Sleep Tight

by Jeffrey Jacobson

  Dr. Reischtal broke in, his voice sharp and direct. “I will remind all of you that this operation is working with classified information. I am afraid Mr. Krazinsky is here in a debriefing capacity, not as a consultant. Please refrain from disclosing any sensitive information during this interview session.”

  The shaggy man threw up his hands in disgust.

  Dr. Reischtal said, “Mr. Krazinsky, you may answer the question.”

  Tommy thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Look, me and Don, we never had much experience with live rats. We pretty much only put out poisoned bait, then collected the dead ones. All I can tell you is this one was seriously pissed off. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any animal with that much . . . rage, aggression, whatever you want to call it. It looked like the only thing this rat wanted was to kill us.”

  Eventually, they reached a point where Tommy had no way of answering any more questions. He did not know where the homeless woman was who had found the rat. He did not know the age of the rat. He did not know why the Streets and Sans workers’ quotas had been lowered or eliminated completely.

  Dr. Reischtal said, “I believe the questions have run their course. Unless there is any other pressing business, this interview is over. Mr. Krazinsky needs his rest.”

  “Very well,” Dr. Halsey said. “The interview regarding the rat situation may be over, but I believe there is still the matter of Mr. Krazinsky’s civil rights to be discussed.”

  “Of course,” Dr. Reischtal said. “But not at this juncture. Thank you.”

  Some of the doctors and scientists started to protest, but their voices were silenced as the televisions blinked over to a blue screen, one by one, until only two images remained. Dr. Reischtal and Tommy.

  Dr. Reischtal said, “Very well. Sergeant Reaves?”

  From somewhere behind him, Tommy heard Sergeant Reaves say, “Yes, doctor.”

  “Give this man the phone.”

  Sergeant Reaves placed a cheap cell phone in Tommy’s right hand. He figured it to be some pre-paid, disposable phone. Something with no paperwork. He turned it over and opened it with his thumb. The phone was fully charged and waiting. He wondered if he could dial nine-one-one before Sergeant Reaves took it away.

  Dr. Reischtal said, “I feel . . . compelled to inform you that the outgoing call function has been disabled.” He checked his watch. “In less than thirty seconds, you are to get a phone call from you daughter. Sergeant Reaves will observe. So please remember that your daughter’s well-being is at stake here as well as your own.” Dr. Reischtal’s picture disappeared, leaving only a blue screen.

  A moment later, the red light on the camera winked out.

  The phone rang.

  Tommy tried to stop his hand from trembling. He didn’t recognize the number. He hit the CALL button. Since he couldn’t lift it to his ear, he hit SPEAKER. He croaked out, “Hello?”

  No answer. Some sound. Breathing maybe.

  “Hello? Grace?”

  A soft laugh. “Jesus, you’re a fucking moron.”

  Tommy froze. He knew that voice.

  It was Lee.

  Tommy whipped his head around to glare at Sergeant Reaves. But the man simply stared straight ahead, face set in stone.

  Lee’s voice continued. “Nah, Grace isn’t here right now, asshole. Want to leave a message?” Another laugh. “I don’t know what kind of deal you had with that wack job at the hospital, but let me explain a few things. You work for me. I tell you to shit, and you ask how much. You are mine. You and that fucking idiot Wycza caused me so many goddamn headaches, you have no idea. Jesus Christ. I got half a mind to go beat it out of your daughter. Maybe make myself feel better.”

  “You touch her, and I will kill you.”

  Lee laughed again. “Oh, yeah? You gonna take me on? Ten minutes with me and my boys, you’ll be wishing you was back in that fucking hospital. So think very carefully about that, tough guy.”

  Tommy resisted the overwhelming urge to hurl the phone at the televisions. He pictured Grace, sleeping somewhere in this sonofabitch’s condo. “What do you want?”

  “Shit. I want you right there. I want you with a hundred needles in your eyes. I want you in pain, day and night. I want you to regret the day you ever went to work for me. I want you to die a slow, painful death. How’s that sound?”

  Tommy didn’t answer.

  “I want . . . I want you to understand how bad you fucked up. I want you to know that when I’m done with this fine piece of ass, your ex-wife, I want you to know that I’m putting her on the street. See how badly she wants to make rent for her and that bitch daughter of yours. I want you to know that soon, very soon, I’m gonna sell this daughter of yours to a couple of very bad customers. People that truly enjoy young flesh, if you catch my meaning. I want you to say good-bye to everything you loved in your pathetic life.”

  Lee paused, enjoying himself. “I want you to know that you do not fuck with me. I want you to be an example. I want people in this town to whisper your name and know that if you fuck with me, I will destroy you. I will destroy your family. I will destroy your soul. You got that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.” Lee hung up.

  CHAPTER 41

  5:33 PM

  August 13

  Ed parked in the middle of the countless Streets and Sans vehicles. “All right, let’s give this a shot. Put on your friendly face.” Sam did his best to pull his features into a soft smile. Ed sighed and shook his head. “Do me a favor. Don’t fucking smile. You’re gonna scare the hell out of people.”

  They got out and walked through the August heat that reverberated off the blacktop with a vengeance. By the time they stepped into the air-conditioning of the bar, they were soaked in sweat. They knew they would be under scrutiny the second they stepped inside, knew they would be made as cops instantly. There was nothing for it, nothing they could do. Just order a beer and make a general announcement explaining their position.

  The bar was packed, but not one patron turned to look at them. Everyone was glued to the televisions. All seven were on news channels. Anchors stumbled as they read their lines. “—authorities can neither confirm nor deny any of these random killings are related.” Sam wandered over and watched WGN above the bar.

  WGN cut to a reporter down in a subway station. His expression was grave. “At this point, Jim, we just don’t know.”

  “Well, we know that no official statements have been released at this time, but have you heard anything? What can you tell us about the authorities?” Jim, the anchorman, was getting impatient. “I mean, what are they doing to—wait a minute, Chester. I’m being told—what? Wait.” Jim broke from his lines and looked away from the teleprompter directly under the camera. “I’m sorry, but this is too—too—this is the news, for god’s sake. They can’t tell us what to—”

  The director cut back to Chester, who was busy adjusting his tie.

  Ed was drawn to two different news reports across the room, his attention torn between CNN and Fox News. CNN had a correspondent outside of the White House saying that the president was aware of the elevated number of deaths in Chicago, and was monitoring the situation, but that was all for now.

  Fox News speculated about possible rioting and looting in Chicago. They cut to a fat white guy, an American flag pinned to his lapel. “Mark my words, you will have people wanting to take advantage of the chaos caused by a particular nasty version of the common flu bug. But that’s all. It’s just your common cold. Bird flu. Swine flu. Big deal. Look folks, there is no cause for alarm. We humans are a resilient bunch.” Everybody at Fox enjoyed a good chuckle.

  WGN cut to the reporter down in the subway holding his mike and talking to the cameraman and sound guy for a moment. “Any interference this way? I like the lights over here. Put me in profile. Okay. I can do another take. No sweat. And in three-two-one.” His pitch dropped while his cadence quickened. “I’m Chester Hackensack, deep in the Washington subway station
. During any weekday rush hour, thousands of commuters use this particular station every five minutes at peak capacity. Tonight, it is practically empty. It is literally a ghost town.” The camera panned over to show two or three people standing in the brightest light in the middle of the station. “The soldiers up top won’t authorize any audio or video, so we’re shooting down here. No one is here, and yet, no one is talking.” As if he realized that made no sense at all, he took a breath, giving time for someone to jump in. No one did. Chester nodded. “At this time, these few commuters are waiting for a presumably vacant train. Back to you in the studio, Jim.”

  Chester waited another beat. “Wish I could tell you more. Back to you, Jim.”

  CNN and FOX News had cut from the experts and were now showing the same shaking, blurry footage. The shot was from overhead, definitely from a helicopter, of police chasing a frightened, scurrying figure into a playground. From the angle, it was impossible to tell if it was somewhere in the city itself or out in the suburbs. The figure, a woman, raised her arms, and kids started falling around her. There was no audio, but Ed didn’t need it. He knew only too well that he was watching a woman with a gun. Parents scooped up children and fled. The woman crawled under the slide, out of view of the helicopter. Chicago cops moved in. They surrounded her, all firing.

  The CNN anchor said in halting tones, “This video was taken approximately thirty minutes ago in Chicago’s Near North neighborhood. Few details are known at this time. We can tell you that the attacker has been shot to death by the police. It is believed that at least four children are dead, with several more in critical condition in area hospitals. The names of the deceased have not been released, nor are authorities speculating about a motive.”

  Fox News kept showing the footage, over and over, zooming in when the woman started shooting, while experts debated what exactly had driven the shooter to the playground. They kept repeating the word “terrorist,” sometimes with a question mark, sometimes not.

  A record of fifteen homicides and counting. A husband bludgeoned his wife to death with her own clothes iron. A woman stabbed her youngest child to death with a seven-inch stainless steel knife designed to chop vegetables. A man drove his car into a line of people waiting for the bus at the corner of Michigan and Adams.

  Sam caught Ed’s eye, tilted his head at the door.

  They got in their car and drove east, toward the lake, toward the Loop.

  Tommy clutched the phone so hard he heard the plastic crack. He forced himself to unlock his fist. The cell phone fell from his rigid fingers to the thin, industrial carpet. Deep in his mind, he knew he should have tried to keep hold of it, tried to smuggle it back to his room. Maybe he could figure out a way to make it work, to call outside the hospital, or at least text something to alert the outside world.

  A single television in the center of the wall went from a blue screen to an overhead shot of a patient strapped to a bed. It was a man, a large man, and as he writhed against the restraints, his tremendous gut rolled back and forth. Tommy recognized Don almost immediately.

  Don was in agony. There was no sound, but Tommy could see the open, screaming mouth. Fingers scrabbled at the mattress. The toes curled. Don’s back arched in one unending spasm. Tommy kept waiting for him to stop, to fall back slack against the bed, to collapse with fatigue, but Don never showed any sign of release. It was as if he was connected to a live wire that was sending a relentless, unbroken high-voltage stream through his battered body, and the torturer had fallen asleep at the switch.

  It was exhausting just watching him.

  A second TV switched over to another overhead shot of a patient. Tommy didn’t know this one. The man was ragged and thin and dirty. Maybe some homeless guy. It didn’t matter. The unsettling body language mirrored Don’s thrashing. This man’s mouth opened and closed, broken teeth crunching together. A glimpse of gauze inside the mouth meant that the irregular teeth had snapped shut on the man’s tongue.

  A third television blinked; another patient, this one also in the grip of agony. A fourth TV, a fifth. Soon the whole wall was alive with pain. The soundless cries filled the quiet room and Tommy recoiled in silent horror.

  Dr. Reischtal whispered in his ear, “Do you see?”

  Tommy flinched. He hadn’t heard Dr. Reischtal enter the conference room.

  “Everyone else around here calls it a dreadful disease. A horrible tragedy. A supervirus. How absurd. They don’t see this for what it really is. They don’t see it as corruption of the spirit. But you, you see the truth. You can see that these hosts, they are not victims. They are not simply infected. They have been consumed by the darkness. They are all lost souls. You can see this. You know this to be true.”

  Tommy didn’t say anything. With his luck, he’d try and say something that the lunatic would agree with, but would end up being the absolute worst thing to say. Tommy would end up cementing his compliance with the virus, driving Dr. Reischtal deeper into madness. Tommy knew that his very life teetered on the edge of this doctor’s insanity, hanging precariously on a thread in the cobwebs of Dr. Reischtal’s poisonous mind. So he kept his mouth shut.

  “Why doesn’t this”—Dr. Reischtal nodded at the wall of TVs—“live within you?”

  Tommy didn’t bother to say anything. He figured it was another rhetorical question.

  Dr. Reischtal leaned in close, tiny glasses focusing his eyes like black lasers. “Obviously, there is still much we do not know. Therefore, you will be placed in close proximity to your partner, and we will observe the results.” Dr. Reischtal drew himself to his full height and gazed down at Tommy. “We will find out, once and for all, what you are hiding.”

  CHAPTER 42

  6:11 PM

  August 13

  A riot of swirling blue and red lights and irritated horns surrounded the Loop. Ed and Sam found that Upper Wacker was a parking lot, so they tried Congress and found it blocked as well. Ed finally turned on the radio. WBBM was talking about the murders, of course, but took a break every ten minutes to give updates about the weather and traffic. As it turned out, Chicago police had restricted all of the interior streets in the Loop down to one lane in cooperation with a special unit acting as liaisons with a branch of the CDC.

  “Sounds like more horseshit to me,” Sam said.

  “This is why I don’t turn on the radio,” Ed said. He flashed his lights, hit the siren, and whipped a U, heading south. He tore down Halsted to Roosevelt, turned to the lake. Left on Lake Shore Drive, this time heading north. Ed left the windows down. Sam cranked the air-conditioning.

  Ed kept the siren and lights going as he raced up LSD, drifting across lanes with an almost drunken confidence. He turned left on East Monroe, heading west, back into downtown. They turned right on Michigan, then tried to go left on East Madison. A mass of cars blocked the intersection, all vying to be the next in line. Sam took the bullhorn and yelled at the driver of a silver Lexus. “Stop that car fucking right there, douche bag.”

  The driver reluctantly stopped and refused to make eye contact as Ed got ahead of him. “That’s right, asshole,” Sam yelled into the bullhorn, aiming it at the Lexus. “Next time you see lights, you fucking remember to pull over.”

  Streets inside the Loop were squeezed down to one lane, blocked with red and white sawhorses. The few pedestrians moved with an urgent purpose along empty sidewalks. They certainly moved faster than the vehicles. Ed and Sam’s car crept forward with the pace of some old lady with a walker out on a sunny day in no particular hurry.

  Ed squeezed the steering wheel until Sam was afraid it might snap. Ed said, “This is gonna take all night. We’re never gonna find her going this slow.”

  “Fuck it then,” Sam said. He tapped his badge. “We got ourselves an all-access backstage pass. Park anywhere you feel like. Let’s go for a walk.”

  Ed pulled into the right hand turn lane at the intersection of Madison and State and killed the engine. Ed and Sam got out and stretched. The car
s behind them waiting to make a right immediately started honking, but Ed reached back in and hit the spinning lights. The rest of the drivers behind him didn’t like it much, but at least they stopped hitting their horns. They angrily waited for their turn to pull back into traffic and finally turn right once they were past the detectives’ car. Sam waved as they went past.

  Lee emptied the rest of the bottle of red wine into his glass. He set the bottle down harder than he’d intended, making a loud thunking noise on his glass dining table. Kimmy glanced at the empty bottle, but said nothing, focusing on her own plate. Good. She’d been a bitch lately, and he was in no fucking mood to listen to her nag, tonight especially.

  He hadn’t hit her. Yet. Their relationship wasn’t that far along. But if she kept pushing him, by God, she was going to find out in a fucking hurry that he expected his women to keep their mouths open in the bedroom and zipped shut everywhere else.

  Grace pushed soggy spaghetti noodles around her plate and made a face. “I wanted chicken strips,” she said for the third time that evening.

  “I’ve already told you,” Kimmy said, “no one is delivering tonight. You’re lucky that I had enough to make spaghetti. Now be quiet and eat your dinner.” She looked up at Lee. “I hope it turned out okay. My mom made it all the time for us growing up. It’s not as good as hers, but I hope it’s okay.”

  Lee gave a noncommittal grunt. The meal had been awful. Who the fuck serves peas with spaghetti? But there was no point in making things worse. He slid his plate away, making room for his elbows. He swirled the wine in his glass, just for something to do. It beat checking his phone yet again for a call from his uncle.

  Grace said quietly, “I hope Daddy is okay.”

  That about tore it. Lee drained his glass, went to pour another, and realized the bottle was empty. He couldn’t remember if he had another bottle in the wine cabinet in the pantry or not. Typical. The fucking city was falling apart around him and he was stuck with this stupid cunt and her kid without any alcohol.