“What’s your greatest fear, Doc?”
“Easy. Not being feared.”
Briggs clicked off without another word and turned his attention to his computer. Most of his records were on a removable hard drive that could be erased in the event of an emergency. Years of meticulous notes, copies of journal articles, and chemical formulas were stored on a system that an Internet connection had never touched. He’d never trust off-site storage, and he knew they were watching.
In the Monkey House trials, though, he was a traditionalist, making personal notes on a sheet of paper pinned to a clipboard. Such entries brought back so many memories, and memories were his passion.
Beside the date, he scrawled “No change in subject” in the same bad handwriting for which he had been scolded as a child.
He glanced at Wendy’s self-portrait hanging on the wall, a gift from a happier era. So close.
In an uncharacteristic bout of giddiness, he drew a leering smiley face and devil horns on the chart. In the days ahead, he would relive some wonderful memories.
And destroy a few others.
CHAPTER THREE
Morning arrived with bloody rags in the sky and sputtering fire in Roland Doyle’s heart.
He squinted at the pink light penetrating the window. His head hurt, but that was nothing new. In Roland’s life, a headache was as reliable as the sun, the moon, and the next drink.
He didn’t believe in predestination, but he had come to accept inevitability, even to embrace it. Whether those repetitive choices were made on his own or through the whim of some puckish and bemused God, the end result was the same.
Let’s go with you, God. You’re a fine fucking fall guy. Never around when I need you, but never around to bitch, either.
The Blame Game was one of Roland’s favorite pastimes. It wasn’t whether you won or lost, succeeded or failed, lived or died, so long as you found someone or something to blame. Wendy had served the most often, but he’d filled her up and moved on.
And despite his secret hope that he’d beaten alcoholism on his own, through willpower and courage, the simple truth was the craving had been lifted by the very God he was now cursing. That God wasn’t a bearded white geezer in the sky, but something large and mysterious, and Roland actually hadn’t probed too deeply for fear that it would prove to be nothing but vapor.
And maybe this was the proof that God had been an elaborate fantasy.
His fingers trailed between the cool sheets to the other side of the bed. The pillow smelled of a woman’s shampoo, but his olfactory sense was as unreliable as the other four. She might have left in the night, or even months ago.
No, she would be there, she had to be there, and he would use her as a temporary painkiller, the latest contestant in the Blame Game. Whoever she was.
“Asleep?” he whispered, but the syllables still scratched his raw throat. Roland rolled toward her side of the bed and opened one eye. The blankets were smooth, his hand naked and alone.
The walls were cheap pine paneling, the curtains the deep mottled beige of unbleached linen. The gypsum whorls in the ceiling were cracked, long strands of dusty cobwebs dangling and swaying.
He drew a deep breath and the air tasted of Febreze and Lysol, the sprays fighting a losing battle with cigarettes, beer, and urine. Another motel room, although Roland had no idea of its city.
Indy? Last I remember, I was tooling through the Crossroads of America, the land of Peyton Manning and chili cheese fries.
He sat up with a groan, and the blood increased its sluggish course around his brain. His skull felt as if it were gripped in the mouth of a hungry T. rex. His tongue was a carpet that had been stomped on and then vacuumed dry. His heartbeat staggered and pounded in a familiar arrhythmia.
The bedside table would reveal a suicidal potion. Socrates cheerfully chose poison over the admission of defeat. When logic failed the Athenian philosopher, death seemed a reasonable alternative to putting up with more bullshit. Hemlock was his vehicle, but Roland preferred a slower-acting brand.
He’d always been a goddamned coward.
The headache suggested a white wine, something cheap from Southern California. Wine could have chased vodka or, if he’d felt sufficiently masochistic, Everclear.
Unlike many alcoholics, Roland had never suffered from denial. From the first sip on, he always knew exactly what he was doing.
Except, of course, for anything that happened during the blackouts.
The nightstand contained no empty bottles. An alarm clock blazed red numerals that said 9:35. Above it loomed a lamp, its battered beige shade held together by a strip of masking tape. An empty ashtray was the only other item on the table.
“Honey?” he croaked, going for the generic, because no specific name floated up from the mist in his skull.
Cincinnati.
The room felt like Ohio. Maybe it was an underlying muddy-river stench to the air, or perhaps it was the taint of coal-fired power plants. As a salesman for a company that made supplies for advertising signs, Roland might be in town to service major clients like AK Steel, the Kroger Company, or Proctor amp; Gamble.
Whether it was neon, adhesives, banners, or 3-D lettering, Carolina Sign Supply could meet every outdoor advertising need, no matter how garish. The slogans swam together like eels in his gut.
Roland swung his legs over the side of the bed. He wore a pair of black boxers that featured a clown face on the front, the bulbous red nose marking the fly. Roland slept naked when a woman was with him, so he could be pretty sure he’d been flying solo the night before.
Of course, he might have ended up at one of the local watering holes or topless joints. In that case, all bets were off. He wasn’t the type who paid for companionship.
At least not in cash. For the rest, he’d trade his fucking soul and not bat an eye.
But the other side of the bed was unruffled. He had definitely slept by himself. His battered leather briefcase, which held his sample notebooks, was parked by the nightstand, his pants tossed on the floor.
A few coins had leaked from his pants pockets and glinted like dirty ice on the gray industrial carpet. He had undressed carelessly, his shirt tossed over the arm of a vinyl chair.
The bathroom door was ajar, a bar of light leaking from the opening. He wondered if he had vomited, bent in homage to the porcelain idol. His stomach fluttered up a wave of acid, though no nausea lingered.
Headache isn’t too bad, either. Must be getting back in the groove.
And blackouts are a good thing, when you get right down to it, because who wants to remember shit like that? Maybe God has a little mercy in Him after all.
The air was cold on his bare chest, shrinking his nipples to red points. The air-conditioning must have been set on “igloo,” because spring had been pushing hard to get winter the hell out of the way.
His face itched and he put a hand to his chin. Stubble, three days’ worth, at least.
Roland wondered how many appointments he’d missed, how many clients had called the home office asking about the sales rep who had scheduled a visit. Sometimes the benders went on for a week or more, but since taking the job with Carolina Sign, he’d been dependable.
The company had known of his past. The background check had turned up the DWI, two drunk and disorderly charges, the vandalism, and the court judgment against him in the civil suit brought by his estranged wife.
In a bit of undeserved serendipity, the company’s general manager was a recovering alcoholic who had shepherded Roland into a twelve-step program. “White chips and second chances,” Harry Grimes, the GM, had said.
What do you think about third chances, Harry? Or is this the fourth?
He bent to pick up his pants, blood rushing to his temples. He wondered if he’d spent all his money. Once, while living with Wendy, he had maxed out his credit card in a two-day stretch, $10,000 flushed.