Nerve Damage (24 page)

Dr. Chu was gazing at the waterfall; Roy got the sudden feeling that he'd stopped listening. “We're dealing with powerful forces clashing in a very small space,” he said. “The human body.” He rose—his knees cracking, the sound startling Roy—and stepped over to the honey-colored rocks, where he plucked out a twist of paper, like a gum wrapper. Frowning at it, he said, “This policeman from your town—Sergeant Boudreau?—he's puzzled by recent events. I tried to explain to him what's going on but I'm not sure he really understood.”

“What are you talking about?” Roy said.

“The unknowns,” said Dr. Chu. “Specifically these unintended mental components.” Dr. Chu turned to Roy. “In this case, strong emotions from the present seem to be mixing with strong emotions from the past.”

“Lost me,” Roy said.

“Resulting,” said Dr. Chu, “in behaviors somewhat similar to those of the construction worker I mentioned, albeit more complex and on a grander scale.”

“I still don't get it.”

“Digging up your wife's remains, substituting the body of this unfortunate boy,” said Dr. Chu. “That's the kind of mental confusion I'm talking about. Sergeant Boudreau seems much more concerned with the present whereabouts of the remains than in grasping the—”

Roy was on his feet, on his feet and across the room before he knew it. Dr. Chu was small and slow. He'd barely taken a step back before Roy had him by the front of his lab coat. “There are no remains. That's the whole point—they knew the space was available. They think that's being brilliant but it's diabolical.” Roy's voice rose and rose, finally cracking on the last word. He went silent.

“Please,” said Dr. Chu.

Roy could feel Dr. Chu's heart beating very fast. He looked frightened. For a moment, Roy felt good about that; and then very bad. He let Dr. Chu go. “Sorry,” he said, his voice weaker now, the sudden eruption of strength flowing quickly out of him.

Dr. Chu's gaze fixed on some point a few inches below Roy's eyes. “There is stress,” he said. “I understand. We will continue the study now?”

 

Netty took
his pulse and blood pressure.

“Numbers okay?”

“Normal.”

“What are they?”

“Pulse seventy-three. Blood pressure one twenty-five over ninety.”

“And last time?”

Netty checked. “The exact same.”

“That's good, right?” Had he turned the corner?

Netty gave him a little smile.
Stabilized:
it had to be good. She stuck a needle in his arm, collected three test tubes of blood—it looked richer than before, more purple—and fixed the different colored stickers in place. “If you'll just step on the scale,” she said

“Take off the pajamas?” Roy said.

“You can leave them on.”

“We'll deduct a pound,” Roy said, “just to be fair.” He stepped on the scale. Netty adjusted the weights. The bar fell, then hung, free and still. Roy weighed 144 pounds.

A lot of things sped through his mind at that moment. All that stuck was the sight of Netty slumping her shoulders. He turned to her.

“How many are left?” he said. “Of the original four.”

“I really can't talk about the study,” Netty said. “That's up to Dr.—”

“Three? Two?”

His chart trembled in her hand but her voice was steady. “It's just you, Roy.”

Dr. Chu stuck his head in Roy's room.

“How is lunch?” he said.

Roy was eating off a three-compartment plastic tray: lasagna, corn bread, fruit salad. “Second helping,” he said.

“The chef will be pleased,” said Dr. Chu.

Roy laughed.

Dr. Chu made a curt bow. “A small joke,” he said. “But the corn bread is very good, by reputation.”

Silence. They looked at each other. The thought of the long, long life still in Dr. Chu's future occurred to Roy again, and with it came the sensation of himself as a shrinking object in a rearview mirror.

“Don't be alarmed—too alarmed—about this weight loss,” said Dr. Chu. “In the final analysis, it is merely an effect.”

“Of the treatment?”

“Oh, no, of the disease, certainly—that's well established. But a distant effect, not necessarily predictive. Do you see the difference?”

Roy wasn't sure, but he said yes.

“An important distinction,” Dr. Chu said. “But the good news is that encouraging numbers appeared in your blood work from yesterday.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

Dr. Chu went into a long explanation that Roy followed for a little while, and then not. Unfamiliar terms; complicated connections; lots of numbers: but Dr. Chu's belief in what he was saying shone through, and that was enough. Roy wanted to live, and even more than wanting, if that made sense, he needed to live. The Hobbes Institute, now gone, had sent him an empty coffin. That—and not any theory about a mix-up of past and present emotions—was his problem. Solving it was going to take time. He needed to live. Otherwise: To die unknowing?

Later, alone in his room with a shadow slowly advancing along the wall, he called out, “I'm hungry,” although it was a lie. He said it again. No one came. He jumped out of bed, ran down to the street, bought a giant sub from a street vendor, gobbled it down in three bites. That last part took place only in his mind.

 

But the next day,
Roy weighed 146 pounds. And the day after that—day three of round two—he was up to 148.

“Hey,” he said to Netty. “Writing that down?”

She nodded.

“Yesterday's blood work back yet?” He was growing familiar with the routine, almost as though he worked there, one of the team.

“Just came,” said Netty.

“And?”

“Excellent,” said Dr. Chu. “Even better than yesterday.”

“Could have told you myself,” Roy said. “I'm feeling better.”

Dr. Chu and Netty gazed at him.

“Way better.”

“Excellent,” said Dr. Chu.

“I've got some questions.”

“Ask.”

“Really a lot better,” Roy said. “Have you seen improvement like this before?”

“Improvement?” said Dr. Chu.

“In the study,” Roy explained. “I know the others all died, but before that, did they go through an improving stage?” The answer had to be no; he was different.

“Improving stage?” said Dr. Chu.

“Like I am right now,” Roy said. “The blood work, putting weight back on, breathing better—did I mention that?—everything.”

“Very good question,” said Dr. Chu. He thought about it. Netty turned to watch him. “I would have to reexamine all the data to give you an informed answer.”

“But your gut,” said Roy. “What does it say?”

“That is not my method, Roy, the gut,” Dr. Chu said. “I am a scientist. But when you return in twenty-one days, I will have detailed comparisons for you on this question.”

“And that's another thing,” Roy said. “Now that all the others are gone, how about a fourth hit?”

“Hit?”

“Of the cocktail.” Or a fifth, sixth, seventh: as many hits as it would take at the rate of two pounds a day to get back up to 190.

“But you are forgetting the new arrivals,” said Dr. Chu. “We are now fifteen.”

Netty gave a quick shake of her head.

“Fourteen,” said Dr. Chu.

“Another death?” said Roy.

Netty squeezed his arm. “You just take care of you,” she said.

Roy had a thought; a thought that made him feel bad about himself, but he couldn't keep it in. “Is it possible to buy the cocktail?” he said.

“I'm sorry?” said Dr. Chu.

“I could pay you for some.” Roy was prepared to go to two hundred and fifty grand, even higher. “Just a quart or two.”

Dr. Chu's head tilted up very slightly, so there was just the suggestion of looking down his nose. “That would not be science,” he said. “See you in twenty-one days.”

 

Roy rented a car
and drove down to D.C. He was feeling pretty good, breathing easily, hardly in any pain at all. Adding two pounds a day for any stretch of time was unrealistic, now that he thought it over, but even half a pound a day would bring him up to the one eighties by…Roy did the math in his head, then plotted other points on the calendar based on different weight gains. He was working out the target date for an absolutely minimal one-third of a pound per week when he turned onto Twenty-second Avenue and parked across the street from the little triptych: Starbucks; newspaper box; Wine, Inc. Everything the same, except for the display windows of Wine, Inc., now covered on the inside with brown paper, and a sign on the door that read:
FOR RENT
.

The sight didn't shock Roy; he wasn't even really surprised. In fact, it calmed him in a strange way, an absence that proved to him in ways he couldn't articulate that he was on the right track. And there was a track, of that he had no doubt, going back to the empty coffin he'd buried, and before. But that didn't mean he knew the next step. Go home? Try Janet Habib again—how much was she holding back? Maybe he should do both, starting with—

His cell phone rang.

“Roy Valois? This is Jerry. You remember—Richard Gold's—”

“Of course.”

“I was wondering whether you've made any progress on that obituary correction.”

“Not really.”

“But you're still pursuing it?”

“I am,” said Roy. “Why?”

“It's about Richard's cell phone.”

“You found it?”

“No,” said Jerry. “But the man in the photo? The one you were interested in, fair-haired, privileged-looking? Your wife's boss?”

“Tom Parish?”

“That's not the name he's using,” Jerry said. “But I've seen him.”

“Where?” Roy was holding the phone very tight.

“At Tennis and Other Racquets.”

“What's that?”

“A store—I do their books,” Jerry said.

“I don't understand.”

“I'm an accountant,” Jerry said. “He came in to get a racquet strung.”

“When was this?”

“Yesterday. He's supposed to pick it up today.”

“Where the store?” Roy said.

“In Chevy Chase,” Jerry said. “I could show you next time you're in town.”

“I'm in town,” Roy said.

 

Jerry's house,
white with black shutters, still looked trim and immaculate, but now had a For Sale sign on the lawn, a match to the For Rent sign at Wine, Inc., although Roy couldn't quite say how. Jerry was watching from a downstairs window, his face a pale oval. He came outside, shivered, even though it wasn't cold, maybe in the high forties, and buttoned his trench coat up to the top.

Jerry got in the car. “Hi,” he said, glancing at Roy, holding the glance an extra second or so, a puzzled look appearing in his eyes.

A look Roy understood and ignored. “Selling the house?” he said.

“Everything reminds me of him,” Jerry said. “Turn left at the end of the block.”

Roy turned left, drove through Rock Creek Park. “Any news from Sergeant Bettis?”

“No leads,” Jerry said. “Not a single one in all this time.”

“But he still thinks it was a robbery?”

Jerry nodded. “Things were taken,” he said.

“Twice,” said Roy.

“What do you mean?”

“They forgot about the cell phone the first time,” Roy said. “And those pages from Richard's notebook.”

“I don't get it,” Jerry said.

“It was no robbery, Jerry,” Roy said. “Richard was working on a story that someone didn't want worked on.”

“What story?”

“My obituary.”

Roy felt Jerry's gaze on his face. “Sergeant Bettis had a notion you might have been involved in some way,” Jerry said. “But I never believed him, not for a minute.”

“Why not?”

“Because of how you helped with the collage,” Jerry said. “That would have taken a monster.” He held his hand to the vent. “Working on the obituary—meaning the part about where your wife worked, that institute?”

“That's just the beginning,” Roy said, switching on the heat.

Jerry turned up the collar of his trench coat anyway. They were in Chevy Chase, on a street lined with fancy stores. “How so?” Jerry said.

How so? Delia was alive, for one thing. Roy knew it. But then where was she? Why hadn't she come back to him? For those questions, he had no answers at all, not even a glimmer. “There's a cover-up going on,” he told Jerry. “They're willing to do anything.”

“Do you mean murder?” Jerry said.

“Anything.”

“Richard was murdered as part of a cover-up?”

“He wasn't the only one,” Roy said. He told Jerry about Skippy.

“My God,” said Jerry. “Shouldn't we tell Sergeant Bettis?”

“I tried that,” Roy said.

Jerry was silent for a moment or two. Then he said, “Who is ‘they'? What's being covered up?”

“The cover-up's about something called Operation Pineapple.”

“That doesn't sound very menacing.”

“They go in for clever touches,” Roy said, realizing the truth of that as he spoke: the very name of the Institute was another. “As for the ‘they' part, that's what we're doing right now.”

Jerry turned, looked back. There was nothing to see but everyday suburban traffic.

 

Tennis
and Other Racquets appeared on the right. Roy pulled over.

“Nice-looking store,” said Jerry, his voice low, as though afraid of being overheard. “But they're losing five grand a month, and that's with the owner not taking any salary.”

Roy glanced at Jerry. “What kind of accountant are you?” he said, his own voice at normal volume.

Jerry kept his voice low. “What kind? A CPA, if that's what you mean.”

“Are you good?”

Jerry blinked. “I do my best,” he said, back at normal volume, too.

“I'd like to hire you.”

“To do what?”

“Find out all you can about a company called Verdadero Investments.”

“Why?”

“I think they wrote the paychecks at the Hobbes Institute.”

Jerry already had a notepad out. “Means ‘true,' in Spanish,” he said, writing it down.

“Yeah?” said Roy. He knew some French—had often heard it as a boy—but no Spanish.

“I'll get on it,” Jerry said.

They sat in the car. A tall woman with a ponytail went into the store. She came out a few minutes later, a plastic-wrapped tennis racquet under her arm. Then a man—much younger than Tom Parish—walked out with a can of balls.

“Did he say when he was picking up the racquet?” Roy said.

“Not that I heard,” said Jerry. “He was on the way out when I came in. He went right by me—I got a real good look.” Jerry thought for a moment. “The owner said, ‘See you tomorrow, Ned.'”

“Ned?”

“I'm pretty sure.”

Time passed. No one went in or out.

“He's going to lose his shirt,” Jerry said.

Roy opened his eyes. “What?”

Jerry was looking at him. “Are you all right?” he said.

“Fine,” said Roy.

“You're a little pale.”

“I'm not.” Roy straightened up.

They watched the front of Tennis and Other Racquets. A man leaned into the display window. “Owner,” Jerry said. The owner draped a tennis sweater over the shoulders of a mannequin, glanced up and down the street, withdrew.

“This is taking too goddamn long,” Roy said; pretty close to a shout, and it seemed to utter itself, completely unbidden. It also seemed to open a door inside him: he banged the steering wheel. The whole cab shook.

Jerry looked at him in alarm. “I could go in,” he said.

“And do what?” Roy said, lots of irritation still in his tone.

“Pretend I need to check something.” Jerry smiled, very brief, but Roy saw what he must have been like before all this, and got hold of himself. “But I'd really be sleuthing around.”

“Why not?” Roy said.

Jerry went into the store to sleuth around. Roy watched him talking to the owner; then they both disappeared behind a shoe display. Roy took an energy bar from his pocket and ate half: 145 calories. Dr. Chu's cocktail worked while he was actually having the treatment, no doubt about that. He just had to try harder during the twenty-one-day gaps.

Jerry came out of Tennis and Other Racquets, got in the car, locking the door. “Good thing I went in,” he said. “He picked up his racquet this morning. Name in the order book is Ned Miller.” He handed Roy a sheet of paper from his notepad. “The address.”
Sweetbriar Farm, Meadville Rd., Meadville, MD.

“Where's that?” Roy said.

“Near the West Virginia line,” Jerry said. “Horse country.” He lowered his voice. “Took me ten seconds—he never suspected a thing.” Jerry had some thought. Roy wondered whether it was about Richard—a reporter, after all—and the fun Jerry would have had telling him this story. Jerry's eyes moistened and he turned away. A real-estate agent with a customer was waiting outside Jerry's house when Roy dropped him off.