Never sleep at a place called Mom’s. And, I guess, never play cards with a man whose troubles are worse than your own, and for god’s sake, never eat with a woman called Doc. Unless you’re going to be sick, I suppose.
I couldn’t sleep anywhere, anyhow. Worrying about Kit.
At least you could write at a place called Mom’s, if you’re writing a cheesy monster novel. I finished lucky chapter thirteen. Hunter joins the ranks of the Undead.
I’d started out writing with the .38 sitting on the desk in front of me, but it was too distracting. I’d just look at it and worry. I started to put it under the pillow, but didn’t want to smell the gun oil all night, and try to sleep with the lump. Finally, I put it on the floor, slightly hidden behind the bedspread. I could still snatch it in a second.
Eight o’clock came and went with no call. I supposed they actually gained more by not calling; keep me in suspense. And for all they knew, I might be sitting in a police station or FBI office somewhere, waiting for the phone to buzz so the authorities could trace the call and rain cowboys all over their ass.
I hoped that the night’s distracted writing would satisfy Duquest. Would it be gory enough? I was more into disgust than horror.
I tried to ignore the feelings left over from trying to sleep while worrying about murderers and listening to bugs scuttle in the night. I did finally get a few hours’ sleep, but woke up feeling crawly. Crawled upon.
Quick shower and hit the road. When I turned on the shower and a thin stream of brown water came out, I was almost able to laugh. Instead I called the office, and a yawning old man came down with a key to another room, with a shower that worked. Beige water, tepid.
He acted miffed. Who would want a shower with clean water?
Turned out the place didn’t have Wi-Fi, though the sign said it did—the same sign that promised clean, comfortable rooms. I’d get back on 85 and use the first rest stop. Maybe it would even have a shower, dream on.
The main reason for stopping at a little place was to be able to check the parking lot at a glance. No big black SUV with a bullet hole.
If it had been there, though, what would I have done? Call the cops? Take out the rifle and wait for a target of opportunity?
That’s what we called it in the desert. Though that sounded inappropriately cheerful. It was rather the opposite of “opportunity” for the guy on the other end. No more opportunities.
I remembered a poem, “Dealing in Futures,” written by a soldier friend, about all the futures he had destroyed. Maybe somebody he killed would have found a cure for cancer, a car that runs without gasoline, an end to war. I read that before I was drafted, but even then, my reaction was “but maybe the soldier you decided not to kill has the bullet with your name on it.”
That was always on the top of my mind in the desert. I didn’t hate the enemy; in fact, I sort of admired them. But they can’t know that, and any one you spare might be the instrument of your own doom. “Kill ’em all,” said a slogan on my grandfather’s helmet cover in his war; “and let God sort ’em out.” He didn’t believe in God any more than I do, but he did believe in the power of statistics. The Law of Large Numbers was a phrase I remembered him using. If there’s a large number of soldiers out there absorbing bullets, maybe you’ll be the one who gets missed. Or something.
This enemy now, perhaps I should hate. They’re probably after me just for profit, hired by someone who has political motivations. Of course they’re not killing me, to be precise; just putting me in a position where somebody else can. As Uncle Sam did as my graduation present, all those ten years ago. Perfectly legal.
Maybe I should just walk out to the highway and stick my thumb out. Take me anywhere, as long as it’s out of this bizarre life. But for Kit.
Went back to my own room and turned on the television, but the only channel that worked was Random Colors & Static. Turned it off and jerked open the end table drawer. It had an old King James Bible. I opened it and flipped through to Matthew, which had pretty good poetry. But I came to a verse that stopped me in my tracks—
“And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” Good grief. I was glad it didn’t say left hand.
There was a polite knock on the door. I went to open it, and as I pulled on the knob, thought of the .38 sitting on the floor ten feet away.
An older man in a coat and tie and an attractive woman, maybe thirty, wearing a tailored white outfit. A nurse’s uniform?
“What’s going on?” I said.
“Out,” the man said. “You’re going out.” He stepped aside, and as I leaned to close the door, the woman kicked it open and shot me in the chest.
I staggered back and looked at my chest. There was a dart there with bright red feathers.
“Damn it,” the man said. “I said not the chest!”
I took one very shallow breath and collapsed.
11.
It was not unpleasant as long as I didn’t wake up. People moved me here and there, I knew, and I seemed to always wind up in the same places. A quiet hospital bed in a dark room. A huge warehouse where invisible people walked around me. Sometimes a railroad car that I think came from some movie. It rocked along uneven rails and I knew that there were Indians riding alongside, but I would be okay as long as I didn’t open the curtains. For the longest time I was up in some future, lying forever in a bed, I think waiting for immortality.
I could almost remember an ambulance ride, but that kept turning into a familiar helicopter, some bastard medic pounding my chest, Stay with me Stay with me when all I wanted was to leave. Leave behind the mutilated hand, the blood in my eyes, the punched-out chest. And now a dart, too.
Then it became a nurse whose huge face shrank back to normal size. My hand came up and touched a plastic thing over my mouth.
“Let’s try breathing without this,” she said, and there were some clicks as she unhooked something behind my head. The plastic went away, and with it the cold breeze that had been whispering into my nose. “They gave you a shot to wake you up. Do you know your name?”
“Jack Daley not John,” I said automatically. “Specialist First Class, US3482179813. You are not allowed to ask me for more than this.”
“Doctor Lu?” she said. “He’s responding now.”
A slender Asian guy, probably Vietnamese, wearing surgical greens and a stethoscope. He checked my pulse and listened to my heart. “You are so in the wrong war,” I said diplomatically. “My grandfather would kill your ass.”
“I was born in Cleveland,” he said. “I’m just as American as your grandfather, maybe more.” He unbuttoned my hospital shirt and looked at the skin there. He touched it gently with his fingertip. “Does that hurt?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Funny. How do you feel?”
“Okay. Woozy, I guess.”
A deep voice behind him said, “He’s talking?”
“Yes, lieutenant. But I think he should—”
“I’m a lieutenant colonel, doctor. It’s like the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”
Wow, I rated a bird colonel. What kind of shit was I in now? They went out into the hall and conferred, and then walked away talking softly, I think arguing.
I had the room to myself. Three other beds, empty. What did that mean?