“How do you—”
“The boxes told me,” she says, then chooses a heavy box the size of a large suitcase. Inside is a professional sewing machine with a foot pedal, scissors, and needles.
She smiles.
“If Moses had had this truck,” she tells him, “the Jews woulda been outta the desert in three days tops.”
They carry their haul into the back room. Story says she’ll stay with Duane and help him sew the old man up. Louise grabs a can of Alpo and some kibble. She tells Simon he should help her feed the Troll. Inside the office, Simon sees what was once a teen aesthete now bungied to an office chair, his face scratched, some of his hair missing. An elastic hair band has been used to fasten what looks like a tube sock over his mouth.
“Like I said,” Louise says, flipping on the lights, “you gotta get creative sometimes with what he gives you, but it does the trick.”
The Troll’s eyes open. Seeing them, he starts thrashing in the chair. Louise puts the dog food on the desk, takes a spray bottle out of her vest pocket, and approaches him. She holds up the bottle.
“I’m gonna ungag you,” she says, “if you try to bite me again, I’m gonna empty the whole bottle in your eyes. Understand?”
He nods.
Simon reads the label. “Coyote urine?”
She pulls the hair band from the Troll’s face. He spits the tube sock on the floor.
“Help me,” he says to Simon. “She’s crazy.”
Louise steps back, shows him the dog food.
“Which do you want? Wet or dry?”
“Please,” says the Troll. “I told you everything. Can’t you just let me go?”
“No,” says Louise. “You’ll call him.”
“I won’t. I swear.”
Louise uses a screwdriver to open the Alpo can.
The label reads LONDON GRILL.
“You’ll be fine,” she says. “It’s just a few more hours.”
Simon sees a water cooler. He takes a paper cone, fills it, brings it to the Troll.
“Watch him,” says Louise. “He spits.”
Simon lifts the cup to the Troll’s lips. He drinks, bottom lip trembling.
“Please,” he says, “my name is Evan. I just wanna go home.”
“Save your shit,” says Louise, coming over with the Alpo. Simon steps back.
“Did you know,” she says, “young master Evan sold me to the Wizard for ice money?”
Evan starts to object, but Louise shoves a spoonful of dog food into his mouth.
“Louise,” says Simon, worried.
Evan half chokes on the brown meal, then forces a swallow as another spoonful knocks against his teeth.
“Can we talk outside?” Simon asks.
Louise frowns, drops the can on the floor.
“Whatever,” she says, turning and walking to the door.
“Not a sound,” she tells Evan, turning off the lights.
Simon closes the door behind them. “What are you doing?” he says.
“No,” says Louise. “You don’t get to—”
“Louise. You’re torturing him.”
“I’m punishing him, so he’ll change.”
“You think he’s gonna change? Because you scratched his face up and fed him dog food?”
“I’m expressing my anger, as instructed by my psychiatrist.”
“You want revenge.”
“You’re fucking right I want revenge. I deserve revenge.”
“It’s not moral. What you’re doing.”
“It’s justice. Isn’t justice moral?”
“It’s payback. Justice is he goes to jail if he committed a crime. There’s a difference.”
She takes off her employee vest, throws it across the room.
“Oh, Simon,” she says. “It’s exhausting, really. How sweet you are.”
“Me?”
“Justice failed. The whole thing, the idea of it. Some impartial system weighing the pros and cons. It doesn’t work. There’s just power—who has it and who doesn’t. And when they have it, they abuse us. So when we have it, we have to abuse them. That’s how we find balance.”
He stares at her.
“So, justice,” he says, “is you’ve got the power, you can do whatever you want?”
“Bingo. He hurt me and now I’m hurting him back. That’s called morality. And, hey, if God didn’t want me to hurt him, he wouldn’t have sent me the tools in his magical van.”
“So you’re like, what, the Spanish Inquisition?”
“Look around, kid. There’s a civil war going on, because what we called justice didn’t work for any fucking body. We’re back to basic principles. An eye for an eye. I don’t care if you’re a bum or a billionaire. If you hurt me. If you rape me. I’m coming for you. Can I get an amen?”
She walks away.
Simon stands looking at his reflection in the plate-glass window. What was clear in the day becomes mirrored at night. At that moment it hits him. He is 100 percent certain that God has no plan for Simon Oliver. That this whole adventure has been a desperate farce, an excuse for him to focus on anything except the fact that his sister killed herself, his parents are monsters, and the world is ending. It’s fucking ending. And there’s nothing he can do about it.
What a fool he was for believing. But who can blame him? Who doesn’t want to be saved?