Limits of Justice, The (38 page)

“Mommy and Daddy said that?”

“Yes.”

“Is Anna Farthing really your mother?”

“Yes.”

“And your father, where is he?”

“With my mother. They’re always together.”

When the truth hit me, I laughed in an awful way and shook my head in disbelief. Immediately, I hoped he hadn’t seen it. He looked so pathetic lying there on the desert floor, like a frail bird that had finally been broken.

“Dr. Miller is your father. Is that right, George?”

“Yes.”

“Anna and Stanley—Mommy and Daddy—they took you to live with Mr. Preston when you were a little boy?”

“I was ten. They thought I would like it better there, with the horses.”

“But Mr. Preston hurt you, didn’t he?”

“Oh, no. He was always good to me.”

“He had you castrated, George, to keep you from growing up.”

“No, you’re wrong, Mr. Justice.”

“I know about the surgery, George. I know the truth.”

“Mr. Preston didn’t do that, Mr. Justice. He would never hurt me that way. It was my fault. After I’d been with Mr. Preston for a year or so, he told me he had special feelings for me. It was in the evening, and we were in the stables. He did things with me that I had never done before, right there on the stable floor with all the horses watching. Things that felt good. Afterward, though, I was so ashamed.”

“Like the boy in that play,
Equus.
”

“Yes, just like the boy in the play. I was that boy, Mr. Justice. Only instead of blinding the horses, I mutilated myself. I had to hurt myself for being bad. When Mr. Preston found me all cut up and bleeding, he took me to Dr. Delgado, who fixed me the best he could. Mr. Preston always took good care of me after that. He made sure I was happy and he kept me beautiful. He loved me, you see. That’s why I came after you, to keep you from writing bad things about him.”

He moaned again, softer this time, barely more than a breath escaping. A single tear spilled over, then became lost in the tom flesh just below.

“I’m going to die, Mr. Justice.”

“Maybe not, George.”

“Yes, very soon, I can tell. Will you promise me something?”

“What, George?”

“Promise me you’ll find good homes for the horses, where they’ll be taken care of.”

“I think I can do that.”

“They need to be run, and brushed, and shod, and fed their oats.”

“I’m acquainted with Charlotte Preston’s mother, who owns Equus now. I’ll talk to her. But I need something from you, too, George.”

“What?”

“I need to know how I can get inside your parents’ compound.”

“If I tell you, you promise about the horses?”

“I promise, George.”

“In my shirt pocket, there’s a card. You can use it to make the gates open.”

I reached inside his pocket, found the plastic card. As I brought it out, both my fingers and the card were sticky with blood. He appeared to be bleeding everywhere, and his breathing had become ragged, though he seemed to be in no pain.

Just before death rattled his slender throat, he spoke one more time.

“The mare, she likes to go fast.”

As I approached the Farthing place, the beams of my headlights fell on a furry tarantula prancing slowly across the road. The huge spider lifted each hairy leg precisely, the way pianists stretch their fingers before starting to play. I braked to let it pass, using the minute or two to study the two-story building up ahead.

It sat isolated on a slight rise, several hundred yards off the road, illuminated faintly by security lights at the base of the outer walls. A paved drive led from the road to the high, arched gate at the entrance Chucho had described so accurately, including the spires that gave the place a slightly medieval look in the pale light of the jaundiced moon. The stones that formed the bulk of the building appeared to be beveled at the edges and gray like slate, cold and dank-looking even in the mild desert night. The landscaping between the road and the compound was all natural—cacti, succulents, yucca—amid scattered rocks and car-sized boulders. Identical windows, arched at the top, ran along both stories at the front of the building as well as on the western side, which was all I could see from my vantage point on the road. Every visible window was dark.

As the fat spider stepped into the shadow of a thorny ocotillo, I proceeded with my headlights off. I left the main road for the bumpier drive, passing under a stone arch that bore neither a name nor numbers. The asphalt drive was wide but in need of repair, with minor potholes along the way capable of delivering unwelcome jolts. Forty or fifty feet from the entrance, I reached an electronic monitor for the big double gates ahead. I stopped, slipped the plastic card into the slot, pulled it out, and watched the arched gates open slowly inward.

As I passed through, the courtyard lay before me paved with stone, with a swimming pool and palmy landscaping at the far end and expansive enough at this end to accommodate perhaps two dozen vehicles. In between was a modest-sized skateboard ramp; skateboards could be seen here and there around the grounds, along with a number of Stingray bikes. On the ground floor, a wide porch wrapped around the entire building, and shaded balconies could be seen on the second story in the fashion of an old hotel. As I passed through the gates, I saw a Farthing Mortuaries hearse to my left, midway along the western side of the courtyard, next to a vintage Morgan convertible that looked fully restored. Farther on, by itself, was an old, battered Toyota, a working-class car with a
mexicano's
bumper sticker on the back:
I e SINALOA
; in the rear window was affixed a decal in the red, green, and white colors of the Mexican flag. Otherwise, this half of the courtyard was empty, and looked big enough to accommodate a chopper setting down, if Templeton had communicated well with the authorities and matters went that way.

Across the courtyard, beyond the pool, bright lights drew my attention. I parked behind the hearse as the big gates closed behind me, opened the Mustang’s trunk, removed a crowbar, then followed the porch toward the lit section of the building. Out in the swimming pool, among floating locusts, inflated rafts and tubes in bright colors bobbed above the wiggly underwater light.

The bright wattage that had drawn me toward that end of the building came from what had probably been a hotel lobby, tiled and divided into sections by pillars. More recently, it had been turned into a well-equipped game room, although it appeared that it was now being quickly dismantled. From the open doorway, I could see at least a dozen video games positioned along the walls, all dark, with their plugs pulled from the wall sockets and the cords coiled up and taped as if ready for transport. Three covered pool tables were lined up to my left; the cue sticks had been bound together, the balls put into boxes and set atop the tables. Straight ahead was a long, L-shaped marble-topped counter that had probably once served as a check-in desk but was now a soda fountain, complete with machines for dispensing soft drinks and smoothies. Off to the right, nearer the back, another area had been arranged as a small theater, with couches lined up to face a large-screen television. Three open boxes sat next to the TV and the VCR, which had been unhooked; the boxes were loaded with videos still in their plastic cases. Nearby was an old-fashioned popcorn machine, although it had been cleaned out and its cord wrapped up and bound like those on the video games. I was in what must have been sheer paradise to a child of poverty before the dismantling process got under way.

I heard the distant rattle and clang of metal and cautiously followed the sound through a doorway and into an empty dining hall that was mostly cast in darkness. Across the dining room, light shone from the cracks of a swinging door. When I pushed the door quietly open, I saw two middle-aged Hispanic women in a large kitchen, washing pots and pans and packing them into boxes. Their backs were to me and I slipped back out without being seen or heard and returned to the lobby.

Immediately to my left as I emerged was a broad, stone stairway with carved wooden railings, and beside it, a short hallway leading to large double doors. I followed the hallway and pushed open the doors. The room beyond was fairly large, perhaps half the size of the dining hall, and unlighted. I found a light switch, flicked it on, and saw a dozen beds lined up dormitory fashion. There were six on each side, with dressers in between, and a wooden box at the foot of each bed filled with various toys, stuffed animals, and pieces of sports equipment—the sleeping quarters for the younger boys, according to what Chucho had said. A new feeling of sickness engulfed me that had nothing to do with my medical condition, a wave of such deep revulsion and stark fear it seemed almost unbearable, beyond the realm of human reasoning or acceptability.

All the beds were empty.

I turned from the room, moving faster, less cautiously. I reached the stairway in the lobby and started up into shadows. As I reached the second floor, I found myself in nearly pitch darkness. I turned down a hallway to my right, wishing I’d brought the flashlight from the car instead of the crowbar, or maybe both. Doors lined the hallway on either side, and when I put my face up to one, I could make out a room number. Under the number was a boy’s name, printed on a small white card that had been inserted into a metal frame: Octavio. I moved from door to door, number to number: Jorge, Juan, Angel, Lee, David, Pedro, Jimmy.

Jimmy.

I tried that door, found it open. I felt along the wall until my fingers touched a light switch. When the light came on, I found myself in the kind of room one might expect in a hot-springs hotel built back in the thirties or forties: comfortable but not very spacious, with hardwood floors, an old four-poster bed that had seen some use, and musty curtains hanging over double glass doors leading out to a balcony. The bed had been stripped, and when I opened the closet and the dresser drawers, I found them empty. I went out, shutting off the light. I checked the next room, which was just the same. And the one after that.

As I switched off the light and stepped out, I sensed motion at the far end of the hall, then saw a flashlight coming up the stairs at that end. The figure with the light trudged along the frayed runner, pausing for a moment at each door, pointing the beam up toward the name card, removing it, tucking it away, moving to the next door.

I slipped back into the room I’d just left, keeping the door ajar, peering out at the approaching figure, gripping the crowbar firmly. As the figure moved closer, door to door, removing the names, I saw that it was another Hispanic woman. As she reached the door of the room I was in, I stepped out, scaring her badly enough that she screamed.

I put up a hand, the one without the crowbar, trying to reassure her.

“It’s OK,
no problema,
I will not hurt you.”

She just stared, frightened, the fingers of one hand splayed across her upper chest. “You work here, for Dr. Miller?”

“Sí.”

“You help care for the boys?”

She nodded rapidly.

“Where are the boys?”

“The boys go home. Back to their families.”

“All the boys?

“
Sí, todos.
They go back home. This place, they close it up. No more boys now.”

“Do you usually work here at night?”

“No, in the day. Just the guard at night, and one lady.”

“Where is the guard now?”

“No more guard. Mr. Fuentes, he tell him he no have job no more. All the boys, they are OK now. Dr. Miller, he fix them, so they go home.”

“He told you they were sick, that he was taking care of them?”

“
Sí,
he take care of the boys, he is very good to them.”

“You’re here tonight closing up the place?”

“
Sí,
then we go find work some other place.”

“You’re sure all the boys are gone?”

“No more boys now. Just the one, but he go home tonight.”

“What boy is that?”

“The white boy, the older one, Jimmy.”

“Where is Jimmy now?”

She shrugged her round shoulders.

“No sé.”

“You’re sure you don’t know? I need to find him.
Es muy importante.
”

She glanced apprehensively at the crowbar in my tight fist, so I set it down, leaning it against the wall.

“Please, I must see the boy named Jimmy.
Muy rápido.
”

She stepped past me, opened the door behind me, and motioned me to follow her. She crossed the room, out to the balcony, and pointed across the courtyard to a second-story window above the hearse, where I could see a faint flickering light.

“Maybe Jimmy there.”

“Why there?”

“Sometimes that is where they take the boys before they go home.”

“Gracias.”

*

I was gone, out of the room, grabbing the crowbar and racing back down the hall the way I’d come. When I reached the end, I heard a door close and looked back. The housekeeper reached up, removed the name card from the door, slipped it into her pocket, then moved on to the next one.

I took the stairs two at a time, nearly went down, kept my feet, dashed across the lobby and out toward the swimming pool. In the distant sky, coming from the west, I saw the lights of an aircraft. It might have been a sheriff’s chopper or it might have been any one of the dozens of aircraft that crisscross that area at night, flying between California, Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico, and all manner of points in between. The light kept coming, but then I was sprinting across the courtyard toward the west wing and didn’t see it anymore.

When I reached the stairway near the cars I slowed and moved more cautiously, going up one step at a time. Halfway up, I heard music—Artie Shaw’s famous rendition of “In the Mood,” right out of the big band era. The music grew louder the higher I climbed. I was in near darkness again, guided only by the sound and a weak sliver of unsteady light somewhere at the top, off to my right. As I reached the second floor, I saw that the light came from under a door halfway down the hall.

When I put my ear close to the door, I heard the swing music more clearly, and above the music what sounded like human moaning, punctuated by grunts of pleasure and a woman’s voice offering encouragement, urging someone on. I tried the door handle, turned it soundlessly, pushed the door slowly open.

It was identical to the other rooms I’d seen, except this one was still fully furnished, in the Art Deco style of the forties. An elaborate brocade spread covered the four-poster bed, and long-stemmed roses stood in crystal and porcelain vases on the dresser and tables. Candles were all around, creating the soft, jumpy light.

Jimmy, the blond boy I’d first seen in Mandeville Slayton’s limousine the night of the concert, sat on the edge of the bed. He was naked, bending over at the waist as he fellated Dr. Miller, who stood facing me, dressed in coat and tie with his pleated pants and shorts down around his ankles. His eyes were closed and he was in the throes of sexual ecstasy, as the boy’s head bobbed robotically up and down without a sign of feeling or enjoyment. Anna Farthing stood next to her brother. She’d unbuttoned the top of her dark dress and placed one of her brother’s hands on her breast, while she stroked his face and urged him with supportive words toward his climax. As his cries grew louder and more guttural, she unfastened the tight bun to let her hair down, shaking it loose until it flowed across her bare shoulders and down her back, the way it must have done when she was a girl, when they no doubt had first made love.

Miller suddenly opened his eyes to look at her, uttering a single word.

“Now.”

He clamped his eyes shut again, grimacing with dark joy. She stepped away without disturbing the scene, keeping a careful eye on the boy, who continued his work. She quietly opened the top drawer of the dresser, brought out a hypodermic syringe and a small vial, removed the plastic sheath from the needle, stuck the needle into the top of the vial, and drew out its liquid.

As her brother began to emit higher-pitched sounds from between his clenched teeth, she stepped over to the boy and touched his neck, pushing the blond curls aside. As she raised the syringe with the needle pointed at Jimmy’s neck, I stepped in, switching on the light.

“Dr. Bergenhausen, I presume?”

Dr. Miller opened his eyes and his sister turned to stare at me in the same moment. Jimmy was slower to react, raising his head seconds later, then turning my way, looking confused.