The Cold Smell Of Sacred Stone m-6

by George C. Chesbro

  "I'll tell him-and I will order you a tray. It's roast beef tonight, and it'll be good."

  "See you later, Garth," I said loudly.

  Garth did not reply. Carling put his hand on my brother's arm, and without any further prompting Garth walked from the room.

  The big news on the cottage sheets was that Dane Potter had somehow escaped from the locked facility during the night.

  Having a psychotic, potentially murderous teenager on the loose in the county wasn't anyone's idea of a happy event; the local police had been notified; and a search was in progress. RCPC wasn't exactly Folsom prison, and kids sometimes ran away-but usually when they were outside on the grounds. Potter wasn't allowed outside, and no one was sure how he had managed to get away. There was some speculation that the boy had stolen a staff member's keys, or that a door had inadvertently been left unlocked. Whatever had happened, Dane Potter was long gone.

  Tense and anxious, wondering if I had done the right thing in exposing Garth to the Ring with all of its attendant emotional shocks and associations, I didn't have a particularly good day at the school. I was moody and snappish, and probably hurt the feelings of a number of kids who'd come to look for fun and games from me in addition to their lessons. It wasn't a performance that would win me a nomination for Mental Health Worker of the Year, and I tried to make amends by staying after school and going back to visit with some of the children in their cottages on the two floors at the rear of the building. I talked with Kim Trainor, Chris Yardley, and a few other older adolescents who were walking by the reservoir, and then played checkers with an eight-year-old boy by the name of Steven Wallis.

  Steven, with his doe eyes and dark, silky hair, was a beautiful child who, for some years, had been the object of sexual abuse by both his father and his uncle. He had managed to tolerate the abuse until he entered the third grade, when his marks had begun to fall precipitously. A bright boy, Steven had been able to function in his nightmare world at home because of his success in school, and with failure had come a complete loss of self-esteem and desire to live. He had tried to kill himself by drinking close to a quart of gasoline.

  Garth hadn't been too far off the mark when he'd said it was all wrong.

  It wasn't quite four thirty when I left the children's hospital; not feeling like hanging around Garth's room until he was brought back, I headed for my apartment. Still anxious and agitated, I was pleasantly surprised to find Veil waiting for me outside the staff building. The yellow-haired man with the glacial blue eyes was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and he was lounging on a bench set on the grass a few feet back from the sidewalk. He saw me coming down the street, stood up and waved with his good arm.

  "Hello, my friend," Veil said as I came up to him. "I figured it was time to get out into the country for some fresh air, so I rented a car, and here I am."

  "Hi, Veil," I said, gripping his hand. "Hey, I'm sorry I haven't been in touch."

  "Don't be ridiculous. You've got a few things on your mind."

  "How's the arm?"

  "The cast comes off next week." Veil's smile vanished. "How's Garth?"

  "You want a drink or something, Veil?"

  "Not really."

  "Neither do I," I said, and we sat down together on the bench. I brought Veil up to date on everything that had happened, shared my misgivings about Slycke's behavior-and my own.

  Veil was silent for some time when I had finished, staring out over the grounds where patients and staff members were walking in groups of two and three. "This is the first time I've been back here," he said at last. "It's been more than twenty years since I was committed. The place hasn't changed much-except, of course, for the fact that we didn't have a children's hospital then, and we were housed in these buildings with the adults." He paused, pointed down the street. "I was in Building 11-just around the corner from the fire-house."

  "God, you must feel spooky sitting here."

  "Yes and no," Veil replied easily. "It's like something that happened to a different person, in a different world." He paused, looked at me. "My point is that I have a lot more experience being certifiably crazy than you do. I hear you loud and clear when you say you're worried about Garth. Of course you are. But you can't press. That nurse is right when he tells you that you really have no idea what's going on inside Garth's head. It sounds to me like something close to a miracle has happened virtually overnight, and you're bitching about it. Think of where Garth has been."

  "I know where he's been, and I know I'm probably being childish and ungrateful. But to have Garth simply ignore me now that he's up and around is upsetting."

  "Are you sure he recognizes you?"

  "No. . I'm not sure. But I think he recognizes me, and he just doesn't seem to give a damn. His responses are totally flat, if you know what I mean."

  Veil nodded thoughtfully, then pointed to my forehead. "How's the cut?"

  "Clean as a whistle. You do good work."

  Veil reached out and gently peeled back the small bandage, grunted. "You should have listened to me and gone to see a plastic surgeon, Mongo. You're going to have a pretty nasty scar there."

  "Veil, I really don't give a shit."

  "Anyway, the wound seems to have healed. I think you can have the stitches taken out now."

  "Can you do it? You'll save me the trouble of waiting around some doctor's office for two hours for five minutes' work."

  Veil shrugged. "Hell, I put them in, so I may as well take them out."

  I found a pair of small scissors in a drawer in the kitchen. Veil sterilized them with boiling water, sat me down over by a window, then proceeded to remove the stitches from the wound in my forehead.

  "By the way," Veil said, "it looks like we won't have to wait around for Garth to tell us who poisoned him-assuming he knows."

  I reached up, pushed Veil's hand away from my forehead. "Did you. .?"

  "I didn't do anything."

  "But the police have caught him?"

  Veil shook his head. "Not him; them. Two men. The police don't even know about it yet, although they probably will by this evening. Chances are very good that they're K.G.B. They'd managed to infiltrate the manufacturing section of Prolix."

  "How do you know all this?"

  "Mr. Lippitt called earlier this afternoon to tell me. I was planning on coming up here anyway, so I said I'd tell you."

  "Why the hell didn't Lippitt call me?"

  "He said he tried to reach you a number of times, but you were never around. He also called your answering service in the city, but it seems you don't bother checking in with them anymore. He knew you'd be spending a lot of time up in the clinic, but for some reason he preferred not to call you there; he said it might make someone nervous."

  I thought about it, nodded. It seemed Mr. Lippitt wasn't quite as oblivious to Charles Slycke's sensibilities as I'd thought. "He's right. I should have touched base with him, or made it easier for him to get hold of me."

  "No problem. He wanted you to have the information as soon as possible, and now you've got it. Before I leave, it might be a good idea to set up some kind of system to make it easier for Lippitt or me to get in touch with you if we need to."

  "Agreed. You say the police don't even know about these guys yet. Then how. .?"

  "They took off; in effect, they fingered themselves. They must have been feeling the heat, and got a bad case of nerves.

  "Lippitt told me that the D.I.A. had been working on the case overtime-but keeping a low profile, because they didn't want what's happened to happen. There were a dozen people under surveillance; yesterday morning, two of those people failed to show up for work. The surveillance people let themselves into the men's apartments, found them both cleaned out. Both guys had split during the night without being spotted. But they were in such a big hurry that they left some tracks, and those tracks appear to lead out of the country, probably to Russia. Mr. Lippitt is pissed."

  "The hurry and the sloppiness sounds very un-
K.G.B.-ish."

  "Agreed."

  "Maybe they were just amateurs selling information to another company."

  "Mr. Lippitt thinks not. I don't know what the evidence is, but he seems certain they were K.G.B."

  I thought about it, frowned. "You say they may have been feeling the heat, but they were only two of a dozen people under surveillance. From what I understand, the K.G.B. is usually pretty good at making clean, orderly retreats. Why would they have suddenly panicked and taken off like that?"

  "Mr. Lippitt has a rather interesting theory on that subject."

  "Which is?"

  "Think about it. What's been happening the past couple of days?"

  "For Christ's sake, Veil, I haven't exactly been keeping up on current events."

  Veil's response was to go back to work on my forehead. When he had removed the last stitch and cleansed the wound with peroxide, he leaned back against a counter and made a gesture which seemed to indicate the building-or the entire hospital complex.

  "Garth?” I said.

  Veil nodded. "That's Mr. Lippitt's notion. It was four days ago that Garth first showed signs of coming around-after you started playing the Ring for him."

  "Wrong. Four days ago I played Das Rheingold for him, and he didn't respond at all. He cried two nights ago, but I was the only one who saw that. Nothing heavy happened until last night, and according to you these guys were gone by then."

  "To your eyes, Garth didn't respond to Das Rheingold. One of Garth's nurses made a note on Garth's chart four days ago that Garth had possibly displayed emotional reaction to a stimulus. The music, and your role, wasn't mentioned, but the possibility of increased awareness was."

  "How the hell does Lippitt know that?"

  "It seems your old friend has his own means of keeping track of what goes on in that clinic. He's been closely following Garth's progress since the day he arrived here. He knows all about the conflict between Slycke and you, because Slycke has been bitching about Lippitt and you to anyone who'll listen."

  "That's almost funny," I said, and laughed without humor.

  "What's almost funny?"

  "Slycke has been worried about me being sent to spy on him, and all the while Lippitt must know every time the man farts. It makes me wonder if Lippitt gave me that high-powered pass to distract Slycke from the real spy, or spies, Lippitt has in there."

  "That seems unlikely, Mongo, judging from the way he obviously feels about the two of you. But you know Mr. Lippitt better than I do."

  "Nobody really knows Mr. Lippitt. I don't think anyone but Lippitt even knows how old he is; they just know he's old."

  "Mr. Lippitt's thinking is that Garth, in hindsight, would know exactly who it was who tried to kill him. The K.G.B.-if that's who was behind it-would be very much afraid of that. As soon as it looked like Garth might be coming around, the two agents were given hasty marching orders."

  "I told you: Garth hardly talks at all, and what he does say doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

  "When the information was passed on, nobody knew what Garth would or wouldn't say; the source of concern was that he might be talking at all."

  "That would mean Lippitt isn't the only one with eyes and ears in the clinic."

  "Precisely Mr. Lippitt's concern. If his notion has any validity at all, it means there's a K.G.B. agent operating right under Slycke's nose."

  Even paranoids could have real enemies, I thought. And valid reasons to be afraid. "Jesus," I said, "it could be Slycke himself. It would certainly explain the supersnit he's been in since Garth and I showed up, wouldn't it? Maybe he has damn good reasons for fearing that Lippitt sent me to spy on him."

  Veil shrugged. "He's certainly made no secret of his distrust and suspicion of you. I think a trained operative would be a good deal more subtle."

  "Maybe he's being subtle by not being subtle."

  Veil smiled. "That's too subtle. Of course, it could be Slycke-but it could also be anybody with access to clinical information; it could be any of the psychiatrists, nurses, or other workers up there. It could even be a patient who'd been carefully planted; from what I understand, virtually anyone up there could have walked into Garth's room at any time, day or night, and seen the notation on Garth's chart."

  "True-except for the patients in the secure unit."

  Veil raised his eyebrows slightly. "People easily fall into predictable routines, Mongo, as you well know. People working at night often take naps at certain times. If I were an operative working a place like that, I'd prefer to be in a secure unit where my movements were supposedly severely restricted. I'd simply make certain I had a key."

  "A good point. But all this talk is highly hypothetical, right?"

  "Highly. Mr. Lippitt simply asked me to share his notion with you-and to tell you not to try to look into it on your own, in case you're curious."

  "I'm much more skeptical than I am curious, but even if it were the other way around, I wouldn't do any kind of snooping while Garth is up there. He's too vulnerable."

  "Yes. Lippitt didn't come right out and say so, Mongo, but I got the feeling he might like it if I rode shotgun for you for a while. Is there anything I can do for you or Garth?"

  I shook my head, absently touched the slightly puckered, still tender flesh just above my eyebrows. "I really can't think of anything, but thanks for the offer. Besides, the more I think about it, the more I doubt there's any connection between Garth coming around and the two guys taking off. Any spy sneaking in to read the chart could see with his own eyes that Garth wasn't ready to give speeches. Garth was nowhere until last night. I say you were right the first time; the K.G.B. agents, if that's what they are, got wind of the surveillance and decided to leave while the getting was good."

  "You could be right," Veil said evenly. "But you'll keep your eyes open, won't you?"

  "Sure."

  "You want to look at your scar?"

  "Not really. I hope it's sexy."

  "I'm sure."

  "Thanks for coming up to see me, Veil, and for delivering the message. I'll call Lippitt as soon as I get a chance and thank him, too."

  "How about letting me take you out to dinner?"

  I shook my head. "I'd really enjoy spending some time with you, and it would be good for me, but Garth should be back in his room soon. They've been running tests on him all day, and I'm a little anxious to find out the results."

  "Of course."

  "Thanks again for driving up. I needed to see a friendly face."

  "You'll see me again-soon. How about if I walk you to wherever it is you're going?" "I'd like that."

  8

  I was early, and Garth was going to be late. The guard in the kiosk had a note for me, from Tommy; Garth's testing was going to take at least an hour longer than anticipated, and the male nurse wanted me to come up to his apartment in the staff quarters for a drink and a sandwich.

  It was kind of Tommy to extend the invitation; I didn't feel like hanging around the clinic for an uncertain amount of time with nothing to do but worry. But I didn't feel like hanging around with Tommy Carling either. It wasn't company I needed, but release from the anxiety and tension inexorably building inside me. I needed exercise.

  I figured it would take me just about an hour to hoof it around the reservoir next to the hospital, if I didn't pause to watch the birds, and that seemed about right. Walking at a fast clip, swinging my arms like a drum major and not caring how comical I might look, taking deep breaths, I zipped down the center of the main thoroughfare, turned left after I passed through the gates on the eastern side of the hospital grounds.

  Fifteen minutes later I had reached the bridge spanning the reservoir. The fast walking and deep breathing had leached away a lot of my tension, and I felt better. Not wanting to work up more of a sweat than I already had, I stopped to rest in the middle of the span, leaned on the metal railing and stared down at the surface of the water, which was glinting and moving like a chestful of living jewelr
y as it reflected the last slanting rays of the setting sun.

  The harsh revving of an engine in the stillness, on an otherwise empty road, startled me and made me turn to my left-not a moment too soon.

  The sun was almost directly in my eyes, so I couldn't see who was driving the pickup truck that was barreling at high speed down the center of the road, straddling the white line; but I definitely didn't like the looks of what I could see, and I tensed, both hands firmly placed on the top of the bridge railing, and waited, wondering whether the driver was just in a big hurry, drunk, hoping to put a bit of a scare into me, or all three. The pickup truck continued to accelerate; when it was about fifteen yards away it abruptly swerved, coming right at me.

  I went in the only direction left to me-up and over the railing. I twisted in the air, and on the way back down once again grabbed hold of the railing, saving myself a dunking. The side of the truck banged into and scraped against the railing at the spot where I had been standing only a moment before. Sparks flew and I turned my face away-but not before I had seen a large decal of the familiar RPC logo on the door of the green truck; the vehicle was part of the hospital's maintenance fleet.

  As the truck sped across the bridge, I clambered back up over the railing and stared after it as it fishtailed out of sight around a bend in the road. One of two things was true about the truck, I thought; either it was stolen, or it was not. If it had been stolen, I was unlikely to find out who-purposely or not-had almost killed me. But if the truck had not been stolen, it shouldn't prove all that difficult to find out which driver had brought back a truck with a badly damaged side panel.

  But first things first, I thought as I started back the way I had come. I decided I'd had enough exercise; I definitely wanted to save some energy for a spirited interrogation of the driver of the pickup truck, if I ever found him.

  "Hello, Mongo," Garth said to me when I walked into his room at seven fifteen.

  Well, well, well.

  Garth sat at a card table which had been set up by the window, eating his dinner. The Walkman, its wires snaking up to the earphones on his head, sat next to his tray. He was still dressed in his pajamas, robe, and slippers.