The Room of White Fire

by T. Jefferson Parker

  “But why?”

  Evan tapped his cigarette, made as if to grind its ashes with his toe. His shoes were pale blue suede wing tips, and his socks were a blue-and-cream argyle pattern, and all of them matched the color of his suit. His eyes were almost exactly the same shade of blue, behind the magnifying lenses of his glasses. “He thinks he failed them in the war. Clay had banked everything on winning that war. Not only our country winning, but he himself. Winning personally. He wanted citations and medals. He wanted to find those WMDs and chemicals, smash Saddam and the terrorists. Clay Hickman, from one of America’s wealthiest families, enlisted in the Air Force and deployed to war with high resolve.” Evan made a fist of his free hand and coughed into it, a soft smoker’s cough. “That’s the truth. And what brings you here?”

  “I wanted to see where he got his meds.”

  Evan’s gaze roamed the room. “Every once in a while someone panics in here and won’t take their pills. Things can escalate rather quickly. That’s why they have the gorillas watching. You don’t mess with them.”

  The music played and the patients and nurses chatted and joked quietly, and the meds went down the hatch with no trouble at all. “Who is Morpheus?” I asked.

  “Greek god of dreams, of course.” Again he gestured to the room.

  “You mean all these drug-induced dreamers?”

  “Well, no,” he whispered, leaning close. “The man at the table, right there. That’s Morpheus.”

  I followed Evan’s line of sight to a middle-of-the-room medication station, H–N, presided over by a white-clad man about Clay’s age. He was temporarily alone at the table, tapping something into his computer tablet. When his next partner, an older woman, came to the table, Morpheus set the device aside, rose, and pulled out the chair for her. She wore a black dress, a black funeral hat, and a veil that covered the top half of her face. She smiled and sat.

  “That’s Veronique. She mourns for her husband, who died young and tragically.” Evan drew thoughtfully on his cigarette holder, squinted his eyes as the smoke rose.

  “How did he die?”

  “She poisoned him. That old story. Small doses over months, until he became tolerant. When the dose got high enough, Veronique cut it down to nothing and he died within days. Extreme agony. No trace of poison in his system, of course. Acute renal failure. Possibly hereditary. A natural cause. Much later, tormented by her conscience, she told his family. Guilt is a stern confessor.”

  Veronique and Morpheus looked like old friends as they talked. While she chatted away, Morpheus checked his computer tablet, then thumbed the combination lock on the pill case and opened the lid. He fingered through it, front to back, deftly removing and opening a bottle, shaking pills into one of the small paper containers. Capped and replaced each bottle before taking out another. By the time he was finished, Veronique was about to take five different kinds of pills. He set them in front of her. Veronique continued her narrative as Morpheus opened a small green apple juice can from the plastic tub and set it beside the pills.

  “His name tag says ‘Donald T.,’” said Evan. “Staff last names are confidential so we maniacs won’t know much about them. His last name is Tice, if you’re interested.”

  Tice looked over as if he’d heard us, even though Evan’s voice was a whisper. Veronique spilled all the pills into her mouth before raising the can and chasing them down in two long gulps. Tice turned back to his partner.

  “Why do you and Clay call him Morpheus?”

  “It’s his nickname from the war.”

  “From White Fire.”

  Evan looked at me, raised one eyebrow, and tapped his cigarette. “Clay never said those words to me. He implied a house of detention of some kind. Or perhaps worse. In Romania. The men running it gave nicknames to themselves. For . . . anonymity, said Clay. Morpheus was the medic in charge of drugs. For both prisoners and keepers. He prescribed everything from antibiotics for infections to amphetamine-adrenaline injections that kept detainees conscious during long and painful ‘procedures.’ For the Americans, he had black-and-red capsules they called bliss bullets. It was a titrated opioid combined with the antipsychotic medication ziprasidone. The bullets would let you sleep and have pleasant dreams. They were extremely popular. The sleep it brought on was relatively light sleep, too. So Clay could be rousted at any hour to work or fight or evacuate.”

  I watched Veronique nod at Donald T., then adjust her prim black hat and veil. She ate something off the snack platter. “What was Clay’s nickname in Romania?”

  “Asclepius. The Greek god of healing and medicine. Asclepius healed a divine snake, which gave him secret knowledge. He brought people back to life. Zeus killed him for meddling in the underworld. A shame.”

  “Why ‘Asclepius’?”

  “Obviously Clay saw himself as a healer.”

  “In a place like that?”

  Evan shot me a skeptical look, then pulled the candy cigarette from his holder, ate one half of it, then the other, crunching quietly. From his pocket he brought out fresh candy, carefully working it into the holder. “I was struck by that irony, too.”

  Morpheus opened his pill locker again and reached far back. He removed a bottle and dropped the pills into a fresh paper cup and handed it to the old woman. She took an overly casual look over one shoulder before lifting her green can.

  “Evan, it looks to me like Morpheus is up to his old tricks again—handing out goodies.” I wondered what bonus meds he supplied to Clay. Morpheus still slips me some of the good stuff.

  “As an ‘H,’ Clay went to Morpheus’s table every day,” said Evan. “Personally, I try to keep my own meds to an absolute minimum. I am down to two antipsychotics, an antianxiety medication, one anticonvulsant, a daytime sedative, and a light sleeping aid.”

  Veronique set down the can and paper cup and stood. A dapper older man pulled out her chair. He was dressed for golf. He pulled a flower from the bouquet and handed it to her. She worked the flower between her hat and hair and strode away. The dapper man took her place.

  “I should go get mine,” said Evan, standing.

  I looked up at Evan’s blue eyes, which struck me as remote and resigned. “Did Clay ever mention the dolls he brought home?”

  “Dolls? Never.”

  “Thanks again for the Waterfront tip,” I said.

  “Glad to be of help.”

  I had a thought. “Are you going to read that newspaper?”

  “Be my guest,” said Evan, holding it out to me. “Please do contact me when you’ve located Clay. I worry about him. The world is too hard a place for his gentle spirit.”

  “I’m more worried about the people around him.”

  17

  I wandered the Lyceum for the next few minutes, security goons surveilling impassively, Alec DeMaris keeping an eye on me. I mingled among various patients, most of whom looked briefly at my visitor badge, then at my face, then away. The old ballerina sobbed to one of the all-whiters. Evan sat at the O–S table, legs crossed, puffing thoughtfully, nodding to his staffer. Rivers and Hoffman stood near the middle of the room, face-to-face, in intense discussion, Rivers with his helmet under one arm and his hair plastered to his head.

  As I worked my way over to them, they fell silent and watched me approach.

  “Any luck finding Clay?” asked Rivers.

  “Not yet.”

  “He’ll be in the last place you look,” said Hoffman. The two men laughed, and Rivers backhanded his friend in the ribs, not hard.

  “Hope you don’t feel harassed by us,” said Hoffman. “Like Alec said.”

  “He can’t stand us,” said Rivers.

  “Or your teams,” I said. “He told me the Chargers are nothing but a billionaire’s toy, and the Padres are strictly triple-A.”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “That’s just . . .”r />
  “Exactly what I thought,” I said. “Forget where you heard it.”

  We tapped fists and they wandered slowly away, leaning close together as in a huddle or a pitcher-catcher conference. Tapping the folded newspaper against my leg, I wondered what kind of strategy they might be cooking up, hoping it would fit in with mine.

  I came to Donald Tice’s table, from which another satisfied customer had just departed. Morpheus eyed me with a pugnacious expression. He looked younger up close than from a distance. His hair was blond and thinning and he wore a stainless steel Rolex.

  “Any progress on Clay?” he asked.

  “Some progress, no Clay.”

  “Get him back here. Or he’ll freak out and do something bad.”

  “Any idea what?”

  Tice closed the pill box lid, spun the combination lock absently with his thumb. “The trouble with psychotropic drugs is, you can tolerate them and they can help stabilize you for a certain period of time. Then that period is over. But no one knows when. It can happen fast.”

  I put on a thoughtful expression. “How long have you known Clay?”

  He drummed his fingers on the pill box, looking up at me. I could almost hear him weighing his answer. “I was hired to open this hospital and Clay was one of our first partners. So, three years now.”

  “Did you sense that he might make a run for it?”

  “You’re always ready for it in a place like this. But, no. I saw nothing that pointed to an escape.” Tice glanced at his watch.

  “What drugs was Clay taking?”

  He looked at me with contempt. Huffed and nodded, as if he’d been waiting for me to ask such an impossible question. “Come on, man. His formulary is confidential information. You of all people should know that.”

  Past Donald T.’s shoulder I saw Rivers and Hoffman moving toward DeMaris, who was at the T–Z table, talking to the dispensing nurse. The quarterback and pitcher had a sense of purpose about them. Rivers had his helmet back on.

  “I also know you want to get him back here,” I said. “It would really help if I knew what drugs he was taking, and how often, and what happens when he stops.”

  “Talk to Hulet. She prescribes them.”

  Rivers and Hoffman had come to a stop twenty feet or so behind DeMaris. Rivers cleared the patients around him. They cooperated, standing aside, waiting and watching. DeMaris continued his conversation with the nurse. Hoffman lowered his cap and looked in for the sign. He shook it off, then another. Into the stretch. A glance to first. Then, with a high leg kick and a practiced turn of body, he fired a green juice can.

  Donald saw my expression and sensed something amiss, turning just before DeMaris wheeled around and the can flew past his head. DeMaris charged the mound. The security men crashed in from the peripheries. Shouts and shrieks blotted out the music.

  Donald jumped and his chair clattered to the floor. Elbows up, he barged through the throng of patients who were closing in on the action. Rivers stepped into the pocket and bounced a green bullet off DeMaris’s chest.

  When the first security guard got to Hoffman, the reliever screwed himself into a martial arts fighting stance, yelped, kicked, and missed. The goon pulled up short and raised his hands for order, but Dressed for Golf issued a weirdly savage war whoop and tried to tackle him. The security man threw him to the floor and Hoffman piled on. Then Donald. The tiny old ballerina clenched her fists to her chin and screamed.

  DeMaris slammed into Rivers, carried him along for five yards, then crashed him onto table A–G. The drink bucket jumped and the cans and ice sloshed out and the snacks and flowers popped into the air.

  I set my Union-Tribune over Morpheus’s tablet, picked up paper and computer together, and walked toward the nearest exit. I turned to see three big security men bury DeMaris and Rivers in a mountain of white. Cries and cheers and laughter from the crowd. An alarm wailing and fire sprinklers raining down.

  —

  Back in Clay’s room I searched the tablet and found his formulary for the last three years. Not wise to send any of it to the Arcadia security printer, so I used my phone to photograph the tablet screens and email the pictures to my office. Took me a while, with my big man’s fingers and my heart loping right along. Kept waiting for Donald or DeMaris to walk in on me. When I was finally done I wiped down Morpheus’s tablet and wrapped it in the newspaper. Then sent another message to Sequoia.

  2:28 PM

  Talk to me.

  By the time I got back to the Lyceum the med-break tables had been righted and rearranged, the chairs pushed back to one wall. Two all-whiters with shop vacuums slurped up the fire-sprinkler water from the carpet. I chose my moment, set the tablet and newspaper on Donald T.’s table, then headed back to security to pick up my printouts.

  —

  Enjoy the show, Ford?” asked DeMaris. His coat and tie were gone and his white shirt was stained with what looked like fruit punch.

  “Clutch tackle.”

  “Linebacker, Florida State,” he said. “Around here, you think everything’s fine, then the nuts go nuts. They’re strong. Fuckin’ lunatics are always strong.”

  DeMaris led me through a small lobby, then into a roomful of monitors. An all-whiter sat at a booth well back from the screens, a control console before him, eyes up. With twenty-four cameras going, he had plenty of Arcadia to keep track of. Most of the locations were interior, but the pool area and some of the outside grounds were video-covered, too.

  In the next room a woman sat at what looked like a studio mixing board, with speaker buds in her ears and a very large digital recorder on the desk in front of her.

  “How many mics?” I asked DeMaris as we passed through.

  “Classified. And quiet, please.”

  “It’s my job to ask questions.”

  “I can’t believe Spencer doubled your pay.”

  “And I don’t even get pelted with juice cans.”

  “I looked at the stuff you printed from Clay’s computer,” he said. “If it was up to me, I wouldn’t let you take any of it. I wouldn’t even let you in here.”

  “Just follow orders and keep the cash coming.”

  He stopped and turned and looked at me. “Things will get settled between us. Don’t worry.”

  He opened the door to a smaller back room, where Paige Hulet stood near a printer stand, flipping through a sheaf of paper.

  “Pardon the riot,” she said. “It’s unusual here.” A strand of her hair had come loose from the usual tight knot to dangle out of her vision. I’d never seen her so recklessly presented. She must have felt the coil bobbing because she pushed it back into place, but it fell out again.

  “Your partners sure take a lot of drugs,” I said.

  “You know why we prescribe them, don’t you? Because they work. Laypeople don’t realize that lithium beats cold-water dunks and straitjackets every time.”

  “I’m lay as they get. So I may have some questions about those drugs.”

  “I can answer them. We’ve come a long way in treating mental illness, Mr. Ford. But we’re not perfect.”

  I considered her, felt that basic instinct a person can only resist with effort. It had been building for some time, since that first day I’d tried to move her out of the sun and lost my cool. Now I made no effort at all to resist. “You’re pretty close.”

  She stared back, her eyes forceful against mine. “I haven’t been accused of that for a while.”

  Her eyes pried, then loosened into skepticism. I stepped closer, into that space where everything changes. Her eyes drew in the light and threw it back. There was a very small flaw in her iris.

  “I know what happened to your wife, Mr. Ford. From the news. I’m very sorry.” She held out the papers and I took them. She made another long appraisal of me. “And I accept your invitation. The dance thing.�
��

  I set the papers on a table, moved closer still, put my right hand just above her hip.

  “No, definitely not now,” she said. “This is highly insecure. For us being in security, I mean. I could lose my job.”

  “No you couldn’t. We’re model citizens.”

  I waltzed her around the small room—one two three, one two three—my favorite dance, barely missing the desks and tables, really just an extended version of my moving her out of the sunlight that first day we’d met, and her moving us back into it, which had prompted her confession of the five-year dance drought, which had quietly thrilled me, and led directly to my invitation, which had led to this. We were clunky at first, opposing forces, but we evolved. The small of her waist fit full in my hand, and her weight, once I gained her trust, shifted easily with mine, and her scent, so much a woman’s, went straight into my thick male skull. She held her cheek almost to my chest. One two three. It was odd and good to dance in silence. Justine in our bedroom. Memories bouncing off the present. Sometimes dancing feels like flying. Then she pushed me away, gently but firmly. “Take me dancing sometime. Properly.”

  My phone rang and I recognized the number. “Hello, Mr. Vazquez.”

  “Clay is on his way here.”

  18

  John Vazquez lived in Redwood Valley, 60 miles inland from the Mendocino coast and 124 miles north of San Francisco. He told me he had served with Clay during the war in Iraq but didn’t say where. He was now managing a large vineyard owned by Briggs Spencer. The property had an airstrip and a helipad. Vazquez gave me the GPS coordinates, said he’d meet me on the strip.

  Easing Hall Pass 2 down, I could see tawny hills and dark green valleys, vineyards large and small. Highway 101 to the west, Clear Lake bright as a mirror in the late afternoon sun.

  The breeze was stiff and tricky on the approach. Hall Pass 2 skittered and shied like a spooked horse. I set her down with a rasp of tires, braked, and coasted under the shadeport as John had instructed. No Vazquez. I climbed down and called him. Left a message. I stood in the shade and smoked while Hall Pass 2’s Lycoming crackled and cooled. Afternoon leaned into evening.