Yeah, she was tiny. A little miniature woman who photographed like a full-sized fashion model.
He gave it a couple of minutes, then followed her down Magnolia Street to a pale yellow three-story mansion, with columns and fountains and a black wrought-iron fence. He watched her stop, still jogging in place, and punch in some kind of code before opening the gate. It took a while.
Hillsborough Bay was right across the quiet street, with a cement seawall to knock down waves if it was blowing.
Micki, the pushy freighter captain bitch, had called him earlier that day and told him she and her boat would be back in Tampa Bay tomorrow, Friday, and would probably return to Nicaragua very early Saturday morning, or during the day on Sunday.
“But stay on your toes,” she’d added. “If they get us loaded and on the transit schedule, we could be casting off earlier. And for me to get your weirdo special cargo aboard’s gonna take us a little time. So have everything all set.”
They’d already discussed it. The fat captain knew what he was planning to bring-not who, but what-and how to make it work.
She would have two empty 50-gallon drums waiting.
But the jump ahead in schedule had made him feel tense, rushed.
Not now.
Prax could picture his Boston Whaler tied to the seawall in the darkness next to the doctor’s house, and the miniature surgeon having to stop to punch in a code at the gate.
He thought, Perfect.
Later that afternoon, Lourdes rushed back to the trailer park, where he put duct tape, a big pillowcase, and a rope into the back of the van. He also loaded a fresh gas canister into a mini-blowtorch. He’d bought the thing at Sears. It wasn’t much bigger than his hand.
There was something else that he hid in the glove box: a small bottle of ether, wrapped in a hand towel.
After that, he brought the kid inside the trailer with him again. The skin of his cheeks was already on fire, and he could feel the first shock wave of pressure that preceded his headaches.
If Dr. Valerie had the operating room scheduled for eight P.M., there was no telling how late she’d get out. Even so, he wasn’t going to risk screwing this up. He wanted to be right there in the boat waiting outside her house, no matter how early or late she was.
Even so, he still had time for a couple of drinks and to lie down on the couch. The combination sometimes made the pain disappear faster.
As he walked toward the living room, the kid said to him, “Let me get on the computer, there’s something I’ve been thinking about. Something I want to show you. I found it yesterday, but you didn’t give me time to follow up.”
Prax screamed at him, “Fuck off! It’s getting so you’re starting to give the fucking orders around here, which is bullshit!”
But then Prax remembered that he had to let the kid on the Internet. He’d told the kid’s stubborn asshole father that he’d get a personal e-mail from the boy. So, a short time later he watched Laken sign online.
He felt like slapping the boy out of his seat. The smug little prick always seemed to get his way.
After a few minutes squinting at the monitor and typing fast, the kid stood and said, “Have a look at this.”
His head pounding, his skin screaming, Prax sat and read: Trigeminal neuralgia, often associated with burn scarring, is among the most terrible of chronic pain conditions. The trigeminal nerve is the fifth cranial nerve, and has three branches that are designated as 5-1, 5-2, and 5-3. This nerve supplies sensation to the face. Neurogenic pain is awful, of a burning quality, and incapacitating. It is also sometimes associated with cluster headaches. Medications may lessen attacks, but seldom work.
The article then went into specific detail.
When Prax had read it through twice, he leaned back and said, “Shit, I think that’s exactly what I got. I had a doctor in Masagua, a plastic fucking surgeon he called himself, and he couldna figured it out in a hundred years. The stupid damn quack!”
The man tended to get louder and more animated as his pain increased.
Now he slapped at the screen. “But what fucking good does it do me to know? It says right here medications don’t work. As if I haven’t tried every fucking pill on earth! Why’d you even bother me with this bullshit?”
The more furious he became, the calmer the boy always seemed to get. He was very calm now as he said, “That’s where you might be wrong. There’s a whole new class of drugs, they haven’t been out long. They were developed as anticonvulsion medications, but doctors are finding all kinds of ancillary benefits. They’re finding out that the medicine changes the chemistry of the brain in some way-it’s hard to explain-but these new meds can stop chronic pain. Back pain, pain from scars, that sort of thing.”
Christ, now the smug little son-of-a-bitch was talking down to him, like he was stupid.
“I’ve got a fuckin’ brain, asswipe! If you can understand how a pill works, I sure as shit can understand how it works. For all I know, you’re making this bullshit up.”
The red color had flooded in behind Lourdes’ eyes, and he was thinking: If the little prick talks back to me one more time, I’ll drag him down to the river and set his shirt on fire.
Still very calm, the kid said, “I’m not making it up. This new drug is also helping people who have severe emotional problems-chemical imbalances in the brain. I have a friend who has some problems like that. I’m trying to get her to try them. I think you ought to give it a try, too.”
With the kid looking over his shoulder, Prax found information on the Internet about the new class of drugs. He spent half an hour reading.
Son-of-a-bitch if the brat wasn’t right!
After that, Prax let the kid write the e-mail to his father. But he read it carefully several times to make certain the smug little bastard didn’t sneak in any clues about where they were.
When he was convinced that he hadn’t, Prax sat at the desk and sent the kid’s e-mail to Nicaragua so it could be forwarded.
TWENTY-TWO
The sender’s address was the familiar random mix of letters and numbers at Nicarado. org. But on the subject line, I read “Message from Chamaeleo. ”
I opened the e-mail, and with Tomlinson leaning eagerly over my shoulder, we read a note written by my son in English: Hi Doc, They’re letting me write and not giving me much time, but at least it’s allowed to be personal. I bet you and Mr. Tomlinson are getting ready for baseball season, huh? I sure like that Wilson catcher’s mitt. Why do you think the White Sox ever traded Moe Berg to the Indians? I’ve been eating O.K., and been allowed to continue some of my science studies. I think I heard an alligator last night, a series of grunts, and I’ve definitely seen reddish egrets feeding on the mature tadpole. I also found a gray parakeet nest nearby, even though they prefer coconut palms. But, like lots of places in the mountains of Central America, there don’t seem to be any coconut palms. The moon was so bright before sunrise this morning, I could see birds roosting. Oh, there’s another medicine you need to get. It’s Neurontin, capsules in the highest dosage. It’s important. That’s all for now. Today’s front-page headline in the Latin American edition of the Miami Herald was about the Chinese increasing their control on the Panama Canal. Caio, Pescado, Lake
Excited, I jumped up and turned away from the computer to see that Tomlinson was beaming, as excited as I was. I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him as I said, “ Unbelievable. Do you realize the importance of the things he’s saying? Jesus, what a boy!”
Tomlinson was talking at the same time, jumping up and down as if I were bouncing him. “Moe Berg, man! That’s the farthest kind of far-out. I told him about the dude, man. And now he’s using it. The kid’s a blessed genius.”