“I’ll pay you,” Peck said, “because it’s in my interest to pay you. And because it’s possible that I can use something of this harvest. But our business is finished. If you’d performed the way we agreed, we might have had an ongoing relationship. But apparently you’re not a man who thinks about the future.”
“That’s where you’d be all kinds of wrong,” Spider said, leaning his chest into the table, reaching down into his boot to pull and open his Buck knife, and jabbing it into Peck’s thigh, just enough to puncture trouser and skin and draw a run of blood.
This time, Peck yelled out, a shocked little scream that, for a moment, drowned out the jukebox rendition of “Night Has a Thousand Eyes.” The doctor pressed a hand against the thigh, took it away bloody, grabbed his soiled handkerchief, and applied pressure to the wound.
“You stabbed me,” he said, as if Spider didn’t know.
“I stabbed you,” Spider said, “you’d be holding your guts in that snot rag. I poked you’s what I did. Just to show you I’m thinking about the future right this minute. I’m thinking about how I’m going to come up to your turnip farm one of these nights and cut your dick off. And I’m thinking about how I’m going to use it to choke the life out of that bitch daughter of yours. And I’m thinking how after that, I’m going to burn your fucking clinic to the ground along with all your fucking sleepers. How’s that for the future, shithead?”
On the last word, he picked up the envelope with his free hand and slapped Peck across the face with it. Then he got out of the booth, stood in the aisle, tucked the envelope into the front of his jeans, tucked his knife back into his boot, grabbed two doughnuts, and limped out the bar’s back door.
Peck sat still for a minute, then looked across the aisle to Jared, who was wiping down the bar and humming along to the juke, unconcerned, lost in a familiar daydream. The wound was starting to burn, but Dr. Peck couldn’t help himself. He pulled the satchel down onto his seat and unfastened the hasp carefully, as if disarming a bomb. Pushing both flaps back on their hinges, he took a breath and peered inside at the fetus. It had taken on a blue and purple hue and he guessed it was roughly four months gestated and had been terminated about five hours ago.
Whoever had performed the procedure had done an adequate job. The fetus appeared normal and very likely harvestable. Peck closed up the satchel, relieved, and exited the bar, bleeding his way out the front door, suddenly excited despite the hole in his leg.
Behind him, Jared began to sing something bold and brassy.
4
Sweeney had the hotel send over his luggage. He’d traveled light, a canvas duffel and a garment bag. He had arranged with the real estate agent back in Cleveland to sell whatever furnishings she could to the buyer and dispose of the rest in an estate sale. Corrigan at the pharmacy said this was a sure way to get screwed but Sweeney liked the idea of getting rid of everything and starting fresh.
He hung his whites in a closet full of cobwebs and breathed in the smell of oil from out in the cellar proper. He unrolled his ties and hung them on the pegs of the coat post, put his few casual clothes in the bureau drawers. From the bottom of the duffel, he took out two bath towels and laid them on the bed. He unfolded one to reveal a framed photo. It was a snapshot of Kerry and Danny that he’d had blown up. A vacation shot from two years ago up at Put-in-Bay, posed on the deck of the cottage they’d rented. It was dusk and Kerry had lifted the boy up to show him something out on the lake. Sweeney had grabbed the camera off the picnic table and snapped them without warning. The sun was just about spent for the day and the horizon was a slash of bright red below the clouds.
He propped the photo on the bureau and picked up the puzzle book. The apartment’s last occupant had been the Clinic’s longtime custodian. Nora said he’d been a drinker, but not so bad that anyone had to act on it. Sweeney had no problem imagining the man after a few pops, admiring the charms of Miss January and wishing he were a decade younger. But as he lay down on the bed and sank into its middle and opened The Big Book of Logic Problems, he couldn’t quite imagine the custodian wrestling with two trains hurtling toward Chicago at different rates of speed.
He dozed off while trying to puzzle out the cost of the largest pumpkin at the farmers’ market. And was woken some time later by Romeo, the janitor from the third floor. Sweeney answered the door a little sleep drunk, having napped just long enough to feel disoriented.
“They told me to come get you,” Romeo said. “Your son’s on the way.”
“Danny’s here?”
The janitor shook his head. “I said he’s on his way. They called from the airport.”
“Thanks,” Sweeney said. “Let me throw some water on my face and I’ll be right up.”
Romeo didn’t answer and he didn’t step away from the door. After a second, Sweeney moved to the bathroom. He stood before the toilet and took a long and pain-relieving leak. Then he moved to the pedestal sink, rolled up his sleeves, and splashed himself into the present.
He patted his face dry and looked in the mirror. He ran a hand through his hair and reminded himself to buy some mouthwash. Then he left the apartment and followed Romeo upstairs. When they reached the front porch, he knew something was wrong.
Too many people were milling around — two orderlies with a gurney and three women huddled together, all of them looking as if they were on their way to a wake. Two of the women were crones, gnarled and as wide as they were tall. They were dressed in old-style nurses’ uniforms, complete with hats, and each one carried a large red plastic toolbox from which protruded tangles of tubing and swabs and packages of sterile wraps. They were listening intently to the third woman, who was a fraction of their age and wore a lab jacket and had a stethoscope slung around her neck.
One of the crones indicated Sweeney as he came down the stairs, and the young woman turned to greet him.
She said, “Are you the boy’s father?”
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
She put her hand out and said, “I’m Alice Peck, the chief of rehabilitation.”
“Is Danny all right?” he asked.
“We’re not sure,” blunt and emotionless. “They called as soon as they landed. The nurse practitioner that’s traveling with your son said there was a problem with his shunt. I’ve notified Dr. Siegel at City.”
“Jesus Christ, are you going to operate?”
The woman shook her head. “Probably not. We’re closer than City General. I’ve instructed the EMTs to bring the boy here. I’ll take a look at him. If it’s something we’re not prepared to handle, I’ll send them on to Dr. Siegel.”
“How did this happen?” Sweeney asked, trying and failing to keep his volume normal. “What’s wrong with the shunt?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen the patient yet.”
“His name’s Daniel,” though he never called him that.
“I haven’t seen Daniel yet. The NP said there could be a backup. His vitals had dropped a little but were holding steady—”
Sweeney tried to think. “Did this happen on the plane? I knew I should’ve traveled with him.”
“Mr. Sweeney,” the woman said, “right now I don’t know much more than you. Now when the ambulance gets here, I’m going to ask you to stand back and let me have a look at Daniel. And you’re not going to want to do that. But you’re going to have to.”
He had already quit listening. And then they all heard the sirens and, moments later, saw the red and white van turn onto the circular drive and start up the hill to the Clinic.