When neither of us give him any sort of response, he deflates a little. “He is working for a private company with no regard for your personal welfare, as evidenced by his decision to bypass me completely.”
Ah, so that’s why he’s really upset.
The door opens behind him and the warden steps in quietly after him. Warden Trevor McNeil is one of those men whose ethnic background isn’t readily apparent from a quick look. He could have a couple of different nationalities in his background or it could be that this is just the way his genes turned him out. I’ve never been stupid enough to bring it up.
Whatever the case, he makes a stark contrast with pasty, pudgy, whiskery, slimy Dr. Curry. Though the man hasn’t said a word, Dr. Curry squeaks and spins around to face him. Warden McNeil still doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t have to. Dr. Curry starts speaking indignantly almost the moment those eyes are on him.
“This is preposterous. Pre. Post. Ter. Ous!” He makes a little bobbing motion with each syllable, as if trying to pump them up. “This man thinks he can bypass the system. He’s taken my office and now he wants to take my patient.”
“Mr. Moretti has never been your patient, Doctor,” the warden says calmly. Very calmly. If he spoke that calmly to me I’d be shutting the hell up or getting ready for a fight.
Doctor Curry is too indignant to recognize the danger that he’s in. If I was ever going to consider visiting the prison shrink this would convince me not to. Anyone this unobservant cannot possibly be helpful.
“He is an inmate at this facility and therefore my responsibility,” Dr. Curry says.
When the warden doesn’t respond he whirls around and points that tiny finger back at me. “You. Don’t you say a word to that man. You hear me? He’s a corporate crackpot.”
“Curry.” The warden’s voice is soft like thunder and Curry finally shuts up, going completely stiff. I think he’s finally realized he’s overstepped some boundary and might be in trouble.
“Go wait in my office,” the warden says.
Curry opens his mouth to protest, closes it, and then slink from the room.
Only after he’s gone does the warden speak up. “I’m sorry for the intrusion, Doctor. May I borrow Mr. Moretti for a moment? This won’t take long.”
Dr. Warden gives a big, soft smile. “Not at all.”
It doesn’t escape my notice that I’m not asked. Perhaps because the warden expects obedience from his inmates and coworkers. Unlike Dr. Curry, I’m not stupid enough to test him. This man has the power to make my life a living hell.
I step out into the hallway with him and he closes the door.
“Ignore everything Dr. Curry just said,” the warden says without preamble.
I’d already planned to but I hate the authoritative tone he’s taking with me. It puts my back up and makes me want to do the opposite of what he’s saying.
“The man in there’s one of the best,” the warden goes on. “And that means you will be on your best behavior.” He eyes the cut on my cheek, the bruise that’s beginning to come in from Kermit’s sucker punch. “You understand me.”
I don’t want to, but I can behave myself and turn Dr. Warden down politely.
Still, I almost choke on the words when I say, “Yes, sir.”
“Good,” the warden says. “I also want you to understand that you are not the only beneficiary of the program he’s offering.”
For a moment my mind flits to the other beta testers the doctor mentioned, but then reality kicks in. The prison, or more specifically the warden, will look very good if I accept Dr. Warden’s offer. There might even be some money changing hands. Shit.
“I’d hate to learn you’d somehow done something to embarrass me or this institution. Because that would mean I’d need to do something about things here,” the warden continues. He should just hold up a sign like Wile E. Coyote that says “Feel Threatened.”
I nod to show I understand. It beats saying anything aloud. That would not end well for me.
“Good. He’s waiting for you,” the warden says, and opens the door to the appropriated office. The grin he offers is not reassuring.
I return to my seat. I’ve got a tough choice to make. Much as I want to get out early, my sentence is only for a few months. Miserable as the warden can make me, I’m not about to get an operation just to avoid them.
“Sorry, Doc,” I say. “But no. I’m going to have to decline.”
Dr. Warden takes a deep breath, then let it out in a long sigh. Very dramatic. He had all the theatricality of a preschool teacher and about as much subtlety. He wants me to feel guilty. Maybe even sorry for him. That isn’t happening.
“That is a shame,” he says, when he finally finishes.
“Yup.”
“And there’s nothing I can say that can change your mind?”
“Not a thing.”
“Shame,” he says again. “I am very sorry to hear that.”
I’ll just bet he is.
“I’m sure your mother will be, too.”
I’m on my feet before I even realize it, all thoughts of the warden’s threats forgotten. My clenched fists are shaking at my sides. I stomp across the short distance between us to loom over the Doc. I’m only a little above average height, but I’m a hard guy. And I got one hell of a mean face when I get angry.
The jackass should be shaking in his seat. Instead he just shakes his head and looks up at me with those too sharp eyes and a soft smile that’s just shy of a smirk. I want to make it so he can never make that expression again. Only the memory of the warden’s threat keeps me from hurting him. But it’s hard. So, so hard. I’m shaking with the effort.
No one—no one—in this place gets to talk about my mother. But I can’t say that sort of thing to a psychiatrist. It’ll get all kinds of messed up. So instead I say, “Why don’t you say what you want to say?”
And if he makes any kind of threat, any kind of disparaging remark about my mother, he’ll be leaving here in an ambulance.
“She tried to tell you when she visited,” he said. “But you turned her away.”
I go cold. How does he know I’d refused to see her when she visited? There must be a record of it somewhere.
“Tell me what?” I snarl. Dammit. It he doesn’t get to the point soon I’m going to hurt him just because.
Those sharp eyes flash. “That she’s dying.”
Chapter Three
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I’m frozen to the spot. I can’t think. My brain is caught, like a scratched DVD, glitching over the same garbled scene. Then I see red.
My hands are on those rounded lapels of his tweed coat, yanking him forward in the chair. The material is coarser than I expected and it burns my fingertips as I strain against his bulk. “What did you say?”
In a move almost too quick to follow he pops his pudgy hands up in between my arms and yanks down on my elbows. I start to topple forward, but a penny-loafered foot catches me in the stomach. The kick, which I totally didn’t see coming, is strong. Strong enough that with my own bodyweight driving me forward he just about winds me before I’m sent staggering back.
He rises from his seat. That bulk of his is a lot less cute now. Dr. Tubby knows kung fu. Force equals mass times acceleration. He’s got a hell of a lot of mass to bring to that equation. He’s frowning at me, but those damn sharp eyes are smiling. Glittering like broken glass. I’ve made him very happy. Dammit.
“That’s assault, Mr. Moretti,” he says. “I’m sure your warden would be very unhappy to hear about that.”
I don’t care how big he is. If he was just using my mother to bait me he’s leaving in a body bag.
“But,” he says, sounding even more disappointed than when I told him ‘no.’ “Considering the news I’m delivering, some acting out is to be expected.”
I clench and unclench my fists. Get to the
point, I want to say, but the muscles in my throat and jaw are too taut. Tell me about my mother or I’m going to break your neck.
“Please sit down, Mr. Moretti,” he says, gesturing to my seat. “Please.”
When I don’t he says, “Or I could ask one of the corrections officers to help you sit down.”
I’ve misjudged this man. He’s about as soft as an angler fish. Look at the pretty light. Don’t pay attention to my fangs, little fish.
I sit. Take deep breaths.
Only after I’m seated does he return to his own chair, pausing briefly to pick up his silly clipboard. “Your mother was recently diagnosed with ALS.”
When I don’t respond he says, “Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. It’s also called Lou Gehrig’s disease.”
He says all this like I should know what the hell that means. I don’t. The initials, ALS sounds vaguely familiar, so does the other name. Amy-whatever sa-rosis? It’s all gibberish. The one word that does stand out and that I fully understand is disease.
“She’s sick?” I don’t know why I ask. If he’s not lying then of course she’s sick. He said disease. If it’s a disease maybe there’s a vaccine? No, vaccines are for viruses. A treatment then?
“I didn’t say sick, Mr. Moretti. I said that she’s dying.” He says this like he’s correcting me about a math problem. Mildly disdainful, bordering on irritated. But also matter of fact. Like my mother dying is of absolutely no more consequence than five plus two equaling seven.
“You said it’s a disease,” I say. I’m grasping at straws. I know I’m grasping at straws. I know I’m being irrational and I don’t care. Somehow if I can argue the damn semantics with him it’ll change something. Change what he said, change the meaning. Mom gets to live.
“I did,” he admits.
Ha! “Diseases are treatable. There’s got to be some kind of medicine or something. Radiation?”
“That’s for cancer, Mr. Moretti,” he says, and now he’s openly disgusted with me. I’ve tipped my hand and he’s found me wanting. Fuck him. “Radiation is almost as bad as cancer. It’s killing cells indiscriminately, poisoning the body so that the mutation that is the cancer dies. ALS is not a mutation.”
“Then what the hell is it?”
“Amyotrophic roughly translates to ‘no muscle movement,’” he says. “Lateral refers to the spine. Specifically, in this case, the spinal cord, the part of the body that delivers signals from the brain for the muscles to move. And sclerosis is the process wherein the tissue scars and wastes away from disuse and abuse.”
He leans forward in his chair. “Your mother is dying. Slowly, or quickly, really it varies from individual to individual, but I digress. She is going to become paralyzed bit by bit. The muscles are going to atrophy and waste away as they receive no signals from the brain, receive no nutrition or exercise, and will begin to scar and harden and become immovable. This is not just the limbs we are talking about, you understand? We are referring to her entire body. Her stomach. Her mouth. Her lungs. Her eyelids. Eventually she won’t be able to eat or even breathe without the aid of a machine.”
I hate how my voice shakes when I speak. “You’re saying Mom’s going to become a vegetable?”
“Oh, not at all,” he says, and a traitorous spark of hope flares in my chest. Traitorous because it’s coming from this man, who seems so damnably happy as he tells me all of this. And sure enough, it stabs me right in the heart a second later. “The brain isn’t actually a muscle. The whole time this is happening she’ll be fully aware, fully capable of thinking. She’ll never stop being herself, she simply won’t be able to do anything. She’ll—"
“Fix it,” I interrupt, glaring at him. My voice is hard.
He shakes his head. “Mr. Moretti, I am not a miracle worker. I cannot wave some magic wand and will away your mother’s illness.”
“You said you have powerful backers,” I say.
“Backers interested in pursuing their own agenda. They have very specific goals.”
I take several deep breaths. I’m doing that way more today than usual. Then again, I usually don’t have this much shit happen so close together. It defies belief. “You’re lying.”
“Why would I lie?” Dr. Warden asks, spreading his thick hands wide. “I’m only making sure you have all the information. You have, what, four or five months left on your sentence? About that? If I’m lying, then you’ll get out then and your mother will be fine. If I’m not, then these next few months are going to be the best she’ll have before the disease has her fully in its grip.”
Something occurs to me then that should have struck me earlier. “How do you know all this?” And more importantly, isn’t he violating the law by telling me? That doctor-patient confidentiality stuff? The same promise he offered with regards to whatever their dumb chip tells them about me. If he’s not lying, then this scumbag’s even less trustworthy than I’d been thinking.
He brings his hands back together, resting the clipboard in his lap and twining his fingers together. For a moment I think about attacking him again. He’s got mass and a deceptive amount of speed, but the only reason he got me before is because I underestimated him. I know better now. Know he’ll be slower with his hands like that. Only the more rational part of my brain tells me this is a horrible idea and thankfully it holds my idiotic temper in check just long enough for the opportunity to pass.
“Like I said, my backers make sure that when I need something, it is provided. That includes an exceptionally comprehensive background check into a prospective beta tester.”
“And what about doctor-patient confidentiality?”
He shrugs. “Your mother isn’t my patient. If you have an issue with my partners acquiring this information I suggest you bring it up with her doctors, perhaps hire a lawyer of your own. There might be some money for a suit there if you play your cards right.”
I let out a long, disgusted breath. “This is all some kind of game to you, isn’t it?”
“Oh, very much so,” he cheerfully admits. The answer is so cheerful and blunt that it completely catches me off guard. It must show on my face because the bastard laughs. “You are so funny, Mr. Moretti. You think that because you’ve been in trouble with the law that you’re hard. You’re not hard, Mr. Moretti. Not even close.”
Those damn eyes of his. I’d like to say they’re like a shark’s eye, all black and dead inside, but that’s not true. They’re almost feline. I remember once seeing a cat playing with a lizard. The cat was on its back, batting this lizard up in the air. Every time the little reptile came down up went the cat’s paw to launch it upward again. The cat could’ve killed the lizard at any time but it liked its game too much. That’s the look in the fat man’s eyes. He’s so damn happy right now.
“I’m hard enough to make you hurt if you’re lying,” I say.
He throws his head back and laughs. Hard. This is the first real laugh he’s given. It’s deep, much deeper than his soft voice would suggest him capable of. He rocks back in his chair then back forward, bringing himself under control.
“Don’t make threats you can’t carry out, Mr. Moretti. You don’t have anywhere near the power needed to hurt me. But, if I’m lying to you, if you go to your mother and find her in perfect health and find my game completely unacceptable for some absurd reason, all it will take is a phone call. One call, and the chip comes out and you come back here to carry out the rest of your sentence.”
It’s a trap of some kind. I know it is. This man’s a liar and a predator.
Thing is, he’s baited his trap well. I’d cut off my right hand for Mom. The chance that she really might be sick isn’t one that I can take.
“I’ll play your damn game. Chip me.”
He gives me a mock applause. “Excellent! Game on, Mr. Moretti. Game on.”
Fat corny fucker.
Chapter Four
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Airports and prisons really aren’t that different. Less dangerous. Fewer assholes—or at least, few people willing to act upon their innate asshole-ishness. But they’re cold, crammed full of security, and it’s all about hurry-up-and-wait.
And now that I’m finally here, at the terminal waiting for the flight that will take me to Mom, it’s all about waiting. Mom and me talked on the phone. It was short. She cried when she learned I took a deal, wasn’t quite defensive when I asked her about her disease. I don’t think she’d wanted to discuss it over the phone, like doing it in person was somehow going to be better.
There’s not a lot to do now that I’ve made it through security. My smartphone is pretty crappy, but after a few minutes I’m able to set up the rudimentary basics of a website so people in Dallas, which is where Mom, and by extension myself, has been forced to settle, can get in touch with me for car repairs and such. It won’t be enough at first, I’ll have to take up with a shop and treat this like a side gig until I’ve built up enough word of mouth. There’s only so much I can do to get set up from here and I need to make sure that the little money I have is invested properly. Best to wait until I get to where I’m going to finish and commit.
With nothing else to do, I find myself staring at the small scar at the base of my right palm, where the chip was implanted into me. That it’s there at all makes me mad. It’s the only outward sign of my Faustian bargain. I’d make it again to get to Mom right now but I hate that I was manipulated into getting this thing put inside of me. More than once I’ve thought about cutting it out with a steak knife. I do that though and I’ll be a wanted man. I’ll go back to prison and this time it won’t just be for a few months.
For better or worse, I’m stuck with this thing. God, I hope going through security didn’t mess with it. How would I even know if it malfunctions?
I take a deep breath. I am not fucking helpless. I pull up my phone again and start browsing through websites about ALS. None of them tell me anything new. It’s going to be expensive and the amount of care Mom is eventually going to need is ridiculous. The thought that the woman who raised me, who drove me all around the US in her RV exploring back roads and living life as a nonstop adventure, will eventually need me to wipe her bottom for her, breaks something inside of me.
How To Train Your Kaiju Page 2