Babe was candy.
The Limper blocked his dive, and then the big-shouldered guy was all over him, slamming him back into the bathroom, and as Babe spun he thought Jesus, they’re going to beat me to a pulp again, and he tried some feeble defense, but it was garbage, the big-shouldered man was forcing him down, and then the bathroom lights went out and there was nothing but the sound of the rock music as Babe went into the tub again, his legs kicking and splashing, his head going steadily under water, so he knew it wasn’t a beating this time at all; this time it was drowning they intended.
No air. Even the rock sounds were gone now. Nothing in the world but giant hands keeping you down, even if you kicked, even if you tried with all you had to thrash and flail and find an opening. His kicking got weaker, less frequent. He wanted to go out as well as he could, because Janeway had said these were probably the guys who’d killed Doc and Janeway had been right about everything else so far, and the memory of Doc sent a new surge of strength through him, not much, but enough to get his head out of the water, and for an instant he heard again the blare of rock.
But only for an instant. The giant hands were firm now. No way to sway them. Nothing to do. So this is what it’s like to die, Babe thought. Underwater, he kept his eyes closed. It really isn’t all that bad, he decided; not as bad as you’d think.
But then he had to cough and his mouth opened and the water poured in, and the big hands held him down. No, Babe realized then. He was wrong about death not being as bad. All wrong. It was worse.
21
DAMP, DRAINED, PAJAMAED, IN a room, in a chair, tied, Babe awoke, alone and—hey how about that—alive.
He blinked, trying to sort out impressions. Nothing special about the room—plain-walled, small, but brightly lit—maybe unusually so. Nothing special about the chair either—except, he realized as he leaned back slightly, that it was kind of a recliner. He could adjust his angle within reason, although doing it didn’t greatly add to his comfort, because he was bound too tightly, hand and foot, for anything resembling ease. It must have been a while since they attacked, but it couldn’t have been too long, or his clothes would have been dryer. There were no windows in the room, but he was willing to bet it was still night, probably not much after three or in that vicinity. Summing up, he was uncomfortable, completely captive, undoubtedly the helpless victim of relentless sadistic destroyers.
But who gave a shit, he was breathing.
My God, Babe thought, what an underrated function—we ought to declare a National Breathing Week, pick some time of year, maybe late autumn, when the air quality was pretty decent, and just let the public go around inhaling the ozone. He was getting giddy, not proper behavior for historians—where would the world be today if Carlyle had gone giddy doing his rewrites?—but he couldn’t help it, he was there, present, the earth was turning and he was spinning too; he had no cause whatsoever for complaint.
From behind him a voice said, “He’s awake.” The Limper came into view, staring down at him.
There were more footsteps, and the big-shouldered man was on the other side of the chair, watching him too. He was carrying an armload of clean white towels, beautifully folded.
“Give me,” the Limper said.
The towels were handed across.
“Keep his head still, that’s the most important,” the Limper said, his voice suddenly going into whisper.
Because behind them now: quick footsteps.
Babe watched as the men stiffened slightly, almost as the police and the first crew cut had stiffened back in his room when Janeway had first made his appearance.
But this man now wasn’t Janeway. He was completely bald, powerfully built, bull-shouldered. And blue-eyed—bright, brighter even than Biesenthal’s. A squat bull of a man, but Babe had seen enough around campuses to be able to spitball that this one was not and never had been, anything less than brilliant. He carried a rolled-up towel in one hand. And a black leather bag in the other. He indicated that he wanted a lamp to be brought closer to the chair. When the Limper hurriedly did that, the bull-shouldered man spoke. Quietly: “Is it safe?” he said.
Babe wasn’t ready for the question. “Huh?”
“Is it safe?”
“What?”
“Is it safe?”
“Is what safe?”
As patiently as ever: “Is it safe?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
No change in tone: “Is it safe?”
Babe’s voice was starting to rise: “I can’t tell you if something’s safe or not unless I know what you’re asking, so ask me specifically and I’ll tell you if I can.”
“Is it safe?” the bull-shouldered man said, steady as a rock.
“I can’t answer that.”
“Is it safe?”
“I don’t know—don’t you hear me?—I do not know—tell me what the ‘it’ refers to.”
“Is it safe?” Like a machine.
It was getting to be the Chinese water torture. “Yes,” Babe said. “It’s very safe. It’s so safe you wouldn’t believe it. There. Now you know.”
“Is it safe?”
“You don’t like ‘yes,’ I’ll give you ‘no,’ it isn’t safe—very dangerous. Be careful.”
It was still said with infinite patience, but this time there came a finality into the tone: “Is it safe?” so when Babe quietly answered back, “I really really don’t know what you want me to tell you,” he was not surprised when the bull-shouldered man started to move to begin effecting changes. He gestured toward the big man, and immediately Babe felt the giant hands pressing in against the sides of his head, holding it tight and steady. The Limper brought the lamp closer still.
While the bull-shouldered man put down his black leather bag, he opened the towel, and Babe could see a bunch of slender shining tools. It was hot in the room, and as the bald man selected a tool he was perspiring lightly, and without a word the Limper reached across with a small clean towel, wiped the forehead dry. The big man’s hand shifted, forcing Babe’s mouth open. The bull-shouldered man took out a clean, angled dental mirror, then picked up another tool with a kind of rounded end. Concentrating totally, his blue eyes unwavering, he began to work.
My God, Babe thought, he’s cleaning my teeth.
Madness. The guy moved his tools around quickly in Babe’s mouth, light taps here, gentle probes there, all very deft. I wonder if I should ask him how bad my cavity is, Babe thought. Then he wondered what the guy’s fees were because what the hell, as long as they were all together, the guy could at least put in a temporary filling for a few bucks. For the briefest moment, Babe wanted to laugh.
Only, of course, he didn’t, because it wasn’t funny.
Because, of course, it was frightening. Dentists were frightening, no matter how much music they piped into their offices or the number of Novocain shots they offered. It was all very primitive. It went beyond pain.
The dentist meant fear, just like in Psycho, in the shower scene, that meant fear. There was something unconsciously terrifying about taking a shower with a curtain drawn, and it was the same with a dentist. You never knew what might happen next.
Christ I’m scared, Babe thought, I must try and keep that from him. He stared back into the blue eyes, thinking, I shouldn’t be, though. He’s not coming close to hurting me and he could have, he spotted my cavity first thing. Now he was back to it, using the spoon excavator, but with such caution it still didn’t hurt, and Babe was a terrific patient anyway, if anyone could be—he usually went through most stuff without Novocain because he hated the needles and the hours of numbness worse than the few minutes of actual discomfort. The bald guy was scraping gently, quickly away at the cavity, getting the decay out. The tooth was one of the four front ones, upper incisors, and as he sat there in the midst of his lunatic dental appointment, Babe didn’t know a lot of things, but one fact he was sure of: the bald guy was one hell of a craftsman.
His finger
s were strong, sure, lightning fast: They moved with almost unnerving speed as they cleaned out the decay. Babe, pinioned, could watch the bright blue eyes, and the concentration was incredible. Not a flicker; nothing distracted them. The scraping just went on and on and on. After several minutes, the bull-shouldered man stopped, took up another tool, looked for a long moment at the cavity. “Is it safe?” he said, his voice still as it had always been, patient, calm, seeming capable of enduring any wait until the sought-after answer was achieved, but Babe could only come back with “I told you before and I’m telling you now, I swear I don’t know.” That would have been his answer anyway; but before he got halfway through it, the bull-shouldered man took the new tool, a needle-pointed explorer, and shoved it up through the cavity into the live nerve.
The top of Babe’s head came off.
He had never experienced such sudden suffering and his scream was almost instantaneous with the attack, except the bald guy pulled the explorer tool out and the big guy covered Babe’s mouth with his hand, so the scream was nothing really: a little muffled thing, a child’s whimper.
“Is it safe?” the bull-shouldered man said again, patiently, his voice almost more gentle now.
There were tears in Babe’s eyes—he couldn’t stop them, they were a reaction, they were there. “I don’t—” he began, but again came an interruption, this time the big man forcing his mouth to stay open while the bull-shouldered man pushed the sharp explorer back up, deeper into the nerve.
Babe began to black out, but just before he could, the tool was pulled away again, and he could not reach unconsciousness. The bald guy looked at him now, gentle concern in the blue eyes. He understood pain, this one; he knew just how far you could push in, just when to pull out. He reached out again toward the towel, and then there was a small bottle in his hands. “Oil of cloves,” he said, the first time he had varied, and he put some on his finger, and the big guy forced Babe’s mouth open again as the bald one put his finger on the tooth.
Oh Jesus, Babe thought, the son of a bitch is gonna kill me.
Nothing like that happened.
The bald man gently rubbed the cavity with the liquid, and as he did it, the pain began to magically go away. “Is it not remarkable?” the bald man said. “Just simple oil of cloves and how amazing the results.”
Babe licked at the finger, ran his tongue across his cavity. The dentist smiled, took some more oil of cloves, rubbed it over the cavity again, expertly, soothingly, making the pain disappear.
Babe began breathing regularly again.
“Life can be, if only we will allow it, so simple,” the dentist said, pausing for the Limper to reach out, remove the least sign of perspiration. He held up the oil of cloves: “Relief.” He held up the explorer: “Anguish.” He took the towel from the Limper and dabbed at Babe’s features. “You seem a bright young man, able to distinguish light from darkness, heat from freezing cold. Surely you must prefer anything to my brand of torment, so I ask you, and please take your time before answering: Is it safe?”
“Jesus, lis—”
“You did not take your time, you rushed. I will not repeat the question; surely by now you know what it is and also its implications. When you are ready, reply.”
After a moment, Babe said, “I ...”
The blue eyes waited.
Babe shook his head. “... can’t satisfy ... what you want ... because ... I don’t ...” and then he said, “... please, aw please, don’t—don’t Jesus don’t” because the big guy was holding his mouth open again and the bald bull-shouldered dentist was moving in with the sharp-pointed explorer, into his mouth, into the cavity, up, higher, higher than it had ever gone—
—Christ! Babe thought, he’s going to push it through my brain! and then his senses at last gave out on him and he sagged, semiconscious, and as the straps were taken off he heard the dentist’s instructions being given: “Karl, take him to the spare room—take the cloves with you, and some smelling salts—get him ready, and be quick.”
“You think he knows?” the Limper asked.
“Of course he knows,” the dentist said. “But he’s being very stubborn.” Then there was a long pause. Then Babe heard the worst words of his life: “Next time I’m afraid I’m going to really have to hurt him.”
The big-shouldered guy, Karl, lifted him then. Babe blinked as Karl carried him out of the bright room and down a long hall in what must have been a railroad-car type apartment, and at the far end of the hall Karl pushed a door open and dropped Babe on a bed in the far corner and shoved some smelling salts in his face, and Babe blinked, coughed, coughed again, he couldn’t stop coughing, so he tried to turn away, but Karl wouldn’t let him, he could not escape the smelling salts, and when he was finally able to keep his eyes open, Karl said, “Take this,” and shoved the oil of cloves bottle at him and poured some on Babe’s finger, and Babe groggily pushed the finger against the wounded tooth, trying to make the pain go away again, and he licked the tooth too, the warm covering of his tongue helping some, and then he held out his finger again for more of the oil of cloves, and as Karl poured, Babe was somehow able to force a single thought through his unclear head, and that thought concerned life and how uneven it was, what a jagged craggy thing, peaks naturally following valleys as you moved along, because no more than a few minutes earlier he had heard with his very own ears the worst words of his existence, the news that the bull-shouldered dentist was going to really hurt him soon, that the agony he had lived through up till now was just a warm-up, the prelims, kid stuff, and here, not many minutes later, he was able to see with his very own eyes the most glorious vision he had ever been privileged to behold in all his troubled years, because behind Karl now, moving silently, slowly, through the door, came Janeway, with just the most beautiful knife held tight in his hand ...
22
BABE REALIZED THAT HE had to keep his eyes away, not just from Janeway but from Karl too, because if the big man ever saw them, he would know that something was ten feet behind him, and if he turned in time, Janeway would be finished, because even though he had a knife, Karl had cornered the market on brute power. “... Please ... more ...” Babe muttered staring hard at the mattress he was sprawled across. “... More ...” and he held out a trembling finger for the oil of cloves.
Instead, Karl shoved the smelling salts full into his face, and the strength and surprise of that sent Babe falling full out on the mattress, gagging and coughing again, and it was rotten, sure, but it got him a chance to shoot a look toward Janeway, to see how he was doing on his wonderful errand of mercy.
Eight feet to go. Maybe seven.
Silently, Janeway was coming on.
Look away! Babe commanded, immediately obeying himself, forcing his body back onto one elbow. “... The other ... please ... the other ... for the pain ...” and this time Karl did allow him the oil of cloves, pouring it on Babe’s finger, and Babe raced the finger to his mouth, rubbing and rubbing the damaged tooth, and whatever the stuff was, whatever was in it, it was amazing because the ache in his mouth was diminishing rapidly, but he had to keep that bit of news from Karl too, lest the big man start to drag him back to the chair, and anyway, where the hell was Janeway, what was keeping him?
Unable to help himself, Babe risked the glance, one fast eye flick, and Janeway was close now, not close enough for an accurate strike, but he had traversed most of the distance, and more than that, he hadn’t made a sound. He must be part Indian, Babe decided, to cross a room in total quiet, and he dropped his eyes and began to rub his tooth and tongue it, and make weak appreciative sounds.
Three feet to go.
And coming. Aaaaaaannnd coming.
“... Please just a little more ...” Babe said, but he said it either too fast or too loud or perhaps it was the combination of the two coupled with the glance he’d made toward Janeway.
It didn’t really matter what his specific mistakes were; the conclusion was the bad thing, because, without preparation,
Karl turned, saw Janeway, began to give a cry of warning as he stood with surprising speed, his great killing arms already in position to slaughter Janeway.
Karl was candy.
Babe never saw anyone move like Janeway moved, nowhere near that quick, because in one single blurred motion he stepped inside the bigger man’s arms, spun him, threw his left arm around Karl’s throat, lifted Karl slightly off the ground, using his left hip for leverage.
And then Janeway’s right hand moved.
Babe saw it all. He was staring into Karl’s peasant face as the right hand thudded home. Karl screamed like a baby, then pitched forward across the bed, Janeway’s knife sticking out of him, and if you made an X on a man’s back opposite from where the heart would be, that was where the handle held.
Janeway grabbed Babe, pulled him up, yanked him out of the room, down the railroad-flat corridor, grabbed a door open, revealing the flight of steps to the street and cried “Go!” to Babe as the Limper appeared at the end of the hall, gun in hand. But Janeway outclassed him, because now there was a gun in his hand too, and he fired and fired again, and Babe did his best with the stairs, holding tight to the banister with both hands as behind him he heard the Limper’s shrieks, and they went on until Janeway fired a third time, and that was that as Janeway ran down after Babe, catching him easily, leading him the rest of the way to the street. It was dark and empty, and Babe didn’t know where the hell he was; the house they’d left was a boarded-up slum place next to a warehouse, but that was all Babe could make out, because Janeway was yanking him, not caring if Babe stumbled, and then throwing a car door open, shouting, “Get in—no, goddammit, the back—get in the back and lie down,” and Babe tried to obey, but not quick enough for Janeway, who shoved him hard, ordering “Down—down—get on the floor and stay still!” and once Babe did Janeway slammed the door shut, turned the ignition, gunning the car with all he had as they roared into the night.
The Novels of William Goldman Page 109
