Captain Quad

by Sean Costello

  "And so, ladies and gentlemen," Lowe said to the members of the Medical Advisory Committee, his composure on the verge of landsliding away on him, "I trust you'll agree that, armed with this proposal, we can approach the board with confidence."

  He smiled at the enthusiastic applause, but the smile was a brittle fabrication, on the brink of dissolving into a panicky grimace of need. He'd needed his fix before—the night his wife had walked out on him, her last word as she climbed into his Mercedes—"Half!"—clanging in his ears like a fire bell; that had been bad—but the craving had never been this colossal, this totally overmastering. His hands, which had shaken so badly during his hour-long presentation he'd had to stuff them into his pockets, kept wanting to fly up and tear his hair out in big bleeding handfuls. Lunatic laughter hunkered on the curb of his teeth, just waiting for a chance to go vaulting out of his mouth.

  And through it all, one thought rattled menacingly in his brain: What did that gimp fucker mean?

  (I know about you, Harry.)

  What did he know? He couldn't know about the drugs. How could he? He was bolted to his bed like an anvil to a blacksmith's block. Sure, he tooted around in his wheelchair from time to time, but it was damned hard to remain inconspicuous—

  "Fine presentation, Harrison."

  Lowe cranked his eyes into focus and tried to disguise his startlement. It was Dr. Javna, chief of staff, grinning through his neatly cropped beard, one hand extended and waiting to be shaken. Lowe dragged his hand out of his pocket, doing his best to rid it of sweat. "Thanks, Chief," he said, pumping the man's hand. He noted the sudden shift of Javna's eyes and felt himself shrinking inside.

  "You coming down with something?" Javna said, releasing Lowe's hand and rubbing his palm on his suit vest. "You're as clammy as a corpse."

  "Could be," Lowe said, thinking, Let me out of here! "Feel fine, though." He raked his papers into his briefcase.

  The chief leaned closer, green eyes twinkling. "Well, you look like hell."

  Lowe's gut cramped. Christ, do they all know?

  "Maybe you should go easy for a couple of days. The project is in the hands of the MAC now. Kick back a bit."

  Javna clapped him on the back. The sensation thundered through him. "Good advice," Lowe said. "Maybe I will." He smiled, barring back a scream, and dragged his briefcase off the table. "If you'll excuse me?"

  Then he was bustling out of the room, trying not to run, forgoing the elevators for the echoey solitude of the stairs.

  Shawna Blane scooped up a forkful of niblets and aimed them at Peter's mouth. Peter accepted the offering and chewed it dutifully. Three floors up, the MAC meeting was still an hour away from convening. It was six o'clock, a cold clear January evening.

  Shawna had tried to palm this duty off onto one of the students, but they'd had a lecture to go to and Shawna ended up saddled with the job. She hated coming in here. Peter made her nervous, and he just went on getting weirder by the day. Little wonder when you thought about it, which Shawna tried to do as little of as possible. If you dwelt on this kind of god-awful luck for too long, you ended up imagining yourself in the same cruel shoes.

  Shawna shifted back from the tray. She kept getting the unsettling impression that her charge was about to sit up in bed.

  "If you move any farther back," Peter said, amused, "you're gonna have to pitch that shit at me."

  Shawna blushed, the one thing she hated doing most in the world. Shifting a grudging inch closer, she rummaged in her mind for something to say—and while sawing off a hunk of veal it came to her. "How's your brother doing?"

  "Sam? He's got the flu." The veal came up and Peter accepted it, his eyes narrowing with suspicion as he chewed. Shawna had been avoiding him for weeks, and besides, she hardly struck Peter as one observant enough to notice that Sam had been absent for a while. The kid had called early Sunday morning to explain that he was down with a bug and that it might be a few days before be felt up to coming in again. "Why do you ask?"

  "I did a shift in Emerg on Saturday night," Shawna said. "Covering for a friend. I saw him there."

  "In Emerg?" Peter shrilled, almost choking on a mouthful of food. The alarm on his diaphragmatic stimulator glowed briefly, then winked out. "What was he doing in Emerg?"

  Shawna gathered niblets off the tray. Peter's outburst had made her knife slip as she hacked anew at the veal, and cold yellow kernels had gone scooting every which way.

  "I—I assumed you knew," she stammered. "He was pretty bunged up. I figured it was a car accident, but the duty officer told me later that he'd been. . . beaten up. Jeez, Peter, I'm sorry. I—"

  "Did they admit him?"

  "No. Dr. James wanted to—he was the duty officer that night—but your brother wouldn't have it. He went home."

  "Get him on the phone for me, would you?"

  "Sure."

  Peter recited the number, and Shawna dialed it. It rang several times; then Sam's voice came over the speaker, phlegmy and thick, drugged sounding.

  "Sammy?"

  "Yeah." Slow, deliberate shuffling. "Hi, bro."

  "How's the bug?"

  Peter dismissed the nurse with his eyes. Relieved, Shawna gathered the utensils onto the tray and hurried out of the room.

  "Better," Sam breathed. "Sleep a lot. How 'bout you?"

  "Forget about me," Peter said, his concern doubling at the pain in his brother's voice. "Tell me more about this bug. I've yet to see one that can punch the shit out of a grown man."

  "That's exactly how I fee—"

  "Can the bull, kid," Peter said. "You always were a lousy liar. Shawna the she-bitch tells me she saw you in Emergency on Saturday night. She said you got the shit kicked out of you."

  "Oh, that," Sam said. He chuckled, but it sounded like rocks being rattled in a paper bag. "No big deal. Got into a tussle at the game, that's all. Broken tooth. The coach made me get it checked out at the hospital." The rocks rattled again. "You should've seen the other guy."

  "Who was the other guy?" Peter said. In his capacity as older brother, he'd had to straighten out more than a few bullies in his time.

  "I don't know. Some wop."

  It was no use. Sam was a crummy liar, but over the phone he could hold out forever.

  Peter decided to pay him a visit.

  "When will I see you?"

  "Maybe tomorrow," Sam said. His voice had faded, as though the mouthpiece had sunk below his chin. "I've been sleeping a lot."

  "Yeah," Peter said. "You told me that."

  "Take 'er easy," Sam said.

  "You, too, kid. You, too."

  Gliding into the unkempt apartment, Peter was struck at once by the memory of his first visit here. The shrine was still in its place on the piano lid. The furniture was all as it had been, and from his vantage by the room divider Peter half expected to see his mother's head pop up over the couch back, her bloodshot eyes scanning the room in search of him. There was a head visible there, just the crown, but it was Sam's. The TV was on, tuned to the evening news, and as Peter drifted closer he saw the kid's bare feet, propped on the edge of the coffee table.

  Suspended on the stale apartment air, Peter floated over his brother's head—and then stopped, his heart filling with sadness even as his vision flashed white with shock.

  Sam was asleep, but Peter could see at a glance that only his left eye still opened, and even that to barely a slit. His right eye was buried in a shiny purple mass, the wet, crusted lashes giving the grotesque impression of cadaverous female genitalia. His nose, the size and shape of an Idaho spud, was taped and obviously broken. His parted lips, which had plumped up to negroid proportions, revealed two ragged rows of gums interrupted by sparse white teeth. Peter estimated eight teeth missing, maybe more. A rank of at least ten stitches pleated the line of his jaw. . .

  Peter looked away, dazed and glowing with fury. He could feel the sight of Sam's beaten face threatening to hurl him back to his body, and he steadied himself, needing to see the re
st. When the vertigo settled, he looked down again.

  Sam wore only his Jockeys. In this nearly nude state, the balance of the damage was painfully evident. A snug Velcro binder encircled his ribs, restricting his ability to breathe. Abrasions tattooed his chest like leopard spots, some of them already weepy with infection. There was almost no skin left on one knee, and the other was wrapped in a tensor bandage. A bruise the color of a setting sun screamed out at Peter from the flesh of Sam's right thigh.

  Oh, Jesus, who did this to you, kid?

  Sam's body jerked, the discomfort the movement caused him reaching him even in sleep, and he moaned, a tortured sound, like wind in a twisting culvert. His eyes backrolled beneath their lids, live things straining to escape, and he cried out again, swiping at the air with a half-formed fist. The fist plunked down to the couch, and was still.

  Dreaming, Peter thought, understanding the torment dreams could bring.

  Peter touched his brother's forehead. . .

  And with a faint twinge of guilt at his trespass, he entered his brother's dream.

  There was no incestuous rush this time, as there had been when he penetrated his mother, only a welcome surge of affection and warmth. He soared into the turbulent strata of his brother's psyche like a gull into stormy mists, feeling closer to the kid than ever before, at one with him in every sense.

  But this euphoric sensation was promptly shattered as he reached the tornado's eye. There was a brilliant flash of light, pain, then a skewed glimpse of winter night sky. Jacked into Sam's dream, Peter felt himself falling—

  Then a ring of angry faces surrounded him, steam jetting from flared nostrils, and pain exploded in his rib cage. One of the faces (that's Kiley that's Rhett fucking Kiley!) hovered closer until it filled the sky, and now its mouth fell open, releasing a run of meaningless syllables. Peter tried to get up and something socked him in the chest. Pain flared afresh and then he saw another face (Jerry!) and the dark, featureless oval of a third—

  Then he was plunging back through space toward the hospital, slamming into his body, a black, killing fury unleashed inside him.

  The screen winked out to a pulsing green bead; then it was blank. Peter could look at it no longer. His neck was killing him, his eyes had begun to ache. . . and his anger was making him crazy. After colliding with his body, he had tried to relax, to achieve the trance again so that he could go back out there and find those three fucking bullies. But when he closed his eyes he saw his brother's face, beaten to a pulp, and he knew that it was useless. He would have to calm himself first, channel the hate, make it work for him instead of against him. Needing a distraction, he'd switched on the computer and begun to write, but even that had turned into furious ravings.

  The dirty bastards had knocked out Sammy's teeth!

  That's it. Feel the hate. Feel it grow.

  There was no sense in going after them now. He wanted to relish this particular piece of revenge, and in his present frame of mind he would end it too quickly. Better to wait. Ponder the good old days for a while. Remember his three old compadres for the weasels they were. Kiley he could have expected this from, even Jerry. But Mike? What was he doing still jerking around with those losers? Hadn't he planned on becoming a pharmacist?

  Maybe it wasn't Mike. You didn't see the third guy plainly. What if—

  "Fuck that," Peter said aloud in his empty room. "Who else would it be?"

  All three of them had run out on a friend who was down on his luck. It only stood to reason that the same three jackoffs had trashed his brother's face.

  Gonna put a hurt on you boys, Peter thought, and chuckled. It looked as if he'd inherited his father's temper after all. Now it was just a matter of dreaming up something special. . .

  Peter's eyes settled randomly on the calendar on the opposite wall. It was a hospital-issue thing, with seasonal landscapes on thick glossy paper. It was open to January; today was the sixteenth. . .

  And then he had it.

  The third weekend in January, every year.

  The ice fishing trip.

  He had no way of knowing, but he was willing to bet that his three "good buddies" still honored that tradition.

  Peter grinned.

  Payback time—

  "Excuse me, Dr. Lowe?"

  Peter heard the voice only faintly, but it intruded on his thoughts like a scream; it was coming from the nursing station down the hall.

  Now he could hear Lowe's thudding footfalls—he knew them as well as he knew his own voice—but the doctor didn't answer the hailing nurse.

  Peter glanced at the bedside clock: 9:06 p.m.

  The voice came again, closer now. "Dr. Lowe? You've got a new admission and—"

  "Not now," Lowe snapped, and Peter could almost feel the desperation in his voice. "I've got to get to my office."

  Got you now, you fucking rodent.

  Lowe hurried by in the hallway. Peter caught a glimpse of him through the open door—a flash of suit coat, then he was gone. A moment later the door to the stairwell hissed open, and Peter heard footfalls stamping hurriedly upward.

  He closed his eyes, reached out for the trance. . .

  And slipped away.

  Finally he was alone.

  Lowe locked his office door, darted to his desk, and switched on the desk lamp. With mutinous fingers he dug in his pocket for his keys. They came out with a musical jangle. He found the appropriate key—

  And froze.

  "Who's there?" He squinted in the lamp glow, but could discern only the squarish humps of the furniture. "Is someone there?"

  No answer.

  Suddenly his scalp felt too tight, and he was breathing like a long-distance runner. He hadn't exactly heard anything. It had been more of a. . . feeling.

  Of being watched.

  Paranoia, Harry old boy. High-grade paranoia.

  And in that instant, for the first time in five years of mainlining drugs, it struck him.

  I'm a junkie. Addicted. Hooked through the balls.

  No way. . .

  Oh, yeah, son. Straight through the silky fucking balls.

  Lowe leaned back in his chair, waves of shock crashing over him—then he lurched forward, grabbed the wastebasket, and spewed his supper into the plastic liner.

  Oh, Jesus, I'm hooked, and that whining prick Gardner knows it. He hates me, and he's going to blab it all over the hospital—

  But no. Of course not. How could he know?

  And even if he did, he could be stopped. A simple malfunction in his diaphragmatic stimulator, late at night. . .

  (tonight)

  The thought solidified—then dissipated as a brilliant sphere of pain detonated at the midpoint of the doctor's brain. Lowe had a clear thought of ruptured blood vessels, and then even that thought blew apart. His hands shot up and clasped the sides of his head, squeezing, folding the slack flesh of his face into a grotesquely puckered mask of agony and confusion.

  He fought it.

  What is happening to me?

  It was a dying man's plea, mute and despairing—

  But he would not die. He fought for control of his mind, for command of his rebellious body. If he could just get his hands on his dope. . .

  Then it ceased. All of it. The expanding ball of pain, the bucking of his mind against its reins. Though badly shaken, he was lucid again, his body responsive to direction.

  So this is what full-blown withdrawal is like.

  The thought was little comfort.

  He searched for his keys, found them on the floor between his feet, and unlocked the bottom drawer. He almost fumbled the leather pouch bringing it out.

  Steady. . . almost there. . .

  Barely able to control his fingers, Lowe unzipped the pouch. He dug out an ampoule, a swab, a syringe. He tore the swab free, wincing at the sting of alcohol in his nostrils, then removed the syringe from its wrapper. Running the needle through the ampoule's rubber seal, he injected two ccs of air and withdrew an equal volume of
liquid. It was a potent synthetic narcotic, the color of spun silver in the mellow light of the desk lamp, and he had to get it in.

  After fishing a tourniquet out of the pouch, Lowe stood, brought one foot up onto the edge of the desk, and hiked up his pant leg, baring his stockinged calf. With some difficulty he got the tourniquet snugged beneath his knee and, after rolling down his executive sock, began flicking at a vein with a fingernail. The vein, a small one near the ankle, became quickly engorged, as if sharing its owner's need. Though the gauge of the needle was fine, Lowe made it a point to avoid using the more accessible veins of his arms. A single bruised track could give him away.

  He swabbed the vein vigorously, excited by its liquid shine. The needle, no thicker than a human hair, slipped painlessly into the vein. Lowe drew back a tiny cloud of blood, then shot the wad home.

  He released the tourniquet and sat down. Warmth wormed its way up his leg like the tongue of a veteran hooker. It lingered teasingly in the cleft of his groin, then continued its ascent through his belly. Lowe closed his eyes, inhaled. . . and finally, gloriously, the drug reached his brain.

  A smile of ecstasy creased his face.

  The world drifted away, became a remote, colorless mist, without connection or consequence. The desk clock ticked; traffic droned by in the meaningless distance.

  And the sweet dreams came.

  If he was going to do it, it had to be now. Though Lowe had resisted him at first, there'd be no fight left in him now.

  But, Jesus, he dreaded the thought of sinking back into that mind, or what in Lowe's case passed for one. It was a cesspool in there, a brimming slop pail more repugnant than anything Peter could have imagined. It reminded him of the time he and a friend had gone exploring in an open sewage culvert behind the Nickel Ridge smelter. It had been dark and wet and rancid in there, but to the two young boys they had been, it had seemed like a great adventure. . . until Peter's groping hand sank into the maggot-eaten face of a wino who had crawled in there the previous winter to escape the cold and then had frozen to death. But the spring heat had thawed him, oh, yes, and then the flies had found him. . .