Bad Medicine: A Mystery Thriller (Winton Chevalier Book 2)

by John Oakes

  “Whaa?” Julius moaned.

  “When you fight raccoons as much as I do,” Cletus said, “you gotta play to win.”

  Winton rolled to his stomach, coughed and spat in the dirt.

  “So hush up. It’s just a bit of cayenne pepper soaked in dog urine. You’ll be fine.”

  This information set off a wave of heaving and retching from Julius and Winton.

  Cletus sniffed the gun. “Oh, never mind. Ran out of dog piss, so I went to my back up.”

  “What’s your back up,” Winton asked. “Coyote piss?”

  “Nah, man, you ever try to get a coyote to piss for you?”

  “No,” Winton screeched.

  “Yeah,” Cletus said. “You’re fine. In this one, I used Mountain Dew: Code Red. Raccoons hate it as much as the dog piss.”

  The pain began to subside, but Cletus leveled the gun again and pumped it twice. “You gonna git gone, or you need another money shot.”

  “No, man,” Julius held his hands up. “We’re gone.”

  “Hold up,” Winton said. He stood and stared into Cletus’ eyes as best he could despite the snot and tears streaming down his face. “Juanita.”

  Cletus’ head cocked to the side.

  “That’s right,” Winton said. “Juanita says hello.”

  Cletus drew one eyelid down and raised the muzzle a hair.

  Winton stepped closer, eyes open at point-blank range of the Raccoon Juice gun. “Help us, and we’ll take you to her.”

  Finally, something in Cletus relented. His shoulders drooped, as if he’d been carrying a weight that suddenly dropped away. He took a breath. “Lie to me, little man,” Cletus inclined his head, “and I’ll eat your grandma.”

  Winton blinked then nodded. “I have no doubt of that.”

  SIXTEEN

  Winton had an easier time than Julius crawling through Cletus’ “door” but they got inside without any scrapes. The inside was lit by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling, illuminating a mattress on the floor next to a bookcase with plastic bowls and utensils, some food items and a teapot. In the opposite corner, a squat toilet sat unguarded from the rest of the small space.

  “That’s my new thunder bucket,” Cletus said. “It’s like a crematorium for my poops.”

  “Oh,” Winton said, “so that’s why we didn’t find a trashcan.”

  “I upgraded,” Cletus said with a hint of pride. “The experts claim it’s better for the environment than lighting a trash can full of shit on fire.” Cletus nodded thoughtfully. “I like the environment. It’s where most things are.”

  “Agreed,” Julius said. “That toilet incinerator smell the place up?”

  “I can’t tell either way, but I bet it smells a piece better than the alternative.”

  Winton went wide eyed thinking that would be a sight to behold. “Wait, you can’t tell the difference?”

  “Don’t have no sense of smell,” Cletus said. “Not anymore. Not since Obama got elected.”

  “You think Obama took your sense of smell?” Julius asked.

  “Listen to yourself. You sound like a damned idiot,” Cletus said, smirking. “Of course Obama didn’t take it.” Cletus rolled his eyes. “His army of lizard henchmen woulda done it.” He winced and shook his head in frustration.

  Julius and Winton exchanged a confused glance.

  They sat on the floor, and Cletus sat on his new toilet, seat down. They unwrapped burgers and sacks of fries that they let Cletus pay full attention to before asking any questions. When the time was right — the moment Cletus stopped to take two breaths in a row before taking another bite — Winton edged closer. “Cletus, will you tell us the story of what happened at Maryvale?”

  Cletus stared off at the wall, jaw pistoning up and down with machine-like efficiency. “Okay.”

  “Good, good.” Winton nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “It’s a sad story,” Cletus said. “You know, because when snakes started talking to Harry Potter, he got to go to Hogwarts. But when snakes started talking to me, I got sent to the Maryvale Institute.” Finally, he locked eyes with Winton. “And brother, that shit wasn’t Hogwarts.”

  Cletus continued on staring at the wall, speaking in the present tense, as if he were back there in the moment. “Maryvale is full of white coats and black hearts. Intellect is a funny thing when it comes down to it. A lot of smart folks here, but they’re using their minds for evil shit, treating those of us on the other side of the net like human lab rats.” Cletus balled a napkin up in his fist. “Well, today’s the day I take a stand. Today’s the day I kill Dr. Jansen and prove once and for all that I’m not crazy and there is justice.”

  He looked them in the eye again, as if daring them to question him. Then Cletus switched his story back to the past tense.

  “The day I decided to do it, Nurse Juanita bumps me with her big juicy hip and shakes me out of my reverie, rattling a plastic cup full of pills. Some pills I recognize. The blue ones shaped like torpedoes, the purple round ones and the pale yellow quick dissolve tab I see more or less every day. I see a green gel cap, and that’s new. I toss it down wondering what manner of shit they’re feeding me.

  “‘You’re a good boy,’ Nurse Juanita said. She’s pretty, and she likes to rub up against my person when no one’s looking, so I don’t mind her talking down to me like we ain’t the same age. Maybe more people showed a man a little consideration the way Nurse Juanita does, and I wouldn’t have so much of a problem with Maryvale and its mystery pills.”

  Winton eyed Julius and gave a nod, noting that last part for future conversation.

  “Last week,” Cletus continued in his recounting, “I couldn’t take a dump to save my life. The goddamn red shiny pill. It don’t take you into the Matrix; it just blocks your colon up like the Hoover Dam. When I finally begged and pleaded enough, I got a little white pill, and brother, let me tell you what the white pill does. The white pill clears your guts out like a girl who just dumped your cheating ass, and she’s throwing your clothes out on the street. And just when you think your lady done dumped all your belongings in front of the neighbors, she finds old boxes you never unpacked when you moved in. Then she finds things you share and chucks it out over the balcony too. Then this bitch so good and mad at you, she starts throwing some of her shit out the window just out of pure unbridled rage and contempt for your person.” Cletus took a long deep breath. “That’s what the white pill do.”

  Cletus stopped to eat some more. Just when Winton was growing restless enough to prod Cletus on, Julius put a hand on his shoulder, silently telling him to wait. Sure enough, a moment passed, and Cletus began again.

  “I come to know a lot of pills in my time at Maryvale. I come up with little names for them like slouchy, or boner beads, or scratch and sniffs. After a couple weeks, one leaves and one or two more appear new. Some of the ones that left us end up getting all sorts of fool names like Metrixol, and Panifrex and Lutuvia, like they trying to come up with names for some Greek naval battle.

  “Now, maybe you thinking that it ain’t right for them to be giving us residents of this paradise for the mentally deficient all sorts of pills we don’t need, strictly speaking. And brother, I’d have to agree with you. So, sorry if I scared you already talking how I’m gonna kill the doctor, but I got my reasons. And yeah, the white pill is one of them.”

  Something in Cletus’ eyes shifted, and he spoke in a feminine tone. “‘Meet me in our spot once I’m done with meds.’ Nurse Juanita puts a little wiggle in her tail as she pushes her cart away.

  Sweet Lord, now I have to alter my time table just a bit.

  Nurse Juanita comes into the broom closet just like we planned, and she tears off her little hat they make them nurses wear.

  ‘Nurse Juanita, you ever feel bad for taking advantage of a mental incompetent like myself?’

  She leans up against me, pressing her big titties into me and reaching down for my manhood. I’m ready and willing, despite my question.


  ‘Oh, Cletus, you ain’t crazy.’

  ‘Well, I can talk to snakes.’

  ‘Anyone can talk to whatever they want.’ She unbuttons her top and pops her big breasts out her bra and bunches ‘em together the way she know drives me mad. ‘Watch me. I’m about to charm a snake.’

  ‘But, Nurse Juanita, them snakes talk back to me.’

  ‘Oh, baby,’ she said like she pitied me. ‘See if he don’t talk back to me.’

  And Nurse Juanita starts greasing my pole like the dirtiest thing this side of the Mississippi.”

  Cletus seemed to break from his deep retelling of the events at Maryvale to make a philosophical point. “It ain’t rocket science. Don’t know why all the world’s so in a fuss about the opposition of the sexes. In my experience, we all got what the other needs most.” He gave a confident nod of his head to punctuate his point, then was lost again to the story. “Anyhow. Now Nurse Juanita was working them fun bags up and down my shaft. I should be in the moment, just focusing on my flow, how you do, but I can’t help but thinking Nurse Juanita may not be working my shaft anymore after today. And brother, as I stand here being fellated and tit-rubbed by a beautiful woman, let me tell you. Ain’t nothing sadder than a tit job that could make a man sad.”

  Cletus seemed overcome with emotion, feeling the pain of the moment. What he so indecorously described was actually quite sad, Winton thought. Leaving the only good thing about Maryvale in order to save himself.

  “Golden Girls is on. Another unfortunate delay in my schedule. I ain’t missing Golden Girls for nobody, no thang, no how. Me? I think it’s pretty clear I’m a Blanche what with being fast and loose with my naughty bits, but ultimately looking for true love. This is the episode where Blanche thinks her sister wrote a risqué book about her life. A real classic. My mother’s mother was a funny old white lady from Georgia. That’s why I like me some Golden Girls. Like getting to hang out with meemaw.

  “After Golden Girls is over, I make my way to the dining hall for dinner. Ridley gives me a knowing nod as he ladles some bullshit on my tray. That means the back door into the kitchen is propped open like for a food delivery. My heart’s thumping in my throat, but I do it anyway. I slam my tray with its piping hot contents right into the face of an orderly, then I vault over the counter into the kitchen and unlock the door to the dining room. I yell at the top of my lungs for us all to go. Stop taking these pills they’re giving us. But no one moved. I shouted at them until I was hoarse and crying, but no one came.

  “An orderly came at me, and I give him a swift kick to the nuts. I dashed back into the kitchen and made for the door where another orderly was blocking the way. He was bigger than me, but I was faster. If I coulda got by him, I coulda run, and that’d be it. But then Doctor Jansen was there behind me. ‘Cletus,’ he said. ‘Come back in now and your punishment will be slight.’

  “I remember looking at him the way a lion must look at a smart ass gazelle. My fucking dinner’s not gonna talk to me that way. I pick up a knife and I hold it over one of the burners. I let ‘em come for me. By the time they reach me, I’ll be ready. When Jansen pulled out the needle, and the orderly pulled out the cattle prod, I saw the pieces on the board. By now the kitchen staff is all gone. It’s just the three of us. I surprised them by ducking past Jansen and shoving a table into the door to the hall, locking them in the kitchen with me. ‘Run while you can,’ I says. They came at me.

  “I don’t remember it all, what happened. I got the cattle prod. The orderly got a hot knife in the thigh. I took the cattle prod and jammed it up his ass, and held it there watching him bucking and flopping. I bet he had to wear diapers for a little while. Good. Doc Jansen got the needle in my neck, but I’d seen him coming at the last second and spun. I pounced on him and gave him a little stab in the neck with my cattle prod. He shit his pants, pissed himself. I shocked him until the eyes rolled back in his head and he was foaming at the mouth. Then I heard Juanita screaming. I finally looked up, and she was banging on the sneeze guard, crying, telling me to run. So, I did. And that’s what happened at Maryvale.”

  SEVENTEEN

  A somber silence stretched out after Cletus finished telling his story. Winton realized he had an unchewed bite of his burger sitting in the side of his mouth. He’d been so wrapped up in Cletus’ story he’d forgotten to chew it. He took care of that and asked softly, “Do you remember how you ended up at Maryvale?

  “I remember times before it. I was living down in Houston. I remember being at Maryvale some time before I really got my wits back.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “Maybe, two years, Jack, but it coulda been six months. It’s all just so hazy.”

  “Did you ever feel like they were trying to keep you docile?”

  “That’s what I been trying to say.”

  “Did they ever try to brainwash you?”

  “Like a cult? No sir. But they took a lot of blood. Every week, twice a week. Urine, stools. Cheek swabs. Blood pressure. Asking about symptoms whether you were complaining about them or not.”

  “How long you been living here, then?” Julius asked.

  “A year, I reckon.”

  Winton and Julius exchanged one of their wordless glances.

  “Cletus,” Winton began, “Doctor Jansen is still alive.”

  Cletus shrugged.

  “You don’t care?”

  “I try not to. I got my own life to attend to.”

  “How many doctors were there at Maryvale?”

  “A few. But I didn’t know them all.”

  “Was there a slick cat,” Julius asked. “Looked Middle Eastern or Indian?”

  Cletus pouted in thought. “Don’t recall. Sorry.” He picked up a french fry and threw it in his mouth.

  “They work together now,” Winton said. “We think they’re selling drugs, party drugs. And I have a suspicion that they’re keeping vagrants in their facility to do experiments on.”

  “Where?”

  “Galveston.”

  “Galveston?” Cletus said. “That’s a funny place. A place where you can sell dreams.”

  Winton wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Well, thank you for talking to us.”

  Julius nodded. “You need anything in here we can get for you?”

  “I got a man looking out for me. He’s real rich.”

  “Oh, is that so?” Julius asked with a smirk, as if it were just another bit of crazy talk.

  But the comment caught Winton’s attention and spun in his mind. The new incinerator toilet. The plentiful food. The mattress on the floor that was almost brand new.

  “Cletus, do you know a guy named Cody Latour?”

  “I know a guy who calls himself that, even though he looks like a Trevor.”

  “He a tall son of a bitch? Friends with Ricky?”

  “Yeah. That’s the one.”

  “Well, I’ll be.” Winton looked around, astonished. “Cody and I have really got to do some catching up.” Cody was a business associate who’d been instrumental in the creation of the resort, “The Island” as it was affectionately called. He and Winton had built a friendship that made each one a better, more whole person, but it’d been over six months since they’d had a chance to connect.

  “All I need from you two,” Cletus said, wrapping up half of his burger, “is a ride to wherever Juanita is.”

  Winton pulled a face. “See, we have this thing with the police. We have to get back to Galveston. Can it wait a couple days?”

  Cletus’s expression soured, and his shoulders seemed to expand in breadth. “You ain’t playing games are you?”

  “Easy, friend,” Julius said. “We’re not playing games. Chill.”

  Cletus took a breath. “Fine then. But knowing where she is ain’t enough. I need a ride.”

  “Catch the murderers first,” Julius said, hands poised together. “Then we bus you to your hook up. Can you appreciate the logic?”

  Cletus sucked
his teeth and nodded. Winton and Julius thanked him again and departed on their hands and knees, dusting themselves off on the walk back to the sedan.

  “Well, that was fucking something,” Julius said.

  They got on the road back toward the coast and settled into a comfortable silence where Winton gathered his thoughts. Julius had been doing the same, and asked, “So these docs at Maryvale were running tests on their patients.”

  “Yeah,” Winton said. “Not sure why, though. A clinical study is usually more involved. They account for all variables. They do double-blind studies, use placebos as controls, the whole gamut.”

  “And I bet that’s expensive as hell,” Julius said. “And what if your drug ends up failing certain standards in the experiment?”

  “It’s almost like a little anecdotal testing on humans could set off red flags, like in a good way. You could spot and fix potential problems before ever going to full-scale trials.”

  “These companies could save a whole heap of money over time.”

  “Money that goes right into the pockets of owners and shareholders.” Winton scoffed. “And in the pockets of the doctors who facilitated it, like Doctor Jansen.”

  “That’s some disgusting shit on the other end, though. Pulling homeless people off the street because no one will miss them.”

  Night settled and the highway lights grew dimmer and farther apart as they cruised through rural South Texas. The air got surprisingly cold, and they both rolled up their windows. Winton folded his arms. “You know, this whole time I’ve been thinking about the mystery that started this departure from our man-on-man getaway.”

  “The mystery of how you’re gonna deal with your demons?”

  “The mystery of why Ryan Spencer killed himself.”

  “I thought we agreed it was just one of those tragedies society fails to prevent.”

  “But even that has to be questioned,” Winton said. “What contributed to his demise?”

  “Wish that sister of his was still alive to tell us.”

  Winton found himself nodding along with the sentiment, then listened to the words repeating in his head. He looked up at Julius and inclined his head. “Say that again.”