DEATHLOOP (37 page)

“So it
is
me, that’s what you’re saying, it’s me bringing this on myself.”

“Well I’d say it was more likely than the regression, wouldn’t you?”

“So the next question is
why
I have come up with these particular scenarios.”

“There is a link if you think about it… you admit that you have always been motivated by self-interest. You’ve used people for your own ends, then when they have served their purpose you’ve just tossed them aside and walked away, and I speak from personal experience here…”

“Yes, yes, you poor old sod, we know…”

“Now maybe all that collateral damage as you put it has started to haunt you. You have found a conscience from somewhere and that new discovery has pointed up the fact that for years you got by very happily without one. This time it
matters
that you can’t help these people, whereas at one time it wouldn’t have mattered at all.”

“I helped Sam Stein remember, I scooped him up when no one would give him the time of day.”

“I’d say that Sam was the exception to the rule, although even that is suspect.”

“Hey, don’t shatter that illusion please, Justin, it’s the only one I’ve got left.”

Justin was about to, but thought better of it.

“So what you’re saying is that these visions are a way of me coming to terms with my past, a way of me understanding and processing my shortcomings?”

“Symbols of a learning process maybe… after all that’s what life is meant to be about. It might stop on its own,” said Justin after a moment, “now you’ve acknowledged it.”

“It won’t.”

“What makes you so sure?

“I just know it won’t.”

Jason had stationed himself outside Zack’s apartment block yet again, but again no sign. He had asked Tracy about Zack’s run-in with the police, but had got nowhere.

“He’s my best friend,” said Jason, so ingenuously it made Tracy smile, “if he’s in trouble I need to know about it.”

“What is it about Zack Fortune, tell me?”

Jason did not reply immediately thinking the question might be a trick. “He’s the best in the business, did you know that?”

“He’s a good lawyer by all accounts but he’s not the only one. Jason, I think you should just forget Zack Fortune.”

“He’s still my lawyer,” said Jason, “he always will be, and my own special friend.”

Zack arrived back in London just before 12 and went straight to Tracy’s office telling her that he had to see her. Tracy kept Zack waiting for over an hour and although he was annoyed at this, arriving unannounced the way he did he accepted that he probably couldn’t expect anything else. After their last conversation Zack presumed Tracy would still be miffed, but it didn’t look that way.

“You’re in the clear with Susan, we’ve just heard… they’d never get a conviction and they know that,” she said, once she’d ushered him inside her office, uttering the words Zack had longed to hear for what seemed like his entire life, “we’ve got the drugs charge to contend with but that’s peanuts in comparison. Still no news on Russell, but I don’t think anything will come of that… I’d be surprised if it did.”

Zack flopped into a chair feeling curiously deflated by the news. The idea of things improving after so much adversity didn’t strike him as fortunate, it struck him as sinister.

“I thought you’d be cock-a-hoop,” said Tracy, a little thrown by Zack’s muted response.

“I wouldn’t dare.”

“By the way, Jason is complaining that you won’t reply to his calls. He seems to know about the arrest too somehow…”

Zack groaned. “Tell him I’ve emigrated, what is it with this kid?”

“So what are your plans?” said Tracy, brightly, trying to sound positive. “Tell me.”

“
Plans
?” said Zack, as though he was unfamiliar with the word.

“Sits vac?”

“Hell no,” said Zack, for whom the idea of gainful employment right now was too dreary for words.

“It was Susan who told Geoff, by the way, not Sam.”

“Susan? Are you sure?”

“Sam Stein doesn’t lie about stuff like that, if he says it was Susan, that’s good enough for me.”

“So the rift is healed?”

“He didn’t betray me Tracy, nothing in this world matters more than that.”

Tracy threw him an amused frown and Zack knew immediately what it meant.

“We’re not lovers or anything, well, we’ve never had sex, but without him… there’s just this void. When we’re not speaking like this, when it’s rubbish between us, I tick over, but it’s not what I’d call life. Can I go and see him?”

“No, that’s not a good idea, write him a note.”

“Very Jane Austen,” said Zack.

Their conversation was over and Tracy’s body language indicated this but Zack remained where he was, his head a battlefield of various thoughts.

“Listen, I’m a shit, okay, but I do recognize good people when I come across them. I’m sorry if I’ve driven you nuts or been a pain in the arse, it wasn’t intentional and it wasn’t you either, it was just me, this apology for a human being, perilously close to the edge of the cliff.”

Tracy came round her desk and perched on it, right in front of him.

“I’m a bit lost, Tracy,” said Zack, “and I don’t know what to do…”

The depth of feeling Zack had expressed in these few words required something more than platitudes but it was something that Tracy was unable to provide because their relationship precluded it. She took his hand and gave it a squeeze and Zack put it up against his cheek and held it there, but the touch of Zack’s skin aroused feelings in Tracy she’d struggled to keep in check since she’d first laid eyes on the man, so after a few awkward moments she pulled her hand back and straightened up.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Time for you to go home, Zack Fortune.”

Zack apologized once more before leaving Tracy’s office, darting along the street and throwing himself back into his car. He didn’t want a physical relationship with Tracy so why be so manipulative with the woman? He decided that the truth was he had relied on Tracy and soon he would be without her and he was missing her already. But more than that, his obsessive need for Sam and Clarissa, and Veronica and Justin and Tracy and Rose even, was beginning to frighten him. This was new, and it was unwelcome and it left Zack feeling pathetic.

Zack had to accept now that he was unravelling, the ball of wool had rolled off somewhere and there would only be an end to all this when the ball was no more.

For two days Zack had been fielding calls and texts from Veronica who was as anxious about Zack as everyone else now seemed to be. When Clarissa had called her to try and track him down, Veronica knew immediately something was up and begged Clarissa to tell her. Clarissa did tell her, keen for her to know the kind of man she was dealing with, convinced that Veronica would be unable to cope once the truth was out, thereby dumping Zack and returning him to the fold. But Veronica was onto this straight away, and wanting to get Zack’s take on things, leaving him umpteen messages telling him to come and stay for a few days, telling him that they could get through this.

Back at the flat more messages churned out from his phone - Jason, Clarissa, Veronica, Justin and Susan. Zack didn’t listen to any of them, just flicked onto the next as soon as he recognized the voice. He wanted more than anything to see Sam, and although he knew he’d been banned from even thinking about it as the afternoon wore on and the evening came and went he became obsessed with the idea. For some reason Zack got it into his head that if he visited Sam at night it wouldn’t count, so he set off at nine as darkness fell.

Finding his way around the rather grand private hospital in St Johns Wood proved easier than Zack had dared hope. No one stopped him or asked him what he was doing as he followed directions to ‘Nottingham’ ward on the fourth floor. Opening up the main door gave him access to a short corridor, rows of doors ran along it on either side, names on cards indicating the identity of their inhabitants. He found the name Samuel Stein and after a moment’s hesitation he knocked and entered.

Sam was sitting up in bed, remote control in hand, listlessly flicking channels as Zack crossed the room towards him. Sam had a call device somewhere and without averting his gaze he caught the glow of its big red button reflected in his covers, waiting patiently to be pressed but Sam decided not to press it, after all, that would be the less interesting option.

He didn’t fear Zack any more. He acknowledged that what had happened between them was the culmination of weeks of trauma and paranoia, and he also knew that Zack deeply regretted his actions. Clarissa had told him, but he knew that already, even as Zack was pounding his fist into his face. He also knew what it meant, that he, more than anyone on the planet still had the capacity to hurt Zack, which told him just how much Zack still cared.

Inwardly, Sam smiled at the justification, reminiscent as it was of the beaten wife with so little self-esteem that she found herself trotting back time and again to a man who one day would kill her. And just like the wife beater, Zack had no need to exercise himself too much with excuses because Sam always made them for him. For all Sam’s posturing and threats to dump Zack they were still joined at the hip, and bizarrely the fight only served to emphasise the fact.

“You look worse than me, mate,” said Sam.

“Listen, Sam…”

“Forget it,” he said, lifting up his left arm to show the fine scar that still remained from their drunken ‘blood brothers’ episode 20 years earlier, “these things happen in families.”

Sam’s unexpected forgiveness hit Zack like a thumping great wave and fighting an urge to start sobbing, he took three shaky steps to a chair and dropped into it, the silence between them broken only by echoing disconnected sounds from other places. A good ten minutes passed as both men allowed themselves to tacitly heal and for the first time in weeks Zack felt safe tucked away in this little room with Sam Stein as his guardian and companion.

“You shouldn’t be here should you?” said Sam, finally.

“No, so don’t tell anyone,” said Zack, making Sam smile, “especially not Tracy, she’ll dump me.”

“Will I ever be free of you, you bastard?”

“Not if I’ve got anything to do with it.”

Within minutes Zack was asleep. Zack crashed out awkwardly in an old chair or on a sofa or on the floor was a familiar sight to Sam and it was hugely reassuring. He gazed across at his old friend and it felt like he’d come home.

When Clarissa turned up at midnight she was at first shocked then moved to see the two men in her life dozing like puppies. Zack woke with a start, sensing he was being watched.

“Clarissa, what are you doing here?” whispered Zack.

“Much the same as you, I imagine, I’ve come to see Sam.”

“At this time?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“We’ve made it up by the way,” said Zack, beaming, like a child reporting back some playground feud that had finally been settled.

“That’s great news.”

“He’s not still going on with this separation thing is he?”

Clarissa shrugged.

“He gets a bee in his bonnet sometimes,” said Zack, aware even before he had voiced it of the understatement, “well, you know he does.”

“I think it was to do with you really.”

“What?”

“He was hurting so he lashed out at me. He’s always blamed me for the dead people anyway, for tipping you over the edge…”

“We’re okay again all three of us,” said Zack, moving towards her and taking her in his arms, “I just know it.”

They were still holding onto each other when a large black nurse came in, stopping briefly when she saw them, then crossing to Sam’s side. Clarissa and Zack watched her make her checks, both sensing almost straight away that something was wrong.

“He’s okay isn’t he?” asked Zack, his stomach on a nose-dive to the floor.

“Would you mind stepping outside,” said the nurse, herding them out of the room like naughty infants.

“What’s happening?” asked Clarissa.

The nurse made no reply, she just shot off pretty sharpish and disappeared. In the corridor, Clarissa and Zack sank into two hard backed chairs, fear bringing them to silence. A few moments later the nurse reappeared with a young Asian doctor who followed her into Sam’s room, closing the door firmly behind them. When the door reopened a short time later, the doctor asked to speak with Clarissa alone.

“Oh God, Clarissa, what is it?” said Zack, as Clarissa came back to join him. “Clarissa… what’s happened, tell me.”

“They think… a hematoma…” said Clarissa in a daze, “is that it?”

“What? What is that?”

“They have to open up the skull or something, is that right? Is that what they do? Relieving pressure… some bleeding that they need to drain away…” she said, her voicing trailing off, then suddenly a flash of anger,
“So why didn’t they get on with it before? What the fuck else have they been doing?
”

“Jesus Christ,” said Zack, honestly thinking his heart was about to stop, “but he was fine, he was talking and he looked okay.”

“That’s what can happen, they said… part and parcel apparently.”

Clarissa and Zack held onto each other like shipwrecks as a press gang of medical staff trooped up and headed into Sam’s room. Moments later they came out again, pushing Sam along past them and out of sight.

“So what happens now?”

“We wait,” whispered Clarissa, “what else can we do?”

A nurse led them to a private room, small, claustrophobic with a TV hoisted high up in the corner of the ceiling as though anyone would want to watch TV under these circumstances. More dreary and depressing a place Zack thought would be hard to find. Suddenly he needed to speak with Veronica and walked straight out again, finding a quiet corner in a corridor.

“Zack, where are you? Why the hell haven’t you phoned?”

“Sam’s in trouble Veronica, they’re operating right now.”

“Oh God,” she said, completely thrown by the seriousness in Zack’s voice, “shall I come over?”

“What if he dies Veronica, I’ll have killed him, Sam Stein dead and all because of me.”