Blood Test (37 page)

“Take him,” he ordered.

The black-bearded giant stepped forward and grabbed
one of my arms. Another large man, heavyset and gap-toothed, grasped the other.
Graffius gave the signal and they dragged me toward the main building, followed
by two dozen others chanting a wordless dirge.

Graffius ran alongside and slapped my face teasingly.
Cackling with glee, he told me about the party he’d planned in my honor.

“We’ve got a new designer hallucinogen that makes acid
seem like baby aspirin, Alex. I’ll shoot it right into your veins with a
Methedrine chaser. It’ll be like being dipped in and out of hell.”

He had lots more to say but his oration was cut short
by a sudden, brief stutter of gunfire, punctuating the silence like a symphony
of giant bullfrogs. The second burst was longer, the unmistakable belch of
heavy-duty firearms.

“What the fuck!” exclaimed Graffius, chin whiskers
trembling like charged filaments.

The procession stopped.

From that point on everything seemed to happen in
fast-forward.

The sky filled with thunder. Whirring blades and
blinking lights assaulted the gathering dusk. A pair of helicopters circled
overhead. From one of them boomed an amplified voice:

“This is Agent Siegel of the Federal Drug Enforcement
Agency. The shots were a warning. You are surrounded. Release Dr. Delaware and
lie face down on the ground.”

The message was repeated. Over and over.

Graffius started screaming unintelligibly. The rest of
the cultists stood rooted in place, looking up to the heavens, as baffled as
primitives discovering a new god.

The helicopters swooped low, rustling the trees.

Agent Siegel continued to reiterate his command. The
cultists didn’t comply—out of shock, not defiance.

One of the helicopters aimed a high-intensity beacon
on the group. The light was blinding. As the cultists shielded their eyes, the
invasion began.

Scores of men, flak-jacketed and wielding automatic
weapons, converged on the grounds with the silent efficiency of soldier ants.

One group of raiders materialized from beneath the
viaduct. Seconds later another emerged from behind the main building
transporting a downcast herd of shackled cultists. A third swept in from the
fields and stormed the cathedral.

I tried to break loose but Blackbeard and Snaggletooth
held catatonically firm. Graffius pointed at me and jibbered like a monkey on
speed. He ran over and raised his fist. I kicked out with my right foot and
caught him hard in the center of kneecap. He yelped and did a one-legged rain
dance. The big men looked at each other idiotically, unsure of how to react.
Within seconds the decision had been taken out of their hands.

We were surrounded. The raiders from the viaduct had
formed a concentric ring around the circle of cultists. They were a mixed group—D.E.A.
agents, state police, county sheriffs, and at least one L.A. detective whom I
recognized—but functioned with the smoothness of a seasoned unit.

A Hispanic officer with a Zapata mustache barked the
order to lie down. This time compliance was immediate. The big men released my
arms as if they were electrified. I stepped away and observed the action.

The raiders made the cultists spread their legs and
frisked them, two officers for every captive. Once searched, they were
handcuffed, removed from the group one by one like beads pulled off a string,
read their rights, and taken into custody at gunpoint.

With the exception of Graffius, who was dragged away
kicking and screaming, the men and women of the Touch offered no resistance. Numb
with fear and disorientation, they submitted passively to police procedure and
shambled off to captivity in a forlorn procession periodically spotlit by the
circling helicopters.

The heavy door to the main building swung open and
disgorged another parade of captors and captives. The last to exit was
Matthias, guarded by a phalanx of agents. He walked woodenly and his mouth
worked frantically. From a distance it looked like one hell of a closing
statement but the din from the copters blotted out the sound. Not that anyone
was listening.

I watched his departure and, when the grounds were
still, became once more aware of the heat. I removed my jacket and tossed it to
the side, and was unbuttoning my shirt when Milo came over in the company of a
hatchet-faced man with a five o’clock shadow. The man wore a gray suit, white
shirt, and dark tie under his flak jacket and walked with a military stride.
This morning, I’d found him humorless but reassuringly thorough. The boss
D.E.A. agent, Severin Fleming.

“Great performance, Alex.” My friend patted my back.

“Let me help you with that, Doctor,” said Fleming,
untaping the Nagra body recorder from my chest. “I hope it wasn’t too
uncomfortable.”

“As a matter of fact it itched like crazy.”

“Sorry about that. You must have sensitive skin.”

“He’s a very sensitive guy, Sev.”

Fleming conceded a smile and concentrated on checking
the Nagra.

“Everything looks in order,” he announced, returning
the machine to its case. “Reception in the van was excellent—we got a first-rate
copy. An attorney from Justice was sitting in and she’s of the opinion there’s
plenty to work with. Once again, Doctor, thanks. Be seeing you, Milo.”

He shook our hands, gave a small salute, and walked
away, cradling the Nagra like a newborn.

“Well,” said Milo, “You keep revealing new talents.
Hollywood’s bound to be knocking on your door.”

“Right,” I said, rubbing my chest. “Call my agent. We’ll
take a meeting at the Polo Lounge.”

He laughed and undid his flak jacket.

“Feel like the Michelin tire man in this thing.”

“You should be so cute.”

We walked together toward the viaduct. The sky had
darkened and quieted. Beyond the gates engines rumbled to a start. We stepped
onto the bridge, treading on cool stone. Milo reached up, plucked a grape from
the arbor, split it with his teeth, and swallowed.

“You made a big difference, Alex,” he said. “Eventually
they’d have gotten him on the drug thing. But it’s the murder rap that’ll put
him away. Combine that with lowering the boom on Stinky Pants and I’d say it’s
been a fine week for the good guys.”

“Great,” I said wearily.

Several yards later:

“You okay, pal?”

“I’ll be all right.”

“Thinking about the kid?”

I stopped and looked at him.

“Do you need to head back to L.A. right away?” I
asked.

He put a heavy arm around my shoulder, smiled and
shook his head.

“Getting back means diving into a mess of paperwork.
It can wait.”

I STOOD at a distance and looked through the wall of
plastic.

The boy lay on the bed, still but awake. His mother
sat by his side, rendered nearly anonymous by spacesuit, gloves, and mask. Her
dark eyes wandered around the room, settling momentarily on his face, then upon
the pages of the story book in her hands. He struggled upright, said something
to her and she nodded and held a cup to his lips. Drinking exhausted him
quickly; he fell back against the pillow.

“Cute kid,” said Milo. “What did that doc say his
chances are?”

“He’s severely infected. But the I.V. is pumping in
high-dose antibiotics and they feel it will eventually clear up. The original
tumor has enlarged—it’s begun to press against the diaphragm, which isn’t good—but
there’s no evidence of any new lesions. Chemotherapy will start tomorrow.
Overall, the prognosis is still good.”

He nodded and went into the nurses’ office.

The boy was asleep, now. His mother kissed his
forehead, drew the blankets around him, and looked at the book again. She
flipped a few pages, put it down and began straightening the room. That done,
she returned to sitting bedside, folded her hands in her lap, and remained
motionless. Waiting.

The two marshals emerged from the nurses’ office. The
man was thick-waisted and middle-aged, the woman petite and dyed-blond. He
looked at his watch and said “It’s time” to his partner. She walked over to the
module and tapped on the plastic.

Nona looked up.

The woman said, “It’s time.”

The girl hesitated, bent over the sleeping child and
kissed him with sudden intensity. He called out and rolled over. The movement
caused the I.V. pole to vibrate, the bottle to sway. She steadied it, stroked
his hair.

“Come on, honey,” said the female marshal.

The girl stiffened, stumbled out of the module. She
took off the mask and gloves and let the sterile suit fall around her ankles,
revealing a jumpsuit underneath. On the back was stenciled PROPERTY SAN DIEGO
COUNTY JAIL and a serial number. Her copper hair was drawn back in a ponytail.
The golden hoops had been removed from her ears. Her face looked thinner and
older, the cheekbones more pronounced, the eyes buried deeper. Jailhouse pallor
had begun to dull the luster of her skin. She was beautiful, but damaged, like
a day-old rose.

They handcuffed her—gently, it seemed—and led her to
the door. She passed by me and our eyes locked. The ebony irises seemed to
moisten and melt. Then she hardened them, held her head high, and was gone.

I FOUND Raoul in his lab, staring at a computer screen
on which were displayed columns of polynomials atop a multicolored bar graph.
He’d mutter in Spanish, examine a page of printout, then turn to the keyboard
and rapidly type a new set of numbers. With each additional bit of datum the
height of the bars in the graph changed. The lab was airless and filled with
acrid fumes. High-tech doodads clicked and buzzed in the background.

I pulled up a stool next to him, sat and said hello.

He acknowledged me with a downward twist of his
mustache and continued to work with the computer. The bruises on his face had
turned to purplish-green smudges.

“You know,” he said.

“Yes. She told me.”

He typed, hitting the keyboard hard. The graph
convulsed.

“My ethics were no better than Valcroix’s. She came
wiggling in here in a skintight dress and proved that.”

I’d come to the lab with the intention of comforting
him. There were things I could have said. That Nona had been turned into a
weapon, an instrument of vengeance, abused and twisted until sex and rage were
inexorably intertwined, then launched and aimed at a world of weak men like
some kind of heat-seeking missile. That he’d made an error in judgment but it
didn’t negate all the good he’d done. That there was more good work to be done.
That time would heal.

But the words would have rung hollow. He was a proud
man who’d shed his pride before my eyes. I’d witnessed him ragged and
half-crazed in a stinking cell, obsessively intent on finding his patient. His
quest had been ignited by guilt, by the mistaken belief that his sin—ten
lust-blinded minutes of Nona kneeling before him, ravenous—had caused the
removal of the boy from treatment.

Coming to see him had been a mistake. Whatever
friendship we’d had was gone, and with it, any power I might have had to
reassure.

If salvation existed, he’d have to find it for
himself.

I placed my hand on his shoulder and wished him well.
He shrugged and stared at the screen.

I left him with his nose buried in a pile of data,
cursing out loud at some arcane numerical discrepancy.

I drove east on Sunset slowly, and thought about
families. Milo had once told me that family disputes were a cop’s most dreaded
calls, for they were the most likely to erupt in violence that was murderously
sudden, stunningly intense. A good chunk of my life had been spent sorting out
the scrambled communications, festering hostilities, and frozen affections that
characterized families in turmoil.

It was easy to believe that nothing worked. That blood
ties strangled the soul.

But I knew that a cop’s reality was skewed by the
daily struggle against evil, that of the psychotherapist distorted by too many
encounters with madness.

There were families that worked, that nurtured and
loved. Places in the heart where a soul could find refuge.

Soon a beautiful woman would meet me on a tropical island.
We’d talk about it.

The End

ATHENEUM New York 1986

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and
incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to
actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kellerman, Jonathan.

Blood test.

I. Title.

www.SimonandSchuster.com

PS3561.E3865B5 1985 813’.54 85-20020

ISBN 0-689-11634-9