Dark Passage

by Griffin Hayes

  You took an oath never to do harm, a disembodied voice shouted at him from far away.

  Go ahead, Dr. Hunter. This time it was Brenda’s voice he was hearing and for a moment he could feel her swimming around inside his head.

  But at its heart wasn’t that oath about saving those who weren’t even sick yet? How many might be saved from Brenda’s fate if he could only understand how she had arrived there? There was an undiscovered clinical name for it, that dark corner of her mind she now inhabited. He was certain of that, and when all the research was done, they would let him coin it.

  The questions were endless, almost daunting.

  What factors shaped the private and twisted world of Brenda Barrett? Was it predominantly nature or nurture? Or was it simply the product of brain chemistry and faulty wiring? After that he would tackle the more disturbing implications. Like what if her condition wasn’t an aberration at all, but something that existed in all of us? Something we denied only by the thinnest of margins. Maybe this was what Hunter was testing. That thin membrane that separated a Brenda Barrett from an Elias Hunter.

  Hunter’s attention fell to Sikes. It sounded like Sikes was pleading. The words were muffled and hard to make out, but Hunter thought he heard him say please stop.

  Hunter jerked his hand away with the speed of a man holding hot plate.

  What on earth am I doing?

  Sikes’ own eyes were wide and brimming with fear. Hunter removed the needle and undid the shackles and hurried away. That tingling feeling like butterflies fluttering around in his stomach was growing stronger. His head felt light and dreamy as though it were trailing behind him, attached by a light silver cord.

  Back in the relative safety of his office, Hunter became aware of the patch of moisture at his crotch. He fell back into his chair, overcome by what felt like the last great spasm of post coital euphoria. He may not have seen God, but he had come close.

  Chapter 16

  Stevens’ call came as Tyson was cutting through the shadow cast by the Washington Bridge’s second massive steel tower.

  “Mr. Barrett,” he said, sounding about as jovial as a man who’s just been diagnosed with stage four cancer. “There’s a statue in Central Park called the Three Dancing Maidens. Do you know it?”

  “The one by 106th Street?”

  “That’s the one. Can you be there by three?”

  “Do you have the Noxil?” Tyson stammered.

  “I may be able to get two boxes for you. That’s twenty-four vials.”

  “That’s it?” Tyson could feel the air being sucked out of his lungs. His hand found the asthma pump, put it to his lips and fired off a round. “I was hoping for a case of the stuff.”

  “I’m breaking every ethical and legal rule in the book. Risking my entire career for two boxes of Noxil and thirty thousand dollars is hardly worth it, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I thought it was a thousand a vial. That’s twenty-four thousand.”

  “Yes, well the price just went up.”

  “If you knew how much I needed it.”

  “I’m perfectly aware. And there may be more like you, Mr. Barrett. The death of that one serial drug tester alone will cost us tens of millions in delays and lobbying. Could be five years before we can clear away enough red tape to start testing Noxil again. I told you before that these cowboys were a nuisance and now I hope you see I wasn’t kidding. No one really knows what chemicals they have lurking in their systems when they lie and cheat their way into a study.”

  Tyson was suddenly struck by a thought that seemed too horrible to face. What if the pills and the meds he had been cramming down his throat all these years had been responsible for what was happening to him now? Maybe the longer he stayed on the Noxil, the worse the reaction would become if he stopped? To call it a vicious circle seemed like the biggest understatement of the year. But what other choice did he have? He could either sit back and watch his life be torn to shreds before his very eyes, or he could hang on a little longer and hope and pray for a way out of this mess.

  “Three o’clock then,” Stevens was saying. It was more of a statement than a question and before Tyson could respond the line went dead.

  • • •

  Ten minutes later Tyson was standing before the door to his apartment, struggling with the three dead bolts he had installed the same day he moved in. Not that there was much here for the crooks and the addicts to take—apart from a trunk stuffed with money sitting in his living room.

  When Ruma had told him it was time he started looking for another place to live, he hadn’t taken all that much with him. The bed and dresser from the guest room. A lamp and TV from the office. The rest he had scrapped together from donations by Skip and more than a few trips to the Salvation Army. Most of what he owned now were items of sentimental value. At the time, he suspected Ruma wouldn’t have given a second thought to tossing all of it on the trash heap. No doubt, next to the Spartan conditions of his apartment, his storage locker downstairs looked positively bursting. Somewhere in there, he reminded himself, was an old lunch box with some pictures, an adoption certificate and Han and Chewy. Although with the way things had been going, his theory that someone had snatched them so they could be found at Skip’s summer house was looking more and more remote. Tyson wasn’t even sure he’d be able to find them himself.

  He checked the time on his phone. Twenty after two. In forty minutes he would meet Stevens.

  On the kitchen table was the briefcase he had brought to Le Bernardin. The leather one filled with cash that had made Skip’s eyes nearly bug out of his skull. It was lying there askew, just as he left it when he’d made the mad dash up to the cottage yesterday looking for his fix.

  You’re a junkie, admit it. Not much more than a single shaky step away from joining those crack addicts you see wandering the streets.

  But he was hardly a junkie for wanting his life back. Clearly, something inexplicable had started happening to him. Tyson’s own thin curtain that separated dreams from reality was being pulled aside. The light back there wasn’t so good, just enough for him to see the dark shapes moving about. They were starting to cross over into this world and the thought of what might happen when they made it all the way through was almost too frightening to contemplate.

  His stomach was grumbling again. He would get the money together first, he decided, and then he would worry about that uncomfortable feeling in his belly. Tyson rubbed at his eyes. They felt red and puffy. He had caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror on his way into town. But right now sleep wasn’t an option for him. Not yet, at least.

  Thirty more minutes, he told himself. Thirty more minutes and we can start putting humpty dumpty back together again.

  He grabbed the briefcase. This is what he would use to transport the money to Central Park. As far as anyone would be able to tell, he was a business man, enjoying the late afternoon sun and not some guy waiting to buy thirty thousand dollars worth of pharmaceuticals.

  Tyson had taken no more than a few cursory steps toward the living room when he stopped. The case in his hand felt particularly light. Fact, now that thought of it, he couldn’t remember hearing the sound stacks of money make as they go sloshing around inside an empty briefcase. He opened it and nearly screamed. All the blood ran out of his face.

  The money in the briefcase was gone.

  Maybe he had put it back in the trunk. He didn’t think so. Not that he could be completely sure, given his frantic state of mind after his lunch with Skip.

  Then a horrible, almost unthinkable possibility popped into his head and he chased it directly into his sparsely furnished living room. A living room that had consisted of a couch, an old beat-up TV and a trunk filled with just under a million dollars. But now there were only two pieces of furniture and neither of them looked even remotely like a trunk. He closed his eyes and kept seeing it there in his mind’s eye, exactly where he had left it. But no matter how hard he tried, whenever his eyes pe
eled open, the trunk was still missing.

  The urge to vomit hit him forcefully. There wasn’t any food in his stomach so most of what surged out and onto the torn fabric of his Salvation Army couch was clear and mucousy.

  I was robbed? That’s it. Somebody broke in and stole my money.

  But the door hadn’t been forced nor his apartment ransacked. Only the money was gone. But who knew about the money?

  Skip

  His best friend?

  But that was impossible.

  First of all, Skip didn’t have a key. No one had a key, apart from Tyson.

  Then a thought occurred to Tyson and his legs started moving even before he had time to fully work out the details. Right before his lunch with Skip, he had thrown Han and Chewy into the top drawer of his dresser; the place where he kept all of his important documents and other knickknacks.

  Tyson yanked the drawer clean out and up-ended it over the bed. Dozens of documents, paid bills and faded receipts seesawed to the bed like oversized snowflakes.

  He sifted through the debris like a crime scene investigator looking for clues. He finished combing the pile twice before he was forced to admit the truth. Han and Chewy were gone.

  So either he had just been robbed by a money hungry toy collector, or something else was going on.

  Tyson reluctantly picked up his cell to make what he knew would be a painful call.

  The phone rang briefly before Skip picked up.

  “Tyson, tell me you’re just calling to chat.”

  “I wish I was.”

  “What is it now?”

  “The money. I had it in a big old fashioned trunk right beside my coffee table and now it’s gone.”

  “That million bucks you say you found? All of it gone, just like that?” Tyson couldn’t say that Skip’s tone sounded contemptuous, just much closer to a ‘of course your imaginary pot of gold isn’t there anymore. That’s what figments of your imagination do, they vanish into thin air.’ If Skip had said anything even remotely like ‘easy come, easy go,’ Tyson would have driven to his house and throttled him. He didn’t. “Did you call the police?” he asked instead, but that patronizing tone in Skip’s voice was still there.

  “What am I going to tell them?” Tyson replied. “Hey officer, a big pile of money that materialized from a dream I had just went poof. Can you put out an APB on a run-away steamer trunk for me please? Thank you.”

  “Materialized from a dream?”

  Tyson looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes until his meeting with Stevens. “Skip, you’ll have to take my word for it when I say you wouldn’t believe me even if I laid it all out for you. Not even sure I believe it myself.”

  “If you can’t trust your best friend, who can you trust?”

  Tyson sighed. “All I can tell you is that since I’ve been taking that drug, things from my dreams have started…appearing. Childhood toys. Then the money.” Tyson thought about last night and the muddy footprints and the ceiling thick with swarming flies. “And last night…” he paused, wondering if he hadn’t already said too much, “I’m still not sure what happened last night. Look, I know what you’re probably thinking, but you’ll have to believe me when I say these things are real. I’m not cracking up. I spent all morning yesterday counting stacks of money and I still have the chaffed fingers to prove it. I need that medicine, Skip. I need it because otherwise something really bad is gonna happen.”

  “Everything will be fine, buddy. Has ol’ Skip ever let you down?”

  Tyson ran a sweaty hand through his hair. “No.”

  “Tell me, how exactly do you know these things are from your dreams?”

  “Well, they don’t always show up as they appeared in the dream. Sometimes they’re just close. Other times they’re exactly the same.”

  “But dreams fade, so are you sure there isn’t another explanation?”

  Fade

  The thought struck Tyson so suddenly he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t thought of it before.

  His money hadn’t been stolen.

  The objects had hitched a ride back with him from the dream world, that much was clear. For a time, they were real, tangible things. But with time even dreams fade, don’t they? They lose their consistency drop by imperceptible drop until eventually they disappeared altogether.

  The idea made sense, but the accompanying despair that came with the realization was making it hard to focus.

  That money had represented a new beginning for Tyson. A rebirth of sorts from a lifetime of failed opportunities. And now all that had been snatched away. No worse than that. The bad dreams were coming back, and they felt stronger now than ever. He saw the old woman’s face again, pale and haggard, drawing closer in the darkness of his mind and he recoiled. If Stevens had any kind of heart, he’d give Tyson at least a few vials to see him through the next few days. It seemed like something of a tall order for a pompous, self-serving butthole. There was a far better chance Stevens would tell him to fuck off in the dismissive way that seemed to be the hallmark of all arrogant pricks. And then what would he do?

  “Tyson, you still there?”

  Tyson looked at his watch and gasped. “Skip, I gotta run.”

  “Be safe,” was all Skip managed before Tyson hung up.

  Chapter 17

  In spite of an uncommonly sweltering spring heat, the air inside the clinical trial space on Fourteenth and Houston was as cool and dry as a Pharaoh’s tomb. Stevens had to peel the FDA sticker back to get in. But that was no big deal really. Not for a man who had the kind of pull he had. Flickering on the lights, he couldn’t help but be amazed at how many real and figurative doors those two tiny letters had opened for him over the years. The rush he still got from watching people snap to attention when he dropped the Dr. bomb hadn’t diminished a single bit.

  Overhead, the neons danced and wavered before they finally flickered on. The trial had started amid such a flurry of activity that it was strange now seeing the place so deserted. No, strange wasn’t quite it. It felt eerie.

  “Hello?” Stevens called out, only to be answered by the dull echo of his own voice.

  Two rows of hospital beds lined the in-patient wing. Privacy curtains fastened to semi-circular wall mounts. Beds unmade. A disquieting silence hung in the air, and for no longer than a split second a peculiar thought came to Dr. Stevens that made his arms prickle with gooseflesh. It was more of a feeling really. A perverse notion, but the strength of it prevented him from ignoring the thought completely. In that moment, he wondered if in stepping through the front door, he had really taken a step into some other world. One just out of phase from the real world where nurses were still scurrying about and ghostly patients were laying in beds awaiting fresh doses of medication.

  Stevens quickened his step, trying to outrun the long spindly fingers of panic that were crawling up the back of his neck.

  Further on, past the cafeteria, past the twin boardrooms and the nurse’s station, was the product storage facility. Stevens liked to use the term product storage facility because it sounded far more impressive than the mundane reality. In truth, the majority of the Noxil was kept in a cabinet by the incinerator that was secured by a single lock and key. A key only he had.

  What only a handful of people knew was that Noxil phase one had started as a little blue pill. They were nearly a hundred thousand units into production when they realized someone at the plant hadn’t calibrated the machines properly. The pill was 75 percent sugar. Not even good enough to use as a placebo. That’s when some VP in corporate decided to switch from pills to jet injectors designed to fire vials of the drug straight into the bloodstream. Rumor was he had watched a rerun of Star Trek, saw Bones spike someone in the neck and let’s just say the idea had gotten him rather excited. Barely a month later, Noxil phase two was born, but guess who was left to dispose of the nearly 85,000 little blue mistakes that had already been shipped? None other.

  As head coordinator, it was his job to keep his accounta
bility logs up to date. Every pill and vial had to be accounted for and any protocol deviation would certainly mean a visit from any number of monitors from Sino-Meck. A short and fat man named Gary Corso was probably the biggest prick of the lot, but to the very last man and woman they were assholes one and all.

  And why should that surprise anyone? Their entire raison d’êtres was dedicated to sniffing out and punishing discrepancies. All those corporate lackeys ever did was sit around and wait for good people to make bad mistakes. It smelled like something right out of Stalinist Russia and as head coordinator, Stevens swore time and again that those snickering, bloodthirsty rats wouldn’t ruin his chances for advancement. In a world overflowing with people who would just as soon step on your head than ask you to move out of the way, a man had to look out for number one. To that end he had worked diligently on perfecting the somewhat creative art of bookkeeping.

  As far as the pharmaceutical company and the FDA knew, Stevens had destroyed the entire stock of Noxil, both in pill and liquid form. The IP reports he had filed certainly confirmed that and from a certain perspective it wasn’t completely untrue. As a matter of fact, that’s what he had been doing for most of the morning. Dumping bucket after bucket of Noxil into a nasty and brutish looking incinerator called the A850. Brutish in part because it made short work of whatever pharmaceutical they threw into it. From completion to end, the process took a full twenty-four hour period, and he had sent nearly two hundred pounds of the stuff into the fiery maw of that beast. He had been on his way back to Sino-Meck’s head office when Tyson Barrett had called. Over a thousand dollars for every vial he could lay his hands on. Stevens was still beside himself. He had once swiped a handful of compound they were using on women with late stage breast cancer for a competitor who had paid him very well. But $30,000 cash and for far less work and even less risk. How could he say no? The only bitch of it was Tyson’s poor timing. He’d just finished loading up the A850 with nearly everything they had. He’d be lucky if he could scrape together the twenty-four vials he had promised. Lucky for him, they kept a hidden emergency stock on location in case a patient lost what they’d been given. Two or three cases stashed at the base of the drug cabinet.