Cesar had promised to bring her fresh water, and some medicine for the pain. When she heard the hurricane doors swing open, however, she noticed that it was two sets of footsteps descending the wood plank stairs, not one.
As the door from the root cellar swung open, a plump, tidy, middle-aged Latino ducked through the opening. He smelled of cologne, his hair so flawlessly combed it suggested a mother’s touch. He wore a double-breasted Armani suit, a crisp white shirt and a staid silk tie and Giorgio Brutini loafers. He could not have seemed more out of place had he sprouted a tail.
One of the large ones followed, Humberto or Pepe, she still didn’t know who was which. He was garbed in the same gray suit as before. The tidy one carried a flashlight and a small black medical bag. Somehow he had managed to cross the muck of the root cellar without soiling himself. She pictured him hopping stone to stone. The large one closed the door behind.
The tidy one smiled, handed his flashlight to his companion, then turned back and bowed slightly at the waist. “Cesar informed me that you asked for some relief from your pain,” he said.
His English belonged to an educated man, his voice melodious and cultured. Shel looked at the small black bag in his hand. She recalled the needle and syringe lying inside the shroud of stiff clear plastic wrapped around Snuff Akers’s body.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m better.”
The man looked about the room, as though for a chair. Seeing none, he said something to the other man in Spanish. The only word Shel caught was, “Humberto.” That settles that, she thought; Pepe’s the other guy. Humberto left the room and the plump one turned back to her, wearing exactly the same smile as before.
“Cesar appears to have taken quite an interest in you,” he said.
That’s it, Shel realized. He won’t be coming back. I’m going to be killed here, now, by this fat little fella. Doctor Death.
“Romantic young man, Cesar,” the man continued. “They held a dinner a few weeks ago, at the hotel, for the staff. The maids, the kitchen, the security team, everyone. There’s an operator there, a girl from a village in the south. Cesar has an insufferable crush on her. He can’t even be near her without stammering.”
Humberto returned, carrying a campaign chair and a thermos. With a flick of his arm he unfolded the campaign chair. The tidy one, the doctor, pulled up his trouser legs and sat. Humberto handed him the thermos. As the doctor unscrewed the lid, he continued, “As I was saying, Cesar, he’s really quite lovestruck. It’s not uncommon, of course, for unattractive men to develop profound attachments. The night of the staff dinner was apparently the worst. As it’s been told to me, he planned to draw this operator away sometime during the evening, speak to her alone. Confide his heart. But his nerve failed. He just sat there during the meal, like a stump. Later on, however, in his dreams, poor Cesario could not be silenced.”
He turned to Humberto, mumbled something in Spanish, and the larger man cackled. Pressing his hands to his heart, he sang in a moaning voice, “Angel mio…” Shel recognized the voice. It had been the one singing “Vaya con Dios” at the ranch house as Rowena and Duval were murdered.
“It’s an unfortunate trait, for someone on the security team, to talk in his sleep,” the doctor concluded.
Security team, Shel thought. The euphemism reminded her of watching newscasts from Vietnam as a girl. Damage assessments. Tactical repositionings. Advantageous weather. The doctor had the thermos lid removed. He poured a clear fluid into the cap and offered it to Shel.
“Water,” he said.
“I’m not thirsty,” she told him.
The doctor sighed, as if she’d hurt his feelings. “If it was anyone’s plan to kill you, you’d already be dead.”
It was the first crack in the courtly veneer. His eyes were hard. As though to bring his point home, he glanced about the room. Blood spatters smeared the floor and wall where Dayball’s interrogation had grown especially rough. One stain in particular looked like he’d tried to drag himself away from the ball bat coming down.
The doctor held out the cup again. The man has a point, Shel realized. These guys aren’t the sort to waste time when it comes to death. She took the cup, sniffed, and drank. Something inside her melted. She downed the full amount to slake her thirst and reached out with the cup and he refilled it and she drank again. Closing her eyes, she waited for the first signs of cramping nausea to hit.
“You see,” the doctor said after a moment. “Water.”
He placed the thermos on the floor beside him. Resting his hands on his knees, he said, “I would like to examine you briefly, if I may.”
Shel flashed on Danny rousting her throughout the night, checking for concussion. No hospitals, she’d said. People die in hospitals. She remembered, too, the dream she’d had on waking, the abandoned foundry, the sense that It was about to happen, and saw in a glance how everything in this room had been foretold.
“What for?” Shel said, still holding the cup. “If I keel over and retch or flat out die on you, what possible difference could that make given what’s in store for me?”
“It will not take long,” he said, reaching down to unsnap the small black bag. “And how do you know what’s in store for you?”
“I’m a quick study.”
“Did Cesar say anything to you?”
“I don’t need Cesar to figure this thing out. Come on. Be serious.”
“I could not possibly,” the doctor responded, “be more serious.”
He pulled from the small black bag a zippered leather case the size of a book. Her hands started shaking so badly she dropped the cup. As she reached down to pick it up a thunderbolt slashed through her head and she pulled back her hand. Tears ran down her face from behind her closed eyelids. God help me, she thought.
“The pain,” the doctor asked, “which side is it on?”
She scuttled back from him on the mattress, churning with her legs, but there was nowhere to go. She pressed herself against the wall.
“Come now,” he said. “This is childish.”
“I don’t like doctors,” she said. It sounded childish.
The doctor sighed, turned to Humberto, and nodded. Humberto lumbered over and grabbed Shel by the arm. She struggled, but lacked strength to do anything more than make him laugh. He dragged her within arm’s reach of the doctor, who licked the back of his hand and held it up to her mouth. “Exhale, please,” he said.
She averted her face, shook her head. Humberto grabbed her hair and forced her face front again. She exhaled.
“Very good,” the doctor said.
Next he fingered her jaw and throat and forehead. His fingers were soft and warm. Lifting her chin, he said, “Open both your eyes at once please.” He glanced quickly from one side of her face to the other.
“Your pupils,” he said, “they’re both the same size. That’s good.”
“If they weren’t?”
“It might indicate stroke.”
He searched her nostrils and ears, remarking, “No blood, no cerebral fluid.” He felt for her carotid pulse, counted, felt for the pulse in each wrist, counted.
“Your saliva,” he asked. “Does it taste sweet to you?”
“No.”
“Be truthful, please.”
“No,” she said again.
He sat back, folded his hands. “What examination I can conduct here is limited, obviously. But you have a concussion, I believe. Basically, you need to rest. Allow the bruising of your brain to heal.” He gestured with his hand to his head, rotating the open palm slowly about his ear. Healing. “And I understand you tried to commit suicide. With pills. Is that correct?”
“I don’t see where that much matters.”
“Do you remember which pills?”
Shel rattled off the names of the medications she could remember swallowing.