Knox lifts the semi-conscious kid with one arm and deposits him into a vinyl chair. The studying students are all made of marble and are turned toward them.
“You must take this outside,” the director says, sensing Knox’s intentions.
The kid’s left eye is swollen nearly shut and oozing. His nose is a bloody mess.
Grace enters last, a ripe bruise already forming on her forehead, her right shoulder lowered to favor her painful chest. Her skirt has slipped down a few inches, revealing the elastic of her bikini underwear.
“The toilet?” Grace speaks Dutch.
The director helps Grace by the arm, guiding her across the room. “What happened? What has happened?” She looks back over her shoulder at Knox. “Not in here.”
Knox takes in the studying kids frozen in their seats. “He slipped and fell,” Knox tells them, “but he’s going to be all right.” He hauls the kid to his feet and leads him back out the doors, pounding him against the brick wall and allowing him to sag to the concrete. He keeps him close to the doors for the sake of the ambient light. Knox squats. The kid is still dazed from the stun stick, though no longer paralyzed. Knox unlaces the kid’s military-style boot and uses the lace to tie the boy’s hands behind his back.
Taking the boy by the chin, he lifts and turns his face into the light. The eye is worse by the minute; the nose is clotting.
Knox speaks Dutch. “If you play tough, it will get rough. Understand?”
The one good eye fills with contempt. Knox grabs the boy’s crotch. Takes a handful and twists. The eye rolls back into its socket. “She tells me you touched her like this.” He twists harder. The kid groans. “One good tug and you’re singing soprano for life. Your call.” He tightens his hold. “Who put you up to this?”
The eye rolls back, filled with an innocent terror. The kid tries to shake his head but Knox holds his chin firmly in hand. But not with his right hand; that one turns a few more degrees clockwise. “Who? And where do I find him?”
“The purse. A little fun. That’s all.”
Another half turn and Knox will do permanent damage. He squeezes instead. “Fun yet?”
The color drains from the boy’s face. He’s not breathing.
The earlier look of fright goes a long way to convincing Knox the kid was not on orders, but he doesn’t want to believe his own intuition. Fahiz was attacked and beaten. For Knox, this kid will do. An act of random violence won’t satisfy his craving for conspiracy and connection. He wants an easy route to follow back to the knot shop. He takes the kid’s wallet, but removes the cash and a debit card and stuffs them into the front pocket of the boy’s jeans. Confirms there’s ID with an address.
“If I should ever see you again, I am coming after you with the full intention of ending your life. Do you understand?”
The boy is slow to respond. Knox loosens his grip on his testicles. The boy’s chin tries to nod.
Behind him, Grace stands framed by the door, looking out. She has put herself back together; her dark hair covers her forehead.
Knox opens the door for her. Says to the director, “Do you know this boy?”
The director shakes her head without looking. “These are hard times. There are many such boys. Too many.”
“Fix the lights in the tunnel,” Knox says.
The woman nods. “Yes. Of course.”
“Do not untie him. He can make it home without his arms. Lock the door until he’s gone. If he doesn’t leave, call the police.”
Another nod from the director. “I already have.”
The boy struggles to get up. Knox kicks him back down. “Ladies first.”
Knox offers his hand to Grace, and to his surprise she accepts it.
—
KNOX HELPS GRACE feed the key card into the hotel room door, her hand shaking too violently.
“I can come in,” he says. “Make you a drink. You could use one.”
“If you wouldn’t mind.” She pushes open the door but doesn’t move. Knox slips past her. He checks the bathroom, the closet and the rest of the room.
“Clear.”
She enters. “Vodka, rocks.” She is unbuttoning her blouse as she enters the bathroom. Shuts and locks the door.
He hears the bath water running, not a shower. She’ll be a while. He’s got her room key. He fetches ice and waits to make her drink. Takes a Scotch for himself. Drinks it from a plastic cup that he removes from a plastic wrapper.
The water stops running.
He hears the door lock pop as she cracks the door.
“Thank you,” she calls out.
“No problem.” He pours the vodka and approaches with his back to the bathroom door, then passes the drink inside. They touch hands. Hers is ice cold.
He heads back to his chair. Hears the shower curtain sing as she slides it aside and hears her ease down into the water.
“Why were you there?”
“A vendor in the market. I’m not so sure she recognized Berna in the photo so much as thought the community center director might help me.”
“Some help.”
“The director painted a different picture,” Grace says. “The girls providing income for broken families. A way to battle the poverty.”
“I’m not buying that,” Knox says. He tilts the Scotch in the cup and swirls it.
“I’m not selling. But she was.”
“It’s a load of shit.”
“More like realpolitik. No matter, it doesn’t help us any.”
Locals and residents, he thinks. He tells her about Sonia’s theory of two classes of workers.
“If we can’t get help from the mothers of these girls—” Grace says.
“Yeah.”
“Graham Winston wants this shut down. We have our work cut out for us. If it’s finding someone to hang this on, you have a wallet in your pocket. I will testify. Fahiz, I’m not so sure.”
“Finding Berna and closing the shop are one and the same. Concurrent.” The Scotch warms him. He uncaps another minibottle and dispenses it into the plastic cup. “Refill?”
“Please.” He hears the shower curtain being adjusted. “You can come in.” He enters the bathroom. Her clothes are neatly folded on the counter. Grace. Her arm is extended from behind the curtain. He takes her empty cup and pulls the door nearly shut behind him. Hears her chewing ice.
“There was a woman . . . in the market. It was she who rescued me.”
It was she. Grace. “I’m listening.”
“In the tunnel . . . She knew who I was. My EU persona. Warned me.”
“Threatened?”
“Warned.”
“Were the boys hers? Was it staged for your benefit?”
It’s a long time before she says anything. “I don’t like the way you think.”
“It’s the Scotch,” he says.
“No, I am afraid not,” she says. “She told me I ask too many questions and that I’d get myself killed.”
“Hardly a warning. That’s a threat.”
“It wasn’t. I’m telling you. She was hiding—waiting—in the tunnel. Waiting for me to leave the center.”
“And we have no idea who she is.”
“None.”
“You’re going back to Hong Kong. We’re getting you out of here.”
“Foolish. This is exactly what we’d hoped for. It just does not happen to be connected to the knot shop.”
Knox’s phone buzzes. A text.
in the lobby
“Dulwich is downstairs.”
“Your doing?”
“Yes,” he says. “Assaults, robberies and sexual assaults tend to win his attention.”
“He can’t come up,” she says. “My room could be watched. One man in my room can be explained. Two is an orgy.”
“No one is more careful than Sarge. Let me handle it.”
Ten minutes later, after Knox has walked the hallway and scouted the stairs, the three are in Grace’s room. The hotel doesn’t offer robes so she’s in pajamas with a towel wrapped around her head. She sits cross-legged on the bed. She looks about fourteen.