by John Darnton
Jude looked at the lizards, then at the curator.
"How do you explain that?"
She looked at the two lizards.
"And that's the behavior that's most puzzling. Every so often one female will mount another and they go at it. It's almost as if they retain a remnant memory."
"Remnant memory?"
"Of the sex act."
On the way back to the hospital, Jude couldn't resist cracking a joke to himself. Remnant memory of the sex act, he thought. Just like me.
In the hospital gift shop Tizzie picked out a package of disposable razors, a can of shaving cream, a bottle of aftershave lotion, a toothbrush and a tube of Colgate. She felt a need to buy things for Skyler. She looked through a magazine rack for something that might interest him. Esquire? Vanity Fair? Newsweek? Strange, she could have picked out magazines for Jude; she knew his taste in reading matter. But Skyler—what would he like? Would it be the same? Somehow, she thought not. She searched up and down. So many choices. Why were none of them appealing?
And where was Jude? He had been away hours. She looked at her watch—six hours, to be exact. What could he be doing? Not that she minded the time alone with Skyler. It was exhilarating to see him looking well again, back to his old self. She had helped him up for a walk up and down the corridor, and she could tell that when she touched his arm, he was responsive. He practically broke out in goose bumps. That was sweet.
The girl behind the cash register tallied up her purchases, bagged them, took her money and gave change, all in a perky manner.
"Thank you," said Tizzie.
"Thank you" came the reply, with a big smile.
Tizzie turned to leave, and at that precise moment her glance happened to fall upon the window, and she looked through to the street outside, where the sun was beating down and bouncing in silvery reflections off one or two car windows. And then her eye landed on something—or someone, rather, that caught her up short. She took a tiny gasp. Could it be? Or was it her mind playing tricks on her, a trick of the light like the reflections? For there, standing on the other side of the street and looking both ways as if to cross, was a large man with a bull neck and a streak in his hair. A definite streak of white!
She had never seen him before, but she had heard him described often enough, both by Skyler and by Jude. Could it be a coincidence? She knew, in her bones, that it was not. And she became more certain the more she looked at the man, at the impatient, arrogant way he waited, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet.
She dropped the bag on the floor, heard a surprised "Hey, wait!" from behind the counter, and rushed into the corridor. She ran past the receptionist and past the ground-floor offices and up a side staircase, up past the second floor to the third, yanking open the door. She looked both ways quickly, then darted down the hall to Skyler's room and burst in just as he was drifting off to sleep.
She shook him violently.
"Get up! Quick! We've got to leave!"
He looked up startled, uncomprehending.
"I'll explain later!"
He was slow to move.
"Quick. I saw one of those guys downstairs—what do you call them, an Orderly. He's coming to look for you!"
Skyler leapt out of bed, grabbed his pants, put them on and was at the door. Shirtless, his pants stained with blood, he looked like a wild man. He would stand out a mile. That was dangerous.
The bed next to Skyler's was curtained off—a new patient had been admitted. Tizzie opened one of the lockers set into the wall. They were in luck. She grabbed a man's shirt and pair of pants and shoes and followed Skyler out into the corridor. They ducked into the staircase and he quickly changed, dropping his pants over the banister. They ran down the stairwell all the way to the basement, opening the door a crack and peering through. It was the X-ray department. Three patients were seated along the wall, waiting their turn. They looked up quizzically as they hurried by.
They walked to the front of the hospital, found another staircase and took it. On the ground floor, the door had a small rectangular window of wire and glass shoulder-high. Skyler looked through. He had been prepared for the sight, but still it shocked him—there was an Orderly, leaning against the receptionist's counter, apparently demanding information. The face turned in his direction, and instinctively Skyler withdrew, ducking to one side.
Skyler looked again. The man was walking now toward the main corridor. He was approaching them! Skyler pulled Tizzie to him, pushed her into a corner and stood before her. If the door opened, they would be behind it. He motioned to her to remain quiet, and they stayed there, frozen, as the sound of footsteps approached. The steps paused in front of the door. They could almost hear the man thinking, pondering a choice. Then finally, the footsteps resumed and grew softer. Skyler looked through the window again; he could see the back of the Orderly's head, the streak barely visible, as he moved down the corridor in the opposite direction. Only then did he realize that Tizzie had been squeezing his arm.
They opened the door and watched him walk to the end of the corridor, turn a corner and disappear. Then they stepped into the lobby. Again Skyler felt Tizzie's hand sliding through his arm, this time casually. Her arm hooked his own and he felt her moving closer, walking almost in step, like a couple out for a stroll. She steered him close to the receptionist and happened to catch her eye.
"Oh," said the woman. "There was a man here just now"—she glanced at Skyler—"asking for your brother. The one who has an identical twin, he said. I sent him up to the room."
She looked down the corridor, bustling with helpfulness.
"You can probably still catch him on this floor."
"That's all right," Skyler put in hastily. "We're not crazy about him."
"In fact," said Tizzie. "We don't get along at all."
"You could do us a big favor," added Skyler. "When he comes down, don't even mention that you saw us."
"You bet. I know what you mean. I didn't like him at all. Pushy."
Outside, the sunlight was dazzling. It bounced off street signs and windows and even the pavement, so that at first they had trouble seeing. They didn't even spot Jude driving down the street, not until he honked the horn and then shouted across the intersection.
"Let's get out of here," Tizzie commanded, jumping into the backseat while Skyler took the front.
They told Jude about the Orderly. He hit the gas. They were already five blocks away by the time they finished describing their escape from the hospital.
Jude looked over at Skyler. "I'm not sure about your clothes. I don't think they're really you. We won't go back to the motel for our stuff—it's not safe."
Jude reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the Arizona licenses. He threw it across to Skyler.
"Here's your new identity."
Skyler looked at the picture. Not bad. It could pass for him. He read the name.
"Harold James?"
"Harry, for short. I'm Edward. You can call me Eddie."
"The James brothers?" said Tizzie. "Isn't that a bit thick?"
"Not at all."
"By the way," said Tizzie, as they roared past a sign for Pulliam that indicated an airport, "where are we going?"
The answer was soothing to her ears. "Far, far away."
They changed planes at Phoenix and stayed long enough to grab a quick bite. Jude bought the Arizona Republican and read it over a cup of coffee. Nothing in it of interest. Tizzie wandered off to buy some more toiletries—her second attempt of the day—and Skyler looked in a gift shop for some clothing but found nothing.
They bought the tickets using Tizzie's credit card. This dismayed Jude, but there was no other way to pay for them. Anyway, he told himself, her plane ticket was in her own name, too, so there was no way to cover her tracks. In for a dime, in for a dollar.
They killed a half hour wandering around the modern terminal, then headed for the check-in counter for American Airlines and stood in a long line. When their turn ca
me, they were asked for identification and produced three driver's licenses.
"Luggage?" inquired the check-in clerk.
"We have none," said Jude.
The clerk registered surprise.
"We always travel light," Jude explained.
He was tempted to make a wisecrack, but thought better of it. No sense in drawing even more attention to themselves—they were conspicuous enough as it was.
They zipped through the X-ray line and headed for the departure gate waiting lounge, where they sat among all the other travelers. Anyone looking at them might have mistaken them for a modern typically atypical American family grouping—say, two identical brothers and a wife returning from a holiday in the sun. The only question that might conceivably be asked was: which one of the brothers was the husband?
Ten minutes later, the flight was called—nonstop to Washington, D.C.
Chapter 24
The taxi passed the Washington Monument, drove along the Ellipse to the Capitol and continued on into the southwest sector, where they found a cheap rooming house called Potomac View. The name was misleading; the only view of the river was a badly-done watercolor that hung in the hallway above a stack of tourist brochures.
In the morning, Tizzie decided to call her office in New York. It was a calculated risk. She had to surface sooner or later, she figured, and the longer she was out of touch, the more suspicious her behavior would seem. Besides, she couldn't remain out of contact for too long. What if her parents needed her?
As a concession to Jude's burgeoning worry streak, she took a cab downtown to place the call from the Hay Adams Hotel. That wouldn't make it any harder to trace, but it would lead their pursuers no closer than a busy hotel in the political hub of the nation's capital.
As for Jude, he decided at breakfast to meet Raymond. He needed him. The three of them were out of their depth in tackling the Lab, that much was clear. They needed the resources of the FBI to get to the bottom of the whole murky business. And, frankly, it would be a relief to hand the whole damn case over to someone else.
But would the FBI be responsive? What were they dealing with exactly? Murder?—undoubtedly. For openers, there was that dead body in New Paltz. But they were a long way from being able to pin it on anybody. What else was there? Some kind of conspiracy to engage in illegal medical research? Most probably. But was that the kind of thing the government's prime investigative agency worried about? Raymond had said there had once been an active file on the Lab, but indicated it was all but closed. Other priorities, he suggested. Then again Hartman had said that FBI agents had trailed them to Wisconsin. So at least somebody there was still interested.
Questions flitted through his mind. Would Raymond have enough pull to get the agency behind him? Maybe Jude would have to back him up in person in persuading his superiors. And come to think of it, how much could he trust Raymond? Raymond had warned him to be suspicious of everyone, no matter how close. In retrospect, that sounded like he had been talking about Tizzie. Did Raymond know about her? Or could the warning apply to Raymond himself? Don't forget, Jude told himself, from the beginning Raymond had been holding back information. But why would he warn Jude to be suspicious of himself? Would he say that if he was a part of it? On the other hand, what a perfect ruse—what better tactic to worm his way into Jude's trust? But then again, it was Raymond who'd provided him with the name of the judge that allowed him to take the first step on this whole long, crazy trail. That spoke well for him.
Jude decided to stop thinking so much. You just go round and round in circles and end up so spooked you're paralyzed. Take the bull by the horns. Just show up. Take Skyler. No advance warning, no time to spring a trap. And anyway, with these Orderlies and God knew who else after them, probably the safest place to be right now was the FBI Building.
Jude and Skyler grabbed a taxi.
"FBI headquarters."
The driver, a dark-skinned African wearing a bright print shirt, looked at them in the rearview mirror, first one, then the other. The bouncy rhythm of West African music came from a tape. Sounds like Sunny Ade, thought Jude, and he looked at the driver's name. Sure enough, he was Nigerian.
Tizzie was frantic. She left a note for Jude and Skyler—there was no time to wait for them—and took a taxi back to the airport. She pushed her way toward the front of the line and bought a ticket. A half hour later, she was in the air, en route to Milwaukee.
It sounded serious. She had tried to determine just how serious by gauging her secretary's intonation, but of course that hadn't revealed anything.
"They say you should come right away. She's doing poorly, and they don't know how long she'll last."
"When did they call?"
"Only a couple of hours ago."
Were they trying to spare her by giving her only half information? Would her mother be dead by the time she got there?
Strange, but she had always assumed that her father would be the first to go. He was the one who had always worked so hard, who had seemed so overburdened. Her mother had been secondary, someone who was there in the background. She was cleaning house or cooking meals while he was dealing with the world, seeing his patients or arranging trips or discussing weighty matters with Uncle Henry. Her mother always seemed to be expending less energy to be going through life more or less certain of what she should be doing, and doing it at her own pace.
Tizzie couldn't bear to face the hard truth. She'd probably thought her father would die first because she feared that the most. Her mother—she loved her deeply. Her mother was a stalwart support, a nourishing presence. But her father was her whole world. The moon, the stars and the sun rolled into one. She could imagine life without her mother, but not without her father.
Guilt came next, and typically she was up to her neck in it. It was irresistible to her, like probing a wound to see how much it hurts. She called up as many fond memories as she could. A flood of images came on parade: her mother tending her when she was sick, staying up late to make sure she got home safely during high school dates, bandaging her foot at the seashore when she had stepped on a razor shell.
A new old memory came suddenly out of nowhere: sleeping in her mother's arms on a long car trip, being comforted by her. Where were they going? Why, they were leaving Arizona. It was the long journey to Wisconsin, and she was afraid, afraid because she was abandoning all her friends and was about to start a brand-new life. But also afraid for some other reason—what was it? Perhaps she was afraid because she sensed on some level that her parents were afraid. What would they have been afraid of?
How many other memories were there like that, waiting to be unlocked?
Tizzie was crammed in economy class. A man to one side of her kept falling asleep, his head tumbling upon her shoulder. Lunch came in a bag: a sandwich, piece of cheese, an apple and a plastic knife. A baby behind her was crying. But she scarcely noticed any of this.
She was too scared. More scared than any time since that car trip long ago.
And as it turned out, she had good reason to be. For when the plane finally landed, taxiing slowly from the runway to the gate and disgorging its passengers maddeningly slowly, she was met by a small delegation at the arrival gate.
She saw, and her heart gave out a sigh to see it, that the group included Uncle Henry. She could tell by their faces even before a single word was spoken that she had come too late.
She could tell that her mother was already dead.
¨
The Hoover Building was large and impersonal, a nondescript bureaucratic monolith on Pennsylvania Avenue.
They got out a block early and walked the rest of the way, an old habit Jude had picked up when he went on important interviews. By now it had become a superstition, a bit of harmless ritual to make the interview turn out right. And considering everything, no interview in his life would ever be as important as this one.
There was a pay phone in the lobby, and Jude placed a call while Skyler walked around nervo
usly.
He was put through right away.
"Raymond," Jude began.
There was a flicker of a pause. He imagined Raymond collecting himself to sound normal.
"Jude. Where the hell are you?"
He hadn't succeeded. His tone had an undercurrent of urgency.
"Right here. In D.C. I need to talk to you."
"Name your place. I'll be there."
"Maybe I'll come to you."
"Okay, fine... when?"
Jude thought Raymond sounded pleased. "How about right now?"
"Good. Perfect."
A pause. Then Raymond added: "Are you alone?"
Why give him the satisfaction?
"Just me and my shadow." He thought: I hope that's ambiguous enough for you.
"Okay. I'll be waiting. How soon will you get here?"
"I am here."
"What? What do you mean?"
"I'm right downstairs—in the lobby."
"Shit. Why didn't you say so? I'll be right down."
"Okay."
Jude hung up with his finger, holding the receiver in his hand, suddenly uncertain. What the hell, the die was cast. At least he was back in the game. But then why did he feel so unsure of himself, so unconvinced that he had done the right thing? Why did he feel this little ball of nettles inside that he knew to be the onset of fear?
He looked around the lobby. Ahead was a security check, a walkthrough glass booth manned by plainclothes guards. A little line had formed, people returning from mid-morning breaks. He was surprised at the dress of the men who whisked in and out of the front doors. It was normal and even stylish; he had half-expected to see the proverbial drab gray suits and short haircuts of the Hoover era. And there were a lot of women, too. Some people were even laughing.
On the other side of the metal detectors was an escort desk where badges were being handed out to visitors. Beyond was an elevator bank. On the other side was a newsstand with racks of magazines and newspapers on display. It was cool in the high-ceiling lobby and he could feel drafts from air-conditioning pumped in through vents.