Reprisal ac-5

by F. Paul Wilson

  He went to the fridge and saw the o-j on the top shelf. Wasn't that what diabetics used when their sugar was low? He grabbed the container, poured himself a glassful, and gulped it down. Then he returned to the recliner and waited. He'd give it twenty minutes to see if it had any effect.

  It took only half that. By the end of ten minutes he was feeling much better. Calmer, more relaxed. The near panic of moments ago was almost completely gone.

  Amazing what a little orange juice could do.

  He went over and poured himself another glassful.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  "Have you seen Ev?"

  Lisl froze at the sound of Al Torres's voice. She'd looked for Ev earlier this morning but his office door had been closed. That wasn't unusual, though. She knew he had early classes on Fridays.

  It had been okay for her to be looking for him. She had a reason. He'd seemed a little strung out yesterday but had been acting perfectly normal; she'd wanted to see if he was any better today.

  But no one else should have been looking for him.

  Unless…

  "No," she said, keeping her eyes trained on her desktop. "Why?"

  "He missed his first two classes this morning. And he didn't call in. That's not like Ev at all."

  Oh no, oh no, oh no!

  Lisl suddenly wanted to be sick. She tried to speak but no words would come.

  Al went on: "Administration wants to know if anybody's heard from him."

  Lisl could only shake her head and not look at him.

  "You okay, Lisl?" he said.

  She ventured a glance at him and managed to say, "Not feeling too good." She wasn't lying.

  "Jeez, no. I guess you're not. I've heard there's a bug of some sort going around. I'll bet that's what Ev's got. Maybe you're coming down with it too. Anyway, if you hear from him, tell him to call administration."

  When she heard her office door close, Lisl lowered her face into her hands and began to sob.

  What have I done?

  She'd spent much of the night in agony, struggling to sleep. She'd lifted the receiver a dozen times to call Ev, to tell him to stay away from his orange juice, to dump it down the sink. She even managed to dial his number once but hung up on the first ring.

  How could she say that to him? How could she tell him that when he'd trusted her with his key ring she'd made a copy of his apartment keys, that she'd invaded his home and dosed his orange juice with alcohol. How could she get those words past her lips? Impossible.

  She'd even toyed with the idea of calling up and somehow disguising her voice with a handkerchief like they did in the movies, but she didn't believe that would work.

  It had taken her two sleeping pills- to get to sleep the night before, and it took the same last night before she finally dozed off, and even then she'd had to placate herself with the thought that if Ev had got through yesterday without going on a bender, he would probably come through this whole ordeal with flying colors. Then she'd be able to thumb her nose at Rafe and this particularly wild theory of his.

  Rafe… why had she listened to him? He made her feel so good so much of the time, but every so often he'd convince her to do something that made her feel rotten. And he was so convincing. Everything made so much sense when he was whispering in her ear. It was only later that she wished she had listened to her own heart. She knew he had her best interests at heart, that he was fighting for her, it was just that Rafe didn't heed the boundaries that limited most people's actions. Rafe didn't seem to recognize any limits.

  And apparently neither do I.

  Lisl slammed her fist on her desk. She still couldn't believe she had doctored Ev's juice. Yet she had. Deliberately. With full knowledge of the threat it posed to that poor man. What had come over her?

  But more important now: Where was Ev?

  She pulled her address book from her top drawer and looked up his number. She was sure the department secretary and the administration office had already called him but she had to try herself. She dialed and listened to the phone ring on the other end. She didn't count the rings but it had to be near twenty by the time she hung up.

  She rose and was surprised by how wobbly her legs felt. What if Ev had gone out last night and bought a case of vodka? In her mind's eye she saw him sprawled on his kitchen floor in a drunken stupor or in a coma from alcohol poisoning.

  She had to go over there.

  Renny wasn't exactly sure how to handle this. He'd wandered the grounds since eight A.M., searching for someone who looked like the priest, but nobody he'd seen had even come close. And he couldn't jexactly go up to one of these guys and ask, could he?

  Then it had occurred to him that he could queer this whole bust if Ryan recognized him.

  So now Renny was standing before a counter in the university personnel office, hoping he could bluster his way through this.

  "Yes, sir?" said the pert young brunette with the red-framed glasses. "Can I help you?"

  Renny did the badge flash.

  "Sergeant Augustino, State Police. We have reason to believe that one of your groundskeepers might be a fugitive from out of state. I need to see your personnel records."

  "A fugitive? Really?"

  Renny watched as she chewed her lip and glanced around the office. If she was looking for help, there was none to be had. It was no accident that Renny had chosen coffee-break time to pop into personnel.

  "What are we waiting for?" he said.

  "Well, I'm not sure. I mean, shouldn't you have a search warrant or something like that?"

  "I have a warrant for his arrest. That enough?"

  "Oh, dear," she said, looking around again, but the office was just as empty as before. "What's his name?"

  Renny gave her a tired look.

  "He won't be using his real name. Now come on. We're wasting time." He leaned forward and gave her a hard look. "You wouldn't be protecting someone, would you?"

  She flushed. "No. Of course not. It's just…" Her shoulders slumped in resignation. "All right. What records do you want?"

  "Any groundskeepers hired in the last five years."

  Renny stood and drummed his fingers on the counter, looking calm and patient, but inside he was urging her to hurry her ass before one of her supervisors came back. She went to one desk, then to another, then to a computer, then she disappeared into the back. Finally she reappeared with a small stack of buff folders.

  "I brought all I could find. Some of them don't work here anymore but I brought them anyway."

  Renny grabbed the stack and opened the one on top. He stifled a curse.

  "No photos."

  She shrugged. "Some do, some don't."

  He flipped through quickly, reading the names, searching for photos: Gilbert Olin, Stanley Malinowski, Peter Turner, Will Ryerson, Mark DeSantis, Louis—

  Whoa!

  He shuffled back to Will Ryerson. Right age, right height and weight, hired almost three years ago. Will Ryerson… William Ryan. Renny's pulse ripped into overdrive.

  Gotcha!

  He memorized the address, then made a show of looking through the rest of the folders. Finally, he slid the stack back to the woman.

  "Nope. Doesn't look like he's here. Another false lead. Thank you for your help. Have a nice day."

  And then he was out of the office and hurrying down the hall, wondering where he could get hold of a city map and find out how to get to Postal Road.

  Got you, you bastard. Got you at last!

  Lisl started by knocking on Ev's door, then graduated to banging with her fist. When she got no answer, she fished the key from her purse and unlocked it.

  "Ev?" she said, closing the door behind her. "Ev, are you here?"

  All was quiet. She looked around the apartment. Ev was nowhere in sight. The place felt empty, but that might not mean anything. With her pulse pounding in her throat, she headed for the bedroom.

  God, what if he's dead? What will I do?

  She paused on the threshol
d of the bedroom, then forced herself to peek inside.

  Empty. The bed was made, the spread pulled tight and unwrinkled.

  Not sure whether to be relieved or even more upset than she already was, she let out the breath she'd unconsciously been holding. Where could he be? Everything in the place was perfectly in order, just like she and Rafe had left it Wednesday night—

  Except for the kitchen. The orange juice carton sat on the counter; a pulp-streaked tumbler huddled against it. Lisl grabbed the carton. A low moan escaped her when she felt how light it was. In a sudden fit of anger—at Rafe, but mostly at herself—she hurled the empty carton against the wall, then grabbed the glass and did the same. The carton bounced, the glass shattered.

  Why did I do it?

  Lisl sagged back against the refrigerator and closed her eyes, waiting for an answer. None came. She set her jaw and straightened up.

  All right. She'd gotten Ev into this, so she had to help him get out of it. But first she had to find him. And she was going to find him if she had to comb every bar in town.

  Lisl headed for the door but stopped before she reached it. What if Ev wasn't in a bar? What if he was in a hospital?

  She ran to the phone and called the Medical Center switchboard, a number she still remembered from her days as the wife of an intern.

  No, there had been no one named Sanders admitted during the night.

  She sighed with relief, then wondered why she should be relieved. At least if he were in a hospital it would mean he was being cared for. If he was lying unconscious in an alley somewhere…

  She ran out to comb the nearby bars. But it was slow work, and after covering only three places in the space of an hour and getting nowhere, she realized she couldn't do this alone. She needed help.

  But who? Rafe wouldn't lift a finger to help Ev. In fact, he might even talk her out of looking for him. She could think of only one person she could count on. But that would mean explaining what she had done. How could she explain the unex-plainable?

  She headed for the next bar. Alone. :;.

  Sick.

  Ev felt terrible. Sick to his stomach and sick at heart as he leaned against his apartment door and twisted the key in the lock. He lurched in and staggered the short distance to the reclin-er. He dropped into its comforting familiarity and closed his eyes.

  Off the wagon. He'd fallen off before, but the last time had been so many years ago he'd begun to think he'd never fall off again. He pressed his fists against his eyes. He wanted to shout, he wanted to cry, but he wouldn't allow it. What purpose would that serve? He wouldn't wallow in self-pity or recriminations, or look for someone else to blame. He'd been down those roads before and they were dead ends. He had to make something positive out of this. Everything was a learning experience. What he had to do was turn this episode around and see if he could learn something from it.

  Well, the lesson was obvious, wasn't it? A drunk is a drunk, and no matter how long you've been dry, you shouldn't get too comfortable with your sobriety. Yesterday was a good example of how fast it can desert you.

  But why? Why had he gone off the wagon? He'd felt strange all day yesterday—it had been yesterday, hadn't it? Of course it had. He'd seen the newspaper in the box on the corner. It was Friday afternoon. He glanced at his watch: 4:16. He'd lost almost a whole day to booze. Not the first time for that either.

  But what frightened him was how it had come without warning. An odd sensation all day, then he'd come home as usual. He'd been sitting here drinking orange juice, and when he'd finished it, he'd gone out for more. But he never made it to the market. As he passed Raftery's he'd hesitated only a heartbeat, then he was inside ordering a Scotch.

  No warning. One moment outside, the next moment inside, drinking.

  But Lord how good it had tasted. Even now his mouth watered with the memory of it. One of the few memories left from yesterday. A montage flickered through his brain, a procession of drinks, of buying a bottle, of upending it and gulping it down like a desert wanderer finding a cache of cool spring water.

  His next memory was of waking up sick, dirty, aching, shaking in the early afternoon sunlight under a sheet of cardboard behind an appliance store. He still had his wallet so he'd bought himself something to eat and another long procession of drinks—all coffees.

  He pushed himself out of the recliner and headed for the bathroom. On the way, something crunched under his foot.

  Glass. Fragments of the tumbler he'd used for the orange juice were scattered all over the kitchen floor. The o-j carton was on the floor too. There was a stain on the wall, as if someone had smashed the glass against the wall.

  Someone. Who? Me?

  Who else? The door had been locked when he'd come in. Nothing was disturbed. He was the only one with a key.

  He must have come back and gone out again last night. He shook his head. If only he could remember. It was scary to lose little pieces of your life.

  Despite his throbbing head, he swept up the fragments, put them in the juice carton, and tossed everything into the garbage. Then he continued on to the bathroom for a shower.

  Half an hour later, clean, shaved, wearing fresh clothes, he felt almost normal. He'd go to the Friday night meeting of his AA group, something he hadn't done in years. He'd find another AA group that met on Saturdays and he'd go to that meeting too. He'd go every night until he was sure he was in control again.

  But it was only five o'clock. Hours to go before the meeting. His hand shook as he lit a cigarette. What was he going to do till then? He wanted a drink, he craved another damn drink. Good thing there wasn't any in the apartment. He went through the ritual of making himself a cup of coffee and worried about how he was going to stay sober until the meeting. He didn't have an AA contact anymore—Ev's had moved away a few years ago and he'd never bothered to get another. He'd thought he didn't need one.

  Work. Work was better than any contact, at least for him. He could lose himself in the calculations for his paper and the time would fly by.

  He sat down at his console and went through the routines required to access Darnell's Cray II. Then he used his private access codes to call up his personal files. The terminal beeped. He was stunned by the message.

  ERROR. FILE NOT IN MEMORY.

  He shook his head. Must have hit a wrong key somewhere in the sequence. That wasn't like him. More fallout from the binge. He input his access codes again, and was rejected again.

  No. This was impossible.

  Shaking now, he input an alternate access route to his backup files. Another beep. Another error message.

  Oh, no! Oh, please, no!

  He tried again. And again. The same result every time. The files were gone! Gone!

  He got up and walked around the room. This couldn't be! He was the only one who knew his access codes. No one could even find those files, let alone erase them.

  No one but me.

  He stopped in midstride. He'd been back here last night—the broken glass proved it. What had he done? Had he accessed his files and wiped them out in some drunken fit of self-destructive rage?

  That was the only answer. A year's worth of work—gone! It would take him forever to rework those calculations.

  He hadn't fallen off the wagon and lost a night—he'd lost a year!

  In a daze, he reached for his coat and wandered toward the door. He had to get out, take a walk, get away from that useless, empty terminal.

  Maybe to Raftery's.

  Bill rinsed the last of the dirt off his hands and forearms and reached for a paper towel. A good day. Despite Clancy's constant chatter about his sexual prowess, they'd managed to fix the last of the faulty fittings in the north lawn's sprinkler system today. It would be ready to go when growing season started.

  He was just about dried off when Joe Bob stepped into the washroom.

  "Hey, Willy! There's a lady outside wants to see you."

  "Who dat?" Clancy called from across the room. "His momma?"
r />   Amid the laughter, Joe Bob said, "No way. This blond babe's young enough to be his daughter. I think she's faculty. And she's built like a brick shithouse."

  That description fit only one person Bill knew: Lisl. He wondered what she wanted.

  The laughter changed to hoots and catcalls as Bill crossed the washroom toward the door, shaking his head and smiling at their good-natured crudeness. They'd all been half convinced mere was something a little strange about him because he never joined in on their "can-you-top-this" recountings of their sexual escapades. They actually seemed happy for him now, and he couldn't help being warmed by the groundswell of grtod feeling, no matter how wrongheaded.

  "Didn't I tell you guys," Joe Bob said as Will pushed through the swinging door, "it's always the quiet ones who get the quality pussy."

  He found her outside the garage door. As soon as he saw her tense, pale face he knew something was very wrong.

  "Lisl! Are you okay?"

  Her eyes filled with tears and her lips quivered as she nodded.

  "Oh, Will, I… I've done something awful!"

  Will glanced around. This wasn't the place for her to be telling him about something awful. He took her elbow and guided her toward the parking lot.

  "We'll talk in my car."

  He helped her into the passenger seat. By the time he'd slid in behind the wheel on the other side, she was sobbing openly. He didn't start the car.

  "What is it, Lisl?"

  "Oh, God, Will, I don't want to tell you. I'm so ashamed. But I need help and you're the only one I can turn to."

  Words from the past scrolled through his brain.

  Bless me, Father, for I have sinned…

  "It involves Rafe, doesn't it?" he said, hoping to get her going.

  Her head snapped up. She stared at him.

  "How did you know?"

  "Lucky guess." He didn't want to tell her that he'd sensed that the garbage philosophy Rafe had been feeding her would lead to trouble. "Go ahead. Let it out. I won't turn away from you. No matter what."

  There was gratitude in her eyes, but no lessening of the pain there.

  "I hope you feel the same way when I'm finished."