by John Lutz
“She’ll be okay,” Nurse Gorham said in a professional tone. “Possible concussion, but that’s about all.” She smiled then and pinched Hattie’s cheek.
“Monica likes to see people hurt sometimes,” Beed said. “Gives her a tingle.”
“That’s the rumor,” Carver said.
Nurse Gorham ignored them. “When the old lady regains consciousness, she needs to be watched.”
“I hardly think so,” Beed said.
Nurse Gorham and Dr. Sanchez looked at each other, then at Carver. The doctor said, “Save us the bother of searching the house for Jerome Evans’s medication bottle, Mr. Carver. Save yourself a lot of bother.”
“You’re the only ones talking about a bottle,” Carver said.
“No,” Beed said, “before he, uh, lost the ability to converse, Val next door informed me that Hattie told him all about searching for the bottle. Your motel was being watched this morning. We figure you charged over here because Hattie called and said she’d found it. That means the bottle is here in the house, and you know where.”
“Why’s this bottle so important?” Carver asked.
“You know why, Mr. Carver,” Dr. Sanchez said.
“Hattie told me she poured what was left of her husband’s insomnia medication down the drain.”
“I don’t believe you, Mr. Carver. Neither do my associates.”
“What’s Luridus-X?” Carver asked.
“An experimental drug,” Dr. Sanchez said.
“Why tell him?” Nurse Gorham asked.
“Why not?” Beed said, smiling at Carver. He sure had a creepy smile, like a bookkeeper with secret hideous knowledge. Charles Manson’s accountant.
“He’s puzzled it out anyway,” the doctor said. “That’s why he’s here.” He clasped his narrow, feminine hands where his suit coat gaped in front and faced Carver squarely, a smugly confident man but with the human impulse to boast. “Mercury Laboratories is in the business of developing new and wonderful drugs, Mr. Carver. For this to be done with maximum effectiveness, tests have to be conducted. Solartown patients make ideal subjects. Sometimes the drugs are dispensed through the medical center pharmacy. Nurse Gorham administers the drugs secretly at the hospital, then monitors and reports results to Mercury.”
“You might thank us someday if you become gravely ill,” Nurse Gorham said.
Beed said, “Might not.” He seemed amused that she couldn’t shake her healer’s instinct, even if she was a practicing sadist.
“Solartown residents provide perfect demographics for such experimentation,” Dr. Sanchez continued. “The test subjects are all in the same age group, from the same general socioeconomic background, receive all their medical treatment at the center, and are easily available for tracking. And when the tests do occasionally go awry, a subject’s death attracts little attention in a retirement community where advanced age makes death a frequent occurrence.”
Carver had to admire such tidy logic and its implementation; Solartown patients were like custom-bred laboratory rats, only better. “Difficult to believe it all goes on under Dr. Wynn’s nose,” he said. It bothered him that Sanchez was talking so freely; it underlined that they fully intended to leave dead bodies in the house when they’d recovered the bottle. But he couldn’t resist asking questions, now that he could get answers.
“Dr. Wynn has long had a serious addiction,” Dr. Sanchez said.
“Drugs?”
“Me,” Nurse Gorham said.
Dr. Sanchez raised a hand to silence her and continued talking, calmly and in an amiable tone, as if discussing a perfectly legal and respectable enterprise. “One night after an arranged evening of drinking with Nurse Gorham and Mr. Beed, Dr. Wynn was in an inebriated state and was indiscreet. His sexual adventures with both Mr. Beed and Nurse Gorham were videotaped.”
“So he knows what’s going on and you’re blackmailing him into cooperation and silence.”
“Paying him, actually,” Dr. Sanchez corrected. “Still, Dr. Wynn understands the situation. When a Solartown test subject dies, he performs the autopsy, Nurse Gorham assisting, and signs the death certificate.”
“But Dr. Billingsly’s sure Jerome Evans died of a heart attack.”
“And so he did. Evans was the test subject for a cholesterol-dissolving drug, placed in his sedative, that unfortunately didn’t work out and produced massive blood clotting. So observation and the autopsy would reveal the cause of death to be an ordinary heart attack. Mercury has ceased researching and developing the drug.”
“And now we want what’s left of it back,” Adam Beed said.
Dr. Sanchez fixed his unwavering cold gaze on Carver. “The residue in Jerome Evans’s prescription bottle is evidence of what Florida law would consider homicide.”
“The law and Jerome Evans-if he could speak from the grave.”
“Not if he were a visionary, Mr. Carver. He’d understand that what we’re doing here in Solartown is proper, that the overall benefits far outweigh the discomfort or even deaths of a few test subjects. They don’t know it, but their last years of life are made into something beneficial and beautiful for mankind.”
“Another thing they’re doing is making Mercury Laboratories and its corporate officers wealthy.”
Beed said, “Some black clouds have more than one silver lining.”
Dr. Sanchez smiled with philosophical sadness. “Time for you to tell us where the bottle is, Mr. Carver.”
“Can’t do that,” Carver said.
“I didn’t think so.” Dr. Sanchez turned his steady gaze on Beed.
Beed shoved the automatic’s barrel hard into Carver’s chest, causing him to stumble. Carver tried to catch himself with his cane but fell back into a sitting position in an upholstered chair with wooden arms. Beed aimed the automatic at his midsection and said, “Stay still; this won’t hurt a bit.”
Nurse Gorham drew a thick roll of broad white surgical tape from her purse and approached Carver. Quickly, deftly, she began taping his forearms to the chair arms, the calf and ankle of his good leg to a chair leg. The thigh of his stiff leg was taped against a chair-arm brace, and more tape was wrapped around his waist and the chair back.
When she was finished and Carver could barely move, she stepped back with obvious satisfaction and dropped what was left of the tape back in her purse.
“Shouldn’t take long,” Beed said.
“This should be fun to watch,” Nurse Gorham said from deep in her throat. “Maybe fun to take part in.”
Dr. Sanchez said, “I’d rather not watch, I’m in research. We’ll be leaving. Call me when everything’s settled, Adam.”
“Mind waiting for a few minutes in the car?” Nurse Gorham asked. Her voice was tight, almost pleading.
“Come with me now, Monica,” Dr. Sanchez said in an irritated tone. “This is business, not pleasure.”
He and Nurse Gorham left by the front door. As she stepped out onto the porch, Nurse Gorham glanced back and smiled at Carver very much as Adam Beed was smiling.
37
Beed walked casually into the kitchen, and Carver heard water running. Splashing into something metallic.
A few minutes later Beed returned carrying several folded dish towels and a roasting pan half full of water. Some of the water sloshed onto the floor.
He scooted the chair over so it was facing away from the sofa, then tilted it back into the cushions so Carver was half reclining, staring up at the ceiling.
“In a little while you’ll be dying to tell me everything from childhood on,” Beed said. He began wrapping the towels around Carver’s head and face, over his eyes, nose, and mouth. Carver could breathe, but it wasn’t easy. As his vision was completely blocked, he had to resist the impulse to panic and squirm in the chair.
He was familiar with this method of torture and knew what was coming next. He told himself Beed was an expert and wouldn’t let him drown. Not quite.
On the other hand, Beed was a fireball alc
oholic no doubt twitching with his thirst, dangerous and unpredictable.
Water hit the towels, splashing coldly down Carver’s chest and into his lap. Within seconds he felt the same chill on his face as the towels absorbed the water. Faintly he could hear Beed walking back and forth between the chair and the kitchen, refilling the blue metal pan and maybe other containers with water.
Every few minutes a torrent of water would hit Carver’s head swaddled in the increasingly soaked towels. Water was in his mouth now, choking him as he tried to breathe.
He panicked and fought the tape binding him to the chair, hearing his own gurgling and retching cries muffled by the thick towels. Every heartbeat felt like a hot wire piercing his chest. Warmth suffused his drenched pants around his crotch; his bladder had released.
Then air and light, as the towels were unwound.
Beed was grinning down at him as if they were sharing a fun game. “Wanna do that again?”
Carver said nothing. He felt a stab of terror and something else as he saw that Beed was holding the half-full quart bourbon bottle from the kitchen.
Beed shrugged and wrapped the towels around Carver’s head again, over his face.
More water.
Carver tried to hold his breath, but eventually exhaled rasping into the towels. His following inhalation brought water with it; he could actually feel its cold liquidity in his lungs as he gagged and tried to cry out. This was how it felt to breathe something other than air-he was drowning sitting in a chair!
Somehow he gained control and sat trembling. He could hear Beed make another trip to the kitchen to carry more water.
Beed let him wait in silence.
Minutes seemed to pass. Five of them, maybe ten.
Then more water splashed onto the towels.
A few seconds later, more water.
This wasn’t going to happen with regularity; it would be impossible to predict and prepare for it.
Carver arched his back against his bonds but the tape didn’t give. The effort made him inhale liquid and he coughed and gagged. He tried to plead, knowing Beed wouldn’t understand him through the layers of wet towels.
No response. The towels remained. Carver managed to swallow enough water to allow himself to breathe. He waited in fear for another dousing and near drowning. Beed was boozing heavily on Hattie’s liquor, he knew, losing life-saving judgment.
The waiting became almost as unbearable as the drowning sensation. Carver knew that was the way it was supposed to be, but it was impossible for him to make it any other way. Terror sapped logic and willpower; his responses were automatic and shamed and frightened him. That was how torture worked.
An immeasurable amount of time passed, perhaps even an hour, before the towels were again removed.
“Shall we chat now?” Beed asked, as Carver pulled in sweet, dry air and squinted into the light. Beed took a swig from the bottle and set it on the coffee table. It was only about a quarter full now. Beed didn’t seem sober, didn’t seem drunk.
But then an alky like Beed might be much drunker than he appeared.
Carver simply stared at him, trying not to rasp as he breathed.
Beed licked his lips, and something deep in his eyes changed, as if booze had overtaken reason and patience. He lost it then, said, “Fuck this!” He grabbed Carver’s shirt and yanked Carver and the chair upright off the sofa cushions.
“Tell me where the bottle is!” Beed said, and backhanded Carver across the face.
Carver tried to roll with the blow but pain bit into him. Next came a punch to the stomach and his breath left him in a hollow scream. He would have doubled over, but that was impossible.
“You’re making noise now, anyway,” Beed said. “Ready to have that chat?”
Carver couldn’t have answered if he’d tried. He tasted blood. Swallowed. Almost vomited.
Beed took another pull of bourbon, then swaggered into the kitchen.
Carver sat for a long time listening to things being banged around in there.
Beed wasn’t carrying water when he returned this time. He had the length of black rubber hose from the spray attachment on the sink.
“This won’t break any bones,” he said, “but it’ll bruise you clean through to the other side.”
He began lashing back and forth through the air with the hose, then stepped forward so Carver was inside the dangerous arc.
Carver clenched his eyes shut. Pain hit him like successive lightning bolts as he writhed beneath the hose’s dull and damaging repeated impacts.
“Start talking anytime,” Beed said, working the hose with the effortless and relentless grace of a man scything weeds.
Carver glared at Beed, glanced at the bottle, and spat in Beed’s face.
Beed stepped back in disbelief. Carver couldn’t quite believe it himself. It had come from having nothing more to lose.
Beed shook for a few seconds with rage. Then he used his sleeve to wipe the spittle from his face, angled forward like a batter stepping up to the plate, and drew back the hose with both arms to lay it across Carver’s head.
He stayed in that pose, like a TV freeze-frame, staring down at Carver with suspicion and puzzlement.
Then he dropped the hose and clutched his left arm, which was pressed to his side. His mouth gaped wide as he struggled to speak. No sound came out. He looked like an old-time heavy overacting in a silent movie.
He staggered in a tight circle, drew a deep, screeching breath, then fell facedown on the carpet.
He didn’t moan. He didn’t move. He might as well have been furniture.
Carver sat trembling, sobbing with pain and trying to stay conscious.
38
He wasn’t sure how much time had slipped past when he felt his bonds being cut away. He opened his eyes to see Beth standing over him, holding a long carving knife.
He tried to speak, but pain held the words inside him like a vise. He swallowed dryly. That hurt, too.
Beth sawed through some more tape binding his left arm to the chair and looked angry in a cold way Carver had seen only a few times.
“Hattie …” he finally heard himself mumble.
“She’s okay, lover. Semiconscious, anyway.” He could hear the blade severing tape from his arm, felt his partly numbed flesh pinched, maybe cut. Everything seemed to be happening at a distance.
“They had Val, too,” he said, trying to pull himself into the here and now.
The blade ceased its sawing motion and Beth glanced around.
“He’s next door,” Carver told her.
“We’ll take care of Val later.”
When he was free, Beth handed him his cane and helped him to his feet. She was wearing a white summer dress this morning, high heels that made her slightly taller than Carver. “Gonna make it, Fred?”
He felt sore all over and there was fire along his rib cage. “Be okay if I keep moving and don’t stiffen up,” he said, already dreading tomorrow morning. He was sure to feel as if a bus had hit him then stopped and backed over him. “I wanna call Desoto, then let’s get Hattie and Val to the medical center.”
“Not to mention Fred,” Beth said, and helped to support him as he limped over to the sofa and slumped in it with the phone in his lap. While he pecked out the number with a forefinger that had somehow become bruised and swollen, she went to tend to Hattie.
After he’d talked to Desoto, Carver found that some of the soreness had left him as his circulation returned where it had been constricted by the tape, which seemed to have gotten even tighter while wet. Other areas, especially his ribs and left shoulder, had become more tender. Man wasn’t meant to be shrink-wrapped.
He and Beth managed to walk the semiconscious Hattie out to the rented Ford and get her settled in the backseat. Then they made their way up the driveway to Val’s house.
After Carver used his cane to break one of the small windows in the door, and Beth snaked a long arm in and worked the deadbolt, they entered the house an
d found Val unconscious but still alive. He was bound to a chair as Carver had been, only with dozens of knotted neckties instead of tape. Shoots the hell out of his wardrobe, Carver thought inanely.
The fingertips of Val’s right hand were bloody. He moaned and regained consciousness as Carver and Beth loosened the knots in the ties and worked his arms and legs free. Carver noticed a pair of pliers on the carpet, lying in the middle of dark stains and something else.
“Fingernails,” Beth said levelly, seeing him staring.
Carver ground his teeth in rage, causing his jaw to flare in agony where he’d been struck.
Fingernails.
No wonder Val had talked.
Beth wrapped a towel from the bathroom around Val’s mutilated hand, and Carver helped her walk him out to the Ford and get him in the back next to Hattie. He slumped low and closed his eyes, his bloody hand resting on his lap.
Beth looked at the frail, gray figures inside the car and said, “Hell of a way to treat senior citizens,” still with the same icy anger.
“Or the middle-aged,” Carver reminded her.
She stared at him with a tenderness in her eyes that somehow didn’t touch the pinpoints of cold light in their centers.
“I’ll drive,” she said, and Carver handed her the keys.
On the way to the medical center Carver explained what had happened.
“Before Beed reached the house, I poured Jerome’s medication into a bourbon bottle from one of the cabinets and left it on the counter. Then I tried to grind up the prescription bottle in the disposal and couldn’t. But the bottle did jam the mechanism down out of sight in the plumbing. I knew if I simply tossed it into the trash or hid it and Beed found it, we’d all be useless to him and killed immediately.”
“It figured an alky off the wagon would go for the booze,” Beth said, staring straight ahead out the windshield, “but he mighta consumed all of exhibit A.”
“He drank most of it,” Carver said, “but there should still be enough left in the bottle that it can be separated from the bourbon and analyzed. Or they can analyze Beed’s stomach contents. Either way, it’ll make the case against Mercury Laboratories.”
