Something hard and cold bites into the side of my neck, and the rooms in my house wring around each other, trapping me inside, looking out of fractured glass into the physical world. The Doctor withdraws his needle, and everything I am drains out.
* * *
This is not quite hypnotic suggestion, not quite dream study. I don’t know how the Doctor is doing this. Not quite pulling strings. Just directing my mind to drive as he sees fit.
First meeting:
It comes in flashes. I’m set up on a high building, gripping the gutter with my right hand, rifle braced against my shoulder. A little puff of air, the gun hardly jolts, and a tranquilizer dart slams into the base of Joe’s neck. He slumps over. I shimmy down the building.
Inside. I haul Joe up onto the table. Jam a stick wrapped with twine into his mouth. Slap him awake. Drop my toolkit onto the floor next to him, find an outlet, get to work. I haul out a circular saw, an acetylene torch, a leather belt, chains, cuffs.
I run the chains under the desk, spread eagle him and clamp him in. I wrap the belt around his leg and crank down hard, and Joe gets uncomfortable, even through the drug-induced haze. He wakes up when I plug in the saw and give it a good rip. Just the hum of that steel blade in the air. His eyes go wide as saucers.
“Jesus, no,” he says. Or tries to say, but the stuck muffles his speech.
“Housecall,” I say. “You’ve been a naughty boy and the Doctor is not happy.”
I let the saw rip. These were the kinds of things that were best to do in one clean stroke, like killing your dog after he’s gone rabid. Don’t spend time dwelling on it, just do what has to be done.
It’s astounding the amount of blood that spurts from his leg. His femur is tough, and the saw jams at least three times before the cut goes through. I throw the saw down and get to work with the acetylene torch, my cauterizer.
“It smells like a fucking barbeque in here,” I tell him. I give him a shot of morphine, just to unclench his heart. Keep him on this side of consciousness. Let him feel the hurt.
By this point he’s bitten through his gag. He’s on the edge of shock, and he’s muttering, almost to himself.
“She came around here looking to score, throwing your name around like it should mean something.”
“Who?”
“Your little girl,” he smiles.
“What do you know about it?” I ask. They all talk, they always do. Even in a state like this, just to stop you. Anything to save what little you leave them.
“I know she works nights at Pompidou’s. Earns her keep.”
And suddenly the Doctor’s orders began to pale, because there was a chance to fix things. To take back what was mine. Even though I’m a monster, I’m a mother too. The thought of Pompidou and my daughter. The Doctor and my daughter. Betrayal like this is unacceptable.
“If you’re lying I swear to God I’ll come back here and make a fucking jigsaw puzzle out of you.”
He’s passed out. It was an empty threat anyway. I didn’t expect him to survive the night, let alone live to fight another day. Just in case, I pick his cell phone from his pocket and speed dial the last number he called, figuring it had to be one of his guys.
“He’s bleeding,” I say into the phone. “Working late is a bitch.”
I uncuff his ankle, pick up his leg, lug it over my shoulder like a softball bat. What did I do with that thing, anyway? I’m out the door…
Second Meeting:
I’m back in Joe’s workshop, tucked into a corner. I still have my legs. Joe is down one, hobbling on a metal pole. I’m leaning back against the wall, watching him work, loading clips, checking sights, preparing.
“This is fucked,” he says. “I should kill you.”
“Likewise,” I reply. “We’re both being thoroughly unprofessional here.”
“So?” His fingers are a little unsteady, fumbling with the last of the rounds he’s pushing into a banana clip.
My fingers drum on a little box next to me. I hand it to him. “This is why you should trust me.”
It’s the little pencil box. He opens it, pulls out a picture. “This your girl?” he asks.
“She was four there. Happier times, and all of that bullshit.”
I sift through some of the other photos in the box. Show him my playful pics of the Doctor and I dissecting informants, torturing the wives of heavy hitters, making our presence felt. He could turn this evidence over to federal authorities, the news media, knock Doctor Robert from his perch with one shot. But what I care about the most are her pictures.
“This is why you should trust me. I’m giving her to you. I don’t plan to fail tonight. Even if I succeed, I still might not make it out. She’s all that’s important. I’m going to tell her to come here for a safe house. I’m asking you to protect her.”
“You trust me?”
“Would you trust me if I didn’t give you this?”
“I still don’t trust you.”
“You retain the right to kill her if she gets here without me. Or, you could give her that box, the money that’s in there, and get her on a bus out of town.”
“She got family somewhere?”
“Let’s not talk about it. She’ll figure out where to go. Anywhere’s better than here.”
“And in return, I have to send my men into war to protect you?”
“Keep the Doctor’s men away from Pompidou’s. Then we’re Even-Stevens.”
“You still have both of your legs, don’t give that cutesy bullshit.”
“You’re still breathing and your organs are intact. Don’t give me that righteous indignation bullshit. Besides, if this works out, the Doctor will be dead. There always has to be a king of the hill.”
“Or queen?”
“I’m tired of it. I’ll be on a bus with my daughter tonight if it all goes right.”
“And if it doesn’t,” he says, “you’ll be dead.”
“Or worse.”
* * *
I think they’re moving my gurney. I want that box back. Photos. Pictures. Because I kept trophies, too. But my boss just happened to be a high-profile medical professional in the city, and I never burned a single print. Frugal me, I always saved for rainy days.
My heart skips and stutters, purple lightning blossoms behind my eyelids. The Doctor’s voice echoes in the room around me, consuming me. My pupils dilate and vibrate with each noise he makes. His voice is my entire existence.
“When you wake up, I simply must show you these EKG readings. Fascinating. I think we’re getting closer. Building some good crests. We’ll see if we can’t crank it up…Where to go next…Vasili made sense. Shakes. Caligula. Hooded Jack. But Susan Schrader and Grace Brooks? You take things so personally…”
I feel my bed incline, folding me in half, sitting me up. The Doctor is at the foot of the bed, holding a mirror. Even by my own standards, I look atrocious. My right eye is a mess, my pupil deep violet in a sea of crimson red. My skin is yellow, my cheeks sallow, and I may have lost another tooth.
“We’ll build to your daughter,” he says. “This is a gauntlet. A little taste now, see if you can take it.”
A single tear rolls down my cheek at the same moment my left nostril begins to bleed. The front of my hospital gown is crusted with food or vomit or both.
I wonder if he knew these things about me before my life disappeared. Maybe I’m talking in my sleep. Maybe he doesn’t know anything. It’s just me versus my brain. A gauntlet.
He leans the mirror forward, making my reflection sink into the bed at my feet. “I’m getting bored,” he says.
* * *
“I’m getting bored,” my daughter says. “We never do anything fun.”
We’re sitting in the parking garage of Susan Schrader’s office building.
“I can’t exactly take you to the mall and movies,” I tell her.
A car pulls up across the lot.
“He’s here,” my daughter says.
“Tw
o weeks?” I ask.
“Can we skip it this next time?”
And my heart breaks.
“Why?”
“It’s almost prom. I should be hanging out with my friends, not in some shitty apartment…no offense.”
“Two weeks,” I say, and it’s not a request.
I stare at her, and she has no answer. She steps out of the van and jogs across the lot to the other car. I see the man inside give me an imitation of a friendly wave.
So that’s how it is now.
Far away, I hear her voice say, “Hi, Dad.”
And my heart breaks again. Something falls out of her backpack as she climbs into his car. I try to call out to her, but they pull off quickly, not even a glance back.
I get out and walk across the lot, trying to watch their car as it enters traffic. They’re in there, talking, laughing, having the time of their lives. I’m a speck in their rearview mirror.
I get to the parking spot. I catch a faint whiff of his cologne, fooling myself that I hate the smell, that I should be angry. She dropped a box. At first, I think it’s the pencil box, but the shape is wrong. It’s a little pill box. I open it, and what’s left of my heart turns to powder.
A syringe. A tube. Two small vials. Three orange pills in a little baggie, the face of Janus neatly imprinted on top. It can be such a joy to discover what has truly made you angry.
I hop back into my van, slam it into drive, and redline it for the hospital.
* * *
“This is very serious indeed,” Dr. Robert tells me.
This is still from before. I have my legs, and I’m boiling mad. I’ve just spent the last twenty minutes telling him what my daughter’s been doing with his product. I want names. I want his sales force lined up against a wall. I want blood.
And all he’s giving me is his ten-thousand-watt smile.
“Get him in here,” I shout.
“He stopped her from buying some very bad product. You know he wouldn’t force her to do anything untoward. Heaven knows he has enough girls to keep him entertained—”
“I can find him,” and I start to leave. “He’s dead.”
“No. I don’t think I can give my blessing on such a thing. Besides, she’s not yours anymore. You’re divorced now. Single. Move on. Live it up.”
“I don’t need your blessing.”
“I believe Adam and Eve said the same thing and look at what happened to them…”
“You wouldn’t understand,” I say.
And he touches my cheek. I’m boiling. I draw a gun from my waistband and pistol whip his ribs. I raise the gun up, ready to smash his face.
“Cracked rib? You can still be seen in public with that,” I tell him. “Leave her alone. Get her out of this. Or else I give the media something to talk about.”
“Good help is hard to find. You have been more than good help to me, and that’s all that’s keeping you alive now. You need to leave before I change my mind.”
I use my free hand to smack his ear. His hair goes wild, white shoots standing up everywhere. “I’m done,” I tell him.
“Yes, indeed,” he replies.
“This is all done,” I tell him.
“I’ll only ask you once to reconsider. And of course, you will have to pay your pound of flesh.”
I spit in his face.
“Oh, say it isn’t so,” he sneers.
I walk out of his office. I’m dead. Rule number one is never cross the boss. The Doctor never forgets a slight. If I stop now, go back, let him take a finger or a toe, he might consider us even.
But it’s my daughter. It’s him or me. By quitting, I’ve issued a silent challenge. The part of the movie where one cowboy tells the other the town ain’t big enough for the two of them.
I storm from the hospital, stopping only to yank a directory from a phone booth. This has to happen fast. I check the address for Surplus Military Warehouse. My second stop. First I have to go to the police.
* * *
“Sometimes I wonder what’s in that pretty little head of yours,” he says. “Sometimes I’m tempted to have a look.”
The Doctor is laying scalpels in order on my lap, small to extra large. I’m restrained.
“This is all about remembering,” he says. “Even for those who never forget, a memory can grow dull, lose its sheen. Sometimes we need a sharp reminder.”
Before I know it, he’s got a small blade jabbed hard into the bottom of my right thigh, drawing circles.
“Do you remember this? Stay with it. Feel it. This can’t kill you. I can’t kill you. You know what it’s going to take. You know…”
And my screams echo and fade off of the tile walls, reminding me of a time in an alley when sirens came. When I was sitting in the rain, the weight of something awful on my shoulders. I needed help, and maybe the police could have helped. But they didn’t get there first. It was an ambulance.
They cleaned up the scene. Baldacci. The Junkie. Me. All of us in the back of the van, riding to the hospital on the last night of my last life. This is what memory feels like. This is the beginning of what I’ve been fighting for. I’m ready to give up.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Sometimes when she’d get to her bedroom, she’d slam the door so hard that the whole house shook. When I would go knock on the door, she would say something like “Visiting hours are over.” And I would leave, tail between my legs.
So what made this time different? Why did I stay? Because the Doctor was going to make an example out of me, which meant he would make an example out of her.
“Something bad is going to happen tonight. If you’re not going to come with me, you have to promise me you’ll stay here in the house. Don’t open the door for anyone.”
She tells me to fuck off.
“I have a gun,” I tell her. “For you. If you’re going to stay here. It’ll be here, just outside the door.”
Then her door flies open so hard the report of it against the wall makes me think the gun misfired. She blows past me down the stairs, tossing a litany of curses over her shoulder.
I don’t understand.
I’m not a good mother.
I don’t care about her.
If I did…
If I did…
Her right arm swung heavy with the gun, how she picked it up that fast, I’ll never know. Her eyes tell me she doesn’t want to shoot me, but her body is rigid. Still, I made a move for her, from the top of the stairs. Her arm came up and her finger squeezed. I knew the safety was still on, but still I ducked. And slipped. And tumbled down the staircase. I rolled over in time to hear the door to the street hissing closed, heavy and hollow in the apartment hallway.
Later, I paid a visit to Joe, Jack, whatever. Because someone had to protect her if I couldn’t. And the only person I could trust was someone I’d once tried to kill.
Before that meeting, I had to take the direct heat off of her. That meant a meeting with Pompidou.
* * *
“No amount of sorry weel ‘elp you,” Pompidou frogs at me. “You are, how you say, screwed, non?”
“Cut the Frenchie shit. I’m not here to apologize to you. And I’m not trying to tell the Doctor sorry either. We’re going to come to an understanding.”
“Ze semm way you try to understand weeth moi?”
“It’s not like I tore your arm off. Stop whining.”
“What em I supposed to tell eem?”
“I’m the one that’s kept his closet clean these past few years. I think he can let me walk.”
“Ah, non.”
“Ah oui, French Crepe. I’ll give him what he wants, but we both walk away even. You name the place and I’ll be there with the case. He gives me back my daughter, I leave town, simple as that.”
“Midnight under Satan’s Inkwell.” His accent is gone now. “This will never work, you know.”
“What’s the worst he could do?”
* * *
I’m driving towards Red
Light. My ex-husband was an undercover cop, and I knew he was working this district. I needed his help for this. Not that I expected him to take the risk, but if there was ever a reason for him to be on my side, it had to be his daughter. This meant an ungodly amount of apologizing on my part.
The Chihuahua girl is in the car. His car. And I know what’s happening in there. I see how he treats her, how he smashes her head against the window when she either won’t leave or asks for more money. He dumps her on the sidewalk, and I want to chase him down. But Chihuahua girl is in my way, grabbing at me. I ask her if she knows where he was headed. When she doesn’t comply, I hit her.
Beat her.
Punish her for my mistakes. She grabs for me and I hold her forearms, tearing long, nasty gashes with my fingernails. She jabs me in the eye with her thumb and it makes me fight harder. I only stop when Delia’s other kids come to her rescue. I didn’t want to do this over the phone. I wanted to say this to his face. I wanted to see if there was still some caring in there. For me, the family.
Instead, I drive lazy circles around Red Light, trying to remember his beeper number, then dialing it again and again until my phone almost runs out of power.
When he calls back, I tell him we need to meet at Satan’s Inkwell, half an hour before midnight. He tells me I should just get out of town, there’s nothing he can do to help me. I tell him about his daughter, how nothing could stop me from making this meeting. He wonders if I know what this could do to him.
I hang up.
* * *
Waking up this time, my vision is blurry. My right eye is covered in a patch or a bandage. The Doctor is at the foot of my bed again, surrounded by some of his “orderlies” and “nurses”. These are all street dealers, dressed in white, as is his standard. They examine a chart; he’s teaching them about injection points. One of the nurses notices me, silently touches Dr. Robert’s arm to let him know I’m awake. Even with my vision impaired, I can tell she doesn’t like me.
“That’ll be all,” he says, and the crowd leaves us alone, just me, him, and the nurse.
Her body is hazy and bright, like a soft-focus scene from a ’50s romance. Her shirtsleeves are rolled up to her elbows. There are matching sets of four angry cuts running the length of each of her forearms. Puckered and red, thick black stitches stopping the flesh on her arms from unraveling in the breeze. Her fingers dance lightly over a small pouch on her belt, too small for a gun. But there must be something in there she’s dying to try on me. Her exalted position, being the only one left, leads me to one natural conclusion.
Miss Massacre's Guide to Murder and Vengeance Page 24