Before he could finish the thought, Lawrence took two quick steps towards him and hammered the smaller man in the jaw with a meaty fist. Terry slumped to unconsciousness.
“Asshole,” Lawrence muttered. He nodded at Bob. “We need out of here, but the only way is through Merry and Diego,” he said. “Can you fight?”
“I’ve been known—”
“I’m not asking if you’re capable, dude. You’re in pain, stupid. Can you fight?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I think so. You got a piece?”
Lawrence shook his head. “Doing this as a favor because I owe Merry money. He just wanted muscle. Didn’t say nothing about a gunfight.”
That didn’t help. Diego and Merry would both be armed, Bob knew. He looked down at Terry, unconscious and sprawled on one side. “We can’t leave him here. They’ll kill him.”
Lawrence looked at him strangely. “Are you touched in the head? He just tried to warn them.”
“He’s a beaten, frightened animal at this point,” Bob said. “He’s just trying to survive, and nothing on this Earth scares him more than the guy in the next room. And he has a family.”
Lawrence crossed his arms. “Man… we don’t have time for this shit. They’re going to notice I’ve slipped out any moment.”
“Help him up,” Bob said. “Please.”
Lawrence did as asked, but he was muttering, unhappy. “This ain’t smart.”
“It’s what Marcus would do,” Bob said. It was unfair, but he figured the man had to have taken a significant liking to the boy, or he wouldn’t be there.
“Yeah. Yeah, okay, I get it. Marcus…”
“What?”
The bigger man shook his head. “I don’t rightly know. Something spooked me when I got out of Lerdo. There was no word on a new cellmate. He called me collect his morning, said he spent the whole night in cells alone and no word on anyone coming today.”
“So? Is that a problem?”
“That place… it’s usually overcrowded if anything, man. Felt like maybe someone was trying to isolate him. It was better with me in there, looking out for him.”
Terry stirred to consciousness, held upright, one arm draped over Lawrence’s shoulders. “Wha–?” he muttered.
“He’s concussed,” Lawrence said. “Come on, stupid, we’re taking a walk.”
The three men covered the fifteen feet to the door. Bob scoped their surroundings properly for the first time. It was clearly a basement room, with no windows. In the back right corner, an old porcelain basin sat with the tap slowly dripping. In the left corner, a gas boiler piped hot water to the rest of the house.
“Where are we?” he asked quietly.
“Merry’s bunker, under the trailer park,” Lawrence whispered. “It’s how he’s kept his lab secret all these years. The DEA and local narcotics cops are looking above ground, looking for heat sources in trailers and such. There’s another room past the steel door, then a big open cook room, where they make his product. Stairs are beyond that.”
“Where are they? Next door?”
“Just the doc. He was about to scrub about when I—”
The sound of the latch turning interrupted him. They stepped back and to one side, letting the door swing open.
The man who walked past it wore green surgical scrubs, rubber gloves and a face mask. He was older and slight, with a dark complexion and silvery hair. He had a leather roll-up pouch, like an old tool kit. He took two steps past them and saw the room was empty.
The surgeon pivoted on his heels to look around, not seeing Lawrence’s fist until the split-second before it connected with his chin. He slumped to the floor.
“He won’t be out long,” Bob said. “We need to move.”
He opened the door again just enough to check the next room. It was a sparse lounge, with a sofa, a six-person table and some magazines. One corner was blocked off by a washroom.
“Break room for the cooks who don’t smoke,” Lawrence whispered.
They crossed the room to the next door. “And in the lab? Will the cooks defend him?”
Lawrence’s eyes narrowed as he considered it. “Most owe him money. My guess? The second Diego draws his piece, they’ll run scared.”
“How big is the room? What are the sightlines and exits?”
“Big, about thirty yards long, a ton of tables, burners, the usual shit,” Lawrence said. “Exit at each end, a door on the south wall to the bathroom, but… underground, so no windows.”
“Numbers?”
“Excepting Merry and Diego? Maybe thirty. I didn’t count.”
Bob worked the handle slowly and gently. He gradually pushed the door open until the crack was wide enough to check inside.
Diego had his back to them. Merry was following one of the two lines of tables, commenting on the cooks’ work. The cooks were a mix of men and women, naked other than white aprons, surgical hair covers, gloves and filtered facemasks.
“The key you used to free me,” Bob asked, “is that the only one?”
