"Who told you that? Your parents?"
"No. None of us knew our parents. We were told that we belonged to the Lab, and in particular to Dr. Rincon and to his servant, Baptiste."
"Can you tell me everything you know about these people?"
And so, with a scarcely audible sigh that amounted to a figurative toss of the dice, Skyler began the lengthy narrative of his life. He told of his earliest memories on the island, of growing up with only a dim, half-formed idea of life on "the other side," of taking the goats to pasture and running through the woods with Raisin, and going to the lecture hall on campus for science lessons. He told of Baptiste's lectures and Dr. Rincon's law, and how the Lab detested religion and believed in extended life and a new age, the dawning of rational, scientific living. He also told about the Orderlies and about Kuta and his own special education in his shack and his growing doubts and fears. And finally, he told of his escape.
He mentioned Raisin's death and Patrick's death, but he did not go into detail, and he spoke not a word about Julia. She was his and his alone; the love that had defined his life for so long was private, and that loss was not for the sharing.
Jude was far from satisfied. Too many questions were bouncing around in his brain, and he had been at pains to hold himself quiet until Skyler finished his story, loath to break the spell now that he was finally learning some basic facts. Then he forgot some of the questions. He had refilled his glass three times and found that his initial shock at seeing Skyler was now padded with numbness. He was not thinking altogether cogently.
"This Rincon — what was he like?"
"He was a demi-god." He had heard that expression on television once. It seemed to fit.
"Did you ever see him?"
"No. He came to the island once, but we were kept away."
Jude took another gulp of scotch, a big one.
"So you've never been to Arizona?"
"Arizona?"
Skyler's blank look supplied the answer.
"How about some early memories — anything about going underground, playing in mines?"
"No. Nothing."
"Anything about a desert, a place where it's hot by day and cold at night?"
"No. Nothing except the island. My first memories are all of the island. I'm sure that's where I grew up."
"Did anyone ever tell you had a brother?"
"No." Skyler paused. "Is that what you think we are?"
Jude ignored the question and came back with one of his own.
"How could you not know your parents? Didn't you know anything about them? Didn't you hear anything? Didn't you miss anything?"
"You don't miss what you never know. The way we were raised, all of us — it's hard to explain — we felt all the older people on the island were like our parents. They all looked out for us."
"But why did they have all those strange titles — physicians and things like that?"
"That's just what they were called."
"It sounds like some big hospital. Was it some kind of medical place?"
"I don't know what you mean. It was just the way we were raised. We were looked after carefully, and anytime anything was wrong, it was fixed right up."
"But they didn't love you."
"I used to think so — or else, why would they have done it? I don't think so anymore."
Jude was stumped. He drained his glass and set it down.
"Tell me again about these Orderlies, the guys who did the enforcing."
"You've already met them," replied Skyler, and Jude knew instantly who he was talking about. He felt a certain relief, but not all that much, in realizing that his paranoia had a foundation in reality.
"The guy with the streak of white in his hair?"
Skyler nodded.
"You said them. There's more than one?"
"There's three."
"Three?"
"Yes, and they all look a lot alike, except you learn to tell the difference. The white patch isn't quite identical."
So that explained it, thought Jude — how the thug had managed to outflank him in the subway. There had been two of them. But three? He looked at Skyler. "Three guys who all look the same? Identical triplets — I've never heard of such a thing."
"I don't know if they're identical. They look a lot alike, but like I said, you can learn to tell them apart." Skyler shrugged, a gesture to end the discussion.
"Jesus Christ."
Skyler looked at him. "Why do you keep saying 'Jesus Christ' like that?" he asked.
"What do you mean? What kind of question is that?"
"I was just wondering. You say it all the time."
"I say it whenever I need to say it. Which right now happens to be a lot."
"I see."
Jude got up, walked into the living room and poked around his bookcase. He returned a few minutes later carrying under his left arm a large blue book, which he laid upon the kitchen table. It was an atlas.
"Okay, you say you were raised on an island. Let's locate the sucker. You say you ended up in Valdosta. That's in Georgia."
He flipped through the index, found "southern United States" and turned to pages 178–179. His finger traced the outline of the coast. He was distressed to see how many islands there were. Scores and scores of them. And lots of little ones that weren't even named, at least not in this book.
"Let's see… Valdosta, Valdosta. There it is."
He was surprised that it was so far inland.
"What kind of plane were you in?"
Skyler conjured up the memory — the cabin with its four seats, the baseball cap on the pilot's head, the dials with needles fluctuating and lighted numbers.
"A small one. Red and white."
Jude's face showed his exasperation. "Propeller or jet?"
Skyler looked blank. "I know what you're going to say now," he said.
"What?"
"Jesus Christ."
"Very funny. You've been here an hour, and you think you already got me down pat."
Fifteen minutes later, Jude was prepared to concede defeat, at least for the time being. He figured that the island had to be off the coast of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina or, stretching it, maybe North Carolina. The number of islands along that expanse of shoreline was staggering. Furthermore, he knew that his atlas was incomplete and omitted hundreds of small islands. He had once been to Pawley's Island off South Carolina, and a local had taken him out crabbing in a rickety rowboat; he remembered being amazed at how many uninhabited bits of land there were tucked away in the marshes.
For his part, Skyler was hopeless in providing clues. All he could say was that the aircraft had put down in that one town in Georgia. He couldn't even estimate how long the plane ride was that had brought him there, since he had slept through some and perhaps most of it — a statement so patently ridiculous that Jude was inclined to believe it. Maybe later Jude could get some data on the fuel tank capacities of various planes and estimated flying times in order to try to plot a radius of likely distance traveled. This would at least narrow the search for likely candidates to an area of… what? — maybe five hundred miles. But he would need some more information to do that. In the meantime, he had to figure out what to do with Skyler, who seemed to fear for his life.
"These guys — what did you call them? 'Orderlies.' That's a peculiar name — I wonder what that signifies. A moment ago, you said they're brutal. What did you mean?"
"Just that. They were in charge of us. They were friendly when we were growing up. We looked up to them like brothers. But I began to feel that they kept us on the island by force, that if we tried to leave, they would hunt us down."
"And what would they do? I mean, would they actually kill you?"
Skyler said he didn't know.
"So that's why you think they're after you now — to kill you?"
He shrugged, then nodded yes again.