The Cure

by Athol Dickson

  “What do ya suggest?”

  “Run all the indigents out of town, of course.”

  “How should I do that?”

  “Any way you have to.”

  Steve watched the man’s stiff back, noting the vicious way he used the poker on the logs. “What’d ya do to that fella, Bill?”

  Hightower turned, surprise apparent in his face. “Do to him?”

  “What am I supposed to think when ya won’t answer my question?”

  “Quid pro quo, Steven. You haven’t answered mine.”

  Steve sighed. “All right. I’m gonna uphold the law, whether that means arrestin’ people for vagrancy or for murder—” he paused, staring hard at Hightower— ”or for obstruction of justice.”

  “But that’s not enough!”

  “It’s all I got.”

  “Then somebody else will have to do it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I left him at the intersection of Green’s End and Highway 3.”

  Steve thought a moment. “Nothin’ out there.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Nothin’ even close to there.”

  “True again.”

  “Why there?”

  “It’s a long way from here.”

  “Transportin’ a person against his will is kidnappin’.”

  “I made no threats and he didn’t object.”

  “When I find him, he’ll verify that?”

  “If you find him, and his memory of it differs, it’ll be his word against mine, and I’ll be taken at my word.”

  The man was right, and Steve Novak hated it. “I guess the drive out there was your idea.”

  “What if it was? As I said, he didn’t object.”

  “Why would he object? I told him not to leave town. He’s a suspect in an ongoin’ investigation, prob’ly a first-degree felony. Way I see it, ya basically drove his getaway car.”

  For the first time Hightower a seemed a little bit uncomfortable. “Nonsense.”

  Steve waited a beat, letting it sink in. Then, “Did he mention any plans?”

  “I think he said something about the bus station in Liberty.”

  Steve stood. “I’ll let myself out. And Bill?” He waited until the cadaverous man turned his pale gray eyes toward him. “Don’t ya be doin’ something else about those people like ya said. Don’t do that.”

  Outside, the wind tugged at Steve’s coat, propelling thicker snow at a sharper angle as he followed Hightower’s straight brick walkway to the iron gate at the street. He swung the Explorer around in a U-turn and headed out of town.

  Halfway to Liberty his headlights started blinding him as they bounced back off the swirling wall of solid white. The windshield wipers barely kept up with the slush, even when he slowed to twenty. Snow flowed through the air so fast it seemed to leave a record of its progress, as if each snowflake had been transformed into a tiny frozen comet or a crepe paper streamer. Steve began to wonder if it was going to turn into the first blizzard of the winter. He thought about turning back. Then Dave Henson hailed him on the radio.

  “Chief, I’m over here at the shelter.”

  Steve set the radio for hands-free in order to maintain control of the truck. “Real good, Dave.”

  “I got somethin’.”

  Steve felt the familiar thrill of the hunt. “Go ahead.”

  “It’s a note, handwritten on a little folded piece of paper. I found it under one of the bunks.”

  “Read it to me.”

  “Lemme put on my glasses.” After a pause, the detective’s voice came back on the speaker. “Uh, it says here, `May the Lord forgive me, I should have done this long ago. Whoever opens this, please give it to the pastor. He’ll know what to do. Tell him it will cure alcoholics, and . . .’”

  By the time the detective finished reading, the chief had pulled to a complete stop. He sat staring out through his windshield at the nearly horizontal snow streaking across the Explorer’s hood. From the darkness a ten-point buck stepped into his headlight beam. It turned and stood as if paralyzed, with eyes glowing red and majestic antlers spreading up beyond the electric glow to disappear into the firmament above. The arctic wind ran icy fingers through the buck’s fur and then came to trail them with a hiss along the truck. The chief envisioned his cheek against a rifle stock, his eye unblinking down the barrel. The hunter in him longed to take a shot, but he knew how to wait.

  Could those crazy rumors be true after all? Could the man who murdered Willa Newdale really have a cure for alcoholism? An actual cure? The idea excited him, not because it would mean the end of suffering for countless millions, but because it meant sooner or later the bum would try to profit from it, and to do that he would have to step out of the darkness, and when that happened, Chief Steve Novak would be waiting there to take him down.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  AFLOAT NEAR THE CENTER OF DUBLIN HARBOR, Dylan Delaney stepped into his battered wooden dinghy and pushed away from the starboard side of the Mary Lynn, a thirty-eight-foot Royal Lowell lobster boat. It was late February, and with winter’s grip hard on the coast of Maine, it ought to be the height of lobster season, the period when prices increased and supplies decreased due in part to the casual lobsterman’s unwillingness to work traps in such cold. But the lobsters were much farther out to sea than anyone could remember, forcing men to set traps at unheard-of depths, sometimes as much as a hundred fathoms below—twice the usual maximum depth. It meant twice the wait while the pot hauler pulled every string of traps, twice the pot warp, or rope, to mark them, twice the diesel as Dylan idled on the surface, and all of that for a quarter of the usual catch, or less, because even at that depth the lobster population remained mysteriously sparse. Dylan had been forced to lobster in unfamiliar waters never worked by his ancestors. He did not know the bottom there. He was losing traps. He figured he could hold on until the end of the season, but if things did not turn up, and turn up right away, he’d have to sell his boat come spring. He only hoped there would not be a glut of other workboats on the market at that time, with every other lobsterman along the coast confronted by the same disaster.

  Facing aft in the little dinghy, Dylan rowed toward the landing through the harbor’s nasty chop. Now and then he raised his oars and let a wave carry him, ghosting silently toward shore. The world around him watched in shades of gray—the pregnant clouds, the virgin snow, the sparkling ice, the steely water—all painted by a somber god who had misplaced his colors. Yet there was lightness too. Off to port he saw a harbor seal flirting with a mooring buoy, circling it, bumping it, looking for all the world like the marine version of a puppy with a rubber ball. A chunk of ice the size of a shoebox knocked against his dinghy’s hull, scraping along the side as he rowed closer to the shoreline where the harbor froze more solidly. The wind bit right through Dylan’s coat, turtleneck sweater, two undershirts, and long johns. His ears stung like they were on fire. Seawater had somehow found its way into his high rubber boots as usual, numbing his toes with a wicked awful chill. After nine hours on the water working traps, his lower back hurt like crazy, and his arms, and his neck, and yet he could not think of anything that he would rather do, except of course for anything that he could do with Hope.

  As Dylan rowed, thoughts of Hope led to thoughts of Riley Keep, home again these last three months, home again to stay, apparently, living in that little garage apartment behind Mrs. Harding’s place and waiting tables at the Downtown Diner like he was. The man hardly ever went over to Hope’s, mostly just to supper as far as Dylan knew, and then she always made sure Dylan was there as well. He supposed it was a good sign that she invited him whenever Riley came, and after all, Bree was still the man’s daughter so of course Hope had to let him come around. But Dylan was still concerned. He couldn’t bear to think of Hope alone with Riley now, especially not now, when everything else he loved was dying all around him.

  At the landing, Dylan tied the dinghy off amongst a dozen other
s and dragged two plastic crates one at a time up the steeply inclined gangway, having already off-loaded the crates onto the dock from the Mary Lynn before he took her out to the mooring. In one of the plastic crates was half the usual hundred pounds of lobsters. In the other was about the same weight of crabs. At the end of a normal day he would have been hauling four or five such crates, completely full.

  Up on the landing, he set out for his truck. He scraped ice off of the windshield and the door handle, then sat inside the cab with his gloved hands under his armpits while the engine warmed up and his breath turned into frost on the inside of the glass. Eventually he got the heater going and thawed things out enough to clear the windshield. He backed the truck up to the gangway and loaded his pitiful little catch. He drove it over to the buying station and stood by while they weighed it. He took his money—such as it was—and followed a snowplow up Water Street, then onto Main, where he pulled in at the post office.

  Inside, he saw four obviously homeless fellas huddled up for warmth by the radiator in the far corner of the lobby, a common sight these days. Since the news reports about Willa’s disappearance and the mystery man who supposedly knew how to cure alcoholism, many more indigent people from away had come to town despite the bitter weather. Pastor Henry had taken over at the shelter, running it with the help of volunteers from church—Dylan himself had worked the serving line the last two Thursday nights—but no amount of volunteering could make the shelter big enough to meet the need. Pastor Henry had been forced to reopen the church sanctuary to them, converting pews to bunks with blankets and foam rubber pads. Bill Hightower and a few other influential church members had questioned this decision, fueling speculation among the congregation that Henry was “enabling” the alcoholics. To counter any hint of this, Henry sent his charges out to look for jobs each day, just as Willa used to do. But there were no jobs, of course, so every morning after breakfast the shivering homeless people—over a hundred of them—fanned out across the icy town seeking any warm oasis.

  Dylan figured the four men at the radiator were hiding there from Stella Odum, the Dublin postmaster, a chubby little lady in a thick wool scarf and down vest zipped up tight over her uniform. Stella was a stickler for the rules, a lifelong bureaucrat who would probably have run the poor men off if she knew they were loitering on government property, even though the temperature outside was only nine or ten degrees. But Stella couldn’t see the men from where she stood behind the service counter in the next room, so when she greeted Dylan with her usual “Cold enough for ya?” he merely smiled as he passed by, saying, “Naw, it’s too darn balmy.”

  The homeless men eyed Dylan warily as he crossed the lobby with Stella around the corner laughing at his old joke. Ignoring them, he opened up his box. Inside were a lot of bills, some of them second or third warnings, and a heap of junk mail that made him think of devastated forests, and a letter from the Hanks Pharmaceutical Corporation. The letter surprised him. It had only been six days.

  He put the other mail under his arm and opened the envelope then and there. He scanned the letter quickly and looked up at nothing in particular and said, “Wow.” Then he read it again, more carefully this time, and he put it back into its envelope and left.

  Instead of returning to his truck, Dylan walked to the left down the sidewalk, hunched forward against the bitter wind and watching his footing for patches of black ice. A few doors farther on he ducked into the Downtown Diner, one of only four businesses still open on that block.

  The early crowd was there, old folks mostly, who liked to eat by five. Dylan knew them all and greeted them by name. A couple of nervous-looking people from away also sat at a table, yet more indigents seeking warmth from the look of them, nursing cups of coffee. The only tables open were the two up front by the windows where it was coldest. Dylan left his coat on and sat down. In a minute the waiter came over, wearing a white apron.

  “Dylan,” said the man.

  “Riley.”

  Riley went right to work with an easy confidence about him, now that he’d been at this for a while. “We have a special on two pork chops with mashed potatoes and squash. Six ninety-five. And we have a nice chowder tonight. Sadie bought some real fine scallops over in Cambridge.”

  Although Dylan couldn’t really afford to eat supper out, he thought, why not? Might as well celebrate a little. “Bowl of chowder sounds good,” he said. “And a cup of coffee if it’s fresh.”

  “I’ll make up a pot.”

  Dylan waited as the view through the frosted window beside him faded. The sun was setting later now, a little after five today. Winter going already, and him still with a loss for the season. Well, maybe this letter would change all that.

  He never dreamed Riley’s foolishness would actually amount to something, but there it was in his pocket, sure enough.

  Dylan pulled the letter out and read it through a third time.

  Riley came with a mug and a pot of coffee. He put the mug in front of Dylan and poured the steaming brew. “Got a letter today,” said Dylan.

  “Hanks?”

  “Ayuh.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “’Course ya can.”

  Riley put the pot down on the table and wiped his hands on his apron and took the letter Dylan offered. He stood very still as he read the words. Dylan looked up at him, watching his eyes move from side to side, waiting for him to get to the good part, but Riley finished without showing any sign of interest whatsoever, except to say, “So he wants to come here himself.”

  “Ayuh.”

  “You have a place where you can meet him?”

  “I was thinkin’ the harbormaster’s shed.” Teasing him a little.

  “Naw. He’ll bring a lot of people. You need a big conference table. Maybe ten or twelve chairs.”

  “I was kiddin’, Riley. I figured we’d use the conference room Hope has next to her office.”

  “She can’t know about this. I already told you.”

  “Why was that again?”

  Riley looked straight at him. “She just can’t. Nobody can. You promised me that. If you’ve changed your mind just let me know and I’ll find somebody else. No hard feelings. Like I said before, you might get a little pressure over this.”

  Dylan thought about BHR Incorporated, the Delaware corporation he had set up for Riley a couple of months ago, because Delaware law protected the anonymity of corporate officers and shareholders. He thought about Riley’s strange insistence that the provisional patent be applied for on behalf of the new corporation, with no mention of Riley’s name. He said, “Don’t worry, I can handle the pressure. And I’ll find us someplace to meet. But what makes ya think this fella’s gonna bring that many people?”

  “He always does.”

  “Know him pretty well, do ya?”

  Riley seemed to stare at something only he could see in the black glass window. “Not really.”

  “Ya care what day we do it?”

  “That’s up to you. I won’t be there.”

  “Queer way to do business.”

  “Can’t be helped. Nobody can know it’s me.”

  Dylan knew better than to ask again about Riley’s reasons. Everything the man had done so far was enigmatic, and he showed no sign of letting Dylan in on the big secret. In fact, until the letter came, Dylan had not even believed the formulas on the patent application made any kind of sense. He figured Riley for a dreamer, to be humored for the sake of Hope and Bree. But anyone could apply for a provisional patent for anything, be it gibberish or not, so Dylan had dutifully done a little research to refresh his memory on the proper forms and formats, and typed it up, copying the formula from the piece of paper Riley had provided, and submitting the application to the Patents and Trademark Office. The whole thing had cost him a couple of Saturdays, but between the weather and the missing lobsters that had been no big deal.

  Then Riley had surprised him with another wild request: send a letter to Hanks Pharmaceuticals
over in Wisconsin, with a copy of the patent application and an offer to sell the development and marketing rights. Dylan had complied, maintaining Riley’s fantasy a little longer in hopes of gaining Hope’s appreciation, which was all the pay he had expected in spite of Riley’s twenty-percent offer.

  But six days . . . Figure two days to get there in the mail, a weekend in between, and two days for the reply to return. That meant these people received the letter, read it and the patent application with it, and sent this letter back the same day. In view of that, Dylan wondered if perhaps his twenty-percent commission might be worth a little something after all. He said, “If you’re not gonna be there, I guess we’d better talk about the price and terms and whatnot.”

  “I don’t want to drag it out. I want most of it up front, and maybe five percent of sales.”

  “Five percent of the net?”

  “Gross.”

  It was a lot to ask, but Dylan nodded. Why not start high and settle? “Okay, how ‘bout the up-front money?”

  Riley stared at the black glass again. “Let’s go with twenty and see what they say.”

  The math was easy: Dylan’s cut would be four thousand. Funny, but he felt a little disappointed. An hour earlier he had figured Riley for a kook. Now there he was thinking they should hold out for more money. Four thousand would help, but it was a long way from what he needed to make up for his losses. “I don’t know . . . they seem awful interested, Riley. I was wonderin’ if maybe we oughta ask for a hundred.”

  Riley looked down at him. “A hundred? Really?”

  “A hundred thousand isn’t all that much money for a big outfit like this.”

  “Oh. I was thinking millions.”

  Dylan laughed, but Riley Keep’s expression did not change. Instead, he stared at Dylan intensely and said, “It really works. You have to remember that.”

  “But they can’t know it works so quick! It’s just a possibility so far. They still hafta figure a way to synthesize it and mass-produce it, and they hafta get FDA approval. That’ll take, what? Two or three years? Five? And you don’t even have a final patent yet. It’s just provisional.”