Absolute Zero (31 page)

Earl had just lost
an argument with a nurse about trading his Percocet prescription up to morphine when his cell phone rang on the stand next to the bed. He just stared at it with fogged eyes because it could only be one person. So he let it ring. Fuck her.

Five hours out of the recovery room, his left cheek, chin, eye, and ear had turned deep black and blue. His neck was stiff. They said they were concerned about concussion. In the meantime, the staff kept popping in to
view
him: Earl Garf, the ostrich-kick novelty.

His left upper arm was now held together by a thirty-four-millimeter titanium rod. The surgeon had accessed the ball of the left humerus through an incision in the shoulder. Then he’d inserted the rod down the bone channel and, working under an X-ray machine to get his alignment, had joined the rod and broken bone in place with two screws. Then he sutured the gashes in Earl’s biceps, lightly casted the whole business, and folded it into a hanging traction sling.

The pain was nonspecific at this point, more like just everywhere. The fingers of his left hand peeked from the sling and were starting to resemble Oscar Meyer wieners, plump and brown-gray. But he could move them.

Because his neck was stiff, he had to rotate his whole upper body to turn his head. Percocet was not doing it. He needed morphine. He began to marshal his case to present to a doctor.

But then, after the phone stopped ringing his pager buzzed on the table. With difficulty, he swung his right arm across his chest and pressed the call button.

6666666.

The devil, the end of the world; the code he and Jolene used for a major emergency. Now what?

Again, with difficulty, he reached over to the table and manipulated his cell phone in his good hand. He punched Jolene’s wireless number.

She answered immediately except it wasn’t an answer, it was, “Earl, can you drive?”

“Hey, fuck you. I’m off the island, remember? I got a broken arm because of you. I may never bench-press again.”

“Listen, Earl, things just got serious,” Jolene said.

“Which part of ‘fuck you’ don’t you understand?”

“I mean serious, Earl; NoDak serious.”

More personal code. NoDak meant the convenience store in North Dakota. It meant life and death. “Okay. I’m listening,” he said.

“Good, because Hank’s talking.”

That brought him up sharp; the Percocet haze wavered and dimmed as a cold streak of sweat shot down the inside of his stitched broken arm. He tried to focus on the voice in the phone. “Hank is
talking
?” he repeated, incredulous.

“He’s not
word
-talking with his mouth, he’s
blink
-talking with his eyes. The point is—he’s communicating. You may remember certain conversations we had in front of him about you taking Stovall into the woods and leaving him to die nailed to a fucking tree?”

Kicked by an ostrich and now this. Unbelievable.
“So what’s he saying?”

“What happened was, this afternoon he tickled my hand with his finger. I didn’t call Allen or you because you guys laughed at me the other night. So I called Broker.”

“Sure, fine; makes
perfect sense
.” Earl was having trouble controlling his voice.

“Any rate, Broker comes over with this nurse . . .”

“Like real light blond?”

“Right. And we’re all excited and I’m not tracking—like, who is this chick? But she knows her stuff, she makes this alphabet board thing and gets him to wink to select letters to make words. Guess what his first word was?”

Earl gritted his teeth, heaved up, and swung his feet over the side of the bed. Funny how the idea of Hank talking put his pain in perspective. He eyed his clothes which hung on hooks in the small bathroom alcove. “What?”

“Killers.”

Earl started hyperventilating and struggled to get his breathing under control. “Did he name anybody?”

“Not exactly, he blinked out the words: ‘Not Amy fault.’ ”

“Who’s Amy?”

“The nurse Broker brought.”

“I don’t get it.” Earl discovered he had more than partial use of the fingers of his left hand, limited range; but he could painfully grasp and hold. Maybe he
could
drive. Thankfully his van was an automatic. He managed to pull on his jeans. He held the phone wedged to his ear with his good shoulder.

“She was the anesthetist in Ely. She’s one of the nurses we’re suing for Hank’s accident. She came down with Broker. They’re working together.”

“I still don’t . . .” But he had a bad feeling.

“Broker didn’t arrive just to deliver Hank’s truck, he used that as an excuse because he’d read about Stovall in the paper and he was suspicious. Then he tried to get close to me.”

“Try, shit. There was no daylight between you.”

“Well, that’s what he’s good at, see; the nurse got real excited about Hank. A regular babbling fucking brook. She was telling me how Broker was an undercover cop. BCA.”

Earl started hyperventilating again.

“Earl? You there?”

“Jesus. Fucking. Shit. We are—”

“Yeah, how do you think I feel. I said
was
—he’s retired. But he knows all these cops.”

“Shit!”

“We have one thing going for us. The last word Hank blinked was: ‘nurse.’ Then he was exhausted, or something; and he fell asleep. I have no idea what he’s getting at, but Broker and this Amy start making like detectives and think he meant the other nurse up there in the recovery room tried to kill him. So, I’m playing for time and I suggested we pack up Hank, drive up to Ely, and try his blinking routine on the nurse.”

“The old killer-nurse theory,” Earl said.

“It buys time. Maybe twenty-four hours.” She paused and Earl heard her exhale. “You sure can get offered some fucked choices in life,” she said.

“Amen,” Earl said.

“So, can you get a cab back here, pick up your van, and meet me up there?”

“Like you say, it’s a fucked choice, but I’m with you.” Despite his pain, Earl smiled because it felt like old times.

“Okay, we’re going to Broker’s uncle’s place. It’s called Uncle Billie’s Lodge, on Lake One. They say it’s just outside Ely. Any gas station can direct you. Nobody is there this time of year. You with me so far?”

“I’m still here. Uncle Billie’s Lodge on Lake One in Ely, Minnesota. Then what?”

“Page me with sixes when you get in position, like outside the front door. I’ll lure Broker out. Then I’ll try to distract him so you—”

“I get the picture.”

She paused, then said, “So you better bring
it
.”

“I thought we weren’t like that anymore,” Earl said, clicking his teeth.

“I don’t see any other way,” Jolene said.

She clicked off the phone,
flicked her cigarette, and watched it spiral out, sparks in the gloom. She straightened up her shoulders and raked her fingers through her short hair.

She reminded herself that
she
didn’t kill that guy in North Dakota.

And she wasn’t going to kill Amy and Broker, either.

They’d folded down the
rear seat and put in a futon mattress and blankets. Broker lashed Hank’s wheelchair to the rack on the roof. Hank slept on his side with a pillow between his knees. Amy was stretched out next to him. Jolene rode shotgun. They had good tires and a full tank of gas. The heater worked just fine.

“I don’t want to talk to anyone until he gets a full night’s rest. And he’s fed. And he’s comfortable with his new surroundings,” Jolene said.

“Understood,” said Broker, who was feeling very agreeable. The day had taken on an irresistible momentum. Hope rode with them. Broker wondered if the brief exercise with the alphabet system could foreshadow some kind of recovery.

He settled in and focused his attention on the cold, empty pavement unreeled in the Jeep’s high beams. Interstate 35 going north was almost deserted, as if the plunging temperature and the wind had swept away the cars.

Earl heaved out of
the cab with his trench coat slipping off his shoulders. He was only able to get his good arm in a sleeve. The shredded left sleeve hung empty. Cursing at his clumsiness, he paid the cabbie and fumbled one-handed in his jeans pockets for his keys. Just as Jolene had said, the house was deserted and his van was in the garage. Goddamn chickenshit Rodney still had the Ford.

He lurched going through the door and slammed his sling against the doorjamb.

“GODDAMN SONOFABITCH!”

The curses echoed in the empty house. They’d left for up north: Jolene, Hank, Broker, and the smarty-pants nurse with the alphabet board. Now he had to follow them. And he didn’t want to think about what was going to happen.

Shit.

He was still wearing his hospital gown under his coat. A nurse had knotted the belt around his waist as he rushed through processing. He wasn’t wearing undershorts. Or socks.

His shoes weren’t tied.

All that was too hard, bending with his cast and sling and the swollen fingers.

And he was hungry, but he didn’t have time for that, either.

Plus, he hurt, but he couldn’t afford to take any more of the pills because he was heading into a four-hour drive. Muttering, he went down the stairs and stooped to the file cabinet next to his computer and opened the bottom drawer. In the back, behind some folders, he located the small canvas zipper case. With difficulty, using his numb left fingers to wedge the case against his hip, he unzipped the case. He removed the heavy Colt automatic and the two loaded magazines—fat, stumpy bullets in a staggered row. They looked like spring-loaded teeth from a small tyrannosaurus rex. Earl shook his head. The pistol was a fossil from another era.

He tried to remember the last time he’d cleaned the .45.

Hell, he hadn’t even fired the thing for years. Stovall hadn’t known that, though.

Goddamn Jolene. This off-and-on roller coaster had to cease. When this is done, we’re going to take the money and go someplace warm. An island, maybe, full of people who speak a different language to limit her ability to get into messes.

He inserted the magazine, pulled the slide with difficulty. Snicker-snack, the mechanism loaded a round in the chamber. Okay. He set the safety. Then he put the other magazine in his jacket pocket, grabbed at a fleece sweater, some socks, gloves, a hat. He stuffed them in the first thing that came to hand—a plastic bag from CompUSA. Funny, he hadn’t been to CompUSA lately.

It’d be cold up north.

Which forced him to think in practical terms. The ground would be permafrost, impossible to dig; and he couldn’t anyway with his arm. So hopefully the lakes wouldn’t be frozen, because that’s where they’d have to put Broker and the nurse.

And what about Hank?

He was in the middle of this thought, coming up the steps into the kitchen, headed for the refrigerator, hoping to find something to eat real quick—

When the needles raked his bare ankle.

Goddamn fucking cat!

Everything that had happened and now this. It blew his stopper. He yanked the Colt from his pocket with his good right hand, flicked the safety, and—

BLAAM!

He blasted a round at the ball of gray fur and scrambling claws and punched a ricochet notch in the floor tile that sent shards of terra-cotta flying all over, pinging off the walls and windows.

The empty casing flipped over in a plume of cordite and tinkled in the heavy burner grates on the stove.

Fucking cat was still booking through the living room.

BLAAM!

Missed again, hit the far wall, and the impact knocked two pictures down.

“I’ll get you when I come back,” Earl shouted, his ears stinging from the violence of the shots. He shook his head. Cat crossing his path, a bad sign at the beginning of a bad project.

Swinging his gun hand to clear the blur of cordite in the air, he opened the refrigerator, found nothing easy to carry except four cans of Diet Pepsi linked by a web of white plastic. He put his gun back in his pocket, took the soda and a box of day-old glazed doughnuts from the cupboard, and went to the garage and got in his van.

Ten minutes later he was driving west on Highway 36 heading for the junction of I-35. He had three-quarters of a tank of gas, and he was on his second doughnut and was halfway through a Pepsi.

Steppenwolf was playing on KQRS. Which was a good sign. It canceled out the cat. He rubbed the head of the
War Wolf
action figure taped to the dashboard, then reached down and turned the volume up all the way, gobbled the rest of the sugar dough, and rocked behind the wheel.

Heavy metal thunder . . .

For better or worse, that’s me,
he thought.

Here I come.

Allen sprinted through the
pines, crashed through some underbrush, and jumped in his car. Their fault, not mine, he thought as he sped away, shifting through the gears.

I could have stopped it right there. Hank dies peacefully in his sleep. The End. But no, they had to come back. Now more people will have to pay.

Interesting the way the logic worked in this new world. Clearly they were bringing this on themselves. Almost with a mind of its own, the Saab raced toward the Timberry Trails Hospital. He visualized the procedure he must perform; he knew exactly what he had to do next and what he needed to do it.

He’d be reversing his skill-set, operating outside the OR.

The opposite of fixing.

He put his chances at one in three of getting out of this.

“One in three,” he said out loud.

But, if he correctly understood Jolene’s phone conversation with Garf, he had some leverage. He now recalled the odd talk he’d had with Garf about crucifixion, just after Hank came home from Regions, after they discovered his health insurance had lapsed. And after they’d discovered that Hank’s wacko accountant had put all Hank’s funds in a trust where Jolene couldn’t get to it.

And then the accountant was found frozen, nailed to a tree, taking masochistic body piercing to a new height. Everyone at the hospital had talked about it. Preoccupied with his own dilemma, he had not put Garf’s questions, and his own precise advice about the placement of the nail, together with Stovall’s death. Clearly Garf was trying to reclaim Hank’s money for Jolene. Clearly Garf was much more dangerous than previously thought.

And so was Jolene.

And so was he.

Congratulations, Allen. You finally made it to the bigs.

Timberry Trails Hospital appeared
below him on its own cloverleaf; compact, red brick, it could have been a small bible college.

Allen had leapfrogged the tango. He imagined he was wearing spurs, that they jingled. He parked and took his doctor’s bag and walked through the icy dusk toward the main entrance. The parking lot was almost empty. A slow end to the day. The OR would be practically deserted unless they got emergency business. Or they brought a woman down from Maternity who needed a C-section.

There’d just be a bored anesthetist on call, probably watching television in the anesthesia office.

He let himself in the side door and slipped down a stairwell and came out in the hall near the pre op desk.

Just as he expected, the corridors on either side of the red line were deserted. And the sounds of college football came from the only office door that was open.

Allen removed his watch from his left hand and put it in his pocket. Then he poked his head in the door. A lean young man dressed in blue scrubs and bonnet looked up, then came alert.

“Hey, Allen, what are you doing here? Is there something scheduled I don’t know about?”

“Nah, Jerry; I just need a favor.”

“What’s up?”

Allen held up his left hand and pointed to his bare wrist. “I left my watch somewhere in here. The last place I was before I left today was the anesthesia workroom, talking to Jeannie. Toss me the keys for a sec.”

Jerry reached in his pocket and flipped a key ring. Allen caught it and paused, feigning interest in the TV. “Who do you like?” he asked.

“Notre Dame.”

“I’ll be right back.”

The anesthesia workroom was just three doors down the corridor. Allen found the key and opened the door. He hit the light switch and went in. The room was designed like a long, gray closet lined with cabinets and shelves. The center of the room was jammed with anesthesia carts from the day’s surgery.

Off to the side, Allen saw what he was looking for: an anesthesia tray that hadn’t been cracked for a cart and had been set aside to be returned to the pharmacy.

He snapped open his bag, unsealed the tray, and took several ampules and stopper bottles of narcotics. He selected some needles, closed the tray, and returned it to the counter on the far side of the room. He found an elastic tourniquet in one of the open carts. From the cabinets along the wall, he took a couple of IV bags, some IV tubing, and another bottle filled with white liquid. He snapped his bag shut.

Time elapsed, less than two minutes. He slipped his watch back on his wrist, turned off the lights, closed the door, and went back down the hall.

“Bingo,” he said to Jerry, holding up his hand that now sported his Rolex. “Right next to the sink where I thought it was.”

Jerry, deep in his game, just held up his open palm. Allen dropped the keys into it and hurried from the hospital. Going to his car he ignored the frigid air that ice-picked his eyes. It was time to focus. To visualize the task ahead. He drove toward the Interstate on deserted asphalt starched with frost.

The procedure would be easy. The people would be the problem. He thought of Jolene and Garf as patients on a mission, propelled by crude ideas and armed with cruder implements. There would be complications.

Allen took a deep breath, calculated—no, he was wagering now, betting. Gambling.

He flipped open his cell phone and pressed some plastic, keying in the letters: GA. The Caller ID function searched his queue. Because Garf was assisting in Hank’s home care, Allen had logged his cell and pager numbers.

Garf’s name, followed by his number, popped up on the screen. Now it all depended on Garf having his cell phone and pager close at hand. His car ran smoothly and he was gaining ground. Perhaps the fierce cold pressing on the windshield helped concentrate his mind. His reflexes were functioning perfectly. He had never believed in luck.

Until now.

He punched in Garf’s cell number.

One ring, two, three. Patience, Garf had the broken arm.

“What now?” answered a surly voice after ring four.

“I wouldn’t stop in Ely and ask directions to Uncle Billie’s Lodge if I were you. Especially wearing a cast and considering what you and Jolene are planning for Broker and the nurse.”

Long pause. Then: “Who the hell is this?”

“Professor Rath.” Allen smiled.

“What a minute,” Garf said through the road noise. Then. “Okay. I know who you are. Give me a reason why I should continue this conversation.”

“Because it turns out we have a lot in common. Where are you right now?” Allen asked.

“Heading north. I just passed Cambridge.”

“Stop at Tobie’s when you get to Hinckley,” Allen said. Tobie’s restaurant was the traditional halfway pit stop to Duluth. “What are you driving?”

“I’m in the van. Freezing my ass.”

“Park in the lot, stay in the van. I’ll find you.” Allen switched off the phone and stepped on the accelerator. It was an amazing sensation. His life was rolling like dice.