Holly thinks, I am speaking to an authentic mad scientist. Only of course she’s not speaking; she’s listening. Nor is Rodney Harris lecturing. Not anymore. He’s hollering at an invisible audience of unbelievers.
“Ounces, MERE OUNCES, of human liver contain seven hundred per cent of EVERY VITAMIN needed for the creation of red cell formation and cell METABOLISM! Look at my skin, my good elf, just look at it!”
Roddy grasps one hollow wrinkled cheek and palpates it like a dentist preparing to inject Novocain into a patient’s gum. “Smooth! Smooth as the fabled BABY’S BOTTOM! And that’s just the LIVER!” He pauses to catch his breath. “As for the consumption of brain tissue—”
“All bullshit,” Holly says. It just pops out. She has no plan, no strategy. She’s just had enough. Thoughts of humoring him have gone straight out the window.
He stares at her, wide-eyed. He has been speaking to that invisible audience, swaying them, and some callow undergraduate with nothing but high school biology as a foundation has had the temerity to challenge him. “What? What do you say?”
“I call bullshit,” Holly replies. She’s holding the crossbars loosely in her right hand, the left fisted above her right breast, her face pressed into one of the squares, staring at him. Her care not to use vulgarities, learned at her mother’s knee, has also gone out the window. “This is medicine-show crap, right up there with copper bracelets and magic crystals. Smooth skin? Have you looked in a mirror lately, Professor? You’re as wrinkled as an unmade bed.”
“Shut up!” His cheeks are glowing dull red. That snarl of veins in his temple is pulsing faster, faster. “Shut up, you… you twerp!”
They’re going to kill me, but I’m going to tell this man a few basic truths before they do.
“As for improved brain function… you’re suffering Alzheimer’s, Professor, and not just early-onset. You can’t remember my name, and in a few months, maybe only a few weeks, you won’t be able to remember your own, either.”
“Shut up! Shut up! You’re an ignorant know-nothing!”
He takes a step toward her. This is exactly what Holly was hoping for when she asked him to share one of his horrid brown balls of flesh, but now she barely notices. In her rage—at him, at his wife, at her current hopeless situation—she has even forgotten her thirst.
“You think you’re better. Your wife thinks she’s better. Maybe for awhile you even were better. It happens. You’re not the only one who reads the science magazines. It’s called—”
“Stop! It’s a lie! It’s a FILTHY FUCKING LIE!”
He doesn’t want her to say what he knows might be true, but she intends to. She’ll have to be quiet when she’s dead, but she’s not dead yet.
As Holly is informing Rodney Harris that he’s not the only one who reads the science magazines, Emily is entering the Frederick Building. She finds the idea of masks ridiculous but she’s happy to be wearing one now, and Holly’s gimme cap is pulled down so the visor shades her eyes. She goes to the building directory and checks it. Finders Keepers is on the fifth floor, along with the offices of Furniture Imports, Inc., and David & Daughter, Forensic Accountants.
Emily steps into the elevator and pushes 5. When she gets out, she makes sure the hall is empty and limps down to the door with FINDERS KEEPERS INVESTIGATIVE AGENCY on it. Since she has Holly’s keys, she’s happy to find the door locked. It means no receptionist on duty. If there had been, she would have put on a vague old woman act and said she must have gotten off on the wrong floor, so sorry. She begins going through Holly’s keys, trying ones that look like they might fit, hoping no one comes out of Furniture Imports or David & Daughter to use the loo.
The third key fits. She lets herself into a waiting area. Air conditioning whooshes softly. She checks the computer on the small desk, hoping it’s only asleep, but no joy. She opens the door to the right and peeps into what must be the male partner’s office, judging by the framed sports pages on the wall. The one headlined CLEVELAND WINS WORLD’S SERIES (bad grammar there, she thinks) is probably real, but not BROWNS WIN SUPERBOWL!
The other office is Gibney’s. She hurries to Holly’s computer and pushes a random key, hoping to wake it up if it’s asleep. This one is, but it wants a password to unlock any possible treasures within. She tries several, including HollyGibney, hollygibney, FindersKeepers, finderskeepers, LaurenBacallFan, and password. None of them work. She looks on the desk, which is neat, orderly, and bare except for a notepad. On the top sheet are doodles of flowers and a few jottings. There is the name Imani, which means nothing to Emily, but Elm Grove Trailer Park does; Emily went there to clear out enough things from the Craslow bitch’s trailer to make it appear she was gone. Em doesn’t like that, but what’s printed below it she likes even less: BellRinger and J. Castro and 2012.
How can the bitch have found out so much?
Em tears this sheet off, and the one beneath it for good measure. She balls them up and puts them in her pocket. She checks the desk drawers one by one, hoping for a written report. She doesn’t find one, and admits that even finding one wouldn’t have eased her mind unless it was written in longhand. Nor does she find a slip of paper with Holly’s password written on it, and a wave of angry despair rolls through her.
We should have had an exit plan beyond cyanide pills, she thinks. Why didn’t we?
The answer seems obvious: because they’re old, and old people can’t run very far or very fast.
Maybe there’s no report. Maybe the stupid woman was too unsure of her conclusions to write one or tell anyone.
Emily decides it’s the best she can hope for. She’ll go home. Roddy will shoot the Gibney bitch as he did the Craslow bitch. They’ll run her through the Morbark, pulverizing her bones and liquifying the rest of her, including her nicotine-poisoned liver. Then out into the lake in the Marie Cather, where they’ll stop above the deepest part and drop the remains of Holly Gibney over the side in a plastic disposal bag. After that they will continue hoping for the best. What else is there? Suicide, of course, but Emily still hopes it won’t come to that.
She finds the wall safe, predictably hidden behind a picture of a mountain meadow. She tries the handle, expecting nothing, and nothing is what she gets. She gives the combo a disgusted spin, rehangs the picture, and turns off the computer. She decides the notepad is a little out of place, so she squares it up. Then she retreats the way she came, wiping everything she touched, starting with the computer keyboard. She finishes with the knob of the office door, after putting on her mask and peering through the spyhole to make sure the coast is clear. She is halfway down the hall before she remembers she forgot to re-lock the door. She goes back and does it, once more taking care to wipe away her fingerprints.
In the elevator she pulls the brim of the gimme cap down. She encounters only one person in the lobby and with her head lowered sees only jeans and sneakers as Barbara Robinson passes her on her way to the elevator. It’s time to go home and tie up at least one troublesome loose end.