Undetectable (Great Minds Thriller) (26 page)

Emily would be there.

Maybe they could even sit together, assuming Elias Worth managed to avoid getting his skull cracked today. There was a subdued air in the cafeteria; many of the teachers were watching the student area more closely than usual, hoping to avoid – for the rest of the year, the rest of the decade, the century – anything like what had happened to Elias the day before. Kevin was glad for the relative calm; he wanted noise, discussion, activity… but not chaos. He chose his food carefully, trying to skip
things
that would nauseate him the way breakfast had
,
and b
y the end of the cafeteria line his tray held only a plain baked potato and a small saucer of green Jell-O. He looked up and scanned the room for Ms. Beck, hoping for an empty seat. And perhaps Clemson or Jean nearby, for deniability.

No, what? I’m not sitting next to you. I’m just sitting across from my pal Ron. On the first day, he told me I didn’t seem like a jackass. And he’s impressed by all my money. He’s kind of a dick, but he’s my boy, you know?

Kevin
spotted her,
and he walked as quickly as he could to the table where she was sitting. Jean was right there, bless him. Who didn’t like Jean? Kevin nodded at him and sat down gingerly, privately congratulating himself for not dropping his tray on the way over. He was enjoying a surge of energy from the prospect of talking to Emily, and he even managed to pull his chair under himself smartly, and to sit up almost straight. He was on the point of leaning over to her and saying something, saying
anything
to start a conversation, but at that moment she turned and looked at him as though he had insulted her. She picked up her tray, gave him a withering look while wrinkling her nose, and stood up briskly.
T
hen she was gone.

Kevin felt the energy from a moment ago run out of him in a sickening rush. He sagged in his chair. His mouth hung open, frozen in the middle of starting a conversation that had never happened
.
He turned to Jean with a helpless, questioning look.

Jean, who had witnessed this two-second scene of rejection unfold, looked back at Kevin with evident discomfort. The discomfort of one who has to say something both unpleasant and, even worse,
true
. He leaned forward. “Here’s the problem,” Jean said, his voice low and embarrassed. “You actually don’t
smell
that good today. Do you need a doctor or something?”

Kevin felt his face go hot. Of all the strange and frightening things that he had endured over the last three days, this was easily the worst.
I showered this morning
, he wanted to shout.
I put on deodorant and I shaved and I brushed my teeth.
He felt as if he were silently protesting to the ghost of his own mother, who would surely be standing over him with a wagging finger and a disapproving expression right now.
And I didn’t even feel like doing any of that stuff
, he wanted to add.
I’m exhausted. I deserve some credit for
cleaning myself
. For toweling off. For putting on pants without falling down. All those things are way, way harder than you
people
think.

Jean, meanwhile, continued to look at Kevin with a disturbing combination of pity, sympathy, and poorly concealed disgust. The list of personality traits that Jean Lengard was willing to look past in a potential friend was long and varied, but poor hygiene was decidedly not on that list. He seemed on the verge of telling Kevin to go take a bath. Or to go stand in front of a powerful hose, if necessary.

The two of them
were spared any more indignity by the sudden presence of Principal Stewart, who appeared at Kevin’s side as quickly and silently as Emily had left it. She was there. And then she was sitting next to him. And then leaning over and talking to him in a low voice, the same voice that
everyone
seemed to be using with
Kevin
today.

“Take the afternoon,” Ms. Stewart said.
U
nlike Danny or Anselm or even Jean,
Ms. Stewart did not use a tone of voice
to imply
suggestion
. There was only firm and unquestionable authority. The concern was there, yes. But concern was the dressing, not the meat. “Take the rest of the day and go see a doctor,” she said. “And then get some rest. Take tomorrow too, if you need it.”

Kevin was about to protest, was about to try smiling and lying and saying that no such thing was necessary, but the principal cut him off with a little shake of her head. “You can take your baked potato with you,” she added. A ridiculous idea, and Kevin had a brief image of himself walking along the sidewalk, biting into a large potato as if it were an apple. But the point Ms. Stewart was making was clear, shining through the hard light coming from her eyes.

Leave right now. Go get your shit together. You’re embarrassing yourself and everyone around you.

Kevin nodded. He gave Jean a glance that he hoped conveyed some measure of apology, and he stood carefully, trying not to let the principal or anyone else see how difficult the process of standing had suddenly become. Then he walked stiffly out of the cafeteria, to the stairs that led to the exit.

When he was gone, Jean Lengard let out a little breath of air. Ms. Stewart returned to her table
,
b
ack to her lunch. Jean took another moment before picking up his fork to begin eating again. He was hoping to let some of the smell clear the area first.

“Lord,” he said quietly, to no one.

He Needed Help

Kevin stumbled outside into the light, his hands out in front of him as if he were trying to walk a tightrope. He forced himself to stop, to plant his feet and look at a fixed, steady point on the wall of the building across the street. He took a breath. Let it out slowly. Took in another, but only through his nose this time.

I smell
.

He couldn’t smell it
himself
– body odor or the ammonia of old sweat or his feet or whatever it was – which made it worse. He was like a kid with a kick-me sign on his back, oblivious to the joke being played on him. The indignity of actually being repellant, of being
gross
, was especially upsetting
,
and
how would he know when he had solved the problem? Whom would he ask?

Andrew, come over here. Get a whiff of this. What do you think?

Also, w
hat was the range of this thing? Were people on the other side of the street being forced to endure his stench? He looked around wildly, half-expecting to see passersby scattering from his vicinity in a panic, waving their arms and sprinting away like soldiers running from a live grenade. But there was no one else on the sidewalk, no one even on the entire block except for a few painters shuffling supplies between two white vans.
I
f they noticed Kevin’s smell, they certainly weren’t showing it. Then again, maybe their noses were fried from inhaling paint fumes all day long.

“I really
do
need a doctor,” he said out loud, to the street and to the parked cars. He took that fancy cellphone out of his pocket and turned it on. Then he stopped and considered.

I have no idea
where to start.

It had been years since he had been to a doctor. There were surely hundreds, probably
thousands
of primary-care
physicians
in New York City. But how did you find one from scratch?

I’ll call Lennox Hill
, he decided. If they didn’t do check-ups at the hospital, then someone there would at least be able to po
int him in the right direction.
He pulled up the keypad on the phone, and he was about to dial information when something occurred to him.

He switched to the home screen, pushed the “Contacts” tile, and the list popped up. There it was: “Doctor,” a contact entry so impossibly vague as to be essentially u
seless. Kevin pushed the listing and
held the phone up.

“Yes?”

Startled,
he
took the phone away from his head for a moment. The pick-up had come at once, even before the sound of ringing from the other end. He held it to his ear again. “Hello?”

“Yes?” It was a man’s voice. Calm and patient. Ready.

“Hi,” Kevin said uncertainly. “My name is Kevin Brooks. I need, uh…”

What, exactly? Well for s
tarters: a cure for three month
s
’
worth of amnesia, a watch that works no matter what, some industrial-strength sleeping pills, and a stick of weapons-grade deodorant.

“A checkup,” he managed to say.

“Fine,” said the voice. “Today?”

“Oh,” Kevin said, startled again. He had expected to be told to come in next month sometime. “That would be great.”

“When can you be here? Half an hour?”

“Sure. Thank you. Wow, that’s… wait, where are you?”

“64th between Park and Lexington. 136. First floor. The doorman will show you.”

“Okay. And should I – ”

But the voice was gone. Kevin looked at the phone. The call had ended.

What just happened?

He had made an appointment for a checkup, apparently. But he still didn’t know the doctor’s name. And what kind of doctor was willing to make a same-day appointment? A same-
hour
appointment?

Maybe somewhere in the Midwest, somewhere with a population density that was offset by great swaths of prairies and plains, by fields of corn and by herds of cattle and sheep. But not in Manhattan.

And who had put that contact in his cell phone in the first place?

Maybe it was me. I hired Andrew, didn’t I? And he’s been working out all right so far
.

He stood there in the middle of the street for a minute, watching the painters loading and unloading their vans.
His decision process didn’t take long.

I don’t have a
ny
choice
.

He needed help. Immediately. It had been less than three days, and he was going insane. He was falling apart. Mentally
and
physically. He wouldn’t make it another day on his own.