F Paul Wilson - Novel 04 (24 page)

“A couple of days? But Katie
will be a prisoner all that time. How can you—?”

He flared. Before he could stop it,
his voice jumped to a shout.

“Don’t you think I want
her back too? Today? This minute? It’s not like I can just sit down and
write a check!”

He saw her flinch and that doused
his anger. He reached out and grasped her hand. “Sorry, Mom. I’m
just on edge. I’m doing the best that I can as fast as I can.”

She patted his hand. “I know
you are, Johnny. I never should have said… it is just that I cannot bear
the thought of Katie being held prisoner by these people a single minute longer
than absolutely necessary.”

Prisoner, he thought, feeling sick
again. If only that were the worst of it.

“I am going to lie down.
Those pills you gave me make me so sleepy. I am too tired even for my
yoga.” He’d started her on a tranquilizer last night. He wished he
could pop a few himself, but he had to stay alert, had to stay on top of things.

“Do that. Mom. Lie down,
close your eyes, try to sleep. It’ll make the time go faster.”

When she was gone, he got up and
went downstairs to the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator door and looked
inside. He knew he had to eat something, but his appetite was gone, maybe
forever. He closed the door but didn’t move away. His eyes were drawn to the
freezer compartment.

He could almost see it through the
door, still in the plastic bag, sealed in a white envelope tucked away behind
the ice cube trays: Katie’s little toe.

He had no delusions about
reattaching it, and if he had, freezing would not be the way to preserve it.
But what else could he do?

After dragging himself in from the
mailbox and vomiting, he’d taken the Baggie and its contents down to the
basement where he could cry without his mother hearing. He remembered shaking,
sweating, and sobbing for only a few minutes, and then it was as if a circuit
somewhere inside of him overloaded and tripped a breaker. He went numb.
He’d sat there with the Baggie in his hand, not looking at it, staring
off into space instead.

Finally he stood and began moving
about, in circles at first, trying to focus. He couldn’t wallow. He had
decisions to make. Katie’s life depended on those decisions.

But first, the toe… that
horrid, precious, bloody little toe. He couldn’t let Nana see it, and he
couldn’t bear the thought of letting it rot. He’d had to do
something, and the freezer was all he could think of.

Thinking… God, that was such
a problem. Trying to force his thoughts to get in line and make sense—it
took such effort.

But after hiding the toe, he
managed to sit down at the computer and tap out a reply to Snake. It
wasn’t all that coherent, but John didn’t care.

All he wanted to do was let this
monster know that he would do anything— anything—he was asked, just
please don’t hurt Katie any more.

And he meant that. Snake had made
his point: He held all the high cards. He was in charge. John had been tortured
by the choice between his best friend and his daughter. But Katie’s toe
had dissolved the conflict.

Katie.

He chose Katie.

Katie would live. And Tom would
have to find some way to survive.

Snake’s blood-freezing reply
had reinforced that resolve.

NOW we
understand each other! You know what you have to do. Do it soon. VERY soon. Or
we’ll start testing your jigsaw puzzle skills.

John dragged himself away from the
refrigerator and went to the phone.

He blocked all questions, all
speculation as he narrowed his focus to the task at hand. He pulled out the
yellow pages and searched the physician listings. He found a Dr. Adelson, an
internist way up in Friendship Heights, and copied down his address and phone
number. As Dr. Adelson, he began dialing the downtown pharmacies until he found
one that had a small stock of chloramphenicol.

In the most matter-of-fact tone he
could muster, he called in a prescription for someone named Henry Johnson:
“Give him Chlormycetin 250, twenty caps, one Q-I-D, No refill, and
generic’s okay.” When the pharmacist asked for his address and
office phone number, John supplied Adelson’s. Fine… Mr. Johnson
could pick up his pills in about thirty minutes.

John leaned back in the chair and
closed his eyes. Step one completed.

Now for step two.

But as he picked up the phone, the
doorbell rang. He jumped and almost dropped the phone.

Not a delivery man… oh,
please. God, not another piece of Katie!

John hung up and forced himself
toward the door that loomed ahead of him like the portals of hell. Clenching
his teeth he grabbed the knob and yanked it open.

An attractive, fortyish woman stood
on the front step. She wore a mink coat and high heels. Her long, glossy black
hair was tied back with a gold clasp. Her face was perfectly made up. She was
smiling, but her dark eyes challenged him.

John nearly staggered back at the
sight of her. This was impossible.

“Hello, John.” Her
voice… so smooth, so cool, so perfectly modulated.

“Mamie!” His own voice
sounded like steel dragging across concrete. “What are you doing
here?”

“I’ve come to see my
daughter.”

“You-you’re supposed to
be in Georgia!”

“I was released.”

“I don’t believe
that!”

“It’s true, John.
I’m cured. I’m on medication, and as long as I maintain my dosage,
I’m fine. As a matter of fact, if I keep doing this well, Dr. Schuyler
says he might try tapering my dose in the fall. Isn’t that wonderful?”

John’s mind reeled. This
couldn’t be. Mamie was supposed to be at the Marietta Psychiatric Center.
What was she doing in D.C.? And why now? Of all times, why did she have to
appear now?

“I don’t care what
Schuyler or anyone else says, the court said you’re not supposed to leave
Georgia.”

Her smile held. “Dr. Schuyler
worked it out for me. I’m well enough to travel now. And I want to see Katie.”

“No,” John said,
shaking his head as vehemently as he could. “Not a chance. Not a chance
in hell.”

“I’m her mother,
John.” The smile wavered. “I have a right to—”

“You have no rights!”
he said, feeling his anger rise— and loving it. So good to feel something
other than sickness and dread. “You gave them up, remember? That was the
deal: No prison for you, sole custody for me. And that’s the way it’s
going to be.”

Finally the smile vanished.
“I want to see Katie. You can’t keep me from seeing my own
daughter.”

“I can and will. And if you
don’t get away from here, I’ll call the police and tell them
you’re a fugitive from a Georgia psychiatric hospital.”

“That’s
not—”

“And I’ll also tell
them about the standing court order that forbids you from going anywhere near
her. Do I call now, or do you leave?” Mamie backed up a step. And now her
lips trembled.

“This isn’t fair,
John.”

“That won’t work on me,
Mamie. And I don’t want to hear about fair. Do us all a favor and go back
to Georgia. Now.”

“I hope you’re taking
better care of her than you are of yourself. You look terrible.”

“Good-bye, Mamie.” He
shut the door and leaned his forehead against the inner surface. Please go
away. I already have more than I can handle. I can’t deal with you too.

God he hated her, loathed the very
sight of her. As an enlightened man of the nineties—and a physician to
boot—he knew you couldn’t hold the mentally ill responsible for
their acts. But that didn’t mean he had to forgive them.

And John would never forgive Mamie
for what she had done. No matter what army of psychiatrists she assembled to
proclaim her mentally and emotionally stable and perfectly fit to return to
society, he would never allow Mamie back into Katie’s life.

He stood on tiptoe and peeked
through the miniature fanlight in the upper panel of the door. The front yard
was empty. Mamie was gone. And she’d better stay gone or she’d
screw up everything. But he didn’t doubt for a moment that she’d be
back.

“John?” His
mother’s voice, coming from upstairs.

“Yeah, Mom?”

“Was someone at the
door?”

“Just a salesman. Mom. Go get
some rest. I’ll let you know as soon as anything happens.” Katie,
Tom, Mom, Snake, Mamie—how long could he keep all the balls in the air
without dropping one?

Feeling as if he were about to
explode, John returned to the kitchen and settled down to the task of arranging
to poison the President of the United States.

Steeling himself, he punched in the
direct line to Betty Kenny. Betty had started out as a clerk-typist in
Tom’s office when he was a lowly congressman. She’d moved with him
to the Senate and was now his personal secretary, controlling his all-important
appointment book. To get to Tom you had to get past Battleship Betty. But she
knew John and liked him; and he knew how she worried about her boss’s health.

“Hi, Betty,” he said,
trying to sound light and carefree with no idea if he was succeeding.
“It’s John Vanduyne. I need a few moments with your boss tomorrow
to check his blood pressure. Will he be around?” He crossed his fingers.
Please say yes.

“Hi, John. Let me check.
Weren’t you here for that just the other day?”

“Yeah. Wednesday. And I
didn’t like what I found.” Her voice dropped.

“Really? Was it bad?”

“I probably shouldn’t
have said that. Forget what you just heard, okay?”

“I won’t say a word.
You know that. But I want to know: Should I be worried?”

He played on her concern.
“His pressure was borderline high, but I want to keep an eye on it.
Especially if he’s traveling to The Hague next week.”

“I understand. Let’s
see… he’s got a meeting in the Oval Office at ten… this
won’t take long, will it?”

“Ten minutes, fifteen at
most.”

“Okay. Why don’t I keep
that half hour between nine thirty and ten o’clock clear? How’s that?”

“Perfect.” The word was
bitter in his mouth.

A little small talk and he was off
the phone again, leaning back, trembling.

Stage two completed.

He’d been so cool on the
phone, on autopilot, but now the weight of what he was planning crept back to
him.

Especially if he’s traveling
to The Hague next week…

But I’ll be doing my
damnedest to make sure he doesn’t get to The Hague next week, John
thought. If he shows up there, Katie dies.

I’m just going to make him
sick, he told himself for the thousandth time since opening the mailbox this
morning. He won’t die. He may almost die, but the cutting-edge medical
care available to the President of the United States will pull him through.

But what if the chloramphenicol
didn’t have any effect on Tom’s marrow? It was a possibility. What
then? Or what if there was a delayed reaction that didn’t kick in for
weeks? Would Snake believe he’d dosed Tom as instructed? Not for a
minute.

John wanted to scream, but that
would wake up his mother.

Time to go on autopilot again.

He glanced at his watch. He had to
get down to the pharmacy and pretend to be Henry Johnson picking up his pills.

I’m becoming a master of
deception, he thought. I’ve lied to my mother, Terri, my office, a
pharmacist, Tom’s secretary, and tomorrow, my best friend.

He realized with a sick, sinking
feeling that the only one he’d been truthful with all day was Snake.

“John?” He recognized
the voice and stiffened. He’d been standing here, waiting for the
elevator to the White House’s first floor, silently screaming at it to
hurry before he ran into anyone he knew.

Too late. He turned and saw Terri
coming down the hall. He forced a smile.

“Terri. I didn’t think
you worked weekends.”

“There are no weekends in a
PR crisis of this magnitude.” Her welcoming smile faded as she neared.
“Are you all right?”

“I think so,” he said.
“Why?”

“Because you look
awful.”

I’ll bet I don’t look a
tenth as bad as I feel.

“Gee, thanks.”

“No, seriously.” Her
brow was furrowed as she peered at him. “That must have been some
virus.” Virus? What—? Oh, yes. The virus lie. Had to keep all these
stories straight.

Another forced smile. “Hey,
you don’t think I’d pass up an evening with you for anything minor,
do you.”

“I didn’t
realize… are you sure you should be up and about yet? You look completely
washed out.”

“I’m tired but
that’s about it. Another day of pushing fluids and I should be back to
normal.” The elevator doors opened then and he quickly stepped inside,
praying she wasn’t on her way upstairs too. Thankfully, she held back.
She smiled but her expression was concerned.

“Take care of yourself,
John.”

“I will. I’ll call you
to find out when you’re free. We’ll set something up.” The
doors closed, separating them. He leaned back.

God, how awkward was that? At least
she believed he’d been sick. He didn’t have to fake his malaise.

He patted the side pocket of his
sport coat and felt the cylindrical bulge of the pill bottle. The
chloramphenicol. He’d peeled off the label. The capsules inside were now
anonymous… tiny masked assassins.

He still couldn’t believe he
was going through with this. Only for Katie…

In the first floor hall he ran into
Bob Decker, the last person he wanted to meet this morning.

All those years of training and
experience… he’ll know something’s wrong the instant he sees
me.

The big Secret Service agent did a
double take and suddenly the pill bottle in John’s pocket seemed to
quadruple in size and weight. It felt like a can of baked beans, bulging the
fabric for all to see.