Ripples of the Past

by Damian Knight

  9

  Isaac gazed down from the steel bars now covering the air-conditioning vent to the mutilated hand in his lap. Without an X-ray it was impossible to decipher the full extent of the damage, but on initial inspection it appeared as though he’d sustained straightforward shaft fractures to the proximal phalanxes of his first and third fingers. The middle finger was a different matter altogether, the swelling around his knuckle indicating a possible dislocation. As well as hurting like hell, the hand would be as good as useless for several weeks, and if his fingers weren’t properly aligned he could well suffer limited functionality for the remainder of his life. Which, thinking about it, didn’t look like being very long.

  At the sound of the keypad on the other side of the door being pressed, Isaac glanced up to see Donna enter the room, a first aid kit under her arm. He narrowed his eyes as she approached and wordlessly perched herself a couple of feet down on the bed. She opened the box, pulled a roll of bandage out and then shuffled closer.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re bothering,’ he said. ‘He’ll only start all over again unless I give him what he wants.’

  ‘Mr Harrison asked me to take care of your hand, so that’s what I’m doing,’ she replied, not meeting his eye.

  ‘Humboldt, that’s his name. Not Harrison. Michael Humboldt.’

  She shrugged like it was all the same. ‘Hold still, I need to splint your fingers. This is going to hurt.’

  Isaac sucked in a breath as Donna straightened his fingers, slid a popsicle stick between each and then wound the bandage around his entire hand, leaving only the unbroken little finger and thumb sticking out. It was only as she drew back that he noticed a long, thin scar running down the palm of her right hand.

  ‘Looks like I’m not the only one having a tough time of it,’ he said.

  ‘It’s nothing, just a childhood injury.’ She stood, adjusted her skirt, returned what was left of the bandage to the box and pulled a bottle of aspirin out. ‘Would you like something for the pain?’

  Isaac reckoned he had a pretty good handle on the rest of Michael’s entourage, but Donna he couldn’t work out. Although he’d initially supposed her to be several years older, perhaps in her early forties, he now realised she must be younger than he’d imagined, but did herself no favours with the dowdy outfits and middle-aged hairstyle. As she shook a couple of aspirin from the bottle, he sensed an opportunity and seized her by the wrist. Donna clenched her fist around the tablets and tried to jerk it away, but he tightened his hold, pulling her closer.

  ‘Listen,’ he hissed, ‘you seem decent enough, and I know everyone needs a steady paycheck and all, but Michael Humboldt, or Harrison, whatever you want to call him, he’s a monster. How can you sleep at night working for someone like that?’

  ‘You’re hurting me, Dr Barclay. Please, let go.’

  He maintained his grip for a moment longer, then sighed and released her.

  Donna took a step back, massaging her wrist, and looked up to meet his gaze at last. There was a fire to her soft brown eyes that he’d never noticed before, and for a second it was like looking at a different person. ‘Mr Harrison has the potential to do so much good,’ she said. ‘I know it might not always seem that way, but it’s there, and I can see it.’

  ‘Good?’ Isaac spat back. ‘Your boss is a killer, a two-bit crook! If you think he’s interested in helping anyone other than himself then you need a reality check, Donna.’

  She looked away, her shoulders slumping. ‘Maybe you’re right.’

  ‘Well then help me, for chrissake! You don’t honestly think he’ll let me walk out of here alive, do you? You could tell me the code for the doors, if you wanted. I’d slip out. No one would ever know.’

  ‘You’re asking me to betray him? I…I could never do that.’

  ‘Then I’m a dead man,’ Isaac said. ‘Not if, only when.’

  Donna hesitated as if caught in two minds before eventually sitting beside him again. ‘You must stay strong, Dr Barclay,’ she said, turning to face him. ‘Have faith, both in the powers that be and your own ingenuity. Often it’s only in our darkest hour that we truly see the light of day.’

  Isaac blinked at her. ‘That’s what you’re telling me, to put my faith in God?’

  She opened her mouth, but the keypad in the corridor sounded again before she could respond. The door slid open and Michael swaggered in, accompanied by Bruno.

  ‘How’s the patient?’ he asked, a toothy grin on his face.

  ‘I’ve strapped his hand like you asked,’ Donna said, her cheeks darkening as she stood. ‘I was just about to give him something for the pain.’

  ‘Good, let’s leave the man in peace then. I expect he’d like to give some thought to what we’ve discussed.’

  Donna nodded, pressed the aspirins into Isaac’s hand and followed Michael and Bruno through the door.

  * * * * *

  Isaac paced in circles around his room long into the night, his left hand throbbing and his mouth like a bowl of ash. With the prospect of escape nonexistent, his options essentially boiled down to: 1) taking the easy way and just giving Michael what he wanted; or 2) holding out as long as possible in the hope a solution would miraculously present itself. His inclination was toward the latter, more out of a desire to deny Michael for as long as possible than due to any confidence in what Donna had said about divine intervention or his own resourcefulness, but both paths ultimately led to the same place, and he had little doubt a time would soon come when he would say anything and everything just to make the pain stop. Then, with the formula in his possession and Sebastian on hand to reproduce Tetradyamide, Michael would have no further need for Isaac. In fact, since he was one of the few people who knew the truth behind Michael’s success story or his murderous past, Isaac would come to represent a threat.

  He stopped pacing, dragged over the remaining dining chair and positioned it under the air-conditioning vent like the first. Climbing onto the seat, he stared up at the steel grate they had fixed over the vent before snapping his fingers. There were five bars in all, each almost an inch in diameter.

  Feeling a strange disconnectedness that quietened even the pain of his hand, he tugged his belt from the loops around his pants, slid the end through the buckle, tied it to the central bar and then placed the makeshift noose around his neck.

  If he was as good as dead already, Isaac was going to make damn sure he took Tetradyamide to his grave with him.

  10

  Although not ten in the morning yet, the temperature was already north of seventy degrees and rising as the blazing sun climbed ever higher in the clear blue sky above the Sandstone Springs Resort. Michael lay stretched on his back in a lounger on the Arabian-themed terrace bar by the main pool. Through his gold-plated aviator sunglasses, he let his gaze settle on several children splashing about on an air mattress, their squeals of excited delight mounting as, one after another, they piled on until the thing capsized.

  Feeling an irrational stab of jealousy, Michael searched his memory for a comparable incident in his own childhood, but the closest he could summon was the time he’d nearly drowned skinny-dipping with Eugene in the creek that ran through the back of the neighbouring farm.

  With a sigh, he turned to Lynette, who lay sprawled out in a silver bikini on the lounger beside him, her skin slick with tanning oil.

  ‘I feel like a Margarita,’ she said, propping herself up on an elbow. ‘You want anything from the bar, Mikey?’

  ‘It’s a little early, princess. Even for me.’

  Lynette pouted, sat up and slid her feet into her wedge-heeled sandals. ‘Suit yourself,’ she said, and sauntered off toward the bar, attracting stares from nearly every man in the vicinity.

  Michael reached into his shirt pocket for a cigar. Drawing it under his nose, he inhaled the rich, woody aroma and let out another sigh. Really he should have been happy, but instead there was a strange tightness to his chest that he vaguely recognised. He had Barclay e
xactly where he wanted him, a broken man in every sense of the phrase, and one way or another the formula would soon be his. But still, he didn’t have it yet, and perhaps that was what was putting him on edge. Also, while he had half-expected the doctor to try something like his stunt with the air-conditioning vent, truth be told a part of him had hoped the man would be so awestruck by his achievements that he would have finally seen sense and fallen into line, handing over Tetradyamide voluntarily. But that was probably just wishful thinking on Michael’s part, and if he had to break a few bones on the way to getting what he wanted, so much the better.

  He bit the end off his cigar and lit up, when a shadow fell across his lounger.

  Glancing up, he saw Donna standing before him. ‘Mind moving?’ he asked, and blew a cloud of smoke in her direction. ‘You’re blocking my sun.’

  ‘Oh, right. Sorry,’ she said, and muffled a cough as she stepped to one side.

  ‘What is it, Donna? I thought my diary was clear this morning.’

  ‘Something’s happened, sir. It’s Dr Barclay.’

  Michael sat upright, pushing his sunglasses back on his head with the hand of his prosthetic. ‘Not been at the air-con again, has he?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ She gulped and reached up to scratch her ear. In spite of the heat, her face was sickly pale. ‘I really think you ought to come and see for yourself, sir.’

  Michael nodded, the tightness in his chest cranking up another notch. At that moment Lynette returned, a cocktail glass in her hand.

  ‘Something’s come up,’ he said, pulling on his espadrilles.

  ‘Jeez, again? You said we’d spend the day together, Mikey. You promised!’

  ‘And we will. But this is business, princess. Why don’t you stay here and have another drink or two? I’ll be back before you know it.’

  Lynette didn’t say anything, but turned to smile at a passing lifeguard, a muscled, moustachioed guy who made the mistake of smiling back. Michael made a mental note to fire the man at the next opportunity and then followed Donna around the pool, back into the hotel, through the lobby and out of the revolving doors at the entrance. There was a golf cart parked up under the pillared drive on the other side.

  ‘Mind telling me what’s going on?’ he asked as he took the passenger seat.

  Donna shook her head and climbed behind the wheel, then put her put her foot down hard, causing the cart to lurch forward so suddenly that he had to ditch his cigar in order to grab hold of the roof support. They took off around the fountain and up the drive before cutting onto the maintenance road that looped around the entire site.

  The annex was over a mile from the hotel, and she barely let up the whole way, almost throwing him out around the bends. At the electric motor’s top speed it only took a few minutes to reach the squat concrete building, at which point Donna slammed on the brakes so abruptly that the back wheels skidded, spraying the wall with tiny pebbles.

  Michael clambered out, his stomach in his mouth. ‘Why have I got a bad feeling about this?’ he asked, and unlocked the steel door.

  Once again Donna said nothing, but followed him into the room that housed the sprinkler control system. After activating the hidden flight of stairs, they hurried down the tunnel before passing through the thick security door at the far end.

  The door to Barclay’s room remained slid back in its jamb. Instead of offering anything by way of explanation, Donna hung back, her gaze directed down at the shag pile carpet.

  Michael entered and then froze. ‘Oh,’ he said.

  Barclay was hanging by his belt from the bars of the grate they had fixed over the air-conditioning vent yesterday evening, the remaining dining chair on its side beneath his feet. His face was a grotesque, puffy mask.

  Michael took a tottering step back and turned to Sebastian and Bruno, who were both shuffling their feet on the other side of the room, seemingly unsure where to look. ‘Is…is he dead?’ he asked, at once realising how pointless the question was.

  ‘Donna and Bruno found him when they brought down his breakfast,’ Sebastian said in a quiet voice. ‘I’ve checked for a pulse and couldn’t find one.’

  ‘How long, do you think?’

  ‘Obviously I’m not a medical doctor, but his skin was already cold to the touch, so several hours at least, I’m guessing.’

  ‘I see,’ Michael said, and stepped back into the corridor.

  He had always believed Barclay to be weak and self-serving; the kind of person who would cling to life no matter what, but it appeared he had underestimated the man’s resolve. All was not lost, however. It didn’t really matter what Barclay did to himself, or how many times he tried to escape. Michael would always be there, a spider poised by its web, ready and waiting to learn from his mistakes.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Donna asked, dabbing her eyes.

  Michael stopped and chuckled, the tightness in his chest subsiding. ‘What do you think?’ he said. ‘Put this right, of course!’

  11

  Six hours earlier

  Standing on a chair with his looped belt around his neck, Isaac could make out his reflection through a gap in the drapes covering the blackened window on the far side of the room.

  So this was how it all ended, then: no winning Lara back, or his career, and no making Michael Humboldt pay for what he had done. Instead, just this moment – the here and now – followed by a slight shifting of his weight on the chair. After that, a falling sensation, then a snap.

  Would there be anything else beyond, or just darkness? And would Lara or his parents ever find out what had become of him? It seemed unlikely, and there would be no search party; to the rest of the world Isaac was already dead, remembered only for the crimes that Michael had pinned on him.

  He laughed at the absurdity of it all. Only a few years ago he had been a rising star, the toast of the San Franciscan medical community, but my how that star had faded. Look at him now, a bum with a busted hand, just a few short seconds from taking his own life. This was his darkest hour all right, but at least he could die in the knowledge that Michael would never get hold of Tetradyamide, and compared to that his life seemed a small price to pay.

  Taking a final breath, he closed his eyes and, before he could chicken out, began rocking the chair from side to side.

  This was it. No turning back now.

  Left, right, left, right, left…

  …and over it went.

  There was a falling sensation but no snap. Instead the belt lassoed tight around his neck, squeezing his airways shut. Isaac’s feet back-pedalled in thin air, his fingers clawing at the noose as every fibre of his being instinctively clung to life.

  It was no good; with each passing second the belt tightened. Isaac’s vision dimmed, his life ebbing away before him. He remembered childhood vacations with his parents, summers at the beach and Christmases in Aspen; birthdays with grandparents, their faces clear as day despite the years since their deaths; high school, academic success, a sporting achievement thrown in here and there; friends, his first girlfriend, losing his virginity; graduation, his freshman year at college, more girlfriends, more academic success; medical school and the early years of his career, the accomplishments, the accolades, the money; and then Stribe Lyndhurst and his consultancy at Bereck & Hertz. And Lara.

  Lara…

  Sweet Jesus, he wasn’t making a mistake, was he?

  But never mind that now; it was too late for such concerns. Darkness encroached on all sides but a bright light beckoned up ahead. He just needed to let go. Nothing on Heaven or Earth could be so easy. Just let go and drift away with that light, to a place where none of it mattered anymore.

  Without warning the sensation of falling returned, this time ending with a bump. Isaac’s airways were free once more and air flooded into his starving lungs. He coughed and spluttered. The darkness receded from his vision, however the bright light remained.

  He blinked and realised he was staring directly into one of the chrom
e light fittings embedded in the ceiling. A blurry shape moved into his line of sight.

  ‘Well, Isaac, old buddy,’ Michael Humboldt said, gazing down at him, ‘that was a bit of a close shave, don’t you think?’

  12

  Michael watched Barclay sleeping from a chair beside the doctor’s bed. A thick, yellowing bruise had blossomed around the man’s neck in the day and a half since his failed suicide attempt, and the skin of his face radiated with burst capillaries. In spite of how close Michael had come to losing Tetradyamide, it was a sight to warm his heart.

  ‘Isaac?’ he cajoled, giving Barclay a playful slap. ‘Rise and shine, sleeping beauty!’

  Barclay’s eyelids fluttered open. He blinked drearily, focused on Michael and let out a shuddering groan.

  ‘Welcome back. Bet you never thought you’d see me again, did you?’

  ‘I’m alive,’ Barclay croaked. ‘But how?’

  ‘A man of your intelligence, I would have thought you might have worked that out for yourself. It’s simple, really. Donna and Bruno found you the morning after. When they showed me what you’d done, I brought on one of my seizures and returned to the night before to stop you. We were just in the nick of time, as it happens. A few seconds later and we would’ve needed to start all over.’

  ‘You mean you brought me back from the dead?’

  ‘Not many folks capable of it, as far as I know. Most have religions started in their name.’

  ‘Is that how you see yourself, some kind of god?’