The Frankenstein Factory (13 page)

“That …
thing
has to be destroyed!” Tony insisted. “I couldn’t believe it till now, but the evidence doesn’t lie!”

“Let’s examine that evidence,” Earl said, trying to calm both men. “Evidence can be faked, you know. The sand, the blood, the skin scrapings—it all could have been brought here by the real murderer, and that could be any one of us. Dr. Armstrong is down here every hour; Hobbes and Tony and Vera have all been here; I’ve been here myself a half-dozen times.”

“Is it worth taking a chance?” Tony asked. His voice was soft but intense.

“Yes!”
Hobbes shouted the word. “Man, we’re making medical history! To MacKenzie this operation was more important than his walk on the moon. It was the single event in his life that would enshrine his name forever with the great surgeons. Don’t you see that?”

“MacKenzie is
dead!
” Tony reminded him. “Are we going to enshrine his name or avenge his murder?”

Hobbes turned back to the operating table, gesturing now in something close to frenzy. “Look at him.
Look at him!
We haven’t seen him off that table since Sunday night’s operation! Are you going to tell me he could have gotten up and roamed around this island
five times
in three days without anyone seeing him?”

“Five people saw him,” Tony replied. “They’re all dead.”

“Bullshit! You’re not going to ruin all my work here just for your wild theories.”

“We just got a bad brain,” Tony said, trying to calm him with some sort of compromise. “It was an experiment and it failed. We’ll try again with another body, another brain.”

“Try again? With MacKenzie and O’Connor both dead? Who’d perform the operation?
You,
Doctor?” His tone was deliberately sarcastic.

“You could assemble another team.”

“There’s no money for another team! There’s no money for anything unless this succeeds!”

“What about Miss Watson’s money?”

Hobbes waved that away. “Miss Watson is gone.”

“Is it just the money?” Tony asked. “Or is it some twisted sense of pride?”

But the fight had gone out of Lawrence Hobbes as quickly as it had come. He bowed his head and suddenly he was just an old, somewhat overweight man whose white hair hung down over his eyes. “Go on,” he said quietly. “Get out of here—all of you.”

Tony Cooper stood firm. “Not until I’ve destroyed that thing.”

Hobbes reached inside his loose-fitting shirt and pulled out something which Earl at once recognized as a small laser pistol. “I said get out,” Hobbes repeated. “Out!”

Cooper retreated a few steps. “All right,” he agreed. “We’ll go, for now.”

As they filed out of the amphitheater Earl glanced back to see Hobbes leaning against the operating table, one arm resting protectively across the body of his patient.

“Is he safe there alone with that thing?” Vera asked when they were together in the corridor.

“By
thing
do you mean Frank or the laser gun?” Tony asked her. “I’d think the laser could protect him from Frank. And if it doesn’t, there’ll be no one to keep us from destroying him next time.”

Dr. Armstrong made a low, rumbling in his throat. “The man is still my patient. I hope you don’t think I’d be a party to any act of violence against him.”

“You just stand aside, Doc, or look the other way,” Tony assured him. “I’ll do the violence!”

“You seem to forget that you’re a doctor too, sworn to prolong life, not end it.”

“I’ll be prolonging the lives of the four of us,” Tony insisted. “And I
won’t
be ending a life. I simply won’t be helping in a rebirth.”

“Leave him there,” Earl advised. “And let’s stop fighting among ourselves.”

“What are we going to do?” Vera asked.

“I don’t know about you,” Earl answered, “but I’m going to have a good stiff drink and then go to bed. Tomorrow, bright and early, we start gathering wood for that bonfire on the beach.”

He lay awake for some time, simply staring at the ceiling, and he wondered if the others were having the same frustration seeking the release of merciful slumber. Finally he got up and walked to the window, staring out at the shoreline in the moonlight. Across the water, the low mountains of Baja California seemed not so far away at all. He remembered one peak, the Volcano of the Three Virgins, that had been pointed out to. Him earlier in the week. He could see it now, dominating the far horizon.

He went back to the bedside table and pressed the viewer on his digital watch. It was not yet two o’clock. The night was going to be a long one. He got out the little pistol Whalen had abandoned during his flight and reloaded it with the cartridges removed earlier. Then he slipped it into his robe and carefully opened the hall door. If he couldn’t sleep he might as well go downstairs and check on his host.

The upstairs hallway was silent as he moved along it, and he assumed that the others were sleeping. But he found himself keeping a hand on the gun in his robe pocket, just in case. He’d wanted to bring a pistol along with his photographic gear, but Crader, back in New York, had advised against it. They’d expected no violence, and a pistol might only blow his cover if it was discovered. Now he was glad he had this one, at least.

In the darkness, with only the filtered moonlight to see by, he moved through the vaguely moorish living room toward the back stairs that led to the basement operating room. It would probably have been wiser to check Hobbes’s bedroom first, to make certain that he hadn’t come back upstairs, but Earl had the feeling that the stocky man was still at his post, guarding the patient against destruction by Tony or anyone else.

The very silence of the big house was reassuring to Earl. There could be nothing sinister here in the nighttime, nothing threatening to them. The five who had died were merely random mistakes of some sort. Misunderstandings.

He passed one of the alarm sensors, and for the first time he wished that they were still working. Then at least they’d be safe in the night.

But Emily Watson hadn’t been safe.

The alarms had still been working Sunday night, yet something had gotten to her in her bedroom. Gotten to her and carried her away.

And that part didn’t fit. It didn’t fit with the strangled and hacked corpses they’d been finding ever since.

Was it possible that there were two killers on the prowl? He considered that but then rejected it. After all, an attempt had been made to hide MacKenzie’s body too. It was due only to luck that they’d discovered it in the freezing tube.

He went quickly down the steps to the long basement corridor that led to the operating room. Here the lights still burned—more proof that Hobbes hadn’t yet retired.

He entered the rear door of the amphitheater, careful to be as quiet as possible, and then stopped dead.

Lawrence Hobbes was crumpled on the floor near the operating table. Tony was standing over him, holding the laser pistol.

E
ARL WAS A SECOND
too slow getting his own pistol—or Whalen’s pistol—free from his floppy pocket of the robe. Tony Cooper must have heard him or sensed his presence. He whirled, bringing up the laser gun. “Hold it right there, Jazine!”

“Have I caught the murderer in the act?” Earl asked, staying where he was.

“Don’t be stupid! I just tapped him on the head. He’s all right.”

“How did you manage that?”

“I said I wanted to talk, and I managed to get around behind him. He’ll come to in a minute.”

“So what are you doing with the laser pistol? Did it just fall into your hand?”

“I didn’t want him to have it when he comes to. Actually, I’m sorry you showed up when you did because I wanted to do this in private.”

“Do what?”

“Put an end to our troubles with Frank here.” Still holding the laser pistol pointed up at Earl, he moved to the far end of the operating table and yanked an electrode from the power cart.

“You can’t do that, Tony.”

“Can’t I? I’m doing it!”

Before Earl could move Tony clamped the electrode to Frank’s head and pulled another to his bare feet. Then he threw the power switch all the way over. There was a crackle of electricity and the instant odor of scorched human flesh. Earl ran forward, down the steps, ignoring the laser gun which had turned away from him now.

He yanked Tony away from the power cart and threw the switch to the off position. Then he had his own gun out before Tony could level the laser pistol. “All right. Don’t make me shoot you!”

Hobbes, on the floor, groaned and tried to push himself up. “Help him,” Earl ordered. “And put down that laser.”

Tony obeyed him. “I’ve done what I had to.”

Earl unclipped the electrodes and stepped back, Hobbes was on his feet now, holding the back of his head. But it seemed that his thick bush of white hair had saved him from serious injury. “What happened?” he demanded. “What did he do?”

“Ran a few thousand volts through Frank here. He wanted to fry him, I guess.”

“My God!” Hobbes took a step closer. “Has his breathing stopped?”

“No,” Earl replied, trying to control his voice. “He’s still breathing. And his eyes are open!”

They stood there for a long time, looking down at him, not daring to say a word. It was true that the eyes were open, but there was no indication that they were seeing anything. When Hobbes moved his fingers through the air above them, as one might do with a baby, the eyes did not follow the fingers but only kept staring straight ahead.

“Well, something’s happened to him,” Hobbes conceded. “But I don’t know what. We used an electric shock to get the heart going again, and I suppose the jolt might have been too weak. He needed what Tony just gave him.”

“I wasn’t trying to save his life,” Tony assured them.

“But you may have done just that,” Hobbes said. “And if he becomes reanimated now that will prove him innocent of those murders.”

“It won’t prove any such thing,” Tony insisted. “It’ll only prove he’s a good actor.” He bent closer to the table. “Hear that, Frank?”

“Stop it!” Hobbes demanded. “That’s a human being!”

While they bickered Frank’s eyes fluttered and then closed. Hobbes immediately hooked up the electronic heartbeat and pulse indicators. “All right,” he said at last. “All vital signs are favorable. But he may be sleeping again.”

“He’s a hard bugger to kill,” Tony conceded.

“Does that mean you’ve given up on it?” Earl asked.

“No, it only means I’ll have to try harder next time.”

“I think we’d all better go upstairs,” Earl suggested.

Hobbes shook his head. “I’m staying here. He might start speaking at any moment.”

“I don’t think you should have the laser pistol,” Earl said. “But I can’t leave you without anything. Here—take Whalen’s gun.”

Hobbes accepted it reluctantly, obviously preferring his own weapon. As they were leaving he called out after Tony, “You know, the next time I’ll kill you. I won’t ever let you get close enough to me again.”

“I know,” Tony said grimly.

On the way upstairs Earl told him, “That was a foolish thing to do, you know.”

“I’m not going to let us all be killed just because he’s wild for that thing down there! I tried to kill it and I’m glad! I still don’t understand why it’s still alive.”

“Maybe it’s unkillable,” Earl suggested, then added a smile because the words carried a heaviness that he hadn’t intended.

The main floor was still in darkness, and when they reached it their voices lowered automatically. “In the darkness this place is like a church,” Tony commented.

“Or a cemetery.”

They parted in the upstairs hall and Earl quietly eased open his door. No need to wake the others if they were sleeping. He crossed to his bed and doffed the robe, taking care to place the weighty little laser pistol in the dresser’s top drawer, out of sight. Without Hilda to make the bed it had remained in its rumpled condition that day, but he’d smoothed it out the best he could. Now, as he slid between the sheets, he was surprised that they seemed so taut.

Then his reaching hand encountered warm, bare flesh.

“Hello,” Vera said softly. “I came to join you. I couldn’t sleep.”

He caressed the soft mound of her buttocks. “And now I won’t be able to.”

“I even made your bed. It was terribly rumpled.”

“You’d make somebody a fine housemate.”

“Is it true that no one gets married back in New York anymore?”

“No one young. You should know that. You’re from the East.”

“God, I wish I were back there now! I wish I were done with Tony.”

“Is it good between you? The sex, I mean.” They were nestled between the sheets like two children hiding from the world, talking in whispers lest the ogre overhear.

“It was good at first, natural and good. But I think he’s done something to me this last year. I have to dream up things like the belt to make it exciting now. And that’s not me—it really isn’t!”

“By this time I don’t know what’s you and what’s not. I’ve seen a great many faces of you these last few days.”

“You’ve seen the worst faces. Freddy got me off to a bad start from the beginning. I’m so glad he’s gone.”

“Glad he’s dead?”

“Glad he’s gone. I was afraid Tony would kill him. Or that I would.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Did Tony?”

“I’m not sure. But he’d have no motive for killing the others.”

“They might have been killed to hide the real motive.”

“Don’t be silly! Real people don’t behave like that!”

“Real people don’t murder five times over. But someone did, nevertheless.”

“Here with you, like this, I could forget that any of it ever happened.”

He reached for her then, and was entering her when they heard a pounding on the door. Before Earl could disentangle himself from her embracing arms and legs the door flew open and an arclight targeted the bed.

“So here you are!” Tony Cooper said, his voice close to an animal snarl.

“Tony!”

“Out of the bed, Jazine! You’ve fucked your last lady!”

Earl rolled over, sick with the prospect of fighting the enraged fool. “Oh, for God’s sake, Tony—”