by Chuck Logan
"Okay," Garf said, sliding his right hand over the handle of the pistol and pointing it at Allen. "The next thirty seconds are the most important of your life. Talk."
Allen stared into the muzzle of the pistol and took a moment to
anesthetize the stammer of panic he felt swelling up in his gums and teeth and tongue. Then he smiled tightly and peppered Earl with concise sentences: "You talked to Hank, I talked to Hank. You told him what happened to Stovall. I told him how I accidently gave him the wrong medication in the recovery room up there. He can hang both our asses." Allen checked his watch. "Ten seconds. Anything else you want to know?"
Garf stared at Allen for a long time.
Allen, reassured, continued in a more relaxed tone. "I saw Broker and Amy bring you into the ER early this afternoon. I went to the house and was in the kitchen when they were in the studio with Hank. When they did the alphabet-board bit. I heard them on the baby monitor. Then I went around the back of the house and hid under the deck when Jolene came out and called you. I tried to get in and do it quietly with a pillow but they came back and I had to leave. Sorry."
Garf had to laugh. "The fucking baby monitor?" Then he narrowed his eyes. "A pillow? What happened to, you know, the Hippocratic Oath?"
Allen smiled. "What'd Jolene mean when she said this is NoDak serious?"
Garf lowered his eyes and scratched the pattern on the wooden handle of the pistol with a fingernail. It made a distinct sound. Maybe the hinge of fate.
Allen continued. "I get the impression you and she have been here before."
Garf's eyes came up. Allen thought they might have been very nice eyes once and had been filled with many possibilities. Garf said, almost tenderly, "And this is your first time."
Allen, all business, brushed the comment aside. "So how are you going to find the place? Ask everybody in town?"
Garf took a deep breath, winced; mistake, his ribs.
"I remember how to get there," Allen said. "And what were you going to do with them after you shot them full of great big holes? There's ballistics to worry about. And messy body fluids. And what about Hank. He has to stick around, you know. There's millions of dollars at risk."
Garf shifted his feet, turned away, and stared at the frost crystals gnawing through the window glass.
Allen opened his medical bag, scooped up a bag of lactated ringers along with glossy bends of IV tubing. "Now, listen to me," he said. "If you and Jolene do it my way, we can get out of this."
Machines quit when it got this cold. They were damn near the only thing traveling on wheels.
"Maybe this wasn't such a smart idea," Broker said as he took an exit just past Virginia and pulled into an Amoco station. It was a different kind of storm, invisible, like J.T.'s vampire in a mirror. They couldn't see it because it didn't snow.
It didn't snow because the cold had killed anything that tried to move, including the wind.
He got out to pump the gas and Amy and Jolene sprinted for the john, and they were all stunned almost dumb by the temperature. Road salt bleached a gritty borax-white on the metal skin of the Jeep. They could almost hear the steel molecules shriek as they hugged tight.
"Jesus," Jolene said, hoofing back from the can, hands over her bare ears. Her breath made a cloud thick enough for the children of Israel to follow through the wilderness.
"Twenty-seven below," Broker said, coming back from paying for the gas. "If the wind comes up, the windchill will be fatal. End of story." He handed out Styrofoam cups of coffee from a cardboard tray, candy bars, and snacks of beef jerky.
Jolene, who wasn't wearing her hat, shook her head. "It makes you crazy."
"Grease up," Broker said, offering her a jerky.
The cold was bad enough on the deserted Interstate. When they creaked through the empty streets of Ely, they left the blacktop and the comfort of artificial light behind and crunched onto the gravel. The high beams converted the trees and swamp grass into sinister patterns at the side of the road, and the cold became lunar, utterly foreign to warm flesh.
And J.T. was right about his Jeep. It didn't look like much on the outside but everybody in the Chrysler plant in Detroit must have been having a good day when they made it, because the car had heart and kept pulling through the cold.
They turned at a frost-shriven sign—UNCLE BILLIE'S RESORT— and drove down the wooded drive. Broker stopped the Jeep in front of the lodge and got out and looked up at the ice-pick stars.
He left them in the Jeep with the heater running while he dashed inside, turned up the furnace, started a fire in the fireplace, and folded out the sleeper couch for Hank.
Then he came back and he and Amy each took one side and lifted Hank from the back of the Jeep and hauled him in a two-man fireman's carry. Scurrying beside them, Jolene hesitated when she heard an eerie, twanging, hollow sound.
"What's that?"
"Ice forming on the lake," Broker said.
Jolene went inside and balked at the moose head with its horns spread out from over the mantel. She shook her head. "Men are really pretty weird, you know?"
Then she and Amy made Hank comfortable on the rolled-out couch. They folded blankets to insert under his knees and calves to elevate his feet. Broker brought them pillows and quilts to prop up his back and sides.
Jolene changed Hank's diaper and administered a water drip to his gastro tube. Amy shook her head in amazement.
"This guy may have a tricky airway but he has an incredible set of lungs."
"There's no justice," Jolene said. "Two packs of Camel straights a day all his life."
Hank continued to sleep.
Broker squatted by the fire and watched the two women work side by side and couldn't help comparing them—the way they moved, the way they wore their jeans. Amy filled hers to the brim while Jolene's seemed to follow along with her. Amy's naturally freckled aura and her trim lines were maintained by constant patrols of exercise and denial. He suspected that if her discipline faltered she would put on weight.
They moved between the kitchen stove and the fireplace, trying to convince themselves they were warm. Amy made a pot of hot tea.
Broker listened to the roof timbers creak as he fought mild disorientation. They really hadn't been out in it; but just the idea of temperatures this cold got inside their brains and slowed their thoughts.
His and Amy's, anyway, because they became drowsy, lazing near the fire. Jolene reacted in the opposite direction, nervous, pacing; she explored the lodge, she fretted over Hank's minute-byminute condition. She kept looking at her wristwatch, fingering the pager clipped to her belt.
Amy opened and heated cans of soup; found the ingredients for toasted cheese sandwiches. As they ate, Broker mentioned contacting Deputy Dave Iker. You know, like let's get this show on the road.
Jolene reacted testily, accused him of reneging on the deal.
After the meal, she continued her pacing. She switched on the satellite TV, tore through the channels, turned it off.
Broker figured these nervous tics were all the stuff she'd been keeping in, the strain from looking after Hank for the last week. Now, with Hank showing signs of stirring from his coma, she was dropping her guard, getting a little spacy, letting it out.
She started and her right hand went to her pager, which must have vibrated against her hip because she pressed the button and focused on the number on the viewer. Immediately her head came up and she looked gravely, directly into his eyes.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Nothing, some wrong number," she said.
It was a look he remembered from somewhere. He had to stop himself and think back. Maybe that night just before they went to bed.
"I'm going out for a smoke," Jolene said abruptly, her face suddenly stiff, her words jerking. But she pulled a box of Marlboro Lights from her jacket pocket and opened it. The first cigarette snapped and broke apart in her fingers. She ignored it and selected another one. Put it in her mouth.
B
roker didn't know that she was a closet smoker. But it made sense, given the AA background, the stress of dealing with Hank.
Jolene pulled on her coat, hat, and gloves and said, "I won't be long."
As she went out the door, Broker joined Amy in front of the fire. "What do you think?" he asked, nodding at Hank.
"I keep pinching myself."
"Yeah," Broker grinned. "I know what you mean. It's kind of profound."
"You read about things like this once in a while. A patient wakes up from a coma." She bit her lip and her eyes rolled up hopefully. "I don't want to jinx it by wishing it comes true."
He stooped to add more kindling to the fire and fiddled with the poker. A lot had changed in the last few days since he'd left his sickbed in this room and traveled south to the Cities.
Thinking about how he'd nailed Earl, he smiled, remembering the T-shirt: OLD AGE AND TREACHERY WILL ALWAYS WIN OUT OVER YOUTH AND STRENGTH. It took the edge off the paranoia about his wife hanging out with younger men.
Another thing. He felt even with Amy now. Hank really had cleared the air between them.
Mainly he felt confident again. More like his old self.
Broker felt an icy draft and the front door opened and Jolene stuck her head in. "Hey, Broker. There's something out here you should check out."
He heaved to his feet, hung the poker back on its stand, and walked toward the door. "What is it?"
"I'm not sure. It's by the woods."
"Probably a deer," Broker said, stepping through the door.
Jolene took him by the wrist and the elbow and tugged him toward the steps. "Over here . . ." Suddenly she clamped down on his wrist and gasped. "Jesus Christ, what's he doing here?"
Broker spun.
The rush he felt didn't come from outside. The pine branches in the yard light were still as statues. It came from inside his chest and speeded up his eyes.
"Trick or treat, motherfucker!"
The voice hissed behind his back. Galvanized, Broker yanked against Jolene, who clung to him. So he had to fling her aside and spin, raking back his left elbow, cocking his right fist.
His elbow swept empty space and he thought he glimpsed a grotesque smile on Earl Garf's bruise-streaked face.
He heard Amy scream, turned to find her, which was a mistake, because Earl clubbed the butt of the .45 down behind his left ear and it all went black.
Chapter Forty-five
Amy had screamed, "Look out," but the man had already stepped across the doorway and struck Broker from behind. Broker's knees gave out and he crumpled to the porch. Coming forward, she recognized the belted black leather trench coat Earl had worn in the barn earlier today, except now it had an empty sleeve and Earl Garf had his left arm in a sling.
Earl sneered and commenced to kick at Broker who was trying to push himself up off the porch. When kicking didn't satisfy him, he bent over and swung the pistol again, and the steel hitting Broker's skull sent a sickening slap into the dark. Broker fell forward and lay still.
Jolene grabbed Earl's good arm and screamed, "What's he doing here?" Seeing Jolene moving to intervene, Amy had the racing contextual thought that this was more of the same from earlier—the hostility between the two men carried to absurd lengths.
And Earl looked crazy right now, with his bare chest red with cold against a torn hospital patient's robe under the heavy coat. When he aimed a kick at Broker she saw his bare ankle between the cuff of his jeans and his Nikes.
"Hey, wait a minute," Jolene yelled, pushing forward.
Earl swung the pistol at Jolene, backed her off, and yelled, "Just shut up and do what I say." Then he lunged across the porch, his
eyes burning up with cold, and she saw what Jolene had seen. There was someone else out there.
Suddenly, Amy knew she was next.
Immediately she set her feet to bound back into the lodge. She'd been raised up here. She'd played in this building as a child. She knew where Uncle Billie kept his guns—in the closet in his bedroom—and she knew there'd be a twelve-gauge pump and she knew how to use it.
But Earl pointed the pistol at her face and her feet wouldn't move fast enough, which gave him time to snake out a foot and trip her. Then, as she tried to regain her balance, he shoved her roughly against the doorjamb and forced her to her knees.
And in that moment, with her face smarting like a red pincushion and the air all freezing needles, she saw the other person heave into the light.
"What the hell," Jolene blurted.
"It's cool," Earl reassured her.
Allen Falken stood over Amy with a syringe in his hand. In the other he held a black medical bag. In an open space between two sliding plates of panic, Amy noticed he was wearing latex gloves and he needed a shave.
"How're we doing?" Allen asked conversationally as he stepped over Broker. Then, as he knelt, he said, "Earl, take hold of Amy, would you; I want her absolutely still."
Through another window of shock, Amy recognized the calm authority of a surgeon greeting his team as he entered the OR.
She scrambled to escape, which prompted Earl to grab her around the waist with his good arm. Earl smelled like spoiled meat and disinfectant.
"Hello, Amy," Allen said. "This will sting a little but then you'll find it quite pleasant. Five hundred milligrams of Ketamine will produce a hypnotic effect. But you know all about that." He jabbed her in the thigh, right through her jeans.
Amy's panic immediately lost its jerky gallop and she rolled out and up with the graceful thrust, and she was alone and poised in a slow-motion dive into a wide pool of peace. A beautiful vertical entry. No splash. A perfect 10.
• • •
Allen quickly drew another shot from a stopper bottle and injected it in Broker's thigh. Then he addressed the shock on Jolene's face as he took out a box of rubber gloves. "Put these on, please." "Wait a fucking minute here," Jolene said, looking to Earl. Allen smiled at her. "How's Hank? Has he been blink-talking any more? Giving away any more family secrets?"
"How do you . . . ?"
"In a minute," Allen said. "Right now, let's drag her inside and shut the door. It's cold out here."
He and Earl manhandled Amy through the doorway and laid her on the wooden-plank floor near the fireplace.
"Earl? What's going on here?" Jolene demanded.
"There's three of us now," Earl said. "He's got the plan and I've got the gun and you better have the smarts to go along."
"That's clear as mud," Jolene said.
Allen continued to smile patiently. "We're going to put Hank back to where he was before he started this blinking business."
"He hasn't stopped blinking that I know of," Jolene almost shouted.
"I'll get to that later. First we have to deal with her," he pointed to Amy, "and him." He jerked his head toward the door.
"Deal?" Jolene said.
"Kill, okay?" Earl said. "Only Allen is going to do it nice, not sloppy like you had in mind."
Jolene slumped her shoulders. "Jesus, how'd we wind up here?"
"We arrived one step at a time," Allen said. He pointed at Earl. "Him." Then he pointed at Jolene. "You." Finally he tapped his own chest. "Me."
Jolene shook her head.
Earl tried to explain. "Jolene, he knows everything. He saw Broker and Amy together when they took me to the hospital, so he went to the house and heard you three guys doing the alphabet thing on the baby monitor, then he went in back and heard you on the cell phone calling me." He turned to Allen. "Just tell her straight-out. Trust me, it works better that way with her," Earl said.
Allen nodded, then gently explained. "Killers, plural, remember. Earl is one killer and I'm the other." Allen spoke in the factual tone he used when discussing a patient's case with family members. "In the hospital, when Hank was in the recovery room, I
gave him the wrong medication when I found him unattended. No one saw me, and when I realized what I'd done I assumed it would look like a respiratory arrest cause
d by a sloppy nurse-anesthetist and a lazy nurse. So I turned off the alarm on the monitor and left the room."
Why, you fucker, Jolene was careful not to say.
"See, nothing but cool," Earl did say.
"At first I thought it was a mistake, that I was confused from fatigue. But the more I thought about it I realized I don't make mistakes of that magnitude. So, on some level, I must have been acting deliberately. The crude explanation is that I allowed my personal feelings to intrude on my relationship with a patient. It's always been obvious I've been very attracted to you, Jolene. And I saw how Hank didn't appreciate you. And it's been hard, watching you go through this ordeal."