cobra and the delinquents 2

 

Chapter 2 The little victims play

 

“Come along, lads, the house is a little over a quarter of a mile,” I said, pleasantly.  “Bring your luggage; I hope you will be tidy with it, as you are sharing a room, and there will be collective punishments for untidiness. I’m the boss around here, but you can call me ‘Ranny’ if you like, as we’re on a wild west theme. You’ll behave for me, for my wife, for my aunt, and for the two senior hands, Dave and Julia, or you’ll find things unpleasant.”

“Where are the staff?” asked Briggs.

“Well, now, cowboy, as you’re here to learn about how to be cow pokes, I’d say that I’m looking at them,” I said. He looked horrified.

“You can’t expect us to do menial work, can you?” he said. “Our fathers aren’t paupers, you know, they’re important men.”

“Son,” I said, “Learn one lesson and learn it well. Your daddies don’t impress me in the slightest, and what’s more, they aren’t here, so I don’t care. You’ll be handing in your phones, and earning a call on the landline is a privilege, so you can’t play at being whiny six-year-olds to go complaining. Your background does not interest me in the slightest; all I care about is that you’re juvenile delinquents here to learn a few lessons in how to get a life.”

That managed to horrify the lot of them.

“Well, I’m not dragging this all the way to the house,” said Briggs. “This track is too rough for the wheels.” He let go of the handle.

I shrugged.

“You’ll start to smell after a while,” I said.  “Still, I’m sure your dormitory fellows will let you know how they feel.”

“He can bring it,” said Briggs, pointing at Dix.

“Why should he?” I asked.

“Because he’s a.....”

“Careful,” I said. “I’m a personal friend of Jay Silverheels and I object to racist comments. And as to what Dix is, he’s a juvenile delinquent the same as the rest of you but with more excuse. Fine, you’ve decided not to bother to change your clothes for the next six weeks. No skin off my nose. If you smell at me, I’ll throw you in a creek.” Jay Silverheels was the soubriquet I had taken for Tarquin’s previous little jaunt, into the world of extreme sport showbiz. He had acquired something of a following, and Dix had been one of the kids who had written him fan mail.

Briggs spluttered in outrage; but he had no intention of backing down.

“Man, did you mean it when you said I had more reason than most?” said Dix.

“I did, but I’ll change my mind if you call me anything but ‘Boss’ or ‘Ranny,’” I said.

“Sorry, Ranny,” said Dix. “Will we really learn properly how to be cowboys?”

“The intention is to teach you; whether you learn is up to you. But if you concentrate, you should leave here with a good working understanding of farming, self-sufficiency, and horse care,” I said.  “More than half the real cowboys of the old west were black guys, as it happens, whatever Hollywood suggests.”

“Yeah?” he said. “Thanks, Ranny. I’ll do my best.”

I nodded.

With luck that would be one who wasn’t any trouble.

“I forbid you to take orders from any of the others,” I said. “Briggs has a problem, though.”

“Huh?” said Briggs.

“You’re on the roster for cooking, but I can’t let dirty objects in the kitchen; health and safety, you know.  So, guess what? When you’re on roster, your three companions will go hungry. Of course, if they decide to make you collect your clothes so you can change and be less insalubious, they won’t be going hungry when it’s your turn to cook.”

“But you have to feed us!” said Fitzgerald.

“No, son, I have to provide the means to feed you; but this is a government initiative, so I also have to observe the rules of health and safety,” I said. “None of you will suffer for missing a meal or two, but I can’t risk disease from a dirty little boy. So, you want to eat, you make sure he’s clean.”

Fitzgerald turned to Dix and McNeal.

“We can pick up our kit on our way back up to the ranch.  Briggs is going to carry his kit.”

“I am not,” said Briggs.

“Bring your luggage the rest of the way, and then  you can take him to get his,” I said.

It would give me a chance to go over their kit whilst they ‘persuaded’ Briggs to comply.  The dawning realisation that I did not intend to be there for their ‘persuasion’ had the other three readily agreeing.

 

oOoOo

 

I went over the three suitcases whilst the lads were out making Briggs bring his kit. It would take them at least half an hour, I suspected. He’d have a job carrying it, the wheels would not work, and I doubted anyone would help him.  So I went through the three suitcases with the eye of a professional, and the expensive nose looking, mostly, for illicit substances.

If Fitzgerald could be turned off drugs and onto the secret services for his thrills, he’d be a shoe-in to take Tarquin’s place in about a quarter of a century when Tarquin retired. His hiding places were ingenious.

It takes dedication to undo a tube of toothpaste to pack it with Starburst, or whatever the current streetname was for the amphetohallucigen de jour. I’d have to provide him with a genuine tube of toothpaste.  When I was a kid, starbursts were boiled sweets. Maybe I should get him some.

He had more down the spine of the two permitted novels. No tablets permitted.

I confiscated all the mobile phones, the illicit tablet, and the smutty magazine.

That was McNeal’s, and I looked through it to see what sort of sexual angle the kid had, to give me some clue on why he might rape.

It was fairly mainstream, and the sort of magazine you might find under the mattress of any teenage boy. Some domination, but not unduly so, no violence, not even any spanking, so I was puzzled.

If he could prove civil to the other women, I might even let him have it back.

I also confiscated  his sketch-book, in which he had – rather competently – copied some of the pictures from the magazine, and tried to draw others of his own.

Their chosen novels were fairly revealing.  Dix had a couple of westerns; that was either for show to look as if he was trying, or the life really appealed to him. McNeal had a couple of trashy science fiction stories, the ones which go right back to the early tradition, with he-men in uniform and women in need of rescuing. That was interesting.

Fitzgerald had a book on car maintenance, and a gangsta graphic novel. If he understood the first, I would give him a job in my chop shop, if he could stay clean, and ease him into Tarquin’s orbit slowly.

He also had a gun, carried in parts, and hidden in amongst other things, like his shaving kit; a bit obvious, but probably not, to him. He had a lot to learn, but his instincts were good.

I put everything I had confiscated in the safe I had got for the purpose. It was behind a picture on the landing, and I had a web cam watching it, just in case. But it was not in my room, or in the office, and I thought being somewhere random was by far and away the greater likelihood of keeping anyone from trying to crack it.

And then the lads came in, harrying Briggs.

“Ah, well done, young Briggs,” I said.  “Just in time for kit inspection.”

He stared at me open-mouthed, and not a little fear when I hefted the heavy case effortlessly onto the table to open it. He knew how heavy it was, and I made it look easy.

“What, did you rob a bank to bring bullion with you?” I said, jocularly.

“I say, you’re not going to pry into my personal  possessions are you?” he demanded.

“What part of ‘you are a juvenile delinquent in custody’ are you still failing to understand?” I asked.

He gaped.

He was having trouble getting it, apparently.

I opened his outsize suitcase.

He had some very natty designer cowboy duds. They wouldn’t stand up to hard wear, but that was his problem.

“When your jeans give you sores for being too tight and you are ready to ask, I’ll find you better working clothes,” I said.

“I’m not wearing shit like you,” he said, rudely.

“Ah?  You’ll be sore, then,” I said. “I won’t, so I don’t care. Oh, and all these electronic bits and pieces are confiscated. No music, no tablet, no phones.  You hefted all the heavy stuff for no reason; you could have asked them to take it with them in the car.  Still, your choice.  Life’s about choices, as you will all find out.”

 

I gave them time to fight over who had which bunk, and to take a shower, and explore the ranch house, after discovering what had been confiscated.

They came sullenly to supper.

I introduced them cheerfully to Willow, Auntie, Dave, and Julia. Dix recognised them, and told the others. It garnered my deputies some respect, at any rate, and Fitzgerald had the brains to recognise that if two finalists in ‘Extreme’ showed deference to Willow, Auntie Fee and me, it might be wise to do the same.

“Why is there a baby?” asked Briggs, in some disgust.

“Because you inconvenient little twerps have broken in on my family life at a time I resent you doing so, when I was enjoying fatherhood, because you have placed your whining and useless butts in front of some justice  who needs me to lick you into  shape,” I said. “Touch my wife or my child or any of our foster daughters and I’ll kill you. This is not nice, safe, juvie hall, omae, this is real life, and I take the safety of my family seriously.”

“And that’s if I haven’t killed you first,” said Willow.

“We wouldn’t!” blurted Dix.

“From our point of view, you’re scum who haven’t had anyone able to teach you any better,” said Willow. “The onus is on you to show us you can behave. Dix, you’re on cook duties tonight and tomorrow morning, you got a by on the cooking, but you’ll be helping wash up.  Be down here at six to start breakfast; the rest of you can lie in until half past six.”

“And if we don’t choose to get up, then?” asked Briggs.

“I’ll come and pee on you,” I said. “Then you’ll be wet, and you’ll have to do extra laundry duty.  Your duties are posted in your common room which is through here. You will earn the right to have the billiard table unlocked, and also the trideo. This means a week’s exemplary behaviour from all of you and you choose which privilege to ask for. Individual exemplary behaviour buys you one five minute phone call. There are cards and board games you can use in your leisure time until you have earned other privileges, and you may spend time with the horses. Make the most of your leisure, there isn’t much on a ranch.”

They were aghast.

They were outraged.

“I want to go home,” said Briggs.

“So do a lot of other prisoners paying their debt to society, but funnily enough, incarceration in a gaol doesn’t permit that,” I said. “You have a last chance of making good with me, and if you squander that, believe me, being in the adult justice system is not somewhere you want to be.”

He went for me.

He went down.

He went for me again.

He went down again, and this time I held onto a pressure point until he screamed.

“I can play all night, if you want,” I said. “You think you’re tough because you’re large, and have thrown your not inconsiderable weight about. You are not tough.  You are an overweight slob who is used to pushing other kids around. I, on the other hand, am tough. You should pray you never find out just how tough.”

McNeal was looking terrified; I thought he was in danger of wetting his pants, he was so white in the face. I wondered what he feared. I looked at him thoughtfully.

“Don’t break the rules, and I can be as nice as pie,” I said. “Don’t break the rules, do your chores willingly, and I can be talked into all sorts of privileges – even returning some confiscated kit. Not drugs, though. That’s too much. You walk this path but once, and damaging yourselves with putting crap in your bodies is not something I can condone or permit. Wank magazines, maybe.” I had taken a few from Briggs, too.

They gaped at me for that.

“R... really? What’s the catch?” said McNeal.

“Stick to your schedules, do the chores, and behave like decent human beings,” I said.

“But I need my shit, man, for the thrills,” said Fitzgerald.

“Really?  You want thrills?”  I said.  “Tell you what, when you want a thrill, I’ll drop you in the desert in your underpants, and give you an hour to get started before I come after you to hunt you; only I’ll be tooled up. Should be the biggest thrill of your life, boy, because you’ve been playing with children who think they are big men, and to me, they are as big a man as a first grader with a toy gun. But you know, the offer is open. Just let me know.”

“Holy Fuck!” said Fitzgerald, staring at me in terror. He believed me.

Just as well; I’d have loaded with blanks, but blanks still hurt.

He wanted thrills.

McNeal was afraid of something.

Dix had temper issues over being insulted.

Briggs was a lazy little toerag who needed to learn that the world did not revolve around him.

The rest needed building up to know they need not fear, need not seek chemical thrills, need not lose their temper.

He needed breaking down before I could build him.

And that would have to be done with peer pressure.

I would let the others know what they were missing out on, when his dilatory habits wasted time so they did not get to do fun things... like learning how to track and hunt like a native American. 

Briggs would not be popular.

My heart bled.

No, it didn’t.  I could face Briggs’s discomfort with equanimity.