He realized abruptly that his lips had been tingling unnoticed for some seconds, and that his eyelids felt peculiarly weighted. Good God…,! He might not know much about snakes, but he knew the classic symptoms of neurotoxic paralysis, and he had them all and then some.
Fifth, the beast that turns men to stone will come among them from the Underworld.
Fangs or teeth or whatever the hell it had in its mouth, the damn thing was poisonous-and he was turning to stone.
A new, colder layer of sweat oozed out on his forehead. He ought to stay quiet; movement would circulate the venom faster. But he had to get help fast. The toxin was working with incredible speed. Already the pain was less, which was a bad sign, not a good one. No, not less, but somehow distant, as if his arm were a separate entity enduring its own agony of fire, which was unfortunate but no concern of his. Poor old arm.
He jerked his head, frightened. He was getting dopey. Drowsy too. He had to act quickly. Find Marmolejo? Call the guard? Where the hell was Julie? She knew all about snakebites. But she was with Abe, damn it, at that…at…wherever she was.
With his right hand he brushed at the annoying sweat running into his eyes. Wasn't there something he was supposed to be thinking about?
"I'll take the first shift…Be back at nine…Does that meet with your approval…?"
No, there was more to it than that. The question was…the question was…
He yawned. The question was what? He leaned his forehead against the cool metal of the cabinet. This was stupid. All right, let's see now, the question was…the question…
He straightened with an alarmed, about-to-fall jerk. Had he nearly gone to sleep standing there? Small wonder. It was stuffy in the shed, and hot. Cramped. Idly he glanced at his watch. Eight-forty. A little early for a break, but he could use
Eight-forty? But hadn't he looked at his watch only a few minutes ago? Hadn't it said seven-fifty-five? Puzzled, he looked again. Eight-forty. Where had three-quarters of an hour gone? Had he actually fallen asleep leaning against the cabinet? He felt stiff enough, that was certain; his legs, his back, his arms, his hands, even his jaw. Stiff and achy too. Interesting. The question was…and off he floated again.
When he came out of it this time he was lying on the stone floor on his side, with his knees drawn up. The back of his throat was numb and clogged, and his chest felt as if it had a steel band around it. Breathing took effort, planning. Other than that, he felt comfortable enough. Quite relaxed, in fact; just a little chilly. That was certainly a welcome change. There was no pain. There wasn't much feeling of any sort to speak of.
He yawned and felt a gob of saliva run out of his mouth and dribble down his cheek. Embarrassing. Why all this saliva? He tried to swallow it down, but his pharynx didn't seem to be working any better than the rest of him. And now he couldn't close his mouth again, or at least he thought it was still open, and he could feel the spittle sliding over his cheek. This was getting downright disgusting. What if Julie walked in and saw him slobbering like a hungry St. Bernard, for Christ's sake?
But his mind was on another plane now, slipping free of his petrifying body and floating above him like a soap bubble, shimmering, clear, and wonderfully focused. He knew, in a vague way, that he almost had what he was looking for, that it was merely a matter of perspective, of filling in a piece or two.
"Be back at nine…" Or was that quite what Howard had said? Hadn't he-
A hand touched his shoulder. Marmolejo's face, shocked and rigid, was before him. How had he appeared so suddenly? Why did he look so awful?
"What's the matter?” Gideon said anxiously. “Are you all right?"
"What's wrong?” was Marmolejo's odd response. “What happened to you?"
This was nonsense, meaningless, some silly game. Gideon didn't have the patience for it. He closed his eyes, trying not to lose the thought he'd worked so hard to capture. It was important for Marmolejo to know. “Inspector,” he said, “when Howard-when he told us to come back at nine-he-he-if you-"
But his lips were impossibly stiff, his throat like clay. And he couldn't hear his own voice. Was he really speaking? Was Marmolejo really there? He tried to see. His eyes seemed to be stuck shut.
"Inspector, listen-” He tried to speak, to shout, to explain. But he heard nothing except a dull, growing roar, felt no vibration of sound in his throat, sensed no listening presence.
After a while he stopped. Even with his eyes closed, he could feel the darkness blossoming and unfolding, like a flower in a slow-motion film. There was a terrific sinking sensation, not merely as if something inside him were falling, but as if the stone floor on which he lay, the entire work shed, had tipped, then plummeted over the edge of some immense pit. The crushing speed of the drop squeezed his chest until he knew his ribs were going to crack. Behind his closed and paralyzed lids the blackness expanded around him, as if he were a tiny, shrinking speck inside the starless, lightless universe of his own skull.
Is my central nervous system shutting down? he wondered with detached interest. Is this death?
Down he plunged, and down, and down, and down, and down.
Grimly, Marmolejo waited at the back of the hotel reading room for the speeches to end. The eyes of speechmakers and crew darted frequently at him. They had been uneasy since he had come to fetch Julie, and they had no doubt seen, as he had seen, how her face had whitened when he'd told her what had happened, and how she'd swayed momentarily before collecting herself and going off with the officer. And he supposed his own face was making them nervous, too, if it showed what he was feeling.
He was angry. Angry in a white-hot way that no policeman should be. Angry at himself for not understanding sooner; angry that he couldn't have headed it off before it came to this, to a good man's life hanging by a thread; angry at the cunning, clever, stupid killer behind it all; and angry, if the truth be told, that it took a semiconscious Gideon Oliver to figure it out and explain it to him.
The speaker from Mexico City sat down. Another one stood up. Who knew how long this was going to go on? The hell with it; he wasn't going to wait any longer.
He strode into the room, up to the table. The speaker's voice faded away. Everyone looked warily, expectantly up at him. Everyone except one person, with his back to Marmolejo, who kept his eyes blamelessly on the speaker. But a muscle in front of his ear worked rhythmically. Marmolejo put his hand on the thick shoulder. The man twitched.
"Senor,” Marmolejo said formally, “will you come with me, please?"
Leo Rose tried to look surprised. He forced his mouth into what Marmolejo believed was referred to as a shit-faced grin.
"Sure,” he said with empty brightness. "Bueno-bueno."
Chapter 23
He wasn't falling anymore. He had bottomed out and was beginning to rise. No, he had been rising for a long time now, floating gently and serenely up out of the blackness. The awful pressure was gone from his chest. He could breathe again.
He was on his back, lying on something soft, his head and shoulders raised. A bed? He made an effort to open his eyes. Nothing happened. They felt as if they were stapled shut. Was he paralyzed? He tried flexing his hand. and felt fingernails touch palm. That was nice. Something worked anyway.