by The Web(Lit)
I applied antibiotic ointment and a bandage.
"Fell asleep," he repeated, shaking his head. The colored boxes contained dehydrated potatoes and wheat pilaf, precooked peas, lentils, rice mix.
"Nutritional research," said Moreland, as if he owed me an explanation.
His attention shifted to the broken glass and he bent.
I reached out to restrain him.
"I'" take care of it."
"Working late," he said, weakly. He glanced at the bandaged hand, rubbed his mouth, licked his lips.
"Usually I do some of my best work after dark. Got a late start, making sure those locks got installed correctly. I'm still mortified about what happened."
"Forget it."
He stretched out a hand. We shook and I felt his tremor.
"I must have left the lid off and the door unlocked. Inexcusable.
Must remember to check every detail."
He began massaging his temples very rapidly.
"Headache?"
"Sleep deprivation," he said.
"I should know better, at my age. Are you aware that most so-called civilizations are chronically sleep deprived?"
"Because of electricity?"
He nodded emphatically.
"Before electricity, people lit a candle or two, then went to bed. The sun was their alarm clock; they were tuned to a natural cadence. Nine, ten hours of sleep a day.
It's a rare civilized man who gets eight."
"Do the villagers sleep well?"
"What do you mean?"
There's not much technology on the island. Lousy TV reception, less to keep them up."
TV', he said, 'is multiple-choice rubbish. However, if you miss it, I can arrange something."
"No, thanks, but I wouldn't mind a newspaper now and then.
Just to stay in touch with the world."
"I'm sorry, son, can't help you there. We used to get papers more often when the Navy let us ship things on their supply planes, but now we depend upon the boats. Don't you find the radio news sufficient?"
"I noticed some American papers on your desk."
He blinked. Those are old."
"Research?"
Our eyes locked. His were clear and alert now.
"Yes, I use a clipping service in Guam. If you'd like I can have them bulk-order some periodicals for you. And if you'd like to watch TV, I can get you a portable set."
"No, it's not necessary."
'You're sure?"
"Hundred percent."
"Please tell me if there's anything more you need by way of creature comforts. I want your stay to be enjoyable."
He ran his tongue under his right cheek and frowned.
"Has it been enjoyable? Excepting last night, of course."
We're having a fine time."
"I hope so. One tries... to be a good host." He smiled and shrugged.
"My apologies again about the hissers-' "Let's really forget it, Bill."
"You're very gracious... I suppose I've been living here by myself so long that the niceties of social discourse elude me."
Staring at the floor again. Holding his bandaged hand with the other and getting that absent look in his eyes.
Then he snapped out of it, stood suddenly, and surveyed the lab.
"Back to work."
"Don't you think you should rest?"
"No, no, I'm tiptop. By the way, what was it you came here for?"
What I'd come for were piercing questions about Samuel H. and radiation poisoning. Payoffs, half-truths, and subterfuge. What, if anything, his role had been forty years ago.
Now something else: why was my involvement in crime cases 'perfect'?
I said, "Just wanted to know if there were any specific cases you wanted me to look over."
"Oh, no, I wouldn't presume. As I told you at the outset, you have total freedom."
"I wouldn't mind reviewing any other nuclear fallout cases you might have. Neuropsychological sequellae of radiation poisoning.
I don't think anyone's studied it. It could be a great opportunity for us to produce a unique theoretical base."
His head retracted an inch and he put a hand on the counter.
"Yes, it could."
He began arranging boxes of dried food, peering at ingredients, straightening a test-tube rack.
"Unfortunately, Samuel's is the only radiation chart I took with me. Till I came across it, I didn't know it was there. Or perhaps I left it there unconsciously. Wanting a reminder."
"Of what?"
"The terrible, terrible things people do under the guise of authority."
"Yes," I said, 'authority can be horribly corrupting."
Short, hard nod. Another burdened look.
He stared at me, then turned away and held a test tube of brown liquid up to the light. His arm tremored.
"It would have been an interesting paper, Alex. Sorry I haven't any more data."
"Speaking of authority," I said, "I was at the Trading Post this morning and happened to catch the tail end of Hoffman's press conference in Guam."
"Really?" He inspected another tube.
"He was talking about his plan to develop Micronesia."
"He made his fortune building shopping centers, so I'm not surprised. That and so-called managed forestry. His father was a lumberjack, but he's responsible for more timber clearing than his father could have ever imagined."
"He has a reputation for being ecologically minded."
"There are ways."
"Of what?"
"Of getting one's way without fouling one's own nest. He chopped down rain forest in South America but supported national parks in Oregon and Idaho. So the ecology groups gave him an excellent rating. A fact he reminded me of last night. As if that excused it."
"Excused what?"
"What he's doing here."
"Letting Aruk die?"
He put down the test tube and glared at me.
"A loss of vigor doesn't imply the terminal state."
"So you have hope for the island?"
His hands dropped to his sides again, skinny and rigid as ski poles. Blood had seeped under the bandage and crusted.
"I always have hope," he said, barely moving his lips.
"Without hope, there's nothing."
He lit a Bunsen burner and I returned to my office. Why hadn't I been more forthright?
The fall? His seeming fragility?
Falling. Forgetfulness. Tremors.
Sleep deprivation as he claimed, or was he just an old man in decline?
Declining along with his island.
His reaction to my suggestion that Aruk was dying had been sharp. The same type of frosty anger he'd shown Pam last night.
I wondered if he'd once been a harder, colder man.
Without hope, there's nothing.
Hope was fine, but what was he doing about it? The same question: why not take heroic measures to revive things, rather than put his energy into the nutritional needs of bugs?
Because he was running out of energy?
Needed a universe he could control?
Lord of the Roaches...
Where did I fit in?
22. I left to find Robin but she found me first, coming up the path with Spike, looking troubled.
"What's wrong?"
"Let's go inside."
We returned to the office and sat on the couch.
"Oh, boy," she said.
"What is it?"
"I took another walk. To the northeast corner of the estate where it curves away from the banyan forest. Actually, I followed Spike. He kept pulling me there."
She pushed curls away from her eyes and rested her head on the back of the sofa.
The stone walls continue all around, but as the road curves there's a very thick planting of avocado and mango that blocks the border.
Hundreds of mature trees, you have to really squeeze to get through.
Spike kept huffing, really yanking me. After a hu
ndred feet or so I figured out why: someone was crying. I ran to see."
She took my hand and squeezed it.
"It was Pam, Alex. Lying on a blanket between the trees. Picnic stuff with her, a thermos, sandwiches. Lying on her back, wearing a sundress... oh, boy."
What?"
The straps were down and one hand was here." She cupped her own left breast.
"Her eyes were closed; the other hand was up her dress. We just burst in on her-' "Crying from pleasure?"
"No, no, I don't think so. More like emotional pain. She'd been touching herself, and for some reason it had made her miserable.
Tears were running down her cheeks. I tried to leave before she saw us, but Spike started barking and she opened her eyes. I was mortified. She sat up and adjusted her clothes, and meanwhile Spike's running straight to her, licking her face."
"Our little protector."
"Lord, lord."
"Poor you."
"Can you imagine, Alex? The size of this place, you'd figure you could find a private spot without Sherlock Bones sniffing you out."
"Rotten luck," I agreed. Though I guess a really private spot would have been in her room with the door closed. How'd she react?"
"A split second of shock, then calm, ladylike, as if I was a neighbor dropping by to borrow sugar. She invited me to sit down. I wanted to be anywhere but there, but what could I say?
No, thanks, I'll just leave you to whatever dark and depressing sexual fantasies you were having, ta ta? Meanwhile, Spike's sniffing the sandwiches and drooling."
The boy knows his priorities."
"Oh, yeah, the world stops for ham and cheese. Actually, having him there was a good distraction. She played with him for a while, fed him, and we were doing a pretty good job of pretending it never happened. Then all of a sudden she burst into tears and stuff just started pouring out how rotten her marriage had been, what an ugly divorce... I felt like a sponge, soaking up her pain - I don't know how you've done it all these years. I didn't say a thing, but she just kept going. It was almost as if she was glad I'd found her."
"Maybe she was."
"Or being discovered lowered her defenses."
"What was so rotten about her marriage?"
"Her husband was also a doctor, a vascular surgeon, couple of years younger. Very brilliant, very good-looking, the med center's most eligible bachelor. Love at first sight, whirlwind courtship, but sex with him was she couldn't respond, so she faked it. It had never been a problem for her before; she figured it would work itself out. But it didn't and eventually he realized it. At first he didn't care, as long as he got his. Soon, though, it began to bother him. Affront to his manhood, he started pressuring her.
Interrogating her. Then it became an obsession: if she didn't come, it wasn't real lovemaking. Eventually, they started avoiding each other and he started having affairs. Lots of affairs, not even trying to hide it. With both of them working in the same place, she felt she was a laughingstock."
"She just sat there and told you all this?"
"It was more as if she was talking to herself, Alex. She asked him to go into counseling. He refused, saying it was her problem. So she went into therapy by herself, and eventually things just broke down between them completely and she filed for divorce. At first he was really rotten humiliating her with cracks about her being frigid, telling her about all the girls he was going out with. But then he had a change of heart and wanted to reconcile. She turned him down; he kept calling her, begging for another chance. She said no and pressed on with the divorce. A month later he died in a freak accident. Working out in his home gym, bench pressing The barbell fell on his chest and crushed him to death."
"And she feels guilty."
"Extremely guilty. Even though she knows it's not rational.
Because she feels he really did still love her. She can't get rid of the idea that he was overdoing the weightlifting because he was stressed out over her. And to think the first time I saw her I thought she was the girl with everything."
The girl with nothing left," I said.
"So she packs up and returns here. And finds another man. Did the flap over Dennis come up?"
"No. But it sure looks like you were right about her having man problems, so maybe that's what Bill was reacting to. He doesn't want her hurt again so soon."
"Maybe. C'mere." She climbed onto my lap and I held her close.
"Looks like you missed your true calling."
"That's what I'm concerned about. It's not my calling. You always talk about patients saying too much, too quickly, then growing hostile."
"Honey," I said, 'you weren't probing, you just listened. And you have no professional responsibility-' "I know, Alex, but I like her basically she seems to be a sweet woman who's experienced some horrible things. She was only three when her mother died and Bill sent her away farming her out to relatives and then boarding schools.
She says she doesn't blame Bill, he was doing his best. But it's got to hurt. Is there anything more I should be doing for her?"
"If she seeks you out, listen, as long as it doesn't make you feel uncomfortable."
"I don't want her to feel uncomfortable. We're all living together in close quarters."
"This place," I said, 'is starting to feel like Eden after the fall from grace."
"No," she said, smiling.
"No serpents, just bugs."
"Maybe we should think about cutting our stay short, Rob-no, wait, hear me out. There are things bothering me that I haven't told you."
She shifted position and stared up at me.
"Like what?"
"Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I can't get rid of the idea that someone planted those roaches." I told her my suspicions.
"But what would be the motive, Alex?"
The only thing I can think of is that someone wants us out of here."
"Who and why?"
"I don't know, but I'm pretty sure Bill hasn't been totally straight about his reasons for bringing me over, so there may be something going on that we're totally unaware of."
I told her about Moreland's fall in the lab, my seeing the crime clippings on his desk, his knowledge of my friendship with Milo.
"You think he wants help with a crime?" she said. The murder on South Beach?"
"He says it's the only major crime they've had in a long time."
"What could he want from you?"
"I don't know, but he did show me the record of the autopsy, and he claims no one else has seen it other than Dennis. Each time I talk to him I get the feeling he's holding back. Either he's building up his courage or making sure he can trust me. The question is, will I ever be able to trust him? Because he lied to me about something else."
I recounted the case of Samuel H."s radiation poisoning and my conversation with Micah Sanjay.
"That is odd," she said.
"But maybe there's an explanation. Why don't you just come out and ask him?"
"I was on my way to do just that. But after he fell and started bleeding, I guess I felt sorry for him. I'll deal with it."
"And then we leave?" She looked sad.
I said, "There are also things about the murder I haven't told you. It was more than just a gory killing. There was organ theft.
Evidence of cannibalism."
She lost color. Got off my lap, walked to a teak wall, and traced the wood's grain with her finger.
"You thought I couldn't handle it?"
"I didn't think it was necessary to expose you to every disgusting detail."
She didn't answer.
"I wasn't patronizing you, Rob. But this was supposed to be a vacation. Would hearing about marrow being sucked out of leg bones have done you any good?"
"You know," she said, facing me, 'when Pam started unloading, it was tough at first, but then it felt good. The fact that she trusted me. Breaking my routine and finding out my sympathies have been awakened isn't a bad thing. I've started to realize how much I use work to e
scape people."