Slater had seen the boot, all right. But did lie feel like explaining how it had been stolen from him sometime earlier in the week?
“My wife seen you, skulking down the road almost buck naked yesterday morning,” the man continued, wheeze more pronounced. “Is that how you get your kicks, running naked in the early hours and stealing women’s underwear?”
The man raised his shotgun. “Answer me.”
“Sure,” Slater said, Sudden anger gave him strength. “How’s this for an answer? I figure you’re already good for two years in jail.”
“Huh?”
“The right to bear arms doesn’t include the right to threaten me on my own property. I’m sure the judge will see it that way too.”
The shotgun faltered.
Slater pressed. “Unless you set it aside and discuss this in a civilized way, it’ll get worse. I’ll toss you off my porch, or you’ll end up shooting to stop me. Either way, you’ll get no more answers.”
For a moment, Slater wondered if he’d pushed too hard. The sides of the man’s jaws bulged as he bit back his own anger. The gun lifted, as if of its own accord, then faltered again.
“Course,” Slater said, realizing this man now had no way to back down without losing pride, “if I were you, I’d tell a judge I was out to hunt some pesky crows, and when I discovered I had wandered off my own property, I stopped by my neighbor’s, hoping for some beer and good conversation.”
The bulge on the jaw eased. The wrinkles of suspicion on the fat man’s face didn’t.
“And being the good neighbor,” Slater said, “I’d be happy to offer beer and conversation. Why don’t you set the gun aside?”
The man shook his head in self-disgust as he laid the shotgun along the top railing of the porch. “Joyce told me to take it along, being as you weren’t exactly small, and if it was you stealing underwear, you were probably already crazy. And I didn’t disagree with her, not with the nearest sheriff a half-hour away. And you do keep to yourself, so I didn’t know what might happen and –”
“Lemonade do if I’m out of beer?” Slater asked. “I’m not sure what I’ve got in the fridge.”
The man nodded.
When Slater returned with two glasses, the man took the offered glass with his left hand and extended his right hand to introduce himself. “Josh Burns,” he said. “Manage the service department at a car dealership out of Sante Fe.”
“Slater Ellis.” Slater didn’t elaborate. Just took the man’s hand and shook it firm and friendly.
Josh nodded.
“Why don’t we trade stories?” Slater asked. He pointed at cane chairs in the shade of the porch. “Out of the sun.”
Each sat.
“Mind telling me where you found that boot?” Slater asked. “It’s been missing, and I’m curious about it.”
Josh pressed the cool glass against his forehead. “Last night, my wife hung some clothes out to dry. Woke up this morning and found them all gone.”
“All her clothes. Not just her underwear?”
“All,” Josh confirmed. He had the grace to stare down at his feet. “She figured you’d taken them all so we wouldn’t guess the real reason was you wanted her underwear.”
Slater nearly grinned at about a dozen smart-alec thoughts. Like did the thief need an emergency tent and her undies seemed about the right size?
Slater gulped lemonade instead, hoping it would hide his thoughts.
“Anyway,” Josh said. “She’d seen you skulking – that was you wasn’t it?”
“Maybe she saw me jogging,” Slater said. He’d lied to the county sheriff yesterday morning. Might as well add another lie to the list, mainly because the truth was so difficult to believe. “I was trying to beat the heat by getting out early. Even then, a shirt feels hot. If she’s squeamish about bare skin though, I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Sounds sensible to me, but Joyce said it looked like you was sneaking from tree to tree.”
“Crouched?” Slater asked. He’d tried to be cautious upon nearing the houses. “Ducking around like I was playing games, trying to sneak up on a deer I’d seen?”
“Yeah. She went on and on about it.” Josh grinned. “Sounds funny, now that I hear your end of it.”
Slater nodded, grateful that the baseball cap he wore hid his stitches and prevented more questions. “How’d the missing clothes lead to my boot?”
“Bootprints,” Josh answered. “She seen bootprints right below the clothesline, bootprints dug in the sand. She sent me out after the bootprints, told me not to come back until I had her underwear. I stayed with them prints until I got to the creek. Reached some mud along the bank, and there the boot was. Stuck but good. So I pulled it loose and brought it back to Joyce. Maybe she watches too many soaps, but after seeing you on your jog and making the mistake of figuring you was some pervert, she Figured it had to be your boot, and she sent me here next.”
Josh shook his head. “Teaches me right for running out here half-cocked. Should have known there was a good explanation for this. Your boots was stolen, too, just like her clothes.” He frowned. “But that don’t explain who done it, or the whyfores, do it?”
“No,” Slater said. “It surely does not.”
Chapter 5
Friday, May 17
Just past breakfast, Peter Zwaan knocked on an already open door of one of the lab rooms on the fourth floor.
“It’s almost at the sixteen-cell stage. This is not a convenient time.” A bearded man on a stool spoke almost into his chest as he peered into a microscope. “Go away.”
Zwaan smiled. While he did not like people, he liked rude people less. Therefore he enjoyed his work more with rude people.
“I’m afraid it is a necessity, Dr. Kurt.”
Zwaan’s raspy voice brought the man to attention. Dr. Kurt squinted in the direction of the doorway. Zwaan filled most of it. Dr. Kurt fumbled around his bench with his left hand for his glasses and pushed them on in a hurry.
“I do not recognize you.” Kurt was of medium build, thin-faced. A big greasy nose that looked almost false beneath his thick horn-rimmed glasses, combined with a bushy dark mustache, made Dr. Kurt a caricature of one of the Marx brothers in disguise.
Dr. Kurt continued to study Zwaan through the new focus of his glasses.
Better yet, Zwaan thought. The doctor had not flinched in fear as most did when they saw his face and skull. Brave people made Zwaan’s music play the longest. Rude and brave was a wonderful combination.
“I am a troubleshooter,” Zwaan said quietly. “And it has been brought to my attention you are trouble to the Institute.”
Dr. Kurt reddened. Indignation or rage or fear, it did not matter. Zwaan had been given his instructions.
“I will not tolerate impertinence,” Dr. Kurt finally squeezed out. “Have you any idea of my importance here?”
Zwaan nodded. He reached for the letters inside his suit jacket and tossed them on the floor in front of Dr. Kurt. “You are important, Dr. Kurt. Which is why you shouldn’t persist in trying to tell the world of that importance. The single most crucial part of your agreement with the Institute was one of noncommunication.”
The doctor stared at the letters at his feet. The red in his face drained to white. Dr. Kurt recognized his own handwriting on the scattered papers.
Zwaan smiled again. A smile not of satisfaction, but a cognitive aha. White, then, was the color of the doctor’s fear. White would sweeten the music.
“Dr. Kurt,” Zwaan said, “you will pick up your letters and follow me down to the sixth floor.”
“Sixth floor? I was unaware...”
“Sixth floor. I hope what you learn there saves your life.”
***
It took them more than a simple walk down the hallway and an elevator ride to reach the sixth floor. Because the Institute was in the shape of an H, they had to leave the north section and cross through the connecting corridor to the south section. Entering the corrido
r required a retina check by an electronic sensor. Leaving the corridor to join the other section of the H required the same.
During the entire walk, Zwaan said nothing. He noted with mild pleasure that Dr. Kurt had no need to babble to fill their silence.
Once inside the elevator, Zwaan used a key to open the service panel. With a second key, he turned a recessed lock. The indicator lights for floor level did not change, but the elevator continued to hum with movement.
When the doors opened, Zwaan gestured like a doorman and spoke with deliberate, heavy irony. “Sixth floor.”
Ahead of them was a metal detector, halfway down a short hallway leading to a vault door. Beyond the metal detector, a keypad and another retina sensor.
Zwaan pushed Dr. Kurt ahead, chuckled when the metal detector rang alarms at his own gun tucked in his shoulder holster, and kept a firm grip on the doctor’s elbow as he punched a seven-digit number into the keypad. Zwaan spent few seconds leaning his face into the retina sensor, then straightened as the vault door swung inward.
“You know much about the Institute,” Zwaan said, “and your letters openly wonder about its true purpose. While the existence of this level confirms reason for suspicion, I hope to convince you to keep this secret to yourself.”
He pushed the doctor ahead in the wide hallway beyond the vault door.
“I am a doctor, respected worldwide,” Dr. Kurt said, breaking his long, stubborn silence.
Zwaan caught and enjoyed the undercurrent of nervousness. A distant strain of music teased Zwaan, like the glimpse of a leaf swirling on the current.
“I am also forty-eight years old,” Kurt continued. “A grown man, an independent scientist. You had no right to intercept my mail.”
“You are wrong, Dr. Kurt. You signed an agreement of total secrecy before taking this job. Follow me.”
Zwaan walked ahead without looking back. The vault door had already closed; the doctor had no place to run. It was ludicrous to think that Kurt might attack him from behind, and Zwaan moved with confidence to a door farther down on his right.
The door was not locked.
Zwaan gestured for Dr. Kurt to step inside ahead of him. Zwaan wanted Kurt to have no distractions as he viewed the room’s contents.
“What you see are not used for experiments,” Zwaan said to Kurt’s back, “but instead are my assistants.”
Kurt’s head moved in a slow half-circle as he surveyed the small aquariums, each set on a low table. Some were heated by infrared lamps, some merely by bright light bulbs. Others by no special light. But each was covered with a flat sheet of glass. The room, barely more than a large office, held seven of these aquariums. Waterless. But not empty.
“Yes, assistants,” Zwaan said. “Creatures who assist me in my tasks. And at this moment, you are one of my tasks.”
Kurt grew measurably still. He was beginning to understand.
“Immediately to your right,” Zwaan explained, “you might notice the egg cocoon in the twigs of the lower corner. It should contain three hundred to five hundred eggs of the black widow spider.”
“Black widow?”
“Latrodectus mactans, if your scientific mind prefers the Latin, which I cannot resist showing off.” Zwaan was aware that his voice had a tendency to seem stronger the quieter he whispered. So he dropped his voice further.
“As you can see, I also have timber rattlesnakes, very mature specimens. Some coral snakes. And of course, my rats. Rats do very interesting things under certain conditions. Conditions like you strapped on your back, and the rats trapped on your stomach beneath an overturned basket. It usually takes two days for them to get hungry enough to eat their way out through your stomach.”
White showed again on the doctor’s face. In his mind, Zwaan heard the first of sweet violin strings.
“Yet for you, Dr. Kurt,” Zwaan said as he smiled to his private music, “I believe I reserve assistants from the next glass cage. Do you see them half-buried in the sand? If not, step closer.”
Kurt remained rigid.
“Centruoides sculpturatus,” Zwaan whispered. “You may find it of interest that while their pincers look formidable, they do not hurt. Rather, my assistants sting. Their tails end in very sharp tips, driven into mesh with a springlike flick. Very effective, our little scorpion friends, for the puncture wounds are tiny, and once the poison is injected beneath the skin, treatment is difficult.
“The beauty of having such assistants is that your death will not seem unnatural, only unfortunate. I will place you in a sleeping bag, funnel a dozen of my little friends inside, and pull the draw-string tight. Won’t that be interesting, to feel them crawling on your naked body, wondering when the first will sting?”
“Enough,” Kurt said. His shoulders were ramrod straight, and he did not turn to address Zwaan.
“I’m afraid you will listen. For if you listen well, my assistants may not be required.” Zwaan paused. “You will listen?”
Kurt nodded the slightest of movements.
Zwaan did enjoy this, but he also knew the fear he was inspiring served a practical purpose. Perhaps Kurt actually would listen, and the Institute would not lose a skilled researcher.
“Once stung – and I would set at least a dozen to crawl on your naked body – you will feel intense pain at the site of the stings, but there will be little inflammation or swelling. You will soon become restless. At that point, you will be unbound, but, of course, not permitted to leave whichever room I choose for your execution.”
Zwaan listened and watched for reaction, but Kurt disappointed him. The violin music in Zwaan’s mind began to fade.
“Shortly after this restlessness, your abdominal muscles will become rigid, and your arms and legs will begin to contract. You will start drooling as your body produces excess saliva, and your heart rate will increase. You can expect feverish body temperatures. Blue skin, too, which you as a doctor know as cyanosis. Breathing will become more difficult as you approach the end. Eventually it is exhaustion that kills you. But not before you experience the indignity of involuntary urination and defecation.”
Dr. Kurt finally turned. “Monstrous. You are totally monstrous.”
Zwaan smiled inside as the music swelled again.
“Fear is good, Dr. Kurt. It may keep you alive. Please follow me."
Dr. Kurt stumbled out of the room behind Zwaan, who marched down the corridor and stopped in front of another door.
“Open please,” Zwaan said. “It is one of the few unlocked doors on this floor.”
This room, twice the size of a janitor’s closet, held two chairs facing each other. And a sledgehammer in the corner. Nothing else.
“Please sit,” Zwaan said as he shut the door behind them.
Dr. Kurt did as directed.
Zwaan sat opposite. He knew he gave the impression of filling the entire room. A psychological tactic that had never failed.
“This is intimate,” Zwaan said in his raspy whisper, “however, perhaps sharing death is the ultimate intimacy.”
Zwaan listened for the music that came with his rapture. A symphony of wonder that absorbed him more fully as he dealt more pain. And death created the crescendo.
“I am a world-renowned scientist. You cannot –”
Zwaan reached across the small space between them and with his thumb and index finger, tenderly squeezed the doctor’s lips shut. He was interfering with the music.
“Listen, remember?” Zwaan released his hold on the man’s lips. “You see, Dr. Kurt, every detail of your death has been planned. From the first day you began work here, I have prepared for its possible necessity.”
Zwaan leaned back and crossed his legs. The bizarreness of such casual body language in the midst of such a deadly discussion was much more crippling than yelling or striking.
“You have not been outside of this building for an entire year. Where is the Institute located?”
Dr. Kurt blinked at the sudden change in the conversation�
��s direction.
“Where?” Zwaan repeated quietly.
“Redmond, Oregon.”
Zwaan nodded. “Yes, you did mention that in your letters. Do you recall your first day at the Institute?”
Again, Dr. Kurt blinked. His eyelashes were comically huge behind the thick lenses. Zwaan thought briefly of the jars and all the music they had provided him.
“Your first day was actually your first two days,” Zwaan said. He didn’t alter his tone in the slightest during his explanation. “Yes, you entered a military compound in the forest outside Redmond. But as you slept, you were drugged. By inhalation. You slept through the night, the next day, and the next night. Enough time for us to move you here. Think of it, doctor. Thirty-six hours of unconsciousness. You could be anywhere in the world.”
Dr. Kurt opened his mouth to protest.
“Tut-tut. Listen. Since your arrival, I have been sending occasional postcards to your sister in St. Paul. She’s the only one out there who might care if you disappeared. You’d be surprised at how well our forgeries seem like your handwriting. Marge is convinced you have spent the last year at a laboratory in Australia.”
Zwaan sighed. “You could be dead for years, but as long as the postcards continue, she won’t know otherwise, will she?”
Kurt grew visibly smaller, as if he were hugging himself without using his arms to do so.
“In short, Doctor, you signed a letter of agreement that included total secrecy and devotion to the Institute. In return, you were provided with almost unlimited research resources. We have not taken away those privileges. Thus you have no reason to fail your end of the deal. Please don’t try to contact your former colleagues again. And it would be healthy for you to abstain from speculating about the remainder of the sixth floor.”
Zwaan stood and stretched. Yawned and took his time doing it.
“You may consider this conversation a warning,” Zwaan said. “The threat of death is real, and if you try anything stupid again, you will die in the manner promised. However, continue with your research as agreed – research I know you enjoy – and I will not visit you again.”
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