difficult.
“Where’s he being held? Is he in the main house?”
“No, sir. He be in a utility cabin near the slaves. It kinda stands out from the others, though, since it has plumbing and be much larger than the rest.”
“Is there any way you can visit him? You know, to bring him food and first aid?”
Blount shook his head. “Not without them knowing. The cabin is guarded, and it be locked from the outside. Since I ain’t got no key, I can’t get in with no permission. And I don’t think I be gettin’ any.”
“Is there any chance of him getting out? A window? A trapdoor? Anything?”
“You be watchin’ too much TV! There ain’t no such thing as trapdoors in the real world.”
Payne immediately thought of Levon Greene’s escape from the tattoo parlor, but he didn’t have time to explain it to Blount. “So, there’s no way in or out without the key, right? How about Ariane? Is she still in the same place as before?”
Blount wrinkled his face in discomfort. When he originally briefed Payne and Jones about the Plantation, he had given them bogus information. It was all a part of Greene’s master plan of deception. “I been wantin’ to talk to ya about that. You see, the stuff that I done told you before was a little off.”
Payne leaned his head against the Devil’s Box and groaned. “How off?”
“Kinda completely off.”
“Bennie,” he said.
“I be sorry, but Master Greene wasn’t about to let me tell ya the real stuff. He’s one of the bosses of this place, so I didn’t have no choice.”
“Yeah, but . . .” Payne stopped his complaint in midsen tence. He suddenly remembered that Blount had just saved his life, so there was no way he was going to make him feel worse about his earlier actions. “Okay, Bennie, you’re probably right. You didn’t have a choice. But I’d certainly appreciate it if you filled me in now.”
Blount nodded. “We gotta be quick, though. I don’t want to be gone too long from the kitchen. I might be missed.”
“Fair enough.”
“So, what do ya need to know?”
Payne grimaced. There were tons of things that he wanted to learn about the island, but before the opportunity passed, he needed Blount’s assistance on something else. “Bennie, I know you’ve done a lot of nice things for me, and I really appreciate them all. But there’s something I need that’s even more important than information.”
Blount brushed the braided hair from his face, gazing into the box. “Like what?”
“Well, I was wondering if you could scratch me.”
“Huh?”
“I was hoping you could scratch me. I’ve been in here for a pretty long time, and I got a number of itches all over my body that I can’t reach, so . . .”
“You’s being serious, ain’t ya?”
Payne nodded, trying to look as pathetic as possible.
“You’s crazy! I want to help ya and all, but I ain’t touchin’ no man. Besides, there ain’t no way my arms can fit in that thing. The holes on the top be too skinny.”
Payne sighed, making sure that Blount could hear his disappointment. “Come on, Bennie, there has to be something you can do. These itches are driving me crazy! Every time I move, it feels like something is crawling on me—especially down there. It’s horrible!”
Blount examined the grate of the box, but his suspicions were correct. There was no way for him to get his arm inside. “Why don’t ya do it yourself?”
“If I could, I would. But as you can see, my hands are bound to the floor. I can’t even crack my knuckles, let alone scratch myself.”
Blount peered closer, shining the light inside. “Yeah, your hands is bound good. Unless . . .”
“Unless what?”
“Unless I can do somethin’ with your hands.”
Payne tried not to smile, but it was tough. Blount had just suggested the one thing that Payne was hoping for. In fact, it was the only reason that Payne had bitched to begin with. “Jeez, Bennie, what do you think you can do?”
Blount examined the shackles from several angles. Then he peered at the outside of the box. “You be in handcuffs, right? And the handcuffs is bolted to the floor?”
“That’s right.”
“And if I release the bolt from the floor, you’ll still gonna be in cuffs, won’t ya?”
Payne pretended to contemplate things. “Yeah. That sounds about right.”
“And you can scratch yourself with cuffs, can’t ya?”
“Definitely! And it wouldn’t be like you were freeing me. I’d still be locked in this thing.”
Blount mulled over the situation. He didn’t want to do anything that would give away his role in this. “All right. I think I can unscrew the bolt from the outside. Once you pull your cuffs from the hook, I be putting the bolt right back. That way it looks like you did it on your own.”
Payne lowered his head and smiled. The servant didn’t realize it, but he had given Payne much more than an opportunity to scratch.
He had given him a way to escape.
CHAPTER 41
DAVID
Jones had no idea where his best friend was being held or what was being done to him, but the racial overtones of the island suggested he was probably in bad shape.
Despite the pain in his ribs and back, Jones squirmed until his hands, which had been bound behind him, were stretched beyond his feet and repositioned near his stomach. Though his hands were still bound, he had a lot more freedom to move about the cabin and search for a way out. He quickly probed the floor, walls, and ceiling, but each of them proved to be solid. After several minutes, it became apparent that his only option was the heavily guarded front door. Made of oak and finished with a light lacquer, the door was thick, too thick to knock down. It sat in a matching oak frame and was sealed from the outside with a steel dead-bolt lock.
Frustrated, Jones lay on his mattress and pondered his situation. “What would MacGyver do?” he wondered aloud, referring to the TV character who had a penchant for creative solutions. “He’d probably make a grenade out of chocolate pudding and blow up the door.”
He chuckled as he said it, but as he stared at the door over his outstretched feet, two things became apparent. One, a doorway explosion was within the realm of possibility. And two, he wouldn’t have to build a device because the guards had actually given him one.
The idiots had strapped it to his leg.
Forgetting the pain in his back and ribs, Jones leaned forward to study his anklet. The mechanism, attached below his shin, was encased in a silver, metallic shell that was no thicker than his hand. The gadget was streamlined and carried little weight; that meant the technology was pretty advanced.
Unless this is a dummy,
he thought to himself.
Since the latest in incendiary gear was bound to be expensive, Jones wondered if the Posse had the finances to spend so much money on deterrents. If they didn’t, he figured they might be tempted to put dummy devices on the legs of their captives. To him, it made sense. The prisoners would undoubtedly accept the guards’ explanation of the anklets, and because of that they’d be too scared to run away or attempt to remove them.
To find out what he was dealing with, Jones looked for the safest way to penetrate the metal casing. He carefully explored the outside of the shell, realizing that there were only two practical choices. He could pick the lock on the front of the anklet, a difficult task without the proper tools, or he could pry the case open with some kind of wedge. The second option seemed the easier of two, but it also seemed much riskier. Even though there was a thin seam that ran along the top of the mechanism, one that could be pried apart with some effort, Jones figured it was bound to be booby-trapped. Most high-tech explosives were.
That meant he had to pick it.
The question was, how? If he had his lock-picking kit with him, Jones could open the clasp in less than a minute. Without it he had no idea how long the process would take—if he could do it at all. In order to try, he had to find something slender enough to fit in the lock but sturdy enough not to break. Jones scoured the walls for stray tacks or nails, but it was pretty obvious that there were none. Next, he examined his bed, hoping that there were iron springs on the inside, but the mattress was made of foam.