Rudy said, “Are they gone?”
“They’ll be fine. The tide’s running out.”
“I’m not sure if Heather can swim.”
“The boat won’t sink. They’ll all be fine.”
Rudy noticed fresh blood on Stranahan’s forehead, where he had been grazed by the Weed Whacker. “You want me to look at that?”
“No,” Stranahan said acidly. “No, I don’t.” He left the bedroom and returned with the red Sears Craftsman toolbox. “Look what I’ve got,” he said to Rudy.
Rudy craned to see. Stranahan opened the toolbox and began to unpack. “Recognize any of this stuff?”
“Yes, of course… what’re you doing?”
“Before we get started, there’s something I ought to tell you. The cops have Maggie’s videotape, so they know about what you did to Vicky Barletta. Whether they can convict you is another matter. I mean, Maggie is not exactly a prize witness. In fact, she’d probably change her story again for about twenty-five cents.”
Rudy Graveline swallowed his panic. He was trying to figure out what Stranahan wanted and how to give it to him. Rudy could only assume that, deep down, Stranahan must be no different than the others: Maggie, Bobby Pepsical, or even Chemo. Surely Stranahan had a scam, an angle. Surely it involved money.
Stranahan went out again and returned with the folding card table. He placed it in the center of the room, covered with the oilskin cloth.
“What is it?” the doctor said. “What do you want?”
“ I want you to show me what happened.”
“I don’t understand.”
“To Vicky Barletta. Show me what went wrong.” He began placing items from the toolbox on the card table.
“You’re insane,” said Rudy Graveline. It seemed the obvious conclusion.
“Well, if you don’t help,” Stranahan said, “I’ll just have to wing it.” He tore open a package of sterile gloves and put them on. Cheerily he flexed the latex fingers in front of Rudy’s face.
The surgeon stared back, aghast.
Stranahan said, “Don’t worry, I did some reading up on this. Look here, I got the Marcaine, plenty of cotton, skin hooks, a whole set of new blades.”
From the toolbox he selected a pair of doll-sized surgical scissors and began trimming the hairs in Rudy Graveline’s nose.
“Aw no!” Rudy said, thrashing against the bedposts.
“Hold still.”
Next Stranahan scrubbed the surgeon’s face thoroughly with Hibiclens soap,
Rudy’s eyes began to water. “What about some anesthesia?” he bleated.
“Oh yeah,” said Stranahan. “I almost forgot.”
Chemo awoke and rolled over with a thonk, the Weed Whacker bouncing on the floor planks. He sat up slowly, groping under his shirt. The battery sling was gone; the Weed Whacker was dead.
“Ah!” said Mick Stranahan. “The lovely Nurse Tatum.”
A knot burned on the back of Chemo’s head, where Stranahan had clubbed him with the butt of the Remington. Teetering to his feet, the first thing Chemo focused upon was Dr. Rudy Graveline-cuffed half-naked to the bed. His eyes were taped shut and a frayed old beach towel had been tucked around his neck. A menacing tong-like contraption lay poised near the surgeon’s face: a speculum, designed for spreading the nostrils. It looked like something Moe would have used on Curly.
Stranahan stood at a small table cluttered with tubes and gauze and rows of sharp stainless-steel instruments. In one corner of the table was a heavy gray textbook, opened to the middle.
“What the fuck?” said Chemo. His voice was foggy and asthmatic.
Stranahan handed him a sterile glove. “I need your help,” he said.
“No, not him,” objected Rudy, from the bed.
“This is where we are,” Stranahan said to Chemo. “We’ve got his nose numb and packed. Got the eyes taped to keep out the blood. Got plenty of sponges-I’m sorry, you look confused.”
“Yeah, you could say that.” Scraggles of hair rose on the nape of Chemo’s scalp. His stomach heaved against his ribs. He wanted out-but where was the goddman shotgun?
“Put the glove on,” Stranahan told him.
“W hat for?”
“The doctor doesn’t want to talk about what happened to Victoria Barlerta-she died during an operation exactly like this. I know it’s been four years, and Dr. Graveline’s had hundreds of patients since then. But my idea was that we might be able to refresh his memory by re-enacting the Barletta case. Right here.”
Rudy fidgeted against the handcuffs.
Chemo said, “For Christ’s sake, just tell him what he wants to hear.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” said Rudy. By now he was fairly certain that Stranahan was bluffing. Already Stranahan had skipped several fundamental steps in the rhinoplasty. He had not attempted to file the bony dorsum, for example. Nor had he tried to make any incisions inside of Rudy’s nostrils. This led Rudy to believe that Stranahan wasn’t serious about doing a homemade nose job, that he was merely trying to frighten the doctor into a cheap confession.
To Chemo, of course, the makeshift surgical suite was a gulag of horrors. One glimpse of Rudy, blindfolded and splayed like a pullet on a bed, convinced Chemo that Mick Stranahan was monstrously deranged.
Stranahan was running a forefinger down a page of the surgical text. “Apparently this is the most critical part of the operation-fracturing the nasal bones on both sides of the septum. This is very, very delicate.”
He handed Chemo a small steel mallet and said, “Don’t worry, I’ve been reading up on this.”
Chemo tested the weight of the mallet in his hand. “This isn’t funny,” he said.
“Is it supposed to be? We’re talking about a young woman’s death.”
“Probably it was an accident,” Chemo said. He gestured derisively at Rudy Graveline. “The guy’s a putz, he probably just fucked up.”
“But you weren’t there. You don’t know.”
Chemo turned to Rudy. “Tell him, you asshole.”
Rudy shook his head. “I’m an excellent surgeon,” he insisted.
Stranahan foraged through the toolbox until he found the proper instrument.
“What’s that, a chisel?” Chemo asked.
“Very good,” Stranahan said. “Actually, it’s called an osteotome. A Storz number four. But basically, yeah, it’s just a chisel. Look here.”
He leaned over the bed and pinched the bridge of Rudy Graveline’s nose. With the other hand he gingerly slipped the osteotome into the surgeon’s right nostril, aligning the instrument lengthwise along the septum. “Now, Mr. Tatum, I’ll hold this steady while you give it a slight tap-”
“ Nuggghhh,” Rudy protested. Thedull pressure of the chisel reawakened the fear that Stranahan was really going to do it. “Did you say something?” Stranahan asked. “You were right,” the surgeon said. His voice came out in a wheeze. “About theBarlettagirl.” “You killed her?”
“I didn’t mean to, I swear to God.” Between the pinch of Stranahan’s fingers and the poke of the osteotome, Rudy Graveline talked like he had a terrible cold. He said, “What happened was, I let go of her nose. It was … terrible luck. I let go just when the nurse hit the chisel, so-”
“So it went all the way up.”
“Yes. The radio was on, I lost my concentration. The Lakers and the Sonics. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
Stranahan said, “And afterwards you got your brother to destroy the body.”
“ Uh-huh.” Rudy couldn’t nod very well with the Number 4 osteotome up his nostril.
“And what about my assistant?” Stranahan glanced over at Chemo. “You hired him to kill me, right?”
Rudy’s Adam’s apple hopped up and down like a scalded toad. Sightless, he imagined the scene by what he could hear: The plink of the instruments, the two men breathing, the wind and the waves shaking the house, or so it seemed.
Stranahan said, “Look, I know it’s true. I’d just like to hear the terms of the deal.”
Rudy felt the chisel nudge the bony plate between the eye sockets, deep in his face. He was, understandably, reluctant to give Mick Stranahan the full truth-that the price on his head was to be paid in discount dermatological treatments.