I shrugged. ‘I’m his lawyer, that’s all.’
‘But a loyal person.’
‘Something like that, I suppose.’
After a while the doctor came out. ‘Well, that’s that, then,’ he said.
‘How is he?’ I said.
‘Sleeping.’
‘No, I mean…’
Sauerman shrugged. ‘Nothing changes. Physically, he’ll always have pain. And without his medication, any one of those dozen or so infections could crop up again. The antibiotics seem to keep them down, whatever they are. Otherwise, he’s fine.’
‘And mentally?’
‘What you see is what you get. That’s not my field. I take his temperature and BP, poke around at his body, listen to his heart and lungs, leave a week’s supply of medication. He’s an unhappy man. Doesn’t take a doctor to diagnose that.’ To Lily he said, ‘Let me out of here, please. I don’t like those dogs.’
‘No one likes those dogs. Except Jeff. You don’t want to stay for a drink?’
He shook his head. ‘The wife’s at a party in Chatham. I better get there before Harry Carter drags her upstairs.’
‘I didn’t know you guys did house calls anymore,’ I said.
Sauerman shrugged. ‘He refuses to leave the house. He needs medical attention. What’s the choice?’
‘Hippocrates lives,’ I said.
He frowned for an instant. Lily took his arm. ‘Come on, then. Tondo and Ngwenya are out there slobbering. Let’s disappoint them.’
While Lily was showing Dr Sauerman out, I took my empty glass into the kitchen, rinsed it out, and set it beside the sink. I remembered Joey’s disturbing message, so I picked up the kitchen phone and pecked out the familiar number in Wellesley. It was the same phone number Gloria and I were given when we bought the place all those lifetimes ago. The line was busy. I listened to the monotonous beep for several seconds before I hung up. Then I wandered out on to the patio. I lit a cigarette and waved ineffectually at the mosquitoes that came swarming. I smoked half of it and flicked it off into the darkness, then retreated back inside.
Lily was in the kitchen loading the coffeepot. ‘Your bed’s all made up,’ she said.
I nodded. ‘How long has that doctor been treating Jeff?’
‘Around two years. He went through about half a dozen before he found one he liked. Dr Sauerman doesn’t mind coming to the house. He kids around with Jeff. Doesn’t mind spending a little time with him. The others were always looking at their watches, reminding everybody how dedicated they were.’
‘But Jeff doesn’t seem to get better.’
Lily shrugged. ‘I guess he’s as well as he’ll ever get.’ She rinsed her hands in the sink and turned to face me. ‘Aren’t all of us, though?’
I smiled. ‘Probably.’ I stretched elaborately and yawned. ‘Well, I’m off to bed.’
She tiptoed up and kissed my cheek. ‘Night, Brady. Sleep well.’
Ten minutes later I was lying there reading a new book on Western fly fishing, waiting for my eyelids to clang shut. I heard something scratching softly at my door.
‘Do not enter,’ I said.
The door pushed open and Lily came in. She was wearing a long nightgown, pale blue and sheer so that her nipples were clearly visible under it.
‘Depart,’ I said.
‘Old poop.’ she said. She sat on the side of my bed.
‘Really,’ I said. ‘Please.’
She touched the side of my face. ‘You sure?’
‘Positive.’ I closed my book and put it on the floor.
She bent down and kissed my cheek. ‘Absolutely positive?’ she whispered against the side of my face.
I grasped her shoulders and pushed her gently away. ‘For Christ sake, no, of course I’m not. So please go.’
She smiled and stood up. She put her hands on her hips. ‘Who’s teasing who here?’
‘Whom,’ I said.
‘Right.’
She turned and padded out of the room. She latched the door quietly behind her.
I sighed and turned off the light. My eyelids then did clang shut.
It seemed that I had been sleeping for a long time when my eyes popped open. Through the bedroom window, I could see the sky. It was dark and starry. I lay there, tense and alert. Something had awakened me. I heard nothing.
A night bird, maybe. Or maybe it was the country silence, a kind of booming absence of sound compared to the city noises that normally lulled me to sleep.
Then I heard it. A muffled footfall outside my door, a rustle of fabric. The latch clicked. Slowly the door opened, emitting a faint light from the hallway. A figure appeared silhouetted against it.
Lily. She had come back. I started to speak to her but, for some reason, weakness, probably, or curiosity, I didn’t. I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep and waited for her to come to me.
The hand on my mouth was hard and callused. A light shone in my eyes. I closed them against it. I felt an elbow on my chest and I could smell harsh breath. I tried to gather my knees to shove at this weight on me, but he was strong and he had me pinned.
I tried to yell, but his hand covered my mouth.
‘Keep quiet or I’ll kill you,’ said a deep muffled voice.
I squinted against the blinding light. There were two of them, I realized. One holding a flashlight, the other pressing his weight on me. They wore something over their heads. Ski masks. I felt something sharp pressed against the side of my neck, and it took no imagination to know it was the point of a knife. I closed my eyes again, waiting.
‘Say a word and this goes in to the hilt.’ He took the knifepoint away from my chin and pressed its sharp edge against my collarbone. ‘I mean it, pal,’ said the man. Then the blade broke the skin, a sudden, hot, tugging pain. I felt blood ooze and begin to dribble down my chest.
He removed his hand from my mouth. He moved the point of the knife into my nostril. ‘Should I rip off his nose?’ the man said to his companion. The other guy laughed. I remembered what had happened to Jack Nicholson in the movie Chinatown.
‘Just don’t move,’ he said.
‘OK,’ I managed to say. I hated the fear I heard in my voice. I hated the man for creating my fear.
He wrapped a wide strip of tape over my mouth and completely around my head. He taped my wrists to the bedposts. I twisted and tugged at them, but the tape was too strong. Duct tape, I thought vaguely. That’s what I’d use.
‘I think I’ll kill him anyway,’ said the voice conversationally.
‘Why not?’ said the other man, the first time he had spoken.
I felt the knife edge across my Adam’s apple. He moved it a millimetre and again my skin split open. The blade was as sharp as razors I had cut myself with shaving, and the sensation was the same. Except I could picture the glittering blade and how easily it could slice through tendons and muscles and cartilage.
My heart pounded. I felt an almost irrepressible urge to urinate. I swallowed against my gag reflex. I couldn’t seem to get enough air through my nose. With the tape over my mouth, I thought I would suffocate. Never had I felt such fear. I stared wildly into the darkness, but outside the cone of light from the flashlight all I could make out were the intruders’ fuzzy grey shapes.
I waited for that blade to slice across my throat, to sever all those tubes and tendons that connected me to my body, so that my life would spill out on to my pillow. I expected to die, and the thing that made me angriest was that if I died, I’d lose the chance to rip the eyeballs out of the heads of those two men.
When one of them slugged me on the side of my head with something hard and heavy, I saw lights for an instant, brilliant, exploding flashes like a silent fireworks display, reds and yellows and greens bursting and cascading inside my head.
They faded as quickly as they had appeared. Then the darkness became absolute.
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Acknowledgments
THE AUTHOR IS GRATEFUL for
the wise, tolerant, and informed counsel provided by the Middlesex County A.D.A.’s, especially Jane Rabe, who showed me around, answered my naive questions, and introduced me to her colleagues. Errors or distortions here are mine, not theirs. Rick Boyer helped me get the story straight, as usual. Jackie Farber and Jed Mattes were more patient with me than I deserved.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1990 by William G. Tapply
Cover design by Kathleen Lynch
978-1-4804-2741-9
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