Eats to Die For! (21 page)

I rushed to her and led her to the sofa, lowering her down and sitting beside her. “Are you okay?”

Louie nodded. “I feel a little numb,” she said.

“Did they use the tingly chair on you?”

“Tingly chair? No. I was strapped to a gurney and little sticky electrodes were put on my head that were supposed to read and influence my thoughts. It was supposed to be some kind of lie detector test.”

“What's this business about a cousin?”

“Dave, I had to tell them the truth.”

“You told them where your flash drive is hidden?”

“Yes,” she said. “I told them that I don't really have an Aunt Dolores, and that I really sent all the information to my cousin Tina, who used to be a television news anchor. Oh, god help me, Dave,” she said, falling into my arms, and then whispered into my ear:

“The stupid shits fell for it. They really believe this equipment of theirs works.”

Then she broke the embrace and asked, “So what's this about a tingly chair?”

I recounted my experience with Helen Mirren's doppelgänger and the weird chair, and my theory as to why I was unable to move when sitting in it, after which Louie said, “That almost makes sense.”

“In a Roger Corman film kind of way.”

“What do you think they're going to do with us now?” Louie asked, and this question I knew was genuine.

“I don't know,” I replied, standing up. “I think we're safe for a while, but once they get that stick with your notes from your cousin…who was it again?”

“Tina. Christina Cordova. She was on Channel Five in the nineties.” Louie permitted herself the tiniest of winks to me.

“Oh, I think I remember the name. I guess the real question now is what are they going to do to Tina. I mean, look at what they did to Regina and Avery.”

“I don't want to think about it,” she said, getting up and embracing me. Then in my ear, she added: “We have to get out of here.”

I couldn't have agreed more. If only I knew how.

The girl, stupid, the girl
, Robert Mitchum said.

I'm holding the girl
, I thought back.

Not that one
!

Which one, then? “Ohhhh,” I moaned when I finally figured it out.

“Are you getting off just hugging me?” Louie asked.

“Not a bad thought, but no,” I whispered back. “I think I might have an idea. Come with me.”

Taking her hand, I led her to the bathroom, closed the door and turned on the shower and the tap.

“Okay, there's this girl named Hannah who works here as a nurse. Call it intuition, but I think she might be the weak link in this particular daisy chain because she doesn't seem all too enthused about the stuff they are making her do, which indicates to me that she's doing it out of fear.”

“Like Regina was afraid that they were going to find out she had started smoking again.”

“Something like that. But if we can figure out what her weakness is, we might be able to use it against her.”

“But isn't that the kind of shit they do here?”

She had a point.

“Yeah, yeah it is, but there's one difference: they're not being held hostage.”

“But in a way, they are.”

“Look, Louie,” I said, “do you want to get out of here or not?”

“Of course I do. I just don't want to hurt another woman to do it.”

“Neither do I. So maybe we can convince her to take our side in this mess.”

“How?”

“By playing on her nurse's training. One of us fakes an illness or injury, and that gets her in here, and then we try to talk to her.”

“What, we pretend to have heart attacks?”

“I don't know, exactly, we just have to pretend to have something.”

She was silent for a moment, and then said: “Dave, do you trust me?”

“Of course I trust you. Why wouldn't I?”

“Do you love me?”

“Louie…”

“Dave, do you love me?”

“Yeah, Louie, I think I do. You're not going to stomp on my heart, are you?”

“No, but I'm going to remind you that a big part of love is forgiveness.” She grabbed my face and gave me a kiss that made my toes curl, and then said, “Trust me, baby.”

Then she threw open door of the bathroom and screamed, “You piece of shit!”

I had no choice but to trust her. I ran after her, asking, “What did I do?”

“You know goddamn well what you did!” she cried, then started screaming in Spanish, and while I had no idea what she was saying, I have to admit that it heightened the drama.

“Jeez, what's the problem?” I protested.

“You think just because we did it once as a mercy hump you can have me anytime you want? You're a goddamn rapist, you know that?”

Oh, she was good when she got wound up. I hoped whoever was watching and listening was enjoying the performance.

“Hey, what's the big deal?” I said, attempting to affect a macho-man tone. “You wanted it, you know you wanted it!”

“But not with you!”

“Too bad!” I shouted back. “I'm a guy who likes a little taco meat every now and then. What's the big deal?”

Luisa Sandoval's eyes widened beyond her brows, and I had only a nanosecond in which to realize that maybe I had played the drama a little broadly before she drove her fist into my nose.

After the explosion of flashing lights everything went dark and I went down. The last thing I remember is hearing the voice of Bogart say:
Jesus, kid, why not just pull the pin on a grenade?

The next thing I heard was a far off voice saying, “It's not broken, but he's going to look like Bozo the Clown for a while.”

I couldn't tell if it was one of mine or someone else's voice.

Slowly I opened my eyes and through a sheet of red that quickly faded to pink, then disappeared, I saw Hannah hovering over me.

“You should learn to control your anger,” she said to Louie.

“I
was
controlling it,” Louie responded.

I tried to talk and became aware of a cloth over my mouth. At first I thought it might have been a gag, but realized it was there to sop up the blood that was still streaming from my nose.

“I'll get some ice,” Hannah said, rising. She left the room, locking the door behind her.

Louie took her place, hovering over me.

“How do you feel?” she whispered.

“I've never been hit like that before,” I replied.

“I had to make it look good, and I didn't much care for that ‘taco meat' crack, either.”

“Jesus, Louie, I had to make it look good, too, didn't I? I don't normally say things like that, okay?”

“I'm sorry, baby.”

Part of love is forgiveness
, a voice said in my head, and it was Louie's. “What do I really look like?” I croaked.

“Ever see a photo of J. P. Morgan when he was old?”

“Great.”

I got up off the floor made my woozy way to the sofa, and sat down, still holding the rag to my mouth.

Louie sat down beside me. “So do we try to overcome her when she comes back?” she whispered in my ear.

I shook my head, and it hurt. “They'll see it and stop us,” I said through the cloth. “We have to talk to her.”

“You know how to play good cop, bad cop?”

Underneath my bloody cloth I was smiling, and that hurt, too. “Trust me, I learned from the best,” I said.

Hannah then returned with a large metal bowl filled with ice and a stack of towels. “You stand over there where I can see you,” she commanded to Louie, while she took away my reddened cloth and examined my nose. “Wow. I'll try not to hurt you any worse.”

“You'd make a great doctor,” I said.

“I wanted to be a doctor,” she replied, holding, a cold compress to my face. “But I had a drug problem. Most hospitals don't hire doctors with drug problems. The Temple helped me get off drugs.”

From across the room, Louie said: “So that's why you're indentured to them?”

“Not indentured, indebted,” though the expression on her face did not fully support her words.

“Pay no attention to her,” I said to Hannah. “She doesn't understand the way the Temple works.”

Glancing up at Louie, I read in her expression that she understood I was about to engage in Act II of this painful drama.

“You must be very grateful to them for helping you,” I went on. “So grateful that you work for them in return.”

“I am…grateful…in a way, but…”

“But what, Hannah?”

“This isn't like a job, exactly. I'm not getting paid, or anything. My room and board is free, but when I said indebted, I meant I really am. I owe the Temple so much money for classes and adjusting and counseling, that I have to stay here.”

“But it's worth it, isn't it?” I pressed. “I mean, you get to act like a doctor, even if you really aren't one.”

“And probably never will be,” Louie said, sauntering closer to us. “A junkie like you.”

“Oh, shut up,” I said. “She'll be a doctor, someday.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You're such a downer!”

“I'm a
realist
!” Louie countered on cue. “And you're nothing but a chump who falls for every pretty face with a stethoscope around her neck!”

“Don't listen to her,” I said to Hannah. “I know you're happy here. Who wouldn't be?”

Since I was ad lib phishing for information, I wasn't sure where this line of questioning was going to go. All I knew is that I wasn't prepared for her reaction, which was to completely break down in tears and fold into a near-fetal position.

“Who,
wouldn't
be?” she wailed. “Anyone! I hate it here! I'm stuck here, like a wild animal in a hunter's trap!”

“I had no idea,” I lied. “And I'm sure Louie's sorry for what she said. Aren't you Louie?”

Louie rushed over and took Hannah in her arms, and cradled her like a mother comforting a sobbing child. “I'm so sorry, baby. I had no idea, either,” she said.

Hanna broke away from Louie and stood up. “I can't be seen doing this. It's a sign of weakness. They'll see. They're watching. They're always watching.”

In an instant came the sound of the door being unlocked, and a second later Alberto and Dan came back in.

“Whatever are we to do with you two?” Dan asked.

“Let us go?” I said, and after several seconds' worth of crickets, added: “It was just a thought.”

“Until we have all of the information gleaned by Ms. Sandoval here, you two will continue to enjoy the hospitality of the Temple of Theotologics.”

“What if I told you I really wasn't able to find anything out?” Louie asked.

Dan smiled. “Frankly, I suspect that
is
the case, but the only way to know for certain is to locate and review your reporters' notes. What was it the man once said? Trust, but verify. Anyway, that is not the issue at present. The issue for you, Mr. Beauchamp, is how we keep Ms. Sandoval from harming you again.”

“Put her in a different room,” I offered, hoping Dan would automatically reject the idea because it had come from someone who was “unadjusted.”

“I actually have a better idea,” Dan said, right on cue. “Hannah, prepare two syringes.”

Uh oh.

“What are you going to do?” Louie demanded.

“Don't worry, you won't feel a thing. You didn't when you were brought here.”

“He's going to keep us drugged, Louie,” I said, “probably until they find your cousin Tina.”

Turning on Hannah, Dan said: “You were given an order, private. What are you waiting for? Get the syringes.”

“Yeah, make tracks,” Alberto said. “Get it?
Tracks
?”

Then he laughed while Hannah crossed her arms over her chest, as though trying to hide the evidence of intravenous drug use. The gesture came so automatically that it must have been reflex, and the look of pain on her face spoke volumes.

Hannah glanced up at me with an inscrutable expression, and then dashed out of the room.

“I must say, Beauchamp, that you have taken your sock in the nose with equanimity,” Dan was saying.

“I provoked her,” I responded.

“Still, I would think you'd like to settle the score.”

“I don't hit women,” I said.

“Turn the other cheek, is that it?” Dan sneered. “Or in your case, the other nose? Admirable.”

He then lashed out and backhanded Louie so forcefully she flew across the room before colliding with a chair and going down.

“
Hey
!” I shouted, charging him, but Alberto stepped in between us and shoved me back. I nearly went down on my butt, too, but I fought to retain my balance. I stared at Dan. “Big man, huh?” I said. “I'll bet you'll jack off tonight to the memory of that.”

“And I'll bet you'll shut your mouth unless you want to see me give it to her worse.”

My mouth opened and then closed again. I wasn't about to risk having Louie hurt again. And I had to assume that was the point. I was being broken down.

“Big men,” I said again, impotently. “Big, big men.”

“I'm okay, Dave,” Louie said, getting up and wiping the blood from her mouth. “Don't make it worse.”

We were at a four-person stand-off, like the bridge game from hell, when Hannah returned, holding two syringes.

“You might need to hold them,” she said.

“Quite right,” Dan agreed. “Alberto, you take the woman.”

Alberto violently dragged Louie over to the sofa and threw her against it, and then pressed his forearm against her throat, while Dan—who was stronger than he looked—did the same for me.

I don't know how much pressure was being applied to Louie's windpipe, but mine was near collapsing. Alberto and Dan were standing side by side over us as Hannah approached and took the caps off the needles of the syringes and plunged one each into the butts of both Alberto and Dan.