by Glenn Cooper
When he pushed himself off the cold floorboards some loose change in his pants spilled out. He swore repeatedly and went groping for the coins in the dark. After a minute of feeling around and under the bed, he was well enough satisfied he’d recovered them all. He shut the door behind him. He had to get back to his lab and process her fluid. Numerous experiments were planned to test for isomers of the Uroboros compound—and if any was left over, he wanted it for himself.
Days later, his purifications and analyses were done. He had his answer.
The sleepy girl’s Uroboros compound was a mixture of no fewer than six isomers! Only one of them was Miguel’s; nature was proving to be complex. The dying brain was producing an array of pentapeptides, similar to one another but subtly different. Perhaps more than one key fit into the lock of his LR-1 receptor—or maybe there were multiple variants of the LR-1 receptor, each unlocked by a specific key. He wearily came to the conclusion that it might take years to fully understand the biology.
Foremost on his mind, though, was to sample this girl’s pure, natural compound. The sleepy girl was the youngest yet. After the experiments were done, enough was left over for a single dose, and one night he eagerly took it under Jessie’s watchful eye.
This time he got to the last stepping-stone!
Dickie was only an arm’s length away when Alex was snatched back into the tunnel. He’d been close enough to see the pink flush of his cheeks, the stubble of his beard. He was agonizingly close to physical contact! And despite the heartbreak of the final denial, he felt utter joy when he returned. It was, he told Jessie, the most profound euphoria he’d ever felt. Something powerful and pure was out there, waiting for him.
When he’d talked himself out and was thoroughly spent he happily fell asleep in Jessie’s arms.
The following evening he was at Children’s Hospital, stealing through the semidark corridors of the neuro ward at midnight. He went there directly from his lab, fast-walking the few blocks in the frigid air. He was careful and deliberative. To be safe, he slipped out the rear of his building at the loading dock exit and planned to return the same way. If all went well, he’d be back at his bench processing a precious sample within the hour.
This time there’d be no body to dispose.
He didn’t have to go past the nurse’s station to reach Paulo’s room. The corridor was deserted. He quietly pushed open the door.
Paulo Couto was a four year old with a large inoperable brain tumor. He was Brazilian, born to undocumented parents who waited too long to get the kid attention. At this point, all the doctors could do was to throw on some radiation, high-dose steroids for brain swelling, and antiseizure meds. The neurosurgeons were running the show. Alex was the neurology consult. The epilepsy drugs he prescribed were working as well as could be expected but it was window dressing. The child didn’t have much time.
The latest maneuver was to plant a VP shunt to drain the buildup of fluid from his brain into his abdomen to prevent coma and death. The shunt would buy days, maybe weeks.
Alex gently palpated the rigid plastic tube that lay just under the skin. It ran from his neck along the chest wall. Below the diaphragm it plunged into the peritoneum. When he felt the soft belly, the boy woke up and blinked in confusion.
“Hey, Paulo. How’re you doing?”
The boy smiled and pointed at Alex’s ponytail. Kids liked his long hair and funny accent. Obligingly, he shook his head, making his ponytail sway like a horse’s tail.
“Just checking on you, buddy. Go back to sleep.”
The child fidgeted a little and drifted off again.
The door was closed.
None of the night nurses had seen Alex come onto the floor.
He had a syringe in his pocket.
Three minutes.
He studied the boy’s steroid-bloated face.
It would be so easy to press his large hand against his mouth, pinching his nose.
At three minutes he would stick a thin needle into the shunt tubing, taking a few cc’s of clear cerebrospinal fluid. It would leave a pinprick mark on the skin, unnoticeable.
The boy wasn’t on a monitor.
He’d be found at the next vital signs check.
There was a Do Not Resuscitate order in his chart.
Phone calls would be made; it would be a peaceful end, a good end. His parents would pray and say he was in a better place.
They’d be right.
Jessie was at a girlfriend’s house and Alex was alone. He washed up the dinner plates and tidied the kitchen before opening the fridge and retrieving the plastic tube he’d brought home from the lab.
In the bedroom, he kicked off his shoes and reclined. The tube was cold in his palm.
Everything had gone smoothly. Alex received a courtesy call from the hospital the following morning informing him that Paulo Couto had died during the night. An expected death.
He was done. This would be his last experiment before moving on to the next phase. Tonight he’d answer the last great question.
What would the experience be like with the natural pentapeptide from a child?
He’d taken the Uroboros compound so many times he had no trepidation about being alone, but in case something went wrong he penned a short tender note to Jessie that he left on the dresser.
He emptied the tube into his mouth and waited. He’d have his answer …
… And soon he was standing on the bank of the river of light watching his father, Dickie, waving at him, and noticed too how smoothly confident were his strides across the stepping-stones. With every step the pleasure mounted.
Four stones to go. Three. Two. He stood squarely on the last stone, an arm’s length from his father. “Come on boy!” Dickie urged. “Only one to go, then you’re here. You can do it!”
His heart exploded with joy when he felt himself pushing off with his right foot.
His left foot touched the opposite bank!
Then both feet!
He was there!
And then his arms were around his father’s neck. It was warm, full of blood. He heard his father say, “Hello, boy.”
There was someone behind Dickie.
He couldn’t see who it was, but he felt a presence, an overwhelming power.
His father was about to encircle him with his arms when—
He was wrenched away, literally snatched from his father’s loving grasp and hurtled back, back into the tunnel, back into his bedroom.
It happened so fast, this passage from one world to the next. The cruelty of the return stung his eyes.
Tears started to spring from the deepest well of his soul. And when Jessie came home an hour later he was still holding onto himself, rocking himself, crying.
Twenty-four
A party was getting under way in a residential loft off Kenmore Square a short distance from Fenway Park. The hosts were an Australian couple, commercial artists celebrating a contract their small company had landed to do ad work for a software company. Throngs of friends and business associates milled around their cavernous space on the fifth floor of what once had been a paint factory.
Loud music bounced off the walls and throbbing subwoofers sent impact tremors through the old floorboards. By 11 P.M., the loft was packed. Scores of urbanites pressed up against the banqueting table sampling platters of food and bowls labeled SHEEP DIP. They filled their glasses with an inexhaustible supply of Fosters and Australian whites. The room undulated with disinhibited dancing bodies.
The hostess stretched on her toes and shouted into her husband’s ear that she didn’t recognize a lot of the people. He shouted something back but she made a sign she couldn’t hear him. He cupped his hands and boomed again, “I don’t care!”
A slim young woman in a minidress was dancing by herself in front of a large industrial window flanked by two potted palms. She had commandeered her own bottle of wine and interrupted her steps every so often to take a swig directly from it. When she threw her head bac
k her long black hair touched her waist.
A young man spent several minutes watching her. The beat of the music and the foliage surrounding her made it look like he was stalking prey in the jungle. Unnoticed, he edged himself within striking distance then made his move by extending his empty glass. She looked at him in a soft unfocused sort of way, wiped the top of the bottle with her thumb then poured until the glass overflowed. Laughing, he pulled it away and took three large gulps. He reextended his arm and she poured again. Soon they were dancing in and out of the palm trees and he was trying to plant a kiss through the fronds.
“What’s your name?” he shouted to her.
“Jennifer. What’s yours?”
“William—let’s find someplace quieter!” he yelled.
He took her by the hand and pulled her through the crowd. They explored the perimeter of the loft, trying doors until they found a bedroom. The bed was stacked with coats. He locked the door behind them and because he was muscular he was able to lift her up in the air as if she were a small child and toss her onto the coat mountain. Over the muffled music he heard her dissolve into giggles. He dove on top of her, stripped her bare from the waist down and the two of them burrowed into the coats like gophers.
Minutes later, an arm popped out then a leg. “That was fun!” she said giddily.
“Want to have more fun?” he asked.
“Sure. How?”
“A friend of mine gave me something new to try.”
“A drug?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s it called?”
“Bliss, I think.”
That set her off laughing again. “Who doesn’t like a little bliss? What’s it do?”
“It’s supposed to give you some kind of spiritual high. Like a very mellow acid. He told me it was the best trip he ever had. I’ve been waiting for the right occasion. How ’bout it?”
A saucy head whip sent her hair flying. “Yeah, sure. Anything once.”
He still had his suit jacket on and pulled out two thin red straws of red paper. After finding his half-full wineglass on the floor by the bed, he spilled the contents of both straws into the glass and swirled it around. “Let’s share,” he said.
They each drank half and settled back into the coats.
“How long does it take?” she asked.
“I forgot to ask.”
“Are you friends with the Gibbons?” she asked.
“Who’re they?”
“The people throwing the party!”
“No. I came with a guy who knows them. What about you?”
“I did a summer internship with their company last year, in between my first and second year at RISD.”
“What’s RISD?”
“Rhode Island School of Design.”
“You’re an artist?”
“I want to be one.”
“Cool,” he said. “That’s really cool.”
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“William. William Treblehorn.”
“Not Bill or Billy or Will or Willy?” she asked playfully, poking his chest.
“Nope. William.”
“Then you’re not allowed to call me Jenny. It’s Jennifer to you.”
They talked and played with each other awhile longer until both of them nodded off.
Outside the bedroom door a knot of people congregated in animated discussion. A man kept jiggling the doorknob and banging on the door with the heel of his hand.
Finally, he said, “Someone’s probably passed out drunk in there.”
“Well, I need my coat.”
“It’s after one-thirty. I’ve got to go.”
“I’ll see if Bernie has the key.”
The host was dragged to the door and tried it himself. “I don’t know where the bloody key is. We never lock it,” he said, swooning with drink. “I’ll see if Nan knows where the heck we keep it.”
A minute later he returned with Nan, who was swaying herself and proudly displaying a key.
“She’s the best damn wife a bloke could have,” her husband declared. He fumbled with the lock and flung open the door.
A blast of cold air hit him full on. The industrial-sized window beside the bed had been pulled open. The wind was howling through. The icy blast momentarily forced him to shut his eyes.
He blinked a few times then cried out, “Bloody hell!”
A young man was standing by the window completely naked. He was staring out with a wild look in his eyes, his blond hair blowing straight back. He turned at Bernie’s voice and faced the people who were poking their heads into the room.
“What the hell is going on in here?” Bernard demanded. William sank to his knees sobbing. “I saw my grandfather! I saw him!”
“Course you did, me old fruit. Let’s find your clothes then get you the hell out of my house. Will someone help me find this bloke’s clothes?”
“She saw someone too!” he cried.
“Who did?”
“Her name was Jennifer. She said God was there!”
“Okay, steady on. Where’s Jennifer?”
“She said she wanted to be there forever.”
“Fine, fine.” The fellow looking for his clothes signaled he couldn’t find them. “If you can’t find his things then just chuck over a coat, will you, mate?” Bernie said. “I can’t have a naked man about. Now where did you say Jennifer is?”
“Down there.”
“What do ya mean, down there?”
The young man pointed.
The host began sobering up as he crept to the window. He reluctantly stuck his head out and beneath him, clearly illuminated by a streetlight was the naked body of a woman with long black hair surrounded by a spreading pool of blood.
Twenty-five
Frank Sacco was a regular at the Seagull Lounge on Revere Beach Boulevard. In the summer it was a cheerful kind of place where locals mixed with sandy day trippers, a joint where you could score a decent bowl of chowder with your beer. In the winter, though, it was a dark, depressing dive for hard-drinking townies who weren’t much interested in soup.
Frank’s cousin, Stevie, worked there and when he was behind the bar Frank got plugged into a buy-one-get-one-free mode. As the evening progressed, Frank got happier and expansive, flashing a fat roll of cash, buying rounds for the entire place.
“What’s with you?” his cousin asked, pushing another shot of Canadian Frank’s way.
“Just feeling good, Stevie,” Frank replied, slurring his words. “It’s all good.”
Stevie pointed at the roll in Frank’s fist. “Yeah? You come into money?”
“I got a little business on the side.”
The bartender looked over at one of the occupied booths. “That’s cool, but stash the cash. Don’t be looking for trouble.”
Frank peeled off a few twenties, dropped them on the bar and said, “This is for you, man. You’re a fucking good guy.”
His cousin tried to give the money back but the bills slid back and forth on the beer-splashed wood until Frank won and Stevie reluctantly took them and said, “I’ll put this in my pocket if you put yours away too.”
Frank agreed and called for another round.
The scene was playing out in front of two regulars. John Abruzzi and Mario Fortunelli had spotted Frank’s kielbasa-sized bill roll. Abruzzi, a brawny guy in a cashmere pullover, had been to the barber and in between sips of beer moodily plucked bits of hair from the inside of his collar. With mounting curiosity he approached Frank and clapped him on back. “Hey, Frankie, what’s going on?”
Frank grinned back. “Not much, man.”
“Last time someone bought a round in this bar, there was a wake.”
“No one’s dead this time,” Frank replied.
Over Stevie’s suspicious glances Abruzzi invited Frank back to his booth and told the pimply Fortunelli to slide over. Even though they were young guys, not much more than a few steps removed from their days as street punks, there was
a pecking order between them that Fortunelli understood. Abruzzi’s uncle was a ranking member of the local Colombo crew. Fortunelli had no such connections.
“How’re you doing, Frankie?” Fortunelli asked. He’d gone to high school with Frank but they hadn’t exactly been friends. In fact, Frank had been scared of the kid’s reputation as a crazy-ass.
“I’m good, man. How’re you?”
“Can’t complain,” Fortunelli answered.
“Hell you can’t!” Abruzzi laughed. “Alls he does is bitch and moan like a whiny little bitch.”
Fortunelli came back with a weak “Yeah, right!” then clammed up.
Abruzzi leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “So Frankie, you look like you’ve been doing all right. You still working in a lab or something?”
“Yeah, still a tech over at Harvard Med.”
“Don’t you love the sound of that, Mario?” Abruzzi said, picking another hair off his neck. “Frankie’s at Harvard. So how come a guy busting ass as a nine to fiver’s got enough cash to sink a fuckin’ battleship?”
Frank was too drunk to notice the iciness that had crept into Abruzzi’s voice. Abruzzi was only a few years older than Frank but thanks to cockiness and size it seemed as though they were separated by a generation. “I’ve got a side business,” Frank whispered.
“Oh yeah? What kind of business?” Abruzzi asked.
Frank looked across the table blearily and slurred, “B’lieve it or not, I was thinking about talking to you guys because, t’ be honest, I’ve taken this about as far as I can. Maybe you can help me.”
Fortunelli began to snigger but a dirty look from Abruzzi shut him up. “Yeah, maybe we can. What’s this involve?”
“Drugs,” Frank whispered again.
“We’re familiar with drugs,” Abruzzi quipped. “Which ones in particular?”
“None you’ve heard of,” Frank said.
Fortunelli couldn’t contain himself. “C’mon, Frankie. John’s like the motherfucking Physician’s Desk Reference. He’s got it covered.”
“Yeah,” Abruzzi agreed. “I’ve got an advanced degree in that shit.”