Hocus (21 page)

Except for the area illuminated by the dome light and headlights of the car, it was dark in the cavernous brick building. Later they would learn that the building had been used for many purposes, its design changed for each tenant. Most recently it had been used to store surplus machinery; the greasy smell came from lubricants that had drained out of the old machines and soaked into the building’s wooden floor. The warehouse had been abandoned for at least five years.

Powell dragged Bret to the place where Sam, still blindfolded, had been tethered to a post. Powell was hurting Bret, pulling his arm up hard behind him. Bret made a whimpering sound behind the tape over his mouth. Sam heard it and shouted, “Leave him alone!” Powell slapped Sam hard. Sam stopped shouting, but he refused to cry. Powell untied him and made Bret lead him along.

Powell took them to a doorway. It opened onto a set of wooden steps that went into a dimly lit basement. He told them to go down the steps. He shut the thick wooden door behind them.

Gene and Julian were each tied to a post. The posts were about six feet apart in the center of the room, and the men were tied so that they faced one another. Their faces were no longer taped.

When the boys came down the stairs, Bret saw both fear and relief on the faces of their fathers. Gene was crying. Julian tried to smile at Bret, but it didn’t look like a real smile.

The boys were taken to a wall. Leather bands with thick iron rings attached to them were fastened tightly to the boys’ slender wrists and ankles; each iron ring was padlocked to a heavy chain. The other end of each chain was fastened to an eyelet in the wall. Only when all the padlocks were snapped closed did Powell pull the tape off Sam’s eyes and Bret’s mouth. The chains were just long enough to allow some movement, but the boys staggered under their weight. Sam immediately pulled at his, tried to reach his father. Although Gene was tied to the closer of the two posts, the chains were far too short to allow that.

“These were gonna be on you,” Powell said to the men, laughing. “Bought ’em at a sex shop and rigged ’em up myself. Long time ago.” His thoughts seemed to wander, then he smiled at Gene. “Figured it would bother you more to see these two little weasels in ’em than to be in ’em yourself. And I see I’m right.”

Powell began pacing back and forth across the basement. There was a sleeping bag on a cot against the far wall and a small wooden table. A portable, battery-operated lantern sat on the table, along with a rumpled canvas bag and wadded-up paper sacks from a fast-food place. The lantern light cast long, strange shadows. This room didn’t smell like oil. It smelled like sweat and old hamburgers.

“Daddy, why is he doing this to us?” Sam asked.

Powell laughed again. “Tell him, Gene. Tell him what a great guy his old man is.”

“It’s all my fault, Sam,” Gene choked out. “God forgive me, it’s all my fault.”

“Gene—” Julian said.

“Shut the fuck up, Neukirk,” Powell said. “Let the doc make his confession.”

But Gene was silent. Powell went over to the canvas bag and exchanged his gun for a long knife. He moved over to Julian and, before anyone knew what he was planning, made a small cut on Julian’s arm.

Bret started screaming. Gene and Sam were shouting.

“Shut up!” Powell yelled, moving back toward Julian with the knife.

They were all silent.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Julian said, but his face was pale. Sam moved over to Bret, held on to him.

“Now, Gene, I asked you to make your confession,” Powell said. “Tell these little faggot kids of yours what you did.”

“No one should ever call anyone a faggot,” Sam said, repeating — verbatim — one part of a lecture they had received not long ago.

Bret, who had not been able to take his eyes from his father’s bleeding cut, was terrified that Powell would slice at Julian again because of Sammy’s remark.

But Powell just laughed. “You admit being faggots, huh?”

“No. We’re just like brothers,” Sam said, still holding Bret. “Brothers don’t have sex with each other. But even if we were gay, you shouldn’t say the word ‘faggot.’ It’s bad manners.”

Powell howled with laughter. “Man, you are a piece of work, kid.”

“I’m very proud of you, Sam,” Gene said quietly, attracting everyone’s attention. Bret realized that Gene’s voice was different. He sounded stronger, as if being proud of Sam had made him braver. “But I’m not so proud of myself. You’re right. You and Bret are like brothers, just as Julian and I are like brothers. It’s also right that it’s my fault we are here — partly because I didn’t confide in Julian.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Julian said.

“It’s the only thing that matters,” Gene said. “Boys, I want to tell you a story — a true story. Julian knows some of it, but not all of it.”

Powell backed off from the men and sat on the cot. “I’m gonna enjoy the hell outta this,” he said.

Julian looked over at Bret and Sam. He mouthed the words, “Be brave.”

So Gene began to tell them about gambling and losing money. He talked about being afraid of the men he owed money to, of what they might do if he didn’t pay them back. He talked about Powell approaching him with the chance to make easy money.

“Chris knew a man who wanted something flown to the United States from Mexico,” he said.

“What was it, Daddy?” Sam asked.

Gene hesitated.

Powell jumped to his feet, knife in hand. He swaggered over to Gene. “What was it, Daddy?” he mimicked.

“Cocaine,” Gene whispered.

Bret saw Sam’s eyes widen in disbelief. Bret shouted what Sam had wanted to say. “You’re lying!”

“Bret!” Julian said sharply.

Gene was shaking his head. “No, Bret, I’m sorry, I’m not.”

“Boys,” Julian said quickly, “this is a secret. You understand? No one ever hears about this. No one! Not ever.”

Powell turned and slashed him again, the other arm this time. In the next instant, he cut Gene.

“You two are pissing me off!” Powell shouted. “Now get on with the story, Gene. Or next time, I cut one of these little babies over here.”

Shakily Gene went on. He told of flights to Mexico in the Cessna 210 — flights the boys thought were missions of mercy to help people too poor to pay for doctors. Yes, he really did help the poor, he told them when Sam asked. But while the other doctors were there only to help, he was also doing illegal business on the side. That’s why he always went on his own, alone, and the others went in groups. If he met up with other doctors, he told them he flew alone because of his insurance, but that wasn’t true.

He picked up the drugs — marijuana or cocaine or heroin — in Mexico. He would then fly the plane to the Kern Valley Airport, near Lake Isabella, and drive down to Bakersfield from there. Powell would unload the drugs and leave money for Gene in a special locked box. It was a lot of money. It helped him get out of debt quickly.

Although at first he did not handle any payments to the suppliers, eventually Gene was entrusted with taking large sums of cash to Mexico.

Now he was no longer afraid of the men who had tried to collect his gambling debts. He was afraid of Powell and Powell’s boss. He was being asked to make more and more frequent flights. Between the flights and his schedule at the hospital, he was never home. He was always fatigued, unable to enjoy time with his friends or family. He was worried that he would be caught. He began to see how foolish he had been.

He went to seek help from the man who had always been his best friend. Julian said that no matter what happened, he would always stand by him.

“And I will,” Julian said when Gene reached this part of the story.

“And I’ll always stand by Sam,” Bret said, because he knew his friend was feeling bewildered and ashamed.

Julian smiled at Bret. Gene began weeping again.

“Very fucking touching,” Powell said, “but you ain’t finished.”

Julian had suggested he take some time off, Gene said. Julian had seen that Gene was exhausted, not able to think clearly. It was a complex problem. They could spend some time talking things over once Gene got some rest.

So they planned the fishing trip, and as the day grew closer Gene found himself excited at the prospect of spending time with his friend and their sons. He worked a long shift at the hospital, trying to make sure everything would go smoothly while he was gone for the week. Then his pager went off; the code on it signified a call from Powell. It meant Powell wanted a flight.

Gene drove up to Lake Isabella, to the airport, but as he sat in the plane, weary in more ways than one, he changed his mind. He shut down the engines and was going to leave the money on the plane, but he realized his “false start” had attracted some attention. He took the money, put it in his car, and drove to Powell’s house. He planned to tell Powell that he wanted out but Powell wasn’t home. He tried calling him but only reached the answering machine. He left a message, saying he hadn’t gone on the flight, that he needed to talk to Powell. He headed back to Bakersfield, but began to feel afraid and confused, unsure of what to do.

“Forget all the excuses,” Powell said. “You did a dumb-ass thing.”

As he drove, Gene said, he decided he didn’t like the idea of having this kind of money near his family, where someone might hurt them in order to take it.

Powell laughed over that.

“I decided not to take the money home,” Gene said. “But I was more than halfway to Bakersfield and too tired to drive all the way back to Lake Isabella and wait for Powell, so I pulled off at the side of the road and buried the money.”

“I go to this plane,” Powell said, “thinking maybe he’s left the money there. And what do I find, huh? What do I find?”

“An empty plane,” Gene said. “But—”

“Fuckin’ A, an empty plane!” Powell started pacing.

“I called you again when I got home and told you where I’d left the money!” Gene said.

“Not so’s I could find it.”

“I didn’t know!” Gene said. “Would I be driving toward your house if I thought you hadn’t found the money? Would I have my children in the car with me? I wasn’t trying to escape!”

“Shut up!” Powell raged. “I ain’t stupid! You fucked up!”

He began pacing again.

As time went on, Powell became more restless. The tempo of his pacing increased. He said it was taking too long for the boss to get there. Something was wrong. Maybe Gene had never hidden any money there after all. In time he convinced himself that Gene had set a trap.

That’s when the killing began. He cut the men loose, but he didn’t give them a real chance to fight. They had been tied up for hours by then, and the circulation had gone out of their hands and feet. And each time Powell inflicted a wound, he became more excited, more frenzied.

Julian died first, then Gene. The boys were screaming. Powell turned on them. He dropped the knife and shook them, but still they screamed. He picked up a piece of pipe, was going to hit Bret with it. But at the last minute Sam shielded Bret, who was smaller. That was how Sam’s arm was broken.

Sam yelled, “You promised the policeman you wouldn’t hurt us!”

Powell stopped then, as quickly as he had begun. He looked around the room in surprise, as if a stranger had done this terrible work. He hurriedly mounted the stairs, closed the basement door. Faintly they heard the sliding metal door open. They did not hear it close.

The boys screamed for help until they were hoarse.

The lantern batteries, already weak by the time Powell left, dimmed rapidly; the room grew darker and darker, until it was pitch black.

The boys held on to one another.

They settled into a state that was almost like being asleep, dreamlike and distant, only Sam’s occasional moan of pain bringing Bret back to the present. They did not know how much time had passed when the basement door opened and a flashlight shone into the dark. They stayed silent.

“Powell?”

The policeman.

The chains made a rattling sound. They were both shaking.

The light glanced onto the floor and then into their faces. They were too exhausted from standing on their feet for hours in the heavy chains to raise their hands to shield their eyes from the light.

The policeman made a keening sound, a sound not unlike the ones they had made when they’d still had voices to cry out with. Then he was gone.

Bret felt as if he had been awakened again. He could feel the cold of the room, smell the blood, feel Sam shiver. He began to wonder if anyone would ever find them. It was then that the door opened and another policeman came in.

His name was Frank Harriman. He left them only long enough to radio for help, which was long enough for the boys to decide that no one would ever believe the truth.

When Frank Harriman came back he tried to free them, but the swelling in their hands and feet had made the leather too tight to cut. When he saw he couldn’t free them without hurting them, he stayed with them, there in the cold darkness, with the stench all around, waiting for help. He braced his back against the wall and lifted them carefully onto his lap, cradling their arms so that the strain of holding the chains was finally relieved. He didn’t mind that they were silent or that they had blood on them.

He was young, younger than their fathers. And he was taller. But something about him reminded Bret and Sam of Julian. That’s why the boys let him hold them until their mothers could be there. They did not let any of the other men take them from him, even after they were able to leave the basement — not even the one who put a splint on Sam’s arm.

Frank Harriman wouldn’t let anyone separate them. When the others saw that the boys wouldn’t answer questions, the others were upset. He made the ones who were upset leave the boys alone. He knew they were tired and weak and afraid. He didn’t complain. He held them. Frank Harriman, and no one else.

They didn’t trust him completely, but they trusted no one else at all.

T
HE DARK-HAIRED YOUNG MAN
stood with his left arm extended to the side, his open left hand palm up. In his right hand he held a pack of cards. In one smooth, even movement he spread the cards from the palm of his left hand up the length of his arm to his elbow. With a grace that belied his quickness, he lifted his left arm, rolled his palm downward, and turned his body to the left. For a brief instant the cards stood in the air as one unit, then cascaded in an improbable, fluid motion to his waiting right hand, where he caught them perfectly.