Monday Mourning

Ryan left to do another sweep of the basement.

“The little troll had himself a really special place down here.” Charbonneau swept a hand around the room. “Soundproofing and all.”

My eyes followed the arc of Charbonneau’s motion.

In one corner two sets of handcuffs dangled from a pair of rings imbedded in the ceiling. A crude table hugged the adjacent wall. I crossed to it, a cold numbness in my gut.

The table was sturdily built, of plywood and two-by-fours. Eye-hooks had been screwed into each corner, then a leather cuff attached to each hook. Four chains lay coiled beside the cuffs.

“This table isn’t old,” I said.

“Table?” Charbonneau’s voice trembled with anger. “It’s a goddamn rack!”

I walked to the workbench. Claudel looked at me, then shifted left, his face a shrink-wrapped mask of control.

The numbness made the rounds of my innards.

A bullwhip. A cat-o’-nine-tails. A riding crop. A hide-covered paddle. A noose with an enormous knot at midloop.

“All the tricks needed to show your slave who’s boss.” A vein throbbed in Charbonneau’s temple. I saw fury in his eyes.

“Calm-toi, Michel.” Claudel’s voice was a flat line.

“And this asshole was real creative.”

Charbonneau jabbed at a horse bit, a curling iron, a crudely made gag with a ball in the center.

“Check out his reading material.”

Charbonneau’s rage made him hyperactive. He snatched up a magazine, tossed it down. “Porn. Bondage. S and M.” He grabbed a videotape. The Story of O.

As the video hit the workbench, Ryan charged in, his jaw muscles tightened all the way to his sternum.

“I’ve found something.”

We moved as one, out the door, through the outer basement, around an ancient furnace, and into a chamber much like the one we’d just left.

Floor-to-ceiling shelves wrapped three sides of this room. A single bare bulb hung from its ceiling.

Ryan strode to the far wall. We followed. Behind the shelving I could see polyurethane similar to that lining the other room. The edge of one panel had been pried free.

“This wall isn’t brick. It’s plywood.”

Ryan ran his fingertips vertically along the newly exposed plywood, just beyond the shelving.

“There’s a discontinuity.”

Claudel removed one glove, mimicked Ryan’s move, then nodded.

Ryan pointed to the door through which we’d entered.

“Check out the lights.”

We all turned. One switch plate looked shiny and new, the other dingy and cracked.

“The older one works the overhead.”"

"He left the rest unsaid.

Claudel yanked off his remaining glove. Wordlessly, he and Ryan began ripping polyurethane.

Charbonneau hurried to the outer basement. I heard clattering and scraping, then he was back with a rusted crowbar.

Within minutes Ryan and Claudel had bared a six-inch swath. In it I could see a crack and two hinges. Through the crack, not a sliver of light.

Gauging door width, they attacked the other side of the shelving where two polyurethane panels met. Their efforts revealed another hairline fissure between sheets of plywood.

“Let me at it.” Charbonneau moved forward.

Ryan and Claudel stepped aside.

Charbonneau inserted the tip of the crowbar into the gap and levered.

A section of wall and shelving jigged forward.

Charbonneau slid the tip of the crowbar farther and heaved.

Plywood, batting, and shelving popped free.

Charbonneau grabbed a shelf and yanked. The false wall swung wide, revealing an opening approximately five by two feet.

The overhead bulb illuminated the first eighteen inches of the cavity behind the wall. Beyond that, the chamber was pitch-black.

Dashing to the door, I flicked the shiny switch, and spun.

My teeth clamped my lower lip as my throat clenched.

32

THE ROOM HAD BEGUN LIFE AS A FRUIT CELLAR OR STORAGE BIN. It was approximately eight by ten, and, like Menard’s little fun house, entirely soundproofed. The interior smelled of mold and old earth overlain by chemicals and something organic.

The furnishings were grimly stark. A naked bulb on a frayed wire. A portable camp toilet. A crudely built wooden platform. Two tattered blankets.

On the platform sat a pair of women, heads down, backs rounded against the polyurethane paneling. Each wore a studded leather collar. Nothing else.

The women’s skin looked bitter white, the shadows defining their ribs and vertebrae dark and sinuous. A long braid snaked from the nape of each neck.

Charbonneau let forth a curse charged with the full lexicon of anger and abhorrence.

One face snapped up. Haggard. Eyes like those of some wild creature startled in the night.

Anique Pomerleau.

Her companion remained motionless, head down, bony arms clutching her bony knees.

Claudel spun and disappeared into the outer basement. I heard boots cross cement then thunder up stairs.

“It’s all right, Anique,” I said, as gently as I knew how.

Pomerleau’s eyes flinched. The other woman hugged her legs harder to her chest.