Chapter 10
“Donnie!” cried the Black woman in the tweed pencil skirt as she came into his little room in Motel Hell. She spoke with the
good cheer of one greeting an old friend at the airport. “We haven’t been introduced yet! I’m Dr. Patrick. How are you feeling
today?”
The security guard was someone different today, a freckly boy, mid-twenties, built like a stack of bricks, curly yellow hair
and widely spaced, pale blue eyes that suggested an IQ hovering in the mid-eighties and a fondness for Archie comics. Dr. Patrick tugged out the straight-backed chair at the desk and turned it to face Van, who sat on the foot of the
bed. She settled and clapped her hands to her thighs and beamed at him, as if Van had promised her a surprise and she was
just waiting for it to be revealed.
“Well, Dr. Patrick,” Van said, clearing his throat. “When I want to take a shit, I have to call the desk for help, because
I can’t wipe my own ass. I spend at least sixteen hours a day in bondage gloves, which leaves my hands in terrific pain. When
I go to bed, they come off, but only so my wrists can be cuffed to some kind of plastic belt around my waist, which means
I can’t scratch or blow my nose. Last night I sneezed and wound up licking my own snot off my face. But I detoxed without
a convulsion and I’ve been clean and sober for at least three weeks now, and I’m surprisingly happy about that. Do I get a
thirty-day chip when it’s been a month?”
“Do you want a thirty-day chip?” Patrick asked. “Or do you want a cold, very dry martini? The executive kitchen makes a mean
one. If you want to help us out, we can probably start bringing you a Bloody Mary with breakfast. You like that, don’t you?”
It was an evil thing to dangle in front of him—as evil as one of King Sorrow’s suggestions. He waited to be overcome by desperate, humiliating need. Only the need didn’t come. He didn’t know until he slowly exhaled that he had been holding his breath.
“That’s more my wife’s drink. I always preferred an orange juice and a couple lines of cocaine.”
“Cocaine is on the table too, Donnie. I can make that happen. Medical grade.”
At that, his nerve endings throbbed with a prickling thrill of anticipated pleasure. This was followed by a clear, simple
thought, one he heard not in his own voice, but in Arthur’s: If you give in even once—if you take her coke, Van—they’ll own you forever, and Donna will be at their mercy.
But it wasn’t Arthur’s voice that made up his mind. It was his memory of Nurse Dover sitting on the floor of the hall, legs
hanging apart, laughing so hard that spit flew, her whole face turning a grotesque shade of red.
“Donovan,” he corrected, speaking with a firmness that surprised him—and surprised her. “It’s not Donnie. I hate that. Donovan
or Van, thanks. And: no. I want my sister back on the TV. I want to go outside for a walk, and I want Donna to join me.”
Dr. Patrick considered this, then whipped her BlackBerry out of the pocket of her tweed coat and made a note, typing furiously
with her thumbs.
“Van, that’s very reasonable. I think—”
“Hang on, I’m not done.”
“When she’s talking, you listen, bro,” said the kid with the wide-spaced eyes.
Van glanced at him. “Who are you?”
“Little Rock,” the kid said, and Van couldn’t help it, he laughed. A little dimple appeared between the kid’s eyebrows, suggesting
that a difficult and unpleasant thought was meandering through whatever passed for his mind.
“Salem,” Van said. “Little Rock. Lansing. The plebs are state capitals. The upper echelon are all saints. Francis. Valentine. You know the thing about saints, Dr. Patrick? Most of ’em got eaten by lions.
If I was in your shoes, I might be worried about running into something bigger than you. Something with an appetite.”
She didn’t look threatened. She looked delighted. “That something bigger is exactly what I want to talk to you about. I am
quite curious about the big fellow’s care and feeding.”
“Seems like you’re getting some firsthand experience with his feeding habits. How much of a mess did Allie make when you took
your second run at her, anyway? It was worse than Brooklyn, I know that, because Joe Valentine was gone for two weeks doing
damage control.”
“I’m not sure what you’re referring to,” Dr. Patrick said. “But we’d like very much to talk to you about Allison. We’re worried
about her.”
“Okay,” Van said, “this conversation is over, then, thanks very much, and let’s play again sometime. I’ll see about answering
your questions when you feel like you can answer a few of mine.”
Dr. Patrick studied him. He wondered if the glasses hanging around her neck were just for effect. Her stare struck him as
sharp and perceptive.
“Twelve men,” she said suddenly. “We don’t know how she made our people. She was approached with an exquisite level of care
this time. Three of them were in a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and your girl blew it right off the road and into a tree. Like it
was hit with a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher. It was burning upside down in a willow when the police got there. Quite a
thing.”
“I wish I could say I’m sorry, but truth is, I’m only sorry Allie didn’t get more. Course she will get more, before this is
done.” And then, without any transition, he said, “I want a CD player and some music. Anything the Stones recorded between
’68 and ’74 will do. And anything off Rod Stewart’s first four solo albums, but nothing from his career after that. I’ve been
made to suffer enough in this place.”
Dr. Patrick leaned back. Her legs were crossed. She watched him with satisfaction.
“And what do we get?”
“Well. We could start with what we call the thing that swatted a car into a willow tree. The thing that killed twelve of your men a few days ago and charbroiled three of your agents in Brooklyn at the end of November.”
She sat a little straighter, her eyes bright with expectation.
“King Sorrow,” Van said. “That’s his name. And God help you if he ever learns yours . . . whatever it really is, Dr. Patrick.”