In Constant Fear (26 page)

“The Mickey Mouse Kid?” I finally whispered.

He looked up from his screen—now it was his turn to stare. “Yes . . . Mickey Mouse! He had this tattoo . . . How did you know that?”

“Picked up in one of the streets off the Square?”

He thought for a minute. “Yes, I believe he was,” he said, staring at me, waiting for an explanation.

I damn near threw up. I damn near screamed at the top of my voice in protest at a world that would allow such an abomination.
Jesus, no, no, no—!
Arturo's heart was still living, still beating—but in the body of Nora Jagger. What kinda obscenity was that?

“You knew him?” the Doc asked.

“Arturo,” I told him.

“Not Mickey Mouse?” he joked, and for a moment I almost lost it; I could've almost taken my rage out on him.

“He was a friend,” I told him, my voice as chilled as my heart. “More than a friend. I was with him when he died.”

“Oh,” the Doc said, now looking more than a bit intimidated. “I'm sorry—they just brought him in . . . His heart was—well, still is—a freak of nature. Especially for a boy of that age. It's hugely enlarged.”

Both of us went quiet. The Doc's cocktail of drugs, micro-lasers and programming, whatever, was still pulsing through me, but I couldn't think of anything but what I'd just been told. Of all the cruel ironies: that warm, funny, loveable little guy's heart ending up in the body of the foulest, most sadistic person I've ever known. And what I then realized, what made it so much more painful, was that if there was any chance at all of us surviving this, it would mean killing Nora Jagger—or to put it another way, by stopping Arturo's heart all over again.

It was almost too much to take in, so many unbearable thoughts, so many torturous ironies, twisting their blades in my head. Who would've ever dreamed that little Arturo still had a hand to play in this? I mean, it was entirely appropriate that such a special little guy should've had a freakishly big heart, and yet entirely
inappropriate
that it would be used for anything but to delight us.

I knew how much it'd upset the others, especially Delilah, so I swore the Doc to secrecy. Nobody needed to know but us, and that was the way I intended to keep it. Arturo was dead and had been for over a year, the only thing that lived now was his memory, and that would live forever.

When the program had finally finished running, the Doc unhitched the various connections and put organi-plasters on the points of entry. My legs and arms continued to twitch as if some sensations were still in there looking for an emergency escape route.

He ran the scanner again, this time looking that bit pleased with himself.

“Is it okay?” I asked.

“I think we've got it,” he said, breaking into a smile.

I was just about to give out with a cry of relief, to thank the guy from the bottom of my heart, when he suddenly stopped and frowned. “Damn!”

“What?”

“There's something left,” he said, pointing at the screen. “There—prefrontal cortex. It's really dug in.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I don't know,” he replied, “but if I had to guess . . . I'd say it's the part that gets keyed.”

“Total submission?”

“Maybe,” he answered.

“That figures.”

He paused for a moment, as if looking for any compensation there might be. “But the thing is—at least for the moment, Clancy—you're no threat to anyone.”

I could've celebrated, of course; I could've run over there and rampaged through the house, got them all up, hugged and kissed them, held Thomas in my arms, gone to bed with Lena, but after what had happened earlier, what I'd just learned about Arturo, I thought I'd leave it 'til the morning.

I spent the night in the barn, despite the Doc's reassurances, too scared to sleep in case Nora Jagger could still invade my dreams, waiting till dawn, letting him go over first to tell them the news.

It took less than a minute for Lena to appear on the porch, Thomas in her arms, calling my name—I was running toward them before she hit the second syllable. We hugged and kissed, cried and laughed, and though I tried to apologize for the previous night, she wouldn't listen. Soon the others came out, obviously having given us a few moments on our own—Jimmy and Delilah, Hanna and Gordie, and a rather spent-looking Nick—but we knew the celebrations had to be kept short, that Nora Jagger might appear at any moment.

We didn't have that many options. I told them I'd been on my way to the Commune, and they all agreed it might be the one place we'd be safe (that crazy irony again: a punishment satellite affording us protection). Within minutes we were frantically packing. Lena and me warned them about how far it was, the many hills, the width of the plain, and I gotta say, Lile didn't look that happy about it, but Jimmy was already rushing around deciding what tools and techno
to take, the stuff he absolutely couldn't live without, the glimmer in his eyes no doubt down to the prospect of being reunited with a working punishment satellite.

Gordie and Hanna helped Nick bring the bed outta the house, Miriam's prostrate body shaking a little as they jolted it down off the porch and onto the ground. There was a brief but unquestionably awkward silence: I turned to Lena, and Jimmy and Delilah turned to me. Did Nick really intend to push her all the way, even after we'd told him how difficult it was gonna be? Then again, what choice did he have? He could hardly leave her behind.

There was no actual discussion, but it soon became apparent that the Doc was coming with us. I guess preservation of his luxury lifestyle was one thing but the preservation of his buttered hide was another. Life with Nora Jagger was no longer so much dangerous as suicidal; apparently no one was safe, not even her personal physician and programmer.

Thankfully there wasn't the same hostility toward him that there had been, especially after what he'd done for me—and let's face it, he could've brought Nora Jagger and the entire Bodyguard back with him. Not that I was about to put my full trust in him, not for one minute, but I was happy to sit back and watch for any signs of a long game developing. In any case, I was quietly pleased he was coming along and I guess I don't have to tell you why. The Doc took that fancy medical computer of his everywhere and for sure it would be accompanying him to the Commune. I was still hoping that somewhere amongst all this there might be an opportunity for him to give Lena back her sight again.

We hid the Bentley in the woods, covering it with branches like we had our first limo. The Doc was a long way from happy about it, insisting on overseeing the operation himself, making sure nobody scratched the bodywork—though I gotta say, he was that bit more resigned to the situation.

We sure looked like an odd bunch: Lena carrying Thomas in his favorite blue and white blanket, Lile being her “seeing eye,” leading the pair of them—though to be honest, at times it was hard to know
who was leading who. Gordie and Hanna were riding the Typhoon Tandem, circling around us, both still a little shaken by what'd happened to Gigi—though oddly, I think it was more her than him. He'd tried to put his arm around her at one point and she'd pushed him away as if he was being somehow disrespectful.

The Doc was dressed like he was going on a country picnic, all cool in a cream linen suit, except he was carrying that very businesslike shiny black case of his. As for Jimmy, despite my warnings, he was laden down with more junk than I would've thought possible, like one of those ants carrying a huge leaf. And finally, and yeah, without doubt the oddest sight of all, was Nick pulling Miriam in her bed, with me following along behind to give them a push.

I've never seen a man so devoted to his wife. He kept talking to her all the time—for sure he had longer conversations with her than he did me. All he said in my direction was to be careful not to upset her by going too fast or over bumps. I mean, what I could see of her, the top of her greasy gray head, the fact that she never spoke, I couldn't help but wonder how he'd know if she
was
getting upset. The only time she'd apparently roused herself since coming to the farm had been when she'd attempted to kill him.

Slowly we headed off toward the Interior, once we reached the steeper hills having to occasionally drag Gordie away from Hanna and the tandem to help with the bed, him predictably grumbling to me outta the side of his mouth.

“If he knew he was gonna have to drag her, you'd think he'd've put her on a diet,” he muttered.

What with Miriam, and Lena having to stop every now and then to take care of Thomas, we weren't exactly making rapid progress—at the rate we were going I reckoned it'd take us a couple of days just to reach the plain. The Doc started to complain about his suede shoes, that he hadn't expected the ground to be so wet, and poor old Lile was getting slower and slower; instead of being an asset to Lena she was actually turning into something of a liability. There wasn't much point in hassling them, we were probably going as fast as we could, but the fact that I was bringing up the rear meant I was forever looking over
my shoulder, expecting to see the Bitch and her Bodyguard coming after us at any moment.

We stopped for the night at the top of this low hill, with a pretty good view all around, a bit of a drop on one side so it had only two approaches. The meal was eaten more or less in silence, everyone keen to turn in, to make up for what had been lost that day and to build up for what we'd need for the next.

For Lena and me, of course, it was something of an occasion. We hadn't slept together for several nights and it felt a bit like a free pass to heaven—and that despite the fact that Thomas was in with us and pretty fractious about all the changes he could feel about him. He cried and grizzled a lot more than he slept, meaning that we had to pack in everything we could whenever he gave us the odd moment of opportunity.

“I've missed you so much,” she whispered.

“Me, too . . . not sure about him though,” I joked, the little guy already thinking about restarting his motor.

Lena stuck him to her breast like an organi-plaster, doing her best not to allow him to spoil our mood, reattaching her lips to mine in seconds.

Later, when the little guy finally succumbed to sleep and she'd followed along after him, I was left lying there listening to the breeze climbing the hill, rippling the long grass, the occasional distant echoey hoot of an owl. I was so tired, but every time my eyes closed, every time I felt myself falling, I'd panic and wake with a start. I couldn't rid myself of the fear that the Bitch'd be waiting for me in there, that she might order me to do something truly terrible.

No matter our good intentions, it took us a while to get going in the morning. For some reason Miriam was off her food and had to be coaxed into eating anything at all. Eventually, with the sun just a short bounce into the sky, we set off in our usual laborious fashion.

The first hill of the day was a real thigh-breaker, and the Doc had to join Gordie and me in pushing the bed. All the way up we were
hoping that was it; that the top would reward us with a view of the plain, but when we got there, there was another hill or two to go.

The downward slope on the other side might not have been such hard work, but for sure it was more traumatic: at one point we lost it completely. The bed suddenly swerved to one side, knocked Nick and Gordie off-balance, and the Doc and me, completely caught by surprise, couldn't hold on. Everyone except Lena and Lile scrambled after it, Hanna jumping off the tandem, Jimmy dropping his junk, and eventually, thanks partly to it getting held up by some bushes, we managed to get it back under control. Nick was so upset, scrambling down to the bed and fussing over Miriam something terrible.

“Hey! It's okay, darling! I'm sorry, I'm sorry—!”

The Doc and me exchanged looks, Gordie shook his head like the whole thing was madness, and eventually we resumed our slow and strained descent. It really was starting to be something of a problem. As much as I respected Nick's feelings for his wife, it didn't make any sense for all of us to be caught by Nora Jagger 'cuz of them.

We got to the bottom and started up the other side and once again the summit taunted us, pretending it was close, only to slip away as we got nearer. We had to keep stopping to get our breath back, and the Doc upset Nick by sitting on the bed.

“D'you mind?” he said.

“Sorry,” the Doc replied, glancing at Miriam as if to say that he was sure she didn't care one way or the other.

Doc Simon and me resumed our places at the back of the bed, and once again he gave me a look, but this time it was different. When we'd got going, the bed creaking and groaning, he muttered to me outta the corner of his mouth, “You know she's dead, don't you?”

I looked at him, continuing to push, not quite taking in his words. “Really?”

“I had an idea she might be earlier.”

“Shit,” I hissed, the pair of us keeping going, neither wanting to be the one to stop and be asked why.

I can't tell ya how difficult that situation became. We were no longer pushing a sick woman, but a corpse—this was a funeral
procession now, and it shouldn't be allowed to hold us up. But how the hell could we tell Nick?

We battled slowly on, Miriam now feeling somehow different: dull, absent—lifeless, I guess. And the odd thing was, one by one the others started to pick up on it. Gordie pretended he had to stop for a moment to retie one of his boots. He took the opportunity to look in at her, and somehow managed to pass on the news to Hanna. But still we kept pushing, still we pretended nothing was wrong, cowering before the thought of breaking this man's big heart.

When we reached the top we paused, finally able to gaze out at the wide expanse of the plain, my heart thumping—I couldn't put it off any longer.