Then the desk was gone. Through a haze of blood and stars, Greene saw the black man grab the corner of the desk and yank it out and then shove it sideways. Both men closed on the sprawled doctor. The prongs of the gun dug into the soft palate under his chin. The men leaned close. He could smell their breath. It was like smelling the heated breath of a pair of predator cats. Foul and fetid.
“Dr. Greene,” said the black man in a voice that was somehow more frightening than the violence for its softness and lack of emotion, “you will give us all of your files — hardcopy, digital recordings, and computer files — on one of your patients. You will do it now and you will hold nothing back. If you have any duplicates of this information you will tell us where it is and how we can obtain it. You will not hide anything from us. And when we are finished with this transaction, you will never speak of this to anyone. You won’t mention it. You will not tell the police, your family, your rabbi, or your friends. You will tell no one. If you need medical assistance, you will tell the doctors that you tripped and fell. They will believe you because you will want to be very convincing. If you fail to comply with us now, or discuss this incident with anyone later, we will kill you, your wife, your children, your parents, and both of your sisters. Do you understand me, Dr. Greene? No, do not nod. Tell me that you understand. Tell me that you are willing to comply with all of these requests. Assure me that you will obey every rule we have set forth.”
Blood ran down the back of Greene’s nose, filling his throat, making him gag and choke. The pressure of the prongs eased so that he could turn his head and spit blood onto the carpet. He coughed and spat again. Fireworks seemed to detonate all around him and he was nauseous and dizzy.
“Dr. Greene,” said the white man, “my associate has asked for your compliance.” He placed the prongs against the top of Greene’s left knee. “You do not need either of your legs in order to assist us. A legless man can still direct us to the information we request. So can a man with one hand and one eye.”
His voice never rose beyond a soft, conversational tone.
Greene began to weep. But he also began to nod.
“Don’t,” he begged. “Please… don’t.”
“Will you cooperate, Dr. Greene?” asked the black man.
“Y-yes!”
“Will you obey all of the rules we have agreed upon?”
“Yes.”
“Good. And you will hold nothing back? You will give us every bit of information, every record, every copy of tests, and all case notes on this patient?”
“Yes.” Greene was trying not to sob. Failing. Bleeding. Losing himself into this moment. “Which… which patient?”
The pressure of the strange gun left his knee.
The black man said, “Give us everything you have on the patient coded in your case notes as number three-three-six-P-eight-one.”
Greene stopped breathing for a moment and stared at them, and in that moment he knew what this was about.
“Give us everything you have on Prospero Bell,” said the white man.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I don’t know where I was. Or if I was anywhere.
I’ve always wondered what happens to our minds when we die. People talk about seeing their life flash before them. That happened to me, but not in the right way.
It wasn’t my life I saw.
It was the people in my life.
I saw Junie. My lady, my best friend, the love of my life.
She was in our living room in our condo in Del Mar. I watched her drop the phone and slide off the couch onto the floor. She was screaming.
Screaming.
I could hear the voice on the other end of the phone.
Rudy Sanchez.
Junie’s screams drowned him out. Drowned out the world.
Ghost was there. My big white shepherd. Fierce combat dog, veteran of many of this world’s killing fields. He came to her, whining, his tail drooping, pressing his muzzle against her as she curled into a ball, knees up and arms wrapped around her head.
A man came rushing down the hall. Slim, young, scarred, familiar. Alexander Chismer. Known as Toys. Her close friend. My former enemy and now a kind of ally. A man who had saved the lives of Junie and Circe and maybe a good portion of the world. He still held the hand towel with which he was drying off. He hadn’t even dropped it when she screamed.
“Junie!” he yelled, and vaulted the couch rather than run around it. He dropped down beside her and pulled her into his arms. Like a friend, like a brother. “What is it, love? What’s happened? Jesus Christ, tell me what happened?”
She kept screaming a single word.
“No!”
Over and over again. Ghost howled every time she did.
No.
Or maybe it wasn’t “no.” Maybe it was a name, something that sounded similar.
Joe.
When someone screams like that it’s hard to tell.
I heard a sound. No, sounds.
“He’s coding, damn it.”
Another voice. A stranger’s voice.
“Charging… charging… clear…”
And then my mind and my body and my soul were filled with hot light.
I stood on a hill that swept down toward a mansion that had been built to imitate an English manor house, though I knew I was in America. Somewhere.
The house was burning.
Bodies littered the lawn.
I saw Ghost. His white fur was splashed with blood and he was limping badly. Some of the bodies down there were dressed in the unmarked black battle-dress uniforms that we wear when the DMS goes on a job. The clothing was badly torn. The bodies inside had been ripped up by shrapnel and gunfire.
Suddenly there was a man standing next to me. Tall, strong. Familiar in a way I couldn’t quite place. He wore the same thing as me. Exactly. Even down to the bloody bandage wrapped around my upper arm.
His face, though…
Even though he was three feet away I couldn’t see his face. It was blurred, indistinct, like the face of someone who moved at the wrong time when a photo was being snapped.
He spoke to me.
“Did you honestly think you’d win, Joe?”
I tried to speak, to tell him that of course we’d win. That I would win. But the only thing that came out of my mouth was a torrent of dark blood.
He stood there and laughed as I sank down and died.
I felt a needle go into my chest.
And I was somewhere else.
I stood in a darkened room. Another living room. Sea air blew through the window and cold moonlight traced the edges of another man and woman who huddled together in their grief. A big dog whined and howled.
Not Junie, though. Not Toys. Not Ghost.
Dr. Circe O’Tree-Sanchez sat on the couch and held the weeping form of her husband, Rudy. Their dog, the monstrous wolfhound Banshee, sat by the window and howled at the moon. In a bassinet ten feet from them a baby slept through it all.
Circe said, “I’m sorry, my love. I’m so sorry.”
I tried to say something. I couldn’t let this moment stand. The script was wrong and the actors were all reading the wrong lines. I yelled at them. Rudy and Circe did not hear me. Could not. Of course they couldn’t.
But Banshee…
The big dog stopped howling and turned her head toward me. Toward where I thought I stood. Or hovered. Or whatever a dead man does.