“Sounds awesome,” Jared said. “How about a clean shirt, too?”
“It will have to be an officer’s blueshirt,” Clint said. “I don’t want to go by the house.”
Jared didn’t reply at first. Clint was about to ask if he was still there when his son said, “Please tell me you’re just being paranoid.”
“I’ll explain everything when I get there. Keep Mary awake. Remind her she can’t eat pizza through a cocoon.”
“I’ll do that.”
“And Jared?”
“Yeah?”
“The cops aren’t keeping me apprised of their strategy for dealing with the local situation—I’m not their favorite person right now—but if I were them, I’d be grid-searching the town and keeping a master list of all the sleeping women, plus their locations. Terry Coombs might not be smart enough or on top of things enough to think of that, but I believe there’s a man who’s working with him who is.”
“Okay…”
“If they show up where you are, keep quiet and… is there a storage space in that house? Other than the cellar, I mean?”
“Not sure, I haven’t exactly searched it, but I think there’s an attic.”
“If you see cops on the street, you should get everyone up there.”
“Jesus, really? You’re kind of freaking me out here, Pop. I’m not sure I’m following you. Why shouldn’t I let the cops find Mom and Mrs. Ransom and Molly? They’re not burning women here, right?”
“No, they’re not, but it could still be dangerous, Jared. For you, for Mary, and especially for your mother. Like I said, the police aren’t very happy with me right now. It has to do with the woman I told you guys about, the one who’s different. I don’t want to get into the details now, but you have to believe me. Can you get them up to the attic or not?”
“Yeah. I hope I don’t have to, but yeah.”
“Good. I love you, and I’ll be there soon, hopefully bearing pizza.”
But first, he thought, I’m going to take another run at Evie Black.
When Clint got to A Wing, carrying a folding chair from the common room under one arm, Jeanette was standing by the door to the shower and the delousing station, having a conversation with an individual who didn’t exist. It seemed to be some kind of convoluted dope deal. She said she wanted the good stuff, the Blues, because they mellowed Damian out. Evie was at the bars of her cell, watching this with what appeared to be sympathy… although with the mentally unbalanced, you could never be sure. And speaking of the mentally unbalanced, Angel was sitting on the bunk in a nearby cell with her lowered head propped on her hands and her hair hiding her face. She looked up briefly at Clint, said, “Hello, cocksucker,” and lowered her head again.
“I know where you get it,” Jeanette was saying to the invisible pusher, “and I know you can get it now. It’s not like they close at midnight. Do me a favor, okay? Please? Please? I don’t want Damian in one of those moods. And Bobby’s teething, too. My head can’t take it.”
“Jeanette,” Clint said.
“Bobby?” She blinked at him. “Oh… Dr. Norcross…” Her face seemed attenuated now, as if all muscles there had already gone to sleep and were only waiting for her stubborn brain to follow. It made Clint think of an old joke. Horse walks into a bar, and the bartender says, Hey, buddy, why the long face?
Clint wanted to explain to her why he’d ordered the officers to disable the payphones, and apologize for preventing her from calling her son to make sure the boy was all right. He wasn’t certain, however, that Jeanette would be able to comprehend him at this point, and if she did, if it would achieve anything, or only distress her further. The liberties that Clint had taken with the lives of the prison’s women, the lives of his patients, were grotesque. That he felt he had no alternative did not make it less grotesque or cruel. And that didn’t cover all of it, not by a long shot. It was because of Evie that he’d had to do all of it—and he realized, suddenly, insane or not, he hated her for that.
“Jeanette, whoever you—”
“Don’t bother me, Doc, I gotta do this.”
“I want you to go out to the exercise yard.”
“What? I can’t do that, at least not by myself, I can’t. This is a prison, you know.” She turned from him and peered into the shower. “Oh now look, the man’s gone. You scared him away.” She gave a single dry sob. “What’ll I do now?”
“None of the doors are locked, sweetheart.” Never in his life had Clint used such a term of intimacy when addressing an inmate, but now it came naturally, without thought.
“I’ll get on Bad Report if I do that!”
“She’s lost it, Doc,” Angel said without looking up.
“Go on, Jeanette,” Evie said. “Out to the furniture shop, across the exercise yard, into the garden. There are new peas there, as sweet as honey. Fill your pockets and come back. Dr. Norcross and I will be done by then, and we can have a picnic.”
“A pea-pea picnic,” Angel said through the screen of her hair, and snickered.
“Go on, now,” Evie said.
Jeanette eyed her uncertainly.
“The man may be out there,” Evie coaxed. “In fact, I’m sure he is.”
“Or possibly up your dirty ass,” Angel said through her hair. “He might be hiding there. Go find me a wrench and I’ll help you find him.”
“You got a bad mouth, Angel,” Jeanette said. “Bad.” She started up the short A Wing corridor, then stopped, staring fixedly down at a slanting oblong of sun on the floor as if hypnotized.
“I say you can’t not be bothered by a square of light,” Evie said quietly.
Jeanette laughed, and exclaimed, “That’s right, Ree! That’s right! It’s all Lying for Prizes, isn’t it?”
She went on, step by slow step, weaving left and correcting, weaving right and correcting.
“Angel?” Evie said.
She spoke in that same quiet, courteous voice, but Angel looked up at once, seemingly wide awake.
“Dr. Norcross and I are going to have a brief consultation. You may listen, but you need to keep your mouth closed. If you don’t, I’ll stop it up with a rat and it will eat the tongue right out of your head.”
Angel stared at her for several seconds, then lowered her face into her hands again.
Officer Hughes showed up just as Clint was unfolding his chair outside Evie’s cell. “Inmate just went outside,” he said. “Looked like she was headed for the garden. That okay?”
“It’s fine, Scott. But keep an eye on her, would you? If she falls asleep out there, get her into the shade before she starts to grow a cocoon. We’ll bring her in after she’s completely wrapped.”
“Okay, boss.” Hughes sketched a salute and left.
Boss, Clint thought. Jesus-God, boss. I wasn’t nominated, I didn’t campaign, but I got the job, anyway.
“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,” Evie said. “Henry IV, Part Two. Not one of his best, but not bad. You know they had boys play the women’s parts back then, right?”
She is not a mind-reader, Clint told himself. The men came, just as she predicted, but I could have predicted that. It’s simple logic. She’s got the skills of a good carnival fortune-teller, but she is not a mind-reader.
Yes, and he could go on believing that as long as he liked—it was a free country. Meanwhile, she was looking at him with curiosity and interest, eyes aware and totally awake. Probably the only woman alive who still looked like that.