The Program Read online

  When one of the psych techs grabbed Ernie’s arm, he threw himself off the chair, thrashing on the floor. As Tim stepped out into the hall, he heard the doctor calling for a Haldol cocktail.

  His heart still pounding from the scare, Tim headed toward the exit, moving against the stream of responding workers.

  The reception console stood vacant. Giving a glance in all directions, Tim slipped behind the reinforced glass, locating the overburdened visitors’ log beneath the front counter. Ernie’s screams continued to echo up the corridor.

  Tim flipped through the sheets, finger scanning down the “Patient Name” columns. Where Ernie Tramine appeared—a few times on each page—Tim cross-referenced the “Visitor Name” box. Jennifer Tramine. Pierre Tramine. Pierre Tramine. Mikka Tramine.

  Footsteps approached, several sets.

  “—never seen him that agitated—”

  “—Haldol should take the edge off—”

  Tim moved furiously through the last few pages. Jennifer Tramine. Pierre Tramine. Reggie Rondell. He stopped at the last name, checking the corresponding date—2/05. About two months ago.

  Tim tossed the log beneath the counter and stepped out of the console just as the charge nurse rounded the corner, flanked by psych techs. Passing the patients’ disrupted yoga session, he fished his cell phone from his pocket and hit “send.”

  A male voice. “Yes?”

  He shoved through the door, exiting the NPI. “Pierre Tramine?”

  “Yes?”

  “Hello. My name is Tim Rackley. I’m a deputy U.S. marshal.” The flush of pride he felt at announcing himself as such evaporated when he remembered his temporary status. “Dr. Bederman directed me to your son.”

  “Yes, Janet mentioned something about that. Listen, anything you can do to find the bastards who did this to Ernie...”

  Tim thought about how many times Pierre’s name appeared on the visitor clipboard. What was it like for this parent to see his child—his adult child—in that condition, week after week?

  “I’m doing my best, sir.”

  “Anything I can do to help. Anything.”

  “Well, I do have a few questions. What was the name of the cult Ernie joined?”

  “We don’t know that. Getting him to talk about it at all was like pulling teeth.”

  “Did he ever mention the name of anyone in the cult?”

  “No. He’d decompensated pretty badly by the time we found him. He admitted to getting caught up with a group of people, and we sort of pieced together it was a cult. But no names, no locations, nothing like that. He would melt down when we pressed him on it, so we finally stopped.”

  “Your son had a visitor some time ago—a friend called Reggie Ron-dell. Is that name familiar?”

  “No. Hang on.” A rustle. “Hey, Mikka. You hear of a Reggie Rondell, one of Ernie’s friends?” Tim waited patiently by the elevator. Pierre’s voice came back regular volume. “No. He was no friend of Ernie’s, at least not through his time at Pepperdine.”

  “Any chance he might be a friend you and your wife hadn’t heard of?”

  “No. We’re a very close family.” He caught himself. “We were a very close family. We knew all of Ernie’s friends up until he disappeared.”

  “Doesn’t someone need your approval to get on the visitor list?”

  “Now they do. But until recently Ernie could make phone calls, put his own visitors on the list. He took...” Tim waited patiently through the pause. When Pierre spoke again, his voice wobbled a bit. “He took a turn last month. That’s when I became his conservator.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that, sir.”

  “It’s like there’s something inside my son’s head, eating him. Eating the boy we raised and knew.” The muffled sound of Pierre blowing his nose. “How old are you, Mr. Rackley?”

  “Thirty-four.”

  “Kids of your own?”

  The elevator dinged open, and Tim stared at the vacant interior. “No.”

  “Well, when you have them, you watch out for them. You don’t know who’s out there.”

  It took Tim a moment to find his voice. “I’ll do that, sir.”

  SIX

  The comm center, buried in Cell Block on the third floor of Roybal, hosted a panoply of security screens showing various suspects pacing in cells. Bear hunched over the computer at Tim’s side, smelling of the Carl’s Jr. he’d just denied eating, offering in place of an admission the implausible claim that he’d filled up on a salad. A chronically unhappy dater, Bear was recounting his latest travails while calling up DMV info on the state computer. “So we get rerouted, laid over in Vegas for the night. Instead of lying on a beach in Cancun, we’re stuck at Westward Ho— which by the way is the shittiest joint on the Strip. And to make matters worse, the hotel is having a short-people’s convention.”

  “A short-people’s convention? Like dwarves?” Tim pressed his lips together to avoid smiling. The women Bear dated weren’t exactly ballerinas—the couple must have terrified the petite attendees.

  To Tim’s left, two court security officers were embroiled in an argument about the relative attributes of Mexican-mafia tattoos versus those of the Higuera Brotherhood. A third regulated radio contact with deputies in the field.

  “No, just small people.” Bear’s wide fingers moved across the keyboard with surprising fluidity. “So me and Elise, we can’t go anywhere without stepping on ‘em. We rode elevators with guys who couldn’t reach the top buttons. People threw us the stink-eye at the all-you-can-eat buffets. They were selling T-shirts you couldn’t fit on my hand. It was very unsettling. Elise lost a cool grand on the tables, and some Danny DeVito look-alike kicked me in the shins for accidentally sitting on his wife at the slots. What am I gonna do? Hit him back?” He pulled his glasses—an-other addition to his life as a forty-three-year-old—from his shirt pocket, and a Carl’s Jr. ketchup fell on the desktop. Mortified, Bear swept the offending packet into the trash can.

  Tim’s eyes didn’t move from the screen. “The salad sous-chef accidentally drop some Carl’s Jr. ketchup in your shirt pocket?”

  “It’s from last week. Anyways, me and Elise had a miserable time, haven’t talked since we’ve been back.” Bear exhaled theatrically. “Shit, I think you grabbed the last good one off the market, Rack. I’m never getting married.”

  “Do you want to get married?”

  Bear chewed his lip, breathing hard. “Nah. I prefer to direct all my hatred at myself.” The photo of a skinny kid popped up on the monitor, and Bear pointed at it, his ham hand blocking the screen. “So there he is. The fifth Reggie Rondell.”

  “The fifth?”

  “Five Reggie Rondells in the greater Los Angeles area, believe it or not. That includes Reginalds and Reginas, just to be safe. Reginald Rondell Jr. is a crusty white guy from Orange, moved to Philly in January, hasn’t traveled west since, at least by plane. Regina Rondell, age seventy-five, God rest her soul, kicked in June. Our third Reggie Rondell is enrolled at Marquez Elementary School in the Palisades. I got the parole officer of the fourth on the phone about ten minutes ago—homie had a dealing problem, was on the inside two months ago. Which leaves us with the fifth Reggie Rondell.”

  Tim checked the identifiers—five-seven, 135 pounds, hazel eyes, brown hair, twenty-three years old. Reggie had no outstanding traffic tickets, and he didn’t legally drive a motorcycle or commercial truck. Tim pointed to the listed address. “Let’s go.”

  “It’s not that easy, my simple friend. The driver’s license is two years old, and the only current info falsely lists him as an inpatient at a Santa Barbara nuthouse.”

  Tim noted Bear’s pleased little smirk. “Oh, no,” he said flatly. “Whatever are we to do?”

  A proud finger shot up. “Have no fear. I called my hook at the IRS, turns out RestWell Motel in Culver City filed a W2 for a Reginald Rondell. RestWell central payroll in Bakersfield—believe that shit?— confirmed he’s a current employee. His shift start
ed”—Bear consulted his watch dramatically—”twenty minutes ago.”

  All this in the hour since Tim had called to fill him in from the road. On Arrest Response Team raids, Tim was the number one on a door-kick entry stack, Bear at his back. During intense fugitive roundups, they sometimes hit as many as fifteen dwellings a day. Trigger time like that went a long way toward fire-forging a friendship.

  Tim rested a hand on Bear’s shoulder. “It’s good to be back.”

  Bear studied him, his face shifting into a smile.

  They rose to go, Tim readjusting the .357 in his waistband, Bear humming the theme to Baretta as they passed through both security doors into the tiled corridor outside. The wall abutting Cell Block hid a foot of concrete and reinforced steel.

  The snickering approach of a few deputies soured Tim’s mood. A prisoner between them, Thomas and Freed eyed Tim as they stopped to slide their weapons into the gun lockers outside the Cell Block entrance.

  “Hey, Rack?” Thomas’s voice was edged and nasty. “I seem to have misplaced my Charles Bronson video. Maybe you’ve seen it. It’s—”

  “I know,” Tim said. “Death Wish. Why don’t you two go sit in Isolation Three and see if you can work up some fresh material?”

  Their prisoner, a heavyset Latino in wrist and ankle cuffs, sniggered as the court security officer buzzed them through. Thomas mumbled something to Freed as they steered the suspect brusquely through the door.

  Tim and Bear continued down the hall in silence. Bear punched the elevator button a little too hard. The car arrived, and they stepped on. Bear’s face kept its pissed-off cast for a few floors, then loosened. “I would have gone for The Stone Killer myself.”

  Seated in Bear’s Dodge Ram in the parking lot, they watched Reggie at the motel front desk. As Bear had promised, they’d found him on shift, elbows on the counter, fists shoving his cheeks skyward. He was entranced by the hatchetfish and platies circling listlessly in the fifty-gallon aquarium next to the blotter. Gray bags rimmed both eyes, raccoon-defined against his sallow skin. A flannel shirt, standard red and black checks, hung over his rail-thin frame, his wrists poking from the sleeves. Had Tim not known Reggie’s age, he would have put him near forty.

  Bear said, “Tell me why you like this guy?”

  “A new friend, maybe from Tramine’s time in the cult.”

  “You don’t even know it’s the same cult as Leah’s. Just because Tramine was recruited off Pepperdine...”

  “He did freak out when I mentioned the Teacher.”

  “The shape he’s in, he might have freaked out if you’d mentioned the Pillsbury Doughboy.”

  “No, he actually responded warmly to the Pillsbury Doughboy.”

  “Oh,” Bear said. “Well, that’s cheering.”

  They climbed out together. Bear took up a post outside, and Tim entered, the top of the door smacking the obligatory dangling bells. Reggie tensed up. His eyes, mud brown and piercing, darted constantly—he took in Tim with abbreviated sweeps and climbs. Tim stayed focused on Reggie’s right hand, out of view beneath the counter.

  “Help you?”

  Tim stepped up to the counter. “Are you Reggie Rondell?”

  He worked his gum a few chews, then swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

  “Friend of Ernie Tramine’s?”

  “Never heard of him.” His forearm tensed, indicating his hand had just grasped something.

  Bear had run Reggie, and he’d come up clean, but there was no telling what crime he might have just committed, what visits he was fearfully anticipating.

  “Listen. I’m only here to ask some questions about a cult—”

  The hand pulled up, gripping a metal flashlight. The instant the silver handle cleared the counter, Tim’s vision tunneled, the scene slowed. Tim shuffled back two steps, the .357 up and sighted on Reggie’s chest before the flashlight finished its arc.

  Reggie swung the shaft into the aquarium. The glass popped and avalanched down, the water holding its rectangular form for an instant before following suit. Reggie shot around the counter. He threw the door open, but instead of daylight there was just Bear’s hulking form all but filling the frame. Reggie hollered. Bear spun him effortlessly and proned him out on the carpet, his cheek pressed to soggy gravel, fish flopping next to his face.

  Reggie had frozen up. “Don’t kill me, man. Please don’t fucking kill me. I won’t say anything. I won’t talk to anyone, I swear.”

  Tim crouched, helping Bear frisk Reggie. “Be careful of the glass.” Short of a wallet holding the same license that had graced the Cell Block computer monitor minutes earlier and a bulky ring of keys, Reggie’s pockets were empty. Bear hoisted him to his feet and leaned him against the counter. “You gonna be cool?”

  Reggie’s eyes widened a bit as he took in Bear. He nodded.

  “We’re not here to kill you,” Tim said. “We’re deputy U.S. marshals, investigating a cult.”

  “Lemme see your badges.” Reggie crossed his arms and squeezed them to his chest. “I’ll know if they’re fake.” He was trying to play cocky, but his tremulous hands gave him away.

  Tim and Bear laid out their stars, and Reggie took them, holding them under the dim desk lamp as if checking for watermarks.

  “They check out there, Mr. Ashcroft?” Bear asked.

  “Okay if I look back here?” Tim asked. Reggie nodded, and Tim walked behind the front desk, making sure there were no hidden weapons.

  One of the hatchetfish quivered on the counter, drawing Reggie’s attention. He watched it, head cocked like a dog eyeballing a squirrel. A good thirty seconds passed.

  Bear’s blue dress shirt wrinkled over his crossed arms. “ ‘Scuse us.” Reggie started, as if he’d forgotten they were there.

  “Done with the badges? Or are you waiting for forensic analysis?” Reggie blinked, concentrating hard. “Right, right.” He leaned away from Bear as he handed him his badge. Bear started to say something, but Tim shook his head slightly.

  “I... I don’t know anything about a cult.”

  “Sure you do,” Bear said. “You were in a cult with your buddy named— What’s his name, Rack?”

  Tim opened a cabinet, revealing a tray full of key rings. “Ernie Tramine.”

  “We’d like to—”

  Reggie held up his hand, fingers spread, his face drawn. “Wait a minute. Wait. I can’t do this with him here. You. I’m sorry. You’re one of my triggers.”

  Bear’s finger went to his chest. “I’m one of your... what?”

  “A trigger, you know. A trigger. Like the queen of diamonds in The Manchurian Candidate. Something that triggers the mood they put into you during indoctrination. A paired stimulus. Three blasts of a trumpet. It puts you back, right back in it. One of my triggers is big fucking muscle. Like you. It takes me out. I can’t...” Reggie rocked autistically, squeezing his right pinkie in a fist.

  Bear’s scalp shifted with his expression of disbelief. “You shitting me here?”

  Tim said, “It’s fine.”

  With his eyes and hands, Bear made a stage-worthy appeal to heaven before exiting.

  “Did your cult have big guys guard the doors?”

  Reggie recoiled, lost in memory, a snail shrinking from salt. His voice came like a child’s whisper. “All the time. You couldn’t leave the room during meetings or Oraes.”

  “Oraes?” Tim asked. But Reggie was scurrying around the small office, shoes crunching gravel, peering out the windows and closing the blinds. Pausing from his search of the drawers, Tim watched him closely. “Are you more comfortable talking to me with my partner gone?”

  “I’m not talking to anyone. If I cause any trouble, they’ll find me. What if you were followed?”

  Light seeped in between the slats, cutting the shadows into wafer-thin planes. The dying fish flopped and shuddered, the delicate crunching of gravel encroaching on the silence. It sounded like thousands of insects feeding.

  “We weren’t followed.”
/>   “It’s too dangerous. Why should I stick my neck out?”

  The hatchetfish flipped itself over on the counter, staring up with one bulging eye.

  “I’m trying to help a girl get out of a cult. I believe it’s the same cult you and Ernie were members of. She’s a young—”

  “I don’t give a shit. I’ve made my peace. Moved on. Put it behind.” Inside the last drawer sat a brown paper bag, top crumpled over. Tim set it on the counter and opened it. He grabbed the top orange bottle, reading the handwritten label. Xanax. His eyes skipped to the ten or so other bottles in the bag—peeling labels handwritten in Spanish and English. Klonopin, Valium, Ativan.

  “Okay, great. So I’ve got some Tijuana meds. You gonna use them to leverage me?” Reggie slapped his forehead with his hand. “Fuck. I knew I shouldn’t have let you back there.”

  “No,” Tim said. “I’m not.”

  “No?” He tugged on his pinkie. “Look, I’m not gonna relive all this for you. I just can’t do it.”

  Tim felt the hard edge of instinct rise—the need to squeeze an informant, to press an unwilling speaker—but he seemed to have misplaced the strength to resist empathy. His own pain this past year had softened him, blunted his imperatives. Too old to be headstrong but still well short of wise, he merely nodded.

  He remembered Dr. Bederman’s cautions about the fragility of cult members. He’d have to give Reggie his space. For now.

  He handed Reggie his card, complete with penned-in cell-phone number. “This girl’s in trouble.”

  Pausing at the door, he faced Reggie.

  “I’m sorry for what you got put through. I bet it was horrible.”

  He walked out, and the door clicked quietly behind him.

  SEVEN

  When Tim arrived home, Dray wasn’t at the kitchen table or on the couch, her usual postwork sprawls, and the house was dead quiet. If it weren’t for her Blazer in the driveway, he might have thought she’d decided to clock a P.M . after her morning shift.

  He called, and she answered from down the hall. She was sitting on the floor of Ginny’s old room, back against the wall. Same flowered wallpaper, same Pocahontas night-light. In the middle of the room sat a heavy-duty garbage bag, stuffed with diminutive clothes from the closet. Hangers scattered the floor.