"Twice a day, same as before."
Doc Wilson stared down at the floor. He tried to arrange his mouth into a smile but failed. He looked around the room, then headed for the cheap desk chair and sat down with a long sigh.
"Hey, you said good news. What's the deal?"
"That's nine injections, by my count. Starting with Wednesday night. Though maybe there were two Wednesday. Your assailant's, then mine. That would make ten. Depending on the strength of that first dose, we might be over already."
"Wait a minute. You're losing me." Thorn rolled back to the bed and slipped the Colt into his gym bag. He patted Monica on the leg. She swallowed back her frustration and stared across at the door. "Might be over what?"
"God, I'm sorry, Thorn," the doctor said. "This is all my fault. I should have seen this coming. There were signs. For years I tried to ignore his wild swings of emotion. I told myself he was getting better, getting a handle on things. But it was all self-deception. He was sick as a boy, starved for something his mother and I could never seem to provide. And he's only gotten worse with time. And I was always so preoccupied with my patients, their problems, and then when his mother died, with my own grief. My own loss . . ."
He looked up at Thorn. "I'm sorry, forgive me. I'm rambling."
"Good news, remember?" Monica said. "What is it?"
Doc Wilson pressed his palms together and squinted into the middle distance, as if trying to organize his scattered thoughts.
"Okay," he said. "Here's what happened. Eddie Robertson, he was in my office this morning for his weekly shot for tennis elbow. Steroids, methylprednisolone, same thing I was using on you. From the minute you walked into my office, Thursday and Friday at Baptist Hospital. Same supply I used for Eddie's shot this morning. That's when I knew."
His voice trailed off and the doctor gazed at the blank wall, his eyes failing like a man who'd gone without sleep for weeks. Monica cleared her throat. Dr. Wilson blinked and looked at her, then at Thorn.
"It's not steroids that were in those vials," he said. "It's something called marcaine, Thorn. It's an anesthetic. Very new. Cutting edge."
"Marcaine."
"You're not paralyzed. I was injecting an anesthetic into your subarachnoid space since Wednesday night. Every twelve hours, another dose."
Thorn rubbed his thighs.
"He's okay? He's going to be all right?"
"I'm afraid," Doc Wilson said, "there's more to it than that."
"Oh, that old story," Thorn said. "Good news and bad."
"It had to be Bean," Dr. Wilson said. "He attacked you, or had somebody to do it, and he gave you the first injection that night. Then he must have hit you in the spine with the rock to make it look like an accidental fall. Apparently he'd already broken into my office, substituted the marcaine for the steroids. I'd given him a key to my office a year or two ago, just in case something ever happened to me. He knew exactly what drug I'd reach for when you came to my office, and he knew I'd continue to treat you with the same solution."
"He must've gotten a charge out of that," said Thorn. "Making you his unsuspecting accomplice."
"And then," Dr. Wilson said, "when Bean stepped in to offer his services, he took over the shots himself and continued to load you up with anesthetic. His only mistake was leaving behind the vials in my office."
"All right," Monica said. "So what's the bad news?"
"This morning when I took Eddie Robertson to Mariners Hospital to see what had happened to his arm, I carried along the vial I thought was prednisolone. It took most of the day, and a very bright young technician at Mariners, but we were able to analyze the solution, narrow it down. I've never used marcaine before. No one I know has used it. It's a very new application. Very specialized. A kind of timed-release anesthetic. Polyester microspheres.
"When we were reasonably certain of the chemistry of what we were dealing with, I immediately got on the phone to some of my anesthesiologist friends in Miami. They helped me out, got busy, looked up what literature they could find on long-term dosing of marcaine."
"And?"
"Well, this is the part that's not good. Not good at all." Monica stood up. She looked around the room, her eyes jittery, as if she'd just noticed the walls were closing in. She moved to the door, eyed the knob.
"Jesus Christ," she said quietly. "There's no lock on this thing. He could walk in right now."
"It's okay, Monica. Let the doctor finish. Whatever it is, we'll deal with it, all right?"
Wilson rose from the chair, ran his hands through his hair. He smiled at Thorn for a moment, then looked away before his smile had a chance to wither.
"There've been only a few studies, rats, dogs, that have tested the prolonged use of regional nerve blockades. But what they suggest is that over time with repeated usage, there is an increasing concentration, a buildup in the spinal canal, so that long-term applications will almost certainly result in neurotoxicity."
"Thorn's been poisoned?"
"Not exactly," Bean said. "Based on the concentration of the marcaine in the solution in my office, and your weight, Thorn, we tried to calculate how many injections you could sustain before the nerve damage begins to be irreversible."
"What? Like a specific number of days or dosages?"
"Yes," he said. "There are variables, intangibles, of course."
"But you have a number, an educated guess."
Dr. Wilson nodded, eyes flicking between Monica and Thorn.
"I faxed your charts, your MRIs, blood tests, your complete workup to the specialists I know—the best neurologists and pain doctors in Miami. They sat down with everything, factored in your weight, your overall physical condition, your medical history. And they put that up against the dosages of marcaine you've been receiving."
"Well?"
"Five days, ten dosages," he said. "Beyond that the damage is irreparable."
"We're there now," Thorn said.
"Yes, and every hour you wait there'll be more motor function loss. Every hour, Thorn, less likelihood you'll regain mobility." Thorn nodded slowly.
"So come on, goddamn it." Monica moved to the door. "We can get out of here, have him airlifted to Miami, get him to the trauma center, start reversing this thing. Pump out his spine, whatever they have to do. I have money, I can pay whatever it costs."
Dr. Wilson stepped close to Thorn's chair.
"She's right, Thorn. Not about pumping out your spine. But we need to get you to Miami right now. Even under the best-case scenario, there are going to be some serious medical consequences. Spinal headaches, loss of motor function. Nerve damage."
Thorn rolled over to Monica, reached out, and took her hand in his and gave it a squeeze. He swiveled around to face the doctor.
"Tell me something, Doc."
"Yes."
"Were you on the Monroe County draft board once? Back in the sixties."
Wilson flinched, then held his ground in baffled silence.
"Were you?"
The doctor swallowed and his eyes filled with misty light.
"Yes," he said.
"Did you do something to keep me out of the war?"
The wind rattled some seedpods outside the window. Like a mobile of old bones stitched together by threads. The air leaked through the window frame and stirred the yellow shades and brought with it the fertile spice of Key West, that blend of honey and sperm, cinnamon and deep-fat frying.
"Did you, Doc? Did I get special treatment?"
Doc Wilson took a deep breath and let it go. He squared off before Thorn and shook his head.
"You never registered, son. Your name never made it onto the list. And though I noticed it wasn't there, I said nothing. If that was a sin, then I committed it. You were underflying the official radar even back then, Thorn. No driver's license, no social security card. You didn't exist on the social records. Not such an unusual thing back then in the Keys. You were one of many who didn't officially exist, and I saw no reason to bring you
or any of the rest of them to anyone's attention."
Monica was shifting her eyes between the two of them. A dialogue she could not decipher and wasn't sure she wanted to. She gave up trying and moved a step toward Thorn.
"No more talk. Now let's go."
"I can't. I've got to go along with Bean tomorrow. Find where he's keeping Greta."
"Are you crazy! And wind up living in a wheelchair forever?"
"I don't have a choice, Monica."
"Of course you do. You don't have to risk everything you have for some stranger you've never met. No one's asking you to do that. No one expects it."
"She risked her life, Monica. She went undercover to investigate Bean. She put herself in danger. If she'd found out what he was doing in time, I wouldn't have wound up like this."
"That was her job, Thorn. She was just doing what she was paid to do. And anyway, she failed at it. Because she failed, you're crippled. Is that the woman you want to risk your life for?"
"I love you, Monica. You know that, don't you?" He rolled toward her, but she stepped away.
"Maybe you do," she said. "But you love yourself more. You love some ridiculous idea of gallantry. Like some little boy in his sandpile, dreaming up adventures with his plastic soldiers, dragons and maidens in distress. That's what you love, Thorn. Some fantasy story you keep trying to get right. It's not about people. Not about anyone you love or care about. You don't even know this woman, but you're going to risk everything you have to play your sandpile game, to get her away from the dragon. That's what this is about, Thorn. Pure and simple."
She crimped her mouth and looked steadily into his eyes. Her words seemed to startle her, as if she'd guarded those thoughts for so long that she'd assumed they'd disappeared.
Wilson said, "It's not my place to tell you what's important, Thorn. But you're playing around with very dangerous stuff here. With what we know right now, we can have Bean arrested."
Thorn backed away to the bed. He could feel the breeze against his neck. Down the street a car revved to life, a limb scratched against the side of the house like some huge animal that wanted inside, wanted to join the crew and be cured of its relentless pain.
"If we called the police now," said Thorn, "and had Bean arrested, the people who are helping him could get rid of Greta in the meantime, and no one would ever see her again. There's a person out there who's alive and depending on me. She doesn't know me and I don't know her, but from my vantage point, it looks a lot like I'm the only person who can keep her alive. So I'm going to do it.
"I know it's gotta be tearing you up, Doc. Your own son using the cover of his profession to try to cure himself at the expense of anybody that gets in his way. I know that's killing you right now. And you want to rescue me before I turn out to be another of his victims. I appreciate that. I do.
"And I listened to your math. You think I'm teetering on the edge here. Nine injections, ten. But math can't account for everything. You said there were intangibles. Well, I think I can get in there, save this woman's life and get back out alive. Because I believe I can do it, that tips the balance as far as I'm concerned.
"So tomorrow, when I get back, we'll all go on a nice airplane ride to a nice hospital and we'll get my spine all flushed out and my legs working again, and everything will be as close to how it was before as we can get it.
"And maybe you're right, Monica. Maybe I am a kid in a sandpile playing out his fantasy. Maybe it's stupid and self-indulgent to risk my body for some stranger. But I can't help any of that. It's the fantasy that gets me through. It's the one that works. And anyway, right now there's no backing out. That's how it is. Doctor's orders or not. That's how it's going to be. Idealism, chivalry, whatever bullshit you want to call it, it doesn't really matter at this point. There's something broken and I'm the one who has to fix it. Simple as that."
Monica released a quiet breath, then she walked over to him, held his eyes for a moment, and stooped and kissed him on the cheek. Stood back up, eyes hard on his.
"Thorn, Thorn, Thorn," she said. "You idiot. You utter, complete moron."
He smiled. "Present and accounted for."
"Well, the least we can do," Dr. Wilson said, "is to make sure that no more marcaine reaches your spinal cord."
"There's a way to do that?"
"Yes," he said. "But the trick will be to do it in such a way that Bean won't notice it if he tries to give you another injection tomorrow."
With a pair of tweezers and a sterilized and straightened bobby pin, Dr. Wilson and Monica inserted a tiny wad of absorbent cotton into the catheter and tamped it deep into the tube. When they were done, the catheter taped back into place, Thorn sat up.
"If he notices that thing, he'll realize something's up. The whole thing will blow up in our faces."
"Don't worry. I believe I got it far enough in there, he'll never know. I may be a country doctor, but I can be as devious as any city specialist if the occasion demands it."
"We need a plan," Monica said. "We can't let you go into this by yourself, Thorn."
"All right," he said. "But it's going to involve a boat. Can one of you handle that?"
"Hell, yes," she said. "Just watch me."
***
After Dr. Wilson left, Thorn asked Monica about Rover. She said nothing, but went over to her purse, drew out a cylinder of paper. She rolled off the rubber band and opened the page and held the edges of the drawing flat against the table so Thorn could see.
Rover lay dead in the grass near the butterfly garden. There was no blood visible, no wound, but somehow it was clear that this was no restful afternoon snooze. The dog was dead. And its death was in every blade of grass. It was in the shadow lying across the right corner and in the single butterfly perched on the stem of a lantana with its wings pressed tightly together. Death was in the empty spaces as well, the white resonance of the sky, the blank distances beyond the foreground.
It was pen-and-ink like all her other drawings, but this was not like anything she'd done before. Things had changed for her, grown darker, flesh was on the bones now, and everything was far more serious than she'd anticipated. There was a dead dog lying in the grass and the drawing showed it without sentimental gush or exaggeration. It was exactly enough, not a line too many, not a line too few.
Afterward, she rolled the drawing up again and put it away, and then without discussion, she helped him out of the chair and onto the bed, and with the slow measured cadence of dream she disrobed him, then stood beside the mattress and unfastened her own clothes and let them fall. Her skin had the juicy gleam of a peach in late afternoon sunlight, and her body was tight and warm and even from two feet away gave off the aroma of a feast of soft hot breads glowing with butter.
She stood before him for a minute, then another, neither of them speaking. Standing there as if to let her nakedness reignite his pulse. The slender hips that were just generous enough, the lithe waist and tight breasts with their dark raisin centers, the wide shoulders with collarbone shining golden in the fragile light. She had dancers' calves, muscles so sharply hewn they looked to be constantly on the verge of cramping. Her head was cocked a few degrees to the right and her hands were clasped, almost shielding the spun wheat of her pubic hair. Her expression blended amusement with mild consternation, as if she'd tried to rouse herself to anger and had fallen just short. When she finally broke her pose and stepped to the edge of the bed and reached out to touch Thorn's cheek and settled in beside him, the air trembled in the room with the quiet voltage of a summer rainstorm, and his lungs were instantly drunk on her scent of apples and hay with the faint undercurrent of wood smoke.
The door was unlocked and there was a killer two floors above who blamed Thorn for his pain and was dedicated to making Thorn's life mirror his own fucked-up, miserable tragedy. And maybe Bean's hovering presence had something to do with their lovemaking; maybe the danger, the weight of the silence in the house, the vibrations of suffering all around them filtered into
the act and gave it a gravity they'd never known.
Or maybe it was simply that Thorn had always depended too much on the half that was missing to define this moment, a half that Monica Sampson showed him now in her long, delicate motions was not necessary at all, perhaps had never been necessary, perhaps had even handicapped him more seriously than he was now. How she knew what to do, the physics and geometry of this new world, he had no idea. It was as if she had been waiting for this moment, storing in reserve the burden of a knowledge greater than she'd been called on to demonstrate. And now she showed him all of it, guided him to junctures of flesh, slow mergings of muscle and blood that lofted him to groggy heights.
Perhaps it was also the blind-man thing, the way deprivation of one sense heightens another. There was only half of Thorn, but the half that was there had never been so receptive. His fingertips reading the Braille of her downy cheek, teasing the subtle fuzz on her wrist. No woman's flesh he'd ever known had been as various or succulent. The shape of her ear, the bristly nap on her calves, the delicacy of her toes. And Monica knew this and led him through the stages of desire, kiss and massage and stroke and counterstroke, until it was clear that Thorn's lost half was a half he could live without, a half that was simply not required for her rapture or his own.
CHAPTER 28
Two in the morning, Monday, Pepper was carrying Tran van Hung's luggage out to the hearse. A trickle of breeze coming from the east, stirring the oak limbs and making the shadows jitter on the pavement of Fleming Street like a gang of hoboes were dancing around their bonfire.
Pepper was having second thoughts, and third and fourth ones too. Not sure she wanted to leave Key West. Promising to go one minute, taking it back in her head the next. The idea of whisking off to the other side of the world, queen or not, it was starting to put a nervous quiver in her pulse. No friends, no one who knew her name. Hell, probably no one over there who could even pronounce her name. Leaving all her earthly possessions behind, her wonderful lowrider hearse, the Miss Begotten.
Red Sky At Night (Thorn Series Book 6) Page 26
