“Orientation and training,” he says. “I cater to a higher class, so those that sell for me must be able to instruct clientele on the most efficacious injection techniques. Different sites, different highs. Nobody else gets to see you. Just like last time. But this time, I’m not letting you go.”
I raise a hand to my face, surprised that he’s given me this much range of motion.
“Your eye is terribly infected. I’m working to save it. I wouldn’t want you to miss what I have in store for you. Veronica…” and he reaches his hand out and she comes forward, opening the pouch, giving him a bottle of eye wash. I feel artificial tears, cold and sterile, pouring into my skull in my good eye. “Let’s get you good and strong, make sure that heart of yours is healthy and pumping. See how tough it is. Today, if you tolerate your injection, I may let you walk around, get a little exercise. Supervised, of course.”
Ever the humanitarian.
This is the part of the movie where the lady loses all hope. I’m too weak to kill myself, I have no legs, only the reassurance that I may know what it all means just before the Doctor kills me. And then what will I have gained?
The Doctor fills an eye cup with a faint blue liquid from a different container. When he lifts the patch from my eye, I see nothing, no light, no shape. There’s a vague smell of sweat and something else. He flips the cup quickly, the liquid splashing across my dead membrane. It feels like someone is driving an icy steel rod into my brain.
“My, my!” the Doctor exclaims. “That worked better than I hoped.”
I close my good eye and watch colors explode across the room. My bad eye is rattling around my skull, pushing its way into my brain like fertilizing an egg, rolling down my spinal column. All I can do is retreat to the blackness, run down the dark alley of my mind, towards that subterranean entrance, and into the past.
* * *
The club is busy with drunken twentysomethings, lost and looking for an excuse to do something bad. They’re too busy with their own games to notice me. But the players notice. The connected men who line the shadowy walls, ring the pool table, they all stop what they’re doing when I enter. Just long enough to look me over. They know why I’m here, and they’re trying to size up the situation, see where they should place their bets. I’m not giving them much to look at. I’ve got a simple white dress on, a little clingy, but it’s the best way for them to think I’m not packing anything. Why bother? I knew it would be impossible to fight my way out of this.
In the back corner of the club, there’s a booth, slightly elevated, out of sight. The side walls are one-way glass, so whoever sits there can see the whole club without being bothered. Not whoever. The Doctor. He’s the only one who sits there.
As I approach his table, a hand reaches from the shadows and pulls me to the side. I feel a whisper in my ear before I really see her.
“Dear, you shouldn’t have come tonight.”
I look at Delia’s face, ancient and ageless, smooth as burnished leather.
“You’ll never leave alive. She wants to be here.”
I try to push past her, but she stops me again. Her eyes dart quickly to a door at the back of the room. There’s a short line of men waiting. The door opens and two guys walk out, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. They look guilty. And sated.
“She’s got the next shift if you don’t leave.”
I ask her why she cares.
“I don’t, frankly. Your husband—”
“—Ex-husband.”
“Yes. It would be awful if he had to intervene.”
“I don’t think you have to worry. He’s a chicken shit.” I move forward and her grip on my forearm is like a vise.
“He cares about her. He doesn’t want to see her hurt. But she will be hurt if you stay here. He brought his badge. If he has to pull it, I’ll have to help kill him, just to save face.”
That’s what you get for hiring an undercover cop.
“Nobody stands up to the Doctor. It isn’t done. You’re only guaranteeing your own misery—”
And I spin and push her aside, making my way deeper into the room. Let him pull his badge. Let him risk his life to show he cares. It’s the only apology I’d accept at this point.
Pompidou stands up from his booth near the corner, the whole room goes on edge. His stupid little striped sweater, his stupid tight pants. He moves right next to me, places an arm gently on my waist as if to dance.
“Ah can mek zees all go away…”
I try to move away, but he counters, stays with me step for step.
“You haven’t made zee challenge yet, and—”
He whimpers when I lock his wrist discreetly with my thumb and forefinger and twist. A hiccup now and I could shatter his wrist. “English,” I say.
“Bitch!” he hisses. “Fine. You haven’t made this public yet. For all anyone knows, this could be a big misunderstanding. You could be here to visit the Doctor. You go back there and make a deal. He told me you wouldn’t even have to apologize. Nobody rocks the boat, we go back to square one…”
“Do you think he’s watching us now?” I ask, knowing the answer.
My right hand pistons into Pompidou’s chest, driving the wind from him, crumpling him to the floor. “Now he knows I’ve said no.”
Across the way, my ex-husband is on his feet as well, finger twitching at the edge of his belt. Ready to commit suicide, ready to take a beating so that I can have a few extra seconds, some time, any time, to save my daughter.
Behind me, I hear the smash of glass, I see Clarabelle making his move. I lock eyes with my husband…ex-husband, and he nods. His eyes are hollow, the eyes of a corpse. I can just see the badge flipping out as Clarabelle connects and drives the half-bottle into the soft underside of my jaw.
“Police! This is a raid!” he bellows.
Everything blooms into searing white before fading down to red, and I’m running for the door, pushing my way into the alley where everyone is already at work on my ex-husband. Pounding, kicking, pouring gasoline. He started a riot. Complete and utter chaos, because he knew if there was one thing that would draw more heat than a turncoat, it was a cop.
This is the kind of fight where an ambitious young thug could slip a knife into the Doctor just to have a story to tell. No way can he come after me now. He just has to worry about getting out in one piece.
I’m feeling the beginnings of a full-grade concussion coming on, trying to work my mouth to scream, hampered by the cone of glass planted there. So much blood on me. My husband looks like a side of beef at the butchers, stripped and bloody.
I see the Doctor’s car across the way, my daughter slumped in the back seat, drugged and ready for her night with all the men the Doctor sees fit. I’ve stopped that much. There are men circling the car defensively, trying to hold a corridor open in the swelling mass of humanity so the Doctor can get to his car and get out safely.
I stumble, fall, flail. Men surround me, ready to destroy me for the Doctor. And then the fireball goes up. My husband roasting alive, screaming, burning hot enough to consume the bloodlust. Everyone has stopped to watch him burn. Some cheer, others move to put him out and are beaten back.
And Hooded Jack comes through. Gunshots ring out at the mouth of the alley, men begin to drop. I take advantage of the opportunity to run for the car. I grab my daughter. Her eyes are empty glass, she has no idea who I am. I hoist her on my shoulder and we run, hobble, move as fast as we can. Jack has been good to his word. His men lay down cover fire, enough for me to make it out of the alley, down the street.
And I hear my husband’s voice, still screaming, echoing off the walls behind me.
Calling my name.
Veronica.
Veronica.
Veronica.
My name is
* * *
“Madden,” I hear it in my mind, not a whisper, not a cry. A relative coming home. An old hope chest reopened.
And this is exactly what the Doctor h
as been waiting for. He smiles, his eyes watery and bright, arms extended to me.
“So nice to have you back, Mrs. Madden.”
My ex-husband’s name was Madden. Not Gavin. Frances just misunderstood. I misunderstood. I hid the truth from myself.
Why would I put myself on the list?
“How do you feel?” The Doctor sits at the foot of my bed, his hand lightly caressing my left thigh stump.
“What happened in your head just now? What did you see?”
I try to talk, but my mouth is gummed closed. Dry and rubbery.
“You were the first to stand up to me. What I did wasn’t because of you. It was for them. So they would know never to cross me. The city had to be reminded who I am.”
He takes out a vial of Clearwater and preps a needle.
“You know I could never let you go. I could never leave you alone out there in the world.”
I wonder if I’ve been here the whole time, walking the list to get back to my name. Maybe I never left the hospital. Maybe I’ve never killed a soul. My legs are gone, my body is wasted, my family destroyed, and it can’t just be because of drugs, it can’t just be a flashback or a hallucination.
It’s not.
There’s something more to this.
Something bigger than just…
The drug.
The Doctor drives it home into my inner thigh, and I get an instant jolt. He’s keeping me under.
“Hooded Jack made his peace with me. I tried to help you do the same. But you haven’t finished. Sometimes you can never apologize enough.”
His fingers trace over my thigh, and I don’t know if he’s talking about him or me.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Maybe you don’t need all of the answers to your questions. Maybe you only need to know one thing and then you can die happy.
My name is Veronica Madden. I will die full of questions. About Mrs. Robinson. About my daughter. About Veronica Madden.
Whatever the Doctor gave me burns through my leg. It’s swollen and black and purple, and I think they’ll have to amputate again to save me. Cut away more. Remove another piece and divine me from my innards, show me who I am.
I fall in and out of consciousness, seeing my life rush by like a terminal at the subway station. Just little glances.
* * *
Sitting in a hospital room on a gurney, coated in blood, unsure of what happened or who I am.
The Doctor is in the corner with an orderly, and they’re having a conversation.
The orderly rocks back and forth, staring at me. “What did you do to her?”
The Doctor doesn’t answer. He regards his tools on the table.
The orderly looks for any excuse to leave, but he knows he can’t go without the Doctor’s blessing. “Jesus Christ, I didn’t think someone could bleed that much.”
The Doctor turns, gives a quick nod to my left. “Get her up to Op-06, I have plans.”
I can’t really move my head. My neck is fully restrained, but in my peripheral vision, I see another gurney, painted red, glistening.
“They’re going to need a shop vac to pick up what’s left of that Baldacci guy. Cops are all over this thing…”
Fortescu stops the orderly, pins him to the wall and lightly presses a surgical knife into his throat. “You don’t tell anyone she’s here. You didn’t see anything.”
“What do you mean?”
Their voices go low. We must be in a fairly public room. The Doctor runs the knife along one of the orderly’s sideburns, shearing it off neatly.
“I mean you were not in this room. This never happened.” He nods at the other gurney, “She doesn’t exist.” He gestures to me with the knife, “She is not a patient here.”
“For my own good, right?”
“You have the right idea.” The orderly doesn’t move. Fortescu leans back, rests heavy on the gurney. “Would you like to join her?”
The orderly can’t stop staring at me, what’s left of me. He looks back at the Doctor and shakes his head. He bows. He lowers his head and stares at the floor.
“Then I suggest you toddle on.”
The Doctor approaches, his hollow footsteps echo around the room. He’s wheeling a small table, so much equipment I have no idea what he has in mind. I only remember that we were a team. Something must have happened in the field, and he’s the last hope I have to stay alive. All of this blood I must have lost.
“You know what they say about finding good help, Veronica…” He touches my cheek.
My skin feels rubbery, dull. I’m drugged to the gills. His mouth is moving, and I can hear his words coming slow and steady, out of sync…
“I’ll need to deal with him. Later, of course. I’ll be too tired by the time we finish. Now let’s talk. You know the rules. First, do no harm. And you harmed me deeply. You questioned me. You walked out. You tried to stand on your own. And I cannot accept it. I assume you’ll understand if I refuse to accept any further apology. After tonight you’ll understand. Sometimes, you can never apologize enough. This is a request from Hooded Jack. We’ve made amends.”
Then a scream like ten thousand demons, all the souls in Hell, my voice joining them. I see flecks of blood and flesh spatter the Doctor’s face, and I’m dimly aware that my left leg is vibrating.
A cool breeze. My foot is falling asleep. Just falling asleep.
And the Doctor holds up his bone saw. He raises it to his mouth, blows on it, smiles at me and shakes his head.
“We’ll have to get you to the ER after this. There’s a lot of blood loss. I hope they can save you. I really hope they keep you alive.”
He pulls the trigger on the saw and the screaming starts again.
Wiggle your toes, I tell myself. Shake your foot.
Wake it up.
Pins and needles, pins and needles…
* * *
An alley, somewhere, far away from Satan’s Inkwell, sirens in the distance. My daughter slumps out of my grip. She staggers to her feet, and touches my face.
“What the fuck happened to you?”
I try to answer her, but I find I can’t speak. The cut on the bottom of my jaw is raw and throbbing, my mouth is alternately bone dry and filled with blood. My tongue feels swollen to twice its normal size.
“I got something for you, make you feel better,” she says.
She reaches down the front of her dress, and I remember, what an awful dress for a teenager to be wearing, too revealing, not my daughter. I can’t tell her any of this now. It’s too late to tell her I care.
From her bra, she pulls a syringe. She grabs my forearm right at the elbow, pushes down hard with her thumb until a vein pops up. I want to tell her to stop, but my heart is beating and my mouth is falling apart and I can’t think.
Without asking, she shoots into my arm, holding her thumb there, the Clearwater making a small bump on my arm that grows into a pea and then a marble before she pulls out the needle. She massages my forearm.
“Sit back,” she says.
I do, because it’s all I can do.
“All I ever wanted from you was for you to leave me alone. You’re a monster. I love you, Mom.”
She staggers to her feet and lurches off, leaving me there in the puddles next to the trash cans. I can’t taste anything, can’t smell, now I can’t feel, because my body is riding Clearwater for the first time, and it’s my fault.
Not hers. She is innocent, a victim. I should have been there for her.
She’s a speck now at the end of the alley. From here, she could be just another woman on her way home, just another hooker on the street looking for work. She’s fading into the haze of the rain, and I don’t recognize her shape anymore. She shimmers, turns and disappears, and I let the high wash over me.
* * *
I wake up. They’ve moved me to a room, a recovery room of some sort, and my legs are throbbing. Itching. Burning. The skin feels like it’s all gone dry, peeling off, stripped away. I’ve got
hoses and tubes stuck in every part of my body, and my face feels like it’s been bandaged as well.
The Doctor sits at the foot of my bed. He knows I’m awake. Something is wrong with this picture, the way he’s sitting. Draped across the foot of my bed like that.
He smiles as he sees my eyes dance around, watches my brain work. “She’s almost got it…almost.”
It’s when I try to sit up that I realize my legs are gone. I try to let out a scream, but my throat is dry, my jaw feels like it’s been bandaged shut.
“The thought sparks in the brain, the synapses fire, electricity dancing across neurons, firing down neural pathways from the brain down the spinal cord, a sonar ping from on high doing a status check, and the answer comes back: something’s fucked up here.”
He cackles.
“You are one tough patient. A fighter. When I finished removing your other leg, I tried to start on your face. I was going to hold the trigger on the saw, just let the machine rest on your face and see what gravity did. But then I thought about everything we’ve been through together, everything we’ve done. You’ve made me a sentimental wreck. When I thought of all the time we spent together, I stopped…well, almost stopped. I got a pretty good rip in. And I thought…wouldn’t it be fun to see the pretty thing suffer? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see if she will choke on her own vanity at the sight of herself?”
He runs his fingers across my face, but I don’t feel it. He must be caressing bandages, gauze, plaster. “You’re hideous now, and you have to live with it.” He reaches down to my left thigh, and it feels like he’s reached inside my body to squeeze bone, pluck tendon.
“Sometimes, you can never apologize enough.” His face is beet red, veins throbbing in his neck and forehead. I can’t make a sound. I can only ride the pain.
He reaches to my left and holds up a little remote control, presents it like a waiter with a wine bottle. “Morphine?” he asks. “A very good blend.”
Miss Massacre's Guide to Murder and Vengeance Page 25
