Contagious (14 page)

“What the fuck, old man? You going to war or something?”
“Every day, kid, every day. Now, unless you’re going to give me a body-cavity search for the frag grenade I carry up my poop-chute, you’re gonna have to take my word for it that I’m disarmed. So are we gonna do this, or are you just gonna sit there wankin’ your crank?”
“Are you
serious,
old man? Look at you. Gut hanging out. I see you sometimes limping and shit. I hit you half as hard as I can, I’ll probably kill you.”
“I’m not your little butt-buddy Bill,” Dew said quietly.
Perry’s eyes widened, a combination of rage and shame.
“You’re a big man, Dawsey,” Dew said. “Killing someone who weighed all of a buck-fifty soaking wet.”
“Don’t you talk about him,” Dawsey said in a quiet voice that sent goose bumps up Dew’s back.
Dew smiled his best asshole smile. “What’s the matter, pussy? You don’t want to take a swing at me? Maybe I can find a midget around here somewhere. Maybe a baby, or a fat woman, or an eighty-year-old grandmother. But that won’t work, because those people wouldn’t be your friends. They wouldn’t be your
best
friend. Someone who trusted you, who tried to help you.”
Dawsey’s hands curled up into cinder-block-size fists. “It wasn’t my fault,” he said in that same quiet voice. “I . . . I wasn’t in control.”
“Sure you weren’t,” Dew said. “It’s called
accountability,
boy. If you actually had any
discipline,
your little faggot friend would still be alive.”
Perry reached down with his left hand, across his body, and grabbed the right corner of the table. He lifted and threw in one motion, effortlessly flipping the table to his left. It smashed into the wall, legs breaking on impact. The empty .45 bounced across the carpet.
Dew waited.
A snarling Perry Dawsey raised his right fist. Huge muscles rippling, he stepped forward to throw a haymaker.
And just when Perry took that step, Dew flicked the bullet at Perry’s face.
The bullet bounced off Perry’s forehead. He blinked and flinched, an automatic reaction caused by something flying at his face. He turned his head just a little, his fist hung in the air, and he took an instinctive shuffle-step to maintain his balance as momentum pulled him forward.
Dew opened his right hand, making the space between his thumb and pointer finger as wide as possible. He stepped into the oncoming monster, snapping forward with his horizontal open hand. The crook of his thumb smashed into Dawsey’s throat. Dew held back a little—any harder and he would have broken Dawsey’s windpipe, making him suffocate to death. He wanted to hurt the guy, not kill him.
Not yet, anyway.
Dawsey’s hands shot to his neck, and his eyes scrunched tightly shut. He made a single noise, part-cough, part-gag.
Then Dew Phillips thumbed him in the left eye.
Perry flinched away again, turning his head to the left to protect the eye, left hand coming up to cover it, right hand staying clutched at his throat. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see.
Dew stepped forward to kick Dawsey in the knee, but the big man flailed his fist in a wild arc that caught Dew’s right shoulder. The force spun Dew all the way around, and he fell hard, knocking over the table full of open briefcases. Dew felt the sting of a cut on his right temple, and only a second later a bit of blood came trickling down.
Dew had been in hundreds of fights, and he’d
never
been hit that hard.
He scrambled to his feet. He tried to move his right arm but couldn’t—it was numb and unresponsive.
Dawsey was still coughing, still trying to draw a breath, still keeping his watering left eye turned away, still swinging wildly and blindly back and forth with his right hand. Dew skirted the wall to the broken table. With his left hand, he picked up a table leg by the thinner end. The leg’s thick top made it look like a polished wooden mace.
Dew stepped forward and swung it low. The thick wood slammed into Dawsey’s right knee. Dawsey cried out, his throat capable of producing only a hoarse whisper. He dropped, left knee and right hand holding his weight.
“You want discipline?” Dew said. “I’ll give you discipline.”
Dew swung the table leg in a big arc and brought it down on Perry’s head. The skin split open instantly, blood spilling out of a two-inch-long gash that stained his blond hair. Despite the cut, Dawsey barely flinched. His right lid fluttered open a bit, but his left stayed pinched shut. From his half-crouch, he lunged forward, both hands reaching out.
Dew Phillips calmly scooted backward and jabbed the table leg into Perry’s mouth, splitting his lip on impact.
Perry fell flat on his face, then put his hands down and tried to rise.
“You’re going to play ball,” Dew said. He brought the table leg around in another vicious arc, the club end whistling through the air before it landed on Dawsey’s back with a meaty thud. Dawsey let out another choking hiss and fell on his face again.
“You’re going to do it because it’s the right thing to do.” Dew whipped the table leg in a low swing that hit Perry’s right side, crunching into the younger man’s ribs. Perry rolled to his left, curling up into a near-fetal ball. He still couldn’t see, squinting eyes betraying his blindness. Blood covered his head, poured from his mouth. His knees curled up to his chest, and his hands stuck out in front of him, trying to ward off the attack.
Dew swung again, as hard as he could this time. The club head hit Dawsey’s right thigh. Dawsey managed to push a deep scream out through his choking throat.
“I don’t want any more shit out of you,” Dew said. He swung the leg and hit the thigh again, knowing that it would hurt far worse the second time. “Are you going to stop being such a prick?”
“Stop!” Perry shouted. “Please!”
“You begging for your life, Dawsey? Like your friend Bill did? Like those triangle hosts did?”
“I was
helping
them!” His voice sounded like he’d gargled broken glass.
Dew jabbed the leg straight forward, hitting Dawsey in the forehead. The wood-on-wood sound accompanied another cut, this one longer than the first and bleeding even worse.
“
Helping
them? You psycho fuck, maybe I should just beat you to death right here!”
“No!” Still on his side, knees up to his chest, Perry waved his hands blindly.
Dew raised the table leg for another shot to Dawsey’s ribs. He wanted to make this boy
hurt
.
Perry’s voice was half-scream, half-cry. “Don’t hit me any more, Daddy!
Please!”
Dew stared for a few seconds, the table leg suspended in the air.
“Puh . . . please, Daddy,” Dawsey stammered. “No more.”
Dew lowered the table leg to his side, then dropped it on the floor. He still couldn’t move his right arm. The bloody, giant-size man lay crying on the floor, big body shaking with sobs.
“I’ll get someone in here to clean you up,” Dew said. “Then go back to your room. I’ll come talk to you there. We’ve got work to do.
Dew walked out of the room.
BITCHES GET STITCHES
Clarence leaned his head into the communications trailer. Margaret smiled at him. She couldn’t help it. She had thought him handsome the first moment she saw him. Now, after three months on this assignment and more than a few nights in his bed, she found him gorgeous. She was falling for him. No, she had
already
fallen for him. She didn’t know if it would be a temporary romance, if when this insanity ended they simply would go their separate ways. Maybe their attraction was just an outlet, a way to deal with the death that surrounded them on a daily basis.
Maybe he was with her because she was the only woman on the project. That thought had crossed her mind more than a few times. She was older, twenty pounds overweight, and while she still got plenty of attention from men, it wasn’t as much as she used to get. Was she already in love with him? She pushed the thoughts away—if she let it go that far and he didn’t love her in return . . .
“Doc,” Clarence said, “Dew says you need to go to the office.”
“I’m a little busy,” she said. “Tell him if he wants to see me, he can come to the trailer. Then I’ll get rid of him, and you can give me a nice shoulder rub.”
Clarence shook his head. “Uh, no can do, Doc. You need to get to the office, and bring a first-aid kit. Seems Dew and Perry had it out.”
“Oh, no. Do we need an ambulance?”
“You’re going to have to see this for yourself,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’ll go with you.”
Margaret looked through the comm room’s cabinets. There was a first-aid kit in here somewhere. . . . She found it, grabbed the white plastic box by its built-in handle and ran out of the trailer toward Room 207.
In a way, Clarence had made her question her life choices, even as she rode a rocket-train of career success and quite literally stood in the path of a potential global catastrophe. She was
the man,
for lack of a better term, something she always longed to be, but thanks to her feelings for him it was starting to ring empty. When this was over, if they separated, what did she have to look forward to? Her sparse apartment in Cincinnati? A place she really used only for sleep, because she worked all the time?
“You don’t need to be afraid,” he said as they reached the room. “I’ll be right here with you.” He opened the door for her.
“Afraid? Why would I be afraid of Dew Phil—”
Her voice broke off when she saw Perry Dawsey curled up in a fetal position, bleeding like a stuck pig.
“Like I told you,” Clarence said, “I’ll be right here.”
She couldn’t believe it. Dew Phillips had beat up Perry Dawsey?
Beat up
wasn’t really the term for it.
Thrashed him to within an inch of his life.
Yeah, that was more accurate.
“Clarence, leave us alone.”
His head whipped around, looking from Perry to her.
“Are you crazy? He’s down, he’s not dead.”
“I know.”
“He could snap at any second, Margo,” Clarence said. “I’m staying right here.”
She took his hand and led him out of the room, then pulled his head down so she could whisper in his ear.
“Honey, I know you want to protect me, but he’s not going to hurt me.”
“He’s a
killer,
Margaret,” Clarence whispered back.
“You’re going to have to trust my judgment,” she said. “I’ve taken care of him for five weeks, and I’m telling you he’s not going to hurt me.”
“Fine, then I’ll stay to watch and see how wrong I am.”
“He just got the crap kicked out of him,” Margaret said. “I’m not a guy, but I think that makes you guys feel a little ashamed? Am I right?”
Clarence stared at her, then nodded.
“So maybe having a woman in there, instead of another man, won’t be as bad, because he won’t think I’ll be wondering if
I
can beat him up, too?”
“Well, that’s not exactly how I’d think of it,” he said. “But yeah, I’d be embarrassed if there was another guy watching me get stitched up. A non-doctor guy, of course. Doctors aren’t embarrassing in a situation like this.”
“Guy logic?”
“Guy logic,” he said. “Listen, can’t we at least get Amos to take care of him?”
She smiled at him. “If you can talk Amos Braun into being in a room alone with Perry Dawsey, I’ll give you twenty bucks.”
“I’m not taking that bet.”
“Clarence, I’m a professional. I love the fact that you want to protect me, but this conversation is over, okay? Stand out here if you’re worried.
If he tries anything, I’ll scream for help.”
“That only works if you can make a noise before he breaks your neck.”
She sighed, then slapped him once on the chest and walked into Room 207. She shut the door behind her.
“Perry? It’s Margaret.”
He opened his right eye. His left was swollen shut.
“Hey,” he said.
“I’m going to fix you up, okay?”
“Just leave me be.”
“No can do. I’m a doctor. You’re bleeding. That’s the math.”
Perry looked at her with his one good eye, then slowly sat up. He scooted until he rested his back against the wall.
“Fine,” he said. “Just till you stop the bleeding.”
She knelt and opened the first-aid kit. She pressed gauze bandages against the cut on top of his head. “Hold that there, please.”
Perry did.
She put another one on the forehead cut. Blood instantly soaked it.
“Okay, Perry. Tell me what hurts.”
“My ego. I just got my ass kicked by the poster boy for the AARP.”
“Maybe you’re lucky,” Margaret said.
“Well, buy me a fucking Lotto ticket. How do you figure I’m
lucky
?”
“Dew’s told me a couple of stories over the past three months. He’s killed a lot of people, Perry. I know you’re big and strong and athletic. You know how to
fight
—Dew Phillips knows how to kill or be killed.”
“Ha,” Perry said. “He didn’t do either. Does that mean I won?”
Margaret laughed. “See? You’re cracking jokes. You can’t be hurt that bad.”
“Guess again.”
She tossed the bloody gauze aside, then poured some peroxide on the cut.
“Does that hurt?” she asked.
“Compared to getting hit with a table leg? Might as well be a sensual massage.”
“Good, then just think of this part as your happy ending.”
She proceeded to stitch up his cuts. Six stitches on the forehead, five on the top of the head, and three more on his lip.
“How bad is the eye?” Perry said. “Is it ruined?”
She pulled open his upper and lower eyelids and flicked a penlight at the pupil. The eye was already filled with blood, but the pupil contracted with each flash.
“You’re going to have a hell of a shiner, but I think you’ll be okay.”
She made him take off his shirt. Her eyes lingered on the gnarled, fist-size scar on his right collarbone, then inadvertently flicked to the similar one on his left forearm. She’d treated him for weeks and knew of his other horrible scars: on his left thigh, the center of his back and his right gluteus, along with a smaller one on his left shin.
Margaret checked his ribs and found they weren’t broken. He refused to remove his pants, so she had to take his word for it that the thigh was okay. She finished by checking his knee, sliding up the pant leg and using her fingertips to probe the area. It was swollen, but she didn’t feel anything broken, so she dug her fingers in a little deeper to check for ligament damage.
“Does it hurt when I do this?”
“Yes,” Perry said.
“Describe the pain.”
“Is
goddamn near excruciating
a standard medical term?”
She stopped. “If I was hurting you that bad, why didn’t you say something?”
He shrugged. “Me and pain go way back.”
“Well, you and your
old buddy pain