Two weeks before, the major concerns in my life had been getting a paycheck and figuring out the twists and turns of a relationship with Brooke. Now, my major concern was whether I’d be able to kill myself in time.
I thought, too, about other changes in me.
As I crossed the threshold of the door, I glanced back into the room. Tim wasn’t watching me, but kept his small hard eyes trained on his uncle. I shifted my gaze to the older man.
“I’m going to kill you,” I said.
“Hardly fitting talk for a physician,” Tony replied.
Don’t I know it.
But the opportunity to end anyone’s life but my own was not in the cards. The needle pressed against the skin of my palm as I stepped into the hallway. I’d need only a few seconds. To find the vein, to pierce it with the needle.
The thoughts I thought were unbelievable to me.
Kwong had released my collar, but was still poking the gun into my back. We passed a door with a small window in it. I caught a glimpse of what I thought was a human form slumped in the corner.
The animal rooms were behind us now, but I was certain I could hear the rabbits, the mice and rats, screaming. It was probably just the blood in my ears, but the thought that something—even the rats—cared about my fate was comforting.
Totally, absolutely, unbelievable.
Then something happened. Something equally unbelievable. A man’s scream, guttural and primal. It echoed from within the conference room down the hallway.
My first thought was that Tony had answered whatever questions he had about the boy and decided to kill him, to juice himself with a scream before he broke Tim’s neck.
Kwong’s gun shifted from my back.
My second thought was, A chance.
120
I AM NOT FAST WITH a pistol. I cannot punch or kick faster than many men. But I am quick with a needle. If I’d learned nothing else during residency, I’d learned to hit a blood vessel quickly. Very quickly. And very accurately.
I wheeled, rolling into Kwong’s body so that we were face-to-face. The bone shears clattered to the floor. The uncapped needle was in my hand. For a microsecond, I eyed the external jugular on his left side, then my left hand flew to his neck and grabbed it, stabilizing the flesh. The gun fired to my side and I felt his hand kick up along my torso. I felt Kwong drawing back the gun to put it in my gut, his left hand coming up to break my hold on his neck.
The needle was already in motion.
He mistook what I was doing, thinking I wanted to strangle him. When he knocked my left hand away, he relaxed for a split second. My right slid along his neck, along the jugular laid out big and round like a rope.
Through the tail of the dragon, through the epidermis and dermis, through the four layers of the vein. By the time the needle had punctured the vessel wall into the lumen, I was already unloading its contents.
The velocity of blood in the external jugular vein is about twenty centimeters per second. The blood travels to the lungs, then to the heart, a distance of perhaps sixty centimeters. Velocity slows in the lung. Give it five seconds before Kwong’s cardiac muscle saw more potassium than it ever had before.
In his surprise, Kwong had not maintained his balance when I pushed my body into him. We fell and thudded to the ground.
I used both my hands to grab his arm. But he was strong—so fucking strong—and he forced the gun toward my body. All my weight was on the arm now. The syringe, still lodged in his neck, bobbed like the needle on a Geiger counter.
His free hand clawed at my face. His fingers were in my eye sockets, his hand on my broken cheek, grinding the jagged edges of bone against one another. I yelped.
The fingers continued to press. I began to see colored snow on a dark background, began to feel the globes of my eyes deform.
And then he began to relax, slowly at first, then faster. His hands dropped from my face. His breath, which had been labored and regular, snagged in his throat as his heart began tumbling into an arrhythmic spiral.
Faster breaths now; realization and horror sparked in his eyes. His face contorted. He gave one last heave of his arm, one last desperate play to gouge out my eyes. Then he went slack.
Hardly fitting for a physician, I thought. I did not wait to hear his last breath. I rolled off the dead man and, quickly as my broken body would let me, limped to the conference room door. I was not ready to see what was inside. I was not ready to see Tim Kim’s head lolling to the side, his neck broken.
Then I heard the sounds. A series of grunts, scraping. A crash.
I swung into the room, prepared to use the last of my strength to launch myself at Uncle Tony.
Just then, a small body crashed into my legs.
I pulled Tim back into the hallway. His eyes were wild and he clutched on to my pants. “I didn’t—”
I pushed him against the wall.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Stay here!” I shouted.
I stepped back into the conference room.
Tony was there, pawing madly around the Formica table seeking something. Whatever he was searching for, he couldn’t see it. He couldn’t see it because he had no eyes.
Blood and clear liquid—the vitreous humor that fills the globes of the eyes—trailed down his face and stained his white shirt, as if he’d been weeping crimson. The medical instruments had been pulled to the floor, except for one: the long, sharp forceps with which Tim had been playing. The bloodied instrument lay on the table, its two halves sprung wide by a boy who’d used his wits.
“Stop,” I said to Tony.
He didn’t, and continued to pat the table in front of him.
“Damn it, stop!” I shouted.
The beating of his hands slowed, then ceased. His arms were extended over the table like those of a blackjack dealer.
“There’s a chair behind you,” I said. “Sit.”
Tony’s arms fluttered behind him; they found the chair. He sat.
Tim stood in the doorway now, looking at his great-uncle, then looking at me. He seemed frightened out of his mind. “I’m sorry…”
“It’s okay,” I said to him. “You did just fine, kiddo. Just fine.”
Tony barked something in Chinese, so loud his voice cracked. Tim looked as if he’d been slapped.
“Shut up,” I said. “Kwong’s dead. Is there anyone else here?”
Tony let out a long, low moan. I picked up the bloodied forceps and put them to Tony’s throat; the metal dimpled the skin. Tony continued moaning.
“I will shove these through your neck if you move,” I said. The metal burned on the frostbitten skin of my left hand, but I held tight.
I leaned over him, running my hands into the pockets of his jacket: wallet, PDA, Dorothy’s fingertip. In the pants pockets were a set of keys and a cell phone. I threw it all onto the table. Without moving the forceps from his neck, I sat in a chair.
“Tim, go into the hall,” I said. I turned back to the man whose moan had turned to a whimper. “Anyone else here?” I pushed the forceps into his neck, felt the metal punch through the first layers of skin.
“No one else. No one else. Not yet. They are coming.”
“Where is Dorothy?”
“Down the hall.”
I regarded Tony, his eyeless Oedipal face, his bloodstained shirt. Normally, the look of agony on anyone, on any human being, stirred my sympathies. It’s why you become a doctor, right? To end human suffering. But the sight of this man’s suffering did not arouse sympathy. Whatever reasons Tony had for doing what he did, I had no pity for him. Blinded as he was, as painful as it might be, his pain couldn’t compare to what he had caused.
“Why did the Murphy kids have to die?” I asked him.
“They were…not supposed to be there,” he groaned.
“But you killed them anyway.”
“B-business.”
“Why did you assault Brooke Michaels?”
My hand tensed on the metal
, pressed it harder into his neck. He winced. “Business.”
I’d like to say that I didn’t think about what I did next—that it was some uncontrollable urge, some fit of temporary insanity—but I did think. Having thought about it, I’d like to say it was for a good reason—to get more information, to save someone’s life—but it was not. I brought my right hand to his face, placed my thumb next to the eyeless socket.
“Well, Garheng.” I bent down to his ear, spoke softly. “This is not business.”
I plunged my thumb inside. Tony screamed and lashed out with his arms, but my left hand drove the forceps deeper into the flesh of his neck, and somewhere in his pain-addled brain he realized he would die if he kept this up. So he dropped his arms, and I released pressure on the metal. But I continued to grind my thumb into the warm hole in his skull. Three seconds passed, seven. I felt the collapsed rind of his eye’s sclera; I felt the wetness of blood. The man continued screaming, gasped for breath, screamed again. Ten seconds. Twelve.
I stopped. I slid my thumb out of his eye socket, slid the forceps out of his neck. I wanted to puke.
Tim stood at my elbow, silent and staring.
Shame and disgust filled me.
I wiped my hand on my pants, tossed the forceps to the floor, and turned to Tim. I reached for his hand.
He paused for a second, looked at the blood on me, looked at his great-uncle, then shrank away. He stopped in the doorway, gripped the jamb, and watched.
“Tim…” I said, trying to be consoling, unable to tell if he was horrified by what I’d done or by what he’d done. He stayed rigid and mute.
I dialed 911 and gave the dispatcher the situation. An ambulance would be sent, she said.
“Two ambulances,” I told her.
After that, I dialed Information. I had them patch me through to the San Francisco Police Department. The operator was reluctant at first, but words like “emergency,” “kidnap,” and “die” seemed to do the trick. She put me through to Jack Tang’s cell phone.
Tang answered, his voice dull and sleepy. The moment I heard it, I started talking. The words tumbled out, wild and out of control.
“Hold on, Doctor. You’re safe?”
“Yeah. I guess you could say that.”
“Give me twenty minutes. Wait there.”
121
I DID NOT WAIT FOR Jack Tang.
I picked up the fingertip, wrapped it in its cloth. I ripped the cord from the conference room’s telephone and pocketed Tony’s cell.
In the hallway, I moved a rolling cabinet in front of the conference room door, hoping a blind man would be unable to exit without making a racket.
Then Tim and I went to find his mother. As we drew closer to Kwong, I saw Tim staring at the body.
“Don’t look,” I said.
I grabbed the boy’s hand—I didn’t give him the chance to shirk away from me—and pulled him toward the room in which I’d seen the slumped body. I peered through the small window set in the door. Dorothy was there, hunched in a corner.
She didn’t look up.
I knocked, and still she didn’t move. Frantic, I fumbled at the lock and threw open the door.
“Dorothy!” I shouted.
Her head jerked up. I felt relief lift me like a song.
Her hands had been tied behind her back, and her ankles bound with a cable tie.
“Mommy!” Tim yelled, and rocketed over to his mother. The kid’s arms went around Dorothy’s neck and squeezed so hard I worried she might black out. She toppled sideways, and I saw she clutched a white, bloodstained cloth in her left hand.
The room had been used for procedures on the animals—stainless-steel table, biohazard waste can, sharps disposal, cabinet filled with sutures and other odds and ends. On the table lay a pair of the heavy bone shears. Blood congealed on the cutting edges, on the shiny surface of the table.
Dorothy laughed, a light, lovely sound intermingled with crying. And when she did, Tim began to blubber, full-throated sobs that seemed to choke him. I realized it was the first time I’d seen the boy cry.
I gave them a moment, then took hold of the bone shears.
“Tim, stand back.” The boy wouldn’t.
“Tim, let Dr. McCormick…” She couldn’t get the words out through her crying.
I maneuvered the boy far enough away that I could get the shears between Dorothy’s hands and feet. Her shoulder was already wet, covered in tears. I set the ties between the blades and cut. There was a groan, and her limbs unfolded. They moved stiffly and slowly at first. Arms, then legs, wrapped around the boy, engulfing him. A flurry of kisses covered the boy’s head. He giggled and bawled. They both bawled.
Tim twisted himself into her arms, his feet slipping on the concrete as he tried to push himself into her. “Ouch, Timothy. Mommy’s hand hurts. Be careful.”
Dorothy pulled her son close with her left arm, the bloody cloth still gripped in her hand. Her eyes met mine. “We’re safe?” she asked.
I nodded, dropped the shears on the table.
“Your face…”
“Yeah, well…”
She reached her right hand out to me. I took it, and she drew me down to her.
“Thank you,” she whispered. Her face pulled close to mine, and I expected a peck on the cheek. But she pivoted her head at the last minute and our lips met. I felt her unfamiliar contours, the uneven roll on the left side.
She pulled away, embarrassed.
I drew her up to me again and kissed her lightly on the mouth.
“Beauty and the Beast,” she said.
“Come on, don’t be cruel. I don’t look that bad.” I smiled. “Let me see that hand.”
She took her left arm from around her son and raised it. Carefully, I unfolded the cloth, revealing a ragged, glistening red stump above the first knuckle of her pinky finger. Thick wet blood coated the hand.
“How bad’s the pain?” I asked.
“I’ll never play the clarinet again,” she said, and forced a smile. I realized she refused to complain in front of her son.
From my pocket, I retrieved the cloth with the fingertip inside. I unwrapped it.
“Ugh,” Dorothy said, “I don’t need to see that.”
I redid the little bundle, then sat there, looking at my feet. Now was perhaps not the time, but I could not ignore something so massive.
“Paul—” I said, turning to face her.
Dorothy glanced up from her boy, pulled him closer with one arm. The smile on her face faded.
“I know,” she said, inclining her head toward Tim, as if to say Not appropriate now.
I ignored her gesture. I needed her to understand what had happened. “No. He betrayed us. Me and you.”
“I know, Nate. You think they didn’t tell me? You think they didn’t blame me for everything?” Behind the brave face, there was real pain. She turned back to her son, nuzzled her face in his hair. He laughed. “Mommy wasn’t thinking straight. Mommy got confused about what was important.” She kissed the boy’s cheek.
I forced myself to stand. My body hurt now, tremendously so. As I turned to leave the room—to leave Dorothy with the one thing she cared about—she said to me, “Both of us. I know.”
In a supply closet off the hallway, I rummaged for saline in which to place Dorothy’s severed finger.
When I returned from the supply closet, I saw the cabinet in front of the conference room door had been moved. The door was open. From inside, I heard the soft lilt of Chinese.
Dorothy was sitting in a chair next to her uncle, stroking his hair, speaking softly to him. She glanced at me when I entered the room.
Tim sat in a conference chair, immobile as a statue. The tears and snot had dried, leaving chalky streaks under the eyes and nostrils. He stared intensely at his mother and great-uncle.
I set the cup with saline and Dorothy’s finger inside on the table.
“How did this happen?” Dorothy asked me.
“We need
to pack his wounds,” I said, ignoring the question. Truth was, we didn’t really need to pack Uncle Tony’s wounds, since the bleeding had stopped. But I couldn’t just sit around staring at a man who reminded me I was a torturer.
“I’ll find some gauze,” I said. And get away from this man.
I turned, exited the room. I stopped.
Hunched over Michael Kwong’s body—shoes off, hands pawing, eyes wild—was Alex Rodriguez.
122
SHE GOT HOLD OF KWONG’S goddamned gun and grunted as she swung it toward my chest.
I heard Dorothy call from inside the room. “Nate, what’s going on?”
I was too stunned to speak.
Alex pushed herself to her feet. “At least he let me out of the damned cold room before he died.” She cut her eyes to Kwong. “You did this?”
I didn’t answer her. Instead, I said, “Alex, this is over.”
“Inside,” she said. I backed into the room. Alex followed.
Dorothy was now turned toward us, her hand on her uncle’s arm. The two women’s eyes met, and Dorothy’s face hardened. In that moment, I saw that she truly did know everything. Everything.
“You bitch,” Dorothy said.
“Oh, honey. Don’t say that. I’m just doing what I have to do.”
I watched this woman, who found opportunities and seized them, who did what she had to do, who was, if nothing else, a survivor. It was the moment of her greatest opportunity: her chance finally to free Tetra from its shackles and its burdens, her chance to save herself from a long jail sentence. The quick PhD mind had assessed the situation and found a way out. A beautiful, elegant way out.
“They’re not going to believe you,” I said. I kept my voice even and steady.
“Of course they’ll believe me. Who’s going to tell them differently?”
“Where’s Dan?” I asked, searching for anything to say to draw this out.
“He’s waiting for the police because”—the tip of her tongue touched her lip—“I can’t imagine that you didn’t call them.”
Though Alex played it cool, I could tell she was worried. The ambulance was coming, the police were coming. She was concocting her story, working out the flow of events that left this facility heaped with bodies.
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