Savages

23

JAKE RUNYON

Stander was a nowhere place.

Not a village or a hamlet-an old, disused railroad siding. If it had ever been anything more, the only evidence left standing were a gutted stone building between the two-lane blacktop and the main rail line, the remains of a water tank, and the fenced-in compound that had once been RipeOlive Processors. Nearest signs of life were a farmhouse some distance back, a combination country store and junk dealer a quarter of a mile before that. Anybody’s guess who or what Stander had been, or why the siding had a name at all.

Olive groves stretched out on both sides of the road here, flanking the compound to the east, hiding Highway 5 to the west. Some of the gnarled trees looked as though they were still being harvested; others seemed as dead as the RipeOlive buildings. The plant was set back a hundred yards or so from the blacktop, the chain-link fence around it and the entrance gates capped by slanted strands of barbed wire. The main rail line was still in service-the condition of the rails and ties told you that-but the spur that branched off to the plant, weed choked, broken up, rusty, hadn’t been used in years.

Runyon turned off onto a potholed ribbon of pavement that bent up across the right-of-way. The paved portion of the road looped around to the front gates; a once-graveled, now mostly dirt track intersected it near the fence corner, led around to the olive groves at the rear. On a pole next to the gates stood a metal sign, bullet pocked where somebody had used it for target practice, the green and black lettering on it beginning to fade:

RipeOlive Brand

“From Our Trees to Your Table”

Two buildings, both of unpainted wood with sheet-metal roofs, were visible inside the fence from here-a long, low warehouse and a shorter structure that formed a detached ell on the north side. Coming in, he’d seen a third building at the rear, some kind of long shed stretched out parallel to the warehouse. The yard was paved, the pavement cracking and sprouting weeds and dry grass. Heat shimmered over everything, gave the buildings an insubstantial, two-dimensional look.

Just what he’d expected to find.

Nowhere place, abandoned place.

He got out to examine the gates. Double padlocked, the locks showing rust and free of key scrapes. No signs of life in the compound, or that anybody had been in there recently-not from this vantage point. Another entrance?

Back in the car, he U-turned to the dirt road and followed it along the side fence. Thin plumes of dust rose up behind, seemed to hang in the sultry air before they began to settle. The fence, as far as he could tell, hadn’t been breached anywhere on this side or at the rear.

The road split again back there, one branch veering in among the trees, the other continuing parallel to the fence. Two-thirds of the way along the latter he came on another, smaller set of gates. Rear entrance for trucks coming in from the groves. He stopped there and went over for a look. Padlocked, like the main entrance, but when he tugged on the lock it came open: the shackle had been set into the case, so that it seemed secure at a glance, but it hadn’t been pressed down to engage the locking mechanism. On the underside, around the keyhole, were faint, recent scratches.

He let the lock hang, stood peering through the wire mesh. Dead still inside. A crow came swooping down overhead, cawing, and disappeared into the olive grove. Stillness again.

Call Joe Rinniak in Red Bluff? Not yet, not without some idea of what there was to find here.

Criminal trespass, like it or not.

Rinniak wouldn’t care if it helped catch his firebug. Kelso might, but Kelso didn’t have to know about it until later. A long time later, and word given to him by somebody else. Runyon didn’t want anything more to do with the deputy if it could be avoided.

He fetched his flashlight and the Magnum in its carry holster. Clipped the holster to his belt, shoved the torch into a pants pocket to keep his hands free. Then he unhooked the padlock, eased himself through the opening, and closed the gates again behind him.

Out on the frontage road an approaching vehicle made a low-pitched rumbling noise. Sounded like a pickup truck, heading from the south in the direction of Gray’s Landing. He stood still, waiting. The noise held steady as the truck passed by the compound; faded, and was gone.

The nearest of the buildings, the long shed, was off to his left. He went there first, fast-walking, the sun burning the back of his neck. Equipment and storage shed, probably. Two sets of doors, one on either end. The first set was locked. The second wasn’t. One door half-creaked loudly when he pulled it open; the sound froze him again for a drag of seconds. He readied the flashlight in his left hand, wedged his body inside.

Thick gloom, stifling with trapped heat, rank with a mix of smells-oil, dust, heat, dry rot, rodent droppings. When he switched on the flashlight, the beam sent something small scurrying across the floor into darkness. One cavernous room, an area along one side that had once been a workshop, all of it empty now except for the car parked straight ahead of him at the back wall.

Dark blue ’57 Impala with chrome rims, tuck-and-roll upholstery.

Both of its doors were locked. Runyon walked around it, shining the light inside through the windows. Empty.

He was running sweat when he stepped outside again. The heavy, breathless silence remained unbroken. He kept the flash in his left hand, his right on the butt of the Magnum, as he crossed to the shortish ell. A platform dock with two loading bays extended across two-thirds of the front. The one-third at the near end had once been the plant office. Two windows there, the panes all broken now, a couple starred with holes-probably the same sharpshooter who’d plinked the sign at the front entrance. Runyon poked the flash through one of the openings, switched it on. Debris, broken glass, an abandoned chair. Nobody had been here in a long time.

He climbed up onto the dock. Both metal doors secure. He found another door at the far end, this one a wooden single, and it was secure, too. Alongside it was a single window, the panes intact because they were protected from target practice by the back side of the warehouse building. A thick coating of grime wouldn’t let the flashlight ray penetrate the glass. He tried the sash, but the latch was either locked down tight or frozen shut. Forget it. Nobody here, either.

Another dock with loading bays ran across the rear of the warehouse building, the concrete cracked and chipped from age. Runyon crossed the yard, went up, and tried the metal doors there. Both locked tight. Down again, around to a single door set into the sidewall.

That was the one he was hunting for.

Shut but not secured. Opened inward a few inches as soon as he put pressure on it.

He stayed put for the better part of a minute, listening with his ear close to the opening. Silence inside. He drew his weapon, held it down along his side, and stepped into the gloomy interior.

A few thin rays of sunlight came through chinks in the outer walls, put a faint shine on the edges of the darkness. No other light. No sounds until he clicked on the flash-claws on wood somewhere nearby. He swung the beam in quick up-and-down arcs. Bottling room, judging from the long tables and left-behind jars and remains of a series of dismantled conveyor belts. Among the debris on the floor was a scatter of RipeOlive labels, some trod on and torn-the same kind as the fragment in his wallet. Dust lay thick and undisturbed except for a scuffed-up line of passage that led from the entrance door to an inner one in a partition wall straight ahead.

He followed the line, entered a second room. Faint brine smell in there, from the vats that lined it. Empty. The line bisected that room, too, extended through another doorway in a second partition wall.

Storage warehouse, twice the size of the previous two spaces. Dead silence, the air so heat and dust choked it was difficult to breathe. He swept the light around. Broken pallets, broken crates, other rubble. Vertical support beams marking off sections. New smell he couldn’t quite identify. He moved forward, widening the length and radius of the beam.

Halted its sweep, held it steady on what lay on the floor toward the far end.

Jerry Belsize.

Facedown, unmoving, arms outflung around one of the support beams, wrists bound together with a pair of handcuffs.

T he kid was still alive-barely.

When Runyon knelt and touched him to feel for a pulse, his body jerked convulsively and then began to thrash, the arms pulling back until the cuffs clanked against the beam, the fingers hooking and spasming as if to fight off an attack. Runyon took his hand away. The thrashing stopped, but the spasming went on. The one eye turned his way didn’t react to the light; it was open wide and seemed blind.

Belsize had been here a long time, left like this without food or water. Probably since sometime last Friday. His clothing, a pair of Levi’s, Reeboks, a thin T-shirt, were torn and grimy. Face a mask of sweat-caked filth, lips cracked and swollen, a bloody wound on the right side of his head-the same kind of wound Runyon wore under the fresh bandage on his temple. Wrists and hands covered with dried blood, the skin ripped and abraded-the residue of frenzied struggles to free himself that had left the support beam splintered and deep-gouged from the chain links. Other marks were visible on the wrists and arms. Rodent bites. That was what he’d been trying to fight off in his delirium… rats, mice, attracted by the blood, making sharp-toothed forays in the dark.

Five days of nightmare.

Runyon had a strong stomach, but this type of cruelty was enough to sicken even the most case-hardened cop. Miracle that Belsize was still alive. Another day in here and he wouldn’t have been. The only reason he’d survived this long was his youth and physical condition. As it was, he might not make it, and if he did, there was no telling what kind of mental shape he’d be in.

Runyon knew who was responsible. Knew it for sure now. Who, and some of the why.

He propped the torch so that the light was off the kid’s face and steady on the handcuffed wrists. The arms and body were still quivering. Talked to him in a low, soft voice, telling him he was safe now, he’d soon be free, that he’d have to lie still so the handcuffs could be removed. He kept it up for several minutes, not sure if the words were having an effect until the quivering stopped and Belsize lay motionless once more. When he touched one wrist, it brought a spasm that lasted only a few seconds.

The cuffs were standard-issue. You could pick the locks on them without too much strain if you knew what you were doing and had the right tools. Two minutes with the awl blade and corkscrew on his Swiss Army knife, talking the whole time to keep the kid still, and Runyon had one shackle open. Worry about the other one later. The steel circle had cut a deep blood-sealed furrow into the skin; he had to pry it loose. Gently he brought both stiffened arms out from around the beam, then turned Belsize onto his back. Brief struggle when he knelt to lift him. He waited until the struggles stopped, then got Belsize up off the floor and cradled against his body the way you’d hold a sick child. The way he might have held Joshua if he’d ever been given the chance.

He held the torch pressed between his fingers and the kid’s body, the beam aimed downward to light the way through the building. But still he had to look straight down at his feet to see where he was going, avoid stumbling over something, and it was slow going. The dust clogged his sinuses; he was coughing, wheezing, by the time he reached the doorway at the far end, finally emerged into the bright dazzle of sunlight.

He was able to move a little more quickly then. Around the shed, across to the rear gates-pouring sweat, the muscles in his shoulders, arms, thighs, aching from the strain. At the Ford he lowered Belsize’s feet, holding on to him with his right arm while he opened the rear door. Eased the kid inside, stretched him out on his back across the seat. His respiration was so slow Runyon had to check to make sure he was still breathing. He got the blanket he kept in the trunk, draped it over the inert form, arranged it so incoming sunlight wouldn’t lie hot on Belsize’s wounds. Before he slid in behind the wheel, he reset the padlock on the gates as he’d found it.

No question of calling 911 for an ambulance, waiting here until it arrived. Belsize could be dead by then. Make the hospital delivery himself, as fast as he could get to Red Bluff. And notify Rinniak on the way.