“So I heard,” I said. He glanced down at the monitor again and stared at the camera in astonishment. I felt uncomfortable, because he seemed to have completely lost interest in the road.
“You… heard?” he finally managed.
“Never mind that. Why are you calling me? If you know where he is, you should call the cops.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“It would compromise me. They own the cops. I have seven grandchildren.”
“Who owns the cops?”
“Time is short.”
“So start making sense. Who kidnapped Dr. Young?” I figured I could call Brome myself.
“Freedom, of course.”
“Freedom Corp.? You mean the pill makers?”
“I think you know they are much more than that. They brought him to the facility in Long Grove earlier today… yesterday, actually. I don’t think you have much time.”
“Why does he have any time at all?”
The man glanced down. “I don’t understand.”
“Why is he alive? You said he doesn’t have much time, so I’m guessing you mean they will soon kill him. If they want to kill him, why haven’t they?”
“No, no, they will not kill him. If they meant to kill him, he would already be dead. A suicide, senseless homicide, plenty of options, really.”
I shuddered; something moved in my stomach, as though alive, and I was also thinking back to the earlier conversation. As I did, I listened to the sounds from the living room. There were none.
“What are you talking about, then?” I asked.
“I said you don’t have much time.”
I stared blankly.
“Wait, so you’re calling to—”
“You have to get out of town, the sooner the better. Don’t tell me where you’re going. Pack up right now. Better yet, don’t pack. Just leave.”
“Just leave?” I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. When I opened them a minute later, the pale-face was still there.
“How did you figure to call and warn me?” I asked him, as it occurred to me suddenly.
“Ben told me to.”
“Ben told you to? You mean Dr. Young? You spoke to him?”
“No, no. Of course not. I saw him from a distance.”
“So how did he—”
“I was on my way to the garden for a break and saw them escorted out of the elevator. I might have been the first — and only — live human being who was not a guard they saw at the facility. It gets quite deserted there… Anyway, as soon as they spotted me, the girl jumped on one of the guards and screamed ‘Help!’ and while they were subduing her, Ben mouthed a single word to me, which I recognized as ‘Whales.’ It wasn’t too hard to deduce—”
“Stop!” I shouted.
He tensed immediately, mouth open in mid-word, eyes darting from camera to monitor to the road and back with desperate speed.
“What is it?” he whimpered.
I leaned forward, placed my palms over my face and rubbed my eyes like I wanted to erase them. The hangover became a distant throbbing in the center of my skull. I tried to peer out of the window, but there was nothing to see, just the room and me all over again.
“Mr. Whales?”
“What the hell is going on?” a voice demanded behind me. Paul was squinting in the doorway. In his hand he had the gun I’d left on the table. I looked at him over my shoulder, then at the man on the display.
“The girl,” I finally said. “Who was the girl?”
The man’s face relaxed somewhat, although his eyes remained wary. The camera mounted on my display allowed him a view of the weapon in Paul’s hand. Paul’s sincerest scowl didn’t help the matter either. I just waited, knowing the answer and prolonging the idleness before I would have to think of its implications.
“Never seen her before,” Coughlin replied. “Skinny, short hair, good-looking, I think. Wore something red, if I recall correctly. I really couldn’t study her for too long, you understand.”
“I understand.” I looked up at him. He glanced down again.
“You know her,” he stated rather than asked. When I didn’t immediately respond he started shaking his head. “You cannot be thinking of going in there to get them out. They’re gone. You can’t help them. Leave. Save yourself.”
“Did anyone hear me ask what the hell was going on just now, or was I still dreaming?” Paul entered the study fully, frowning at the doctor and stuffing the gun behind the waistband of his pants.
“I appreciate you calling me,” I said to the man on the screen. “Go home to your grandkids. Drive safely. I need to think about things.”
“There’s nothing to think about,” he insisted. “You cannot break in or out of the ‘Tomb.’ Even if you do, you might be facing more than just men…”
“Good night, Dr. Coughlin.” I cut the connection.
“Well?” Paul inquired from the top of the desk.
“I think they got Iris,” I told him, while dialing the number of her apartment. In reality, though, I knew they got Iris. The phone rang forever. No answer, no machine, no hope.
“Fuck,” I groaned. Paul studied the life lines on his hands.
I felt bad about Dr. Young, too, but he seemed to have been mixed up in all sorts of queer stuff. That church of his, the house, the weapons, acquaintances like Lloyd and so on. The fact that he had once worked for Freedom, also. Of course, none of that meant he deserved it or anything, maybe just that he kind of had it coming, you know? In other words, if Dr. Young had been the only one captured, I would probably have followed Coughlin’s advice, with shame, sincere regret, but not much of a hesitation.
But Iris… Iris was my fault. Iris was just a bored girl who helped out a fugitive TV star and, probably, the only reason she stuck around was simply because she liked me. Look where that’s gotten her, I thought.
While I guzzled “Stoli” and chatted about being in love in the comfort of my four-million-dollar condo, Iris, still in her short skirt she’d worn earlier to our date, was likely being tortured in some cold basement.
I inhaled deeply and looked up. Paul was nodding, an unfamiliar, grim expression on his face.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said.
“Make something up and we’ll try it.” He jumped off the desk.
“I’m just a talking head, Paul. I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Begin by calling friends you made recently. Still got that fed’s card?”
I followed him out of the study.
“I think we will have to make do without assistance from government agencies. I’ll be damned if I trouble the very Special Agent Brome at this hour, or any hour for that matter, with my nonsense. Let the man have his Christmas.”
Outside the window, in the darkness between my reflection and lights from the Michigan shore of the lake, the rain had been forgotten. It began to snow in large, clueless flakes.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
At three in the morning there were few cars on the highway. Brome counted eleven and as many city trucks cleaning the snow that had started without waiting for a forecast. Now the snow looked like it was never going to end, but then, this was Chicago.
He had known he would be coming back to the city even before Whales called him. Had known he couldn’t just walk away pretty much the same time he’d found blood in Dr. Young’s pantry. Must be my “inner hero,” he thought. It was a good try, what he said at Whales’s, though. He had almost believed it himself. Would have believed it, if he hadn’t thrown up the medication that morning. Then again, if he hadn’t puked the tabs he wouldn’t have gone to the “Church of God” in the first place. The church with the open back door and furniture on its head and blood, just enough to be acknowledged, in the back room.