“Take care of yourself, John.”
“I will. I’ll call you to find out when you’re free. We’ll set something up.” The doors closed, separating them. He leaned back.
God, how awkward was that? At least she believed he’d been sick. He didn’t have to fake his malaise.
He patted the side pocket of his sport coat and felt the cylindrical bulge of the pill bottle. The chloramphenicol. He’d peeled off the label. The capsules inside were now anonymous… tiny masked assassins.
He still couldn’t believe he was going through with this. Only for Katie…
In the first floor hall he ran into Bob Decker, the last person he wanted to meet this morning.
All those years of training and experience… he’ll know something’s wrong the instant he sees me.
The big Secret Service agent did a double take and suddenly the pill bottle in John’s pocket seemed to quadruple in size and weight. It felt like a can of baked beans, bulging the fabric for all to see.
“Hey, Doc. You don’t look so hot.”
“A virus. Bob. But I’m getting over it.” He started to point to the door of the Oval Office and noticed his hand shaking. He dropped it and gestured with his head. “He in there?”
“Yeah. Said he was expecting you. How’s he doing?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out.”
John waved and hurried to the end of the hall. He stepped up to the door, then stopped. I can’t do this.
But he could. He’d found a way to get himself through the act: Blame it all on Tom. It was Tom’s fault. If he hadn’t put forth this idiotic decriminalization program, Katie would never have been kidnapped. Katie would be safe at home right now watching her Saturday morning cartoons.
Katie would still have ten toes!
That’s right, Tom. Your godchild, the little girl who calls you “Uncle Tom,” has been mutilated. Not because of something she did but because of something you did.
He stared at the presidential seal on the door and thought. Whatever happens to you is your own fault, Tom. This is not my doing… it’s yours. You set all this in motion. What goes around, comes around, and you can’t escape the consequences.
That was how he’d do it. Get angry. Stoke that rage to the point where he was capable of anything.
Setting his jaw, he knocked on the door, then stepped through. And stopped.
He’d been in the Oval Office before, and every time it was the same. Seeing Tom there behind that desk with the light filtering through the tall windows behind him, the royal blue rug with its huge presidential seal, the flags of the U.S., the presidency, and the armed services arrayed around him, never failed to awe John, move him.
Seeing him here, he could truly believe that Tommy Winston was president of the United States.
Tom glanced up, smiled, then frowned. “Hey, Johnny boy. You look like shit.” And it’s all your fault.
John stumbled through the virus explanation again but he could tell Tom was barely listening.
“Guess who’s crowding in here at noon,” Tom said, tapping a sheet of paper on his desk. He seemed excited, wound up, full of barely contained enthusiasm.
“Floyd Jessup and the Reverend Whitcolm to offer their support.”
He laughed. “No, but almost as good.” He tapped the paper again. “Almost the entire southern delegation—at least those from the tobacco states.”
“What are they afraid of—marijuana hurting cigarette sales?”
“You kidding? They want to grow it—although they insist on referring to it as’hemp.‘ No, they see the writing on the wall. With tobacco consumption falling steadily, they need a new crop, and’hemp’ fills the bill.” Do you see? Do you see? This is why Katie was stolen from me and mutilated! Because of your wrongheaded, egomaniacal plan!
“So they want to sell reefers instead of coffin nails. Great.”
“To tell you the truth,” Tom said, “I think they’d be just as happy if someone developed a flowerless hybrid that produced nothing smokable. We’ve been trying our damnedest to educate them on the commercial uses of cannabis hemp. Looks like they’ve finally come around to seeing that it’s in their interest to support a change in the laws. They’re just the first. It’s going to happen, John. The snowball is starting to roll.” I hope you’re proud and happy that Katie’s suffering because of you.
Tom kept rattling on as John inserted the stethoscope’s earpieces, muffling him. He inflated the cuff, watched the needle sweep up, then begin to bounce down. He listened to the blood forcing its way back into the artery beneath the diaphragm, and it seemed so loud, so vital, each whispery thump driving home the consequences of what he had to do and how it would effect that blood, cutting off its supply of platelets and red and white corpuscles, thinning it, wasting it, choking it to a trickle that could no longer supply the tissues it served.
He cut off the thought, cut off all thought. He couldn’t allow himself to think, to be himself, to feel anything but anger. For the next ten minutes he had to be an empty shell, an automaton following a hardwired program:
Take the blood pressure, lie about it, give him the pills, and then get the hell out.
Tom’s blood pressure now was 140/88. Better than Wednesday. High normal.
“Well, how’m I doing?” Tom said as John unwrapped the cuff.
“It’s higher.” A lie. See that? You’ve made me a liar.
“Higher? I’m surprised. I’m so much less stressed than last time. I thought for sure it would be better.”
“Let me try the other arm, just to double check.” John went through the motions, and got 138/88 on the “opposite side.
He shook his head. “Nope. Even higher over here.” Another lie.
“Damn,” Tom said. “I’m watching the salt. What else can I do?”
“I think maybe I should start you on a medication.”
“Aw, John, I’d rather not. You know that.” Don’t fight me on this.
“Yeah, but you’re going to that international conference next week and you know it’s going to be a pressure cooker. I don’t want your BP going through the roof while you’re over there.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know…” Do it! Take your medicine like a man!
“I’ll put you on a small dose of an ACE inhibitor, something so mild you won’t even know you’re taking anything.” Tom hesitated, then shrugged.
“All right. If you say so. I’ll trust your judgment. If I can’t trust you, who the hell can I trust?” Please don’t say that.
John didn’t trust himself to look at Tom. He covered by reaching into his jacket pocket.
“I was afraid it might come to this, so I came prepared.”
Tom laughed. “Like the Boy Scout you never were.”
“Yeah. Right.”
His fingers were so sweaty and shaky he had difficulty grasping the pill bottle. Finally he got it out and fumbled off the lid.
“Hold out your hand.”
“Here?” Tom said. “Now?” John somehow maneuvered a grin to his face. “I know you, Tom. I’ll write out a prescription and you’ll get it filled, and then you’ll put off taking it. ‘I’ll start next week.’ Am I right?”
“You know me too well.”
“Yes, I do. And I know next week never comes.” Somehow he managed to shake two capsules into Tom’s palm. Don’t think. Don’t feel anything but rage. “So here you go. I figure once I get you started, you’ll keep going. So I want to watch you take both of these right now.” John stepped over to a side table where a pitcher of water and glasses sat, and managed to half fill a tumbler.
He turned and handed it to Tom.
Tom took the glass and stared at him. “You sure you’re all right? You’re shaking like a moonshiner with DT’S.”
“The virus. I guess I’m not over it yet.” Fearing he might vomit, John turned away and stared out the windows at the south lawn. He couldn’t watch.
In half a minute it would be done. The gelatin capsules would be dissolving in Tom’s stomach acid, releasing their contents. The antibiotic within would begin making its way into his bloodstream, triggering the suicidal antibodies, releasing them to begin their kamikaze run on Tom’s bone marrow. And soon it would begin to die.