‘That was my plan,’ I agreed. ‘So long as the idiot they sent wasn’t supposed to call them when he delivered the message, we’ve a good chance of surprising them.’
‘Did you check if he had a cell on him?’
‘None.’
Rink searched in the glove compartment but there wasn’t a phone there.‘Maybe he was going to use a call box.’
‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘They probably expect that you’ll do exactly as you were told. They know how much your mom means to you, and think you’ll hand over the old guys without question…’
I left that hanging on purpose, gauging his response.
‘Well, that isn’t going to happen,’ he said. I didn’t think so, but thought it best to check. If we did make the exchange, in reality all that would result would be the deaths of all three of the original lynch party. Markus Colby would kill Yukiko and both the old men first chance he got. He’d already have tried to have us killed by then, his reason for recruiting Chaney and his gang. The rules of honour meant nothing to Markus, and what goes around comes around. Fair enough. The gloves were about to come off; actually they already had when I placed a slug in the guy back there. If he wanted dirty fighting then that was what he was going to get.
‘Someone will be watching,’ I said. ‘But they won’t be alarmed when they see this car arrive. Our buddy in the trunk probably had instructions to go back to lend extra firepower at the exchange.’
‘They won’t see me coming,’ Rink said, and it wasn’t an empty boast. ‘As we approach, let me out. They’re only expecting to see one guy in this car. They won’t be watching their backs for another.’
‘Where am I going?’ I asked.
Rink arched an eyebrow at the map he’d unfolded in his lap.
‘Somewhere I know well,’ he said, stabbing a finger at where someone had literally marked the map with a red X. I was surprised to note it was near Chabot Lake where we’d left the old men with Velasquez and McTeer. Rink went on. ‘When I used to visit my parents, my dad and me went hiking out there all the time. Right there —’ he touched the map once more, a half-inch from the X ‘— there used to be an old lodge house. I just bet that’s where they have my mom.’
‘Makes sense,’ I said, pushing the sedan towards the Bay Bridge. ‘Let’s go get her back.’
Chapter 39
Snow Child had never actually seen snow.
Or if she had it was when she’d been too young to remember it now. She had seen it in picture books and in a movie at the cinema once, but never the real thing. Snow was brilliant white, but when she’d watched that movie it had looked grey on the screen. Everything looked grey in that movie, in one shade or another. The snow then had looked like the ashes at the edge of the fire she now poked at with a twig. The ashes and cinders fascinated her, the way they looked almost solid to the touch, but actually crumbled to powder as fine as talcum when she probed them with her stick. She wondered if snow disappeared when touched. Maybe that was why she was called Snow Child. She prided herself on her ability to disappear so she could not be touched. She was better at hiding than Rose or any of the other girls, and that was the only thing that kept her safe from the guard with the bayonet. Usually.
This time she was so focused on the ashes in the fire pit that she was unaware of his scrutiny. Or the way the cold winter sun glinted on the lenses of his spectacles as he studied her from the corner of one of the dormitory sheds. There was always noise here in the Rohwer camp, always the sound of the tread of marching feet, so his were lost among the others as the guard approached her from behind. The first she knew of his presence was when the cold gleam of his bayonet flicked the twig from her hand and it dropped among the cold cinders.
Yukiko was terrified of the blade.
She let out a wordless cry, even as she twisted around to stare up at the giant towering over her. She fell on her back, the ashes puffing round her: snow falling up towards the sky.
He was in silhouette over her, but the lenses of his spectacles flared with an errant beam of light, giving him the look of a tengu — a mountain demon — as he bent to inspect her.
She thought that he must know.
Had he been aware that she had hidden under the piles of laundry in the wash-house? Had he known that she’d witnessed his attack on Rose, and had he taken secret pleasure in the knowledge? Had he come now to make sure that she never told another soul about what he’d done?
He placed the tip of his bayonet against her cheek.
‘What are you doing?’ he growled.
‘I’m… playing…’
‘In the dirt, just like a little yellow rat?’
‘It’s not dirt it’s —’ she was about to say snow — ‘ash.’
‘It’s filth.’ He stared down at her. ‘You’re filthy. Look at your clothing, your face. You have dirt all over you. Get up.’
She couldn’t rise for the steel glinting in her vision.
He leaned down and grabbed the front of her jacket.
‘Up I said. Now get over there. To the washroom and get yourself cleaned up.’
He did not release her. He held on to the front of her coat. Staring at her from behind the colourless lenses. He cocked his head left to right. She felt filthy, not due to the ash, but to the salacious way in which his lips puckered.
‘You’re a small one, ain’t you. How old are you?’
Yukiko couldn’t find the words. Her throat was pinching shut.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ He propelled her towards the wash-house, her feet barely touching ground as he half carried her there. Yukiko desperately tried to scream. If she screamed someone would come and stop the monster. If she screamed loud enough her dad would hear all the way from Tule Lake and he would come back to save her. But panic had struck her dumb. The big man pushed her inside the washroom, pausing only to check over his shoulder, ensuring that no one had seen him carrying her there. Then he followed her in.
Yukiko could feel fat tears streaming down her cheeks. They dripped from her elfin chin, pattering on the collar of her rough cotton jacket as she shivered uncontrollably. They did not move the guard to pity, if anything they excited him all the more.
‘Get them off. Those filthy clothes. Off. Now.’
He prodded her with the tip of his bayonet, hooking it under the centre button of the three on her coat.
‘Take it off, or I’ll cut it off. I might not be too careful and might also cut off your hide.’ He prodded again with the bayonet.
Her fingers trembling, Yukiko plucked open the buttons and shrugged out of the coat. It fell in a heap behind her. All she wore beneath was a shapeless off-white shift that covered her to the knees. Her legs had the benefit of knee-length socks and sturdy black clogs, but her bare arms were like twiglets protruding from the cuffs of her shift. The tip of the guard’s tongue flicked over his dry lips. He made a noise as if he was clearing a bug from his throat.
‘Take all of it off.’
‘P… Please…’
‘Off.’ His voice had dropped an octave. She would never know if the hoarseness was through anger or longing.