The Pressure of Darkness (23 page)

The man paused, amused. He stared down at Dinky and his sunken eyes were bright, wise, and in a weird way, rather kind. "Hello." He knelt and patted Dinky on the shoulder. "My name is Gorman."

Dinky sobbed. "Wait. I could use a man like you."

"In some other life, perhaps."

Gorman rapidly slipped a cord around Dinky's throat and fluidly stepped behind. He crossed his tattooed arms and slowly, quite lovingly, strangled Dinky Martin to death.

TWENTY-SIX

Willie Pepper wakes up with his chapped lips pressed against hairy flesh that smells freshly bathed. The hobo jerks his head up, emits a grunt, and lowers it again. His skull is throbbing and his entire body feels sore. His vision swims back into focus. The arm he smells is his own. Confused, he feels his body and checks his face and chin. Someone has given him a short haircut, bathed and shaved him, even applied aftershave lotion. It smells like that cheap, department store kind with a sailing ship on the bottle.

Willie sneezes, which makes his head ache again. He has some kind of cold or sinus infection coming on. He opens his eyes. He finds himself in a small area that seems like a combination hospital room and holding cell. Everything around him seems to be made of glass, porcelain, or metal.

The cell contains a tiny toilet, a cot, and a small table—fastened to the floor—that holds a plastic beaker of water. Willie sits up gingerly, holding his head. His nasal passages are clogged. And he feels stone cold sober for the first time in years! But he has no memory of going through DTs. What happened? If this is a city detox clinic, it's the strangest one he's ever seen. The lights are bright; they hurt his eyes. The walls are blank metal, with not a single photograph or painting to provide distraction.

"Hello?"

No one answers. Willie, who now notices that he's wearing some kind of paper slippers and a hospital gown, swings his feet around and lowers them to the cold flooring. It seems that he's fine, so long as he moves slowly enough. His throat feels parched and dry. He reaches for the water with a trembling hand and gulps. His stomach rolls for a long moment but settles. He feels his face, his head. His hair has indeed been shaved close to the skull and his beard is completely gone. Willie knows this happened recently because he knows how quickly it grows. It feels strange to be so exposed. Willie Pepper is accustomed to hiding his facial expressions, and thus his true feelings, behind a wall of filth and matted hair.

"Hello?" A little more loudly this time. Still no reply.

The throbbing in his skull is gradually changing to an odd feeling of pressure. His teeth hurt. He is parched from thirst. Willie takes another drink of water, gulps with greed and gratitude while his eyes roam what appears to be his new home. Didn't he hear somebody talking about some kind of new government program for the homeless? Maybe he got sick and they picked him up off the street. But no, he wasn't sick, someone had attacked him! The memory comes back like an icy wave. Willie Pepper feels his neck, and the abrasions from the rope, or whatever it was that strangled him, are still fresh. Wherever he is, whatever happened, he hasn't been unconscious for more than a couple of days.

Willie leans against the cold, impersonal wall and struggles to his feet. Again, a slight wave of dizziness assails him. He sees Christmas tree lights on a black velvet background, but the nausea passes quickly. His vision seems to waver like a mirage but when it comes back into focus he can see colors more clearly. He sneezes again, expels a large gout of clear mucous. He wipes it on his arm. The paper gown and slippers are a very pale green, hospital style, and the metal and ceramic walls and tiles have an odd sheen to them, rather like varnish.

Jesus Christ, is this a morgue?

His heart goes
POW
at the idea, contributes a ghastly vision of his chest pried open and blood smoothly pumped into a drain by an impersonal black hose. He shivers against the cold and is forced to sit down on the cot again.

No, it can't be the city morgue. Dead folks don't get cots to lie on, and besides, there ain't no one else in here.

That door.

Assuming it is a door. What if it opens?

Maybe there are people on the other side, doctors and nurses who don't have a clue that he's awakened. Hot meals and some good dope for the pain, and maybe someone to talk to so he can complain and find out what's going on.

Willie Pepper eases back up to his feet. He narrows his eyes and tries to clarify the vague outline he sees in the far wall. It appears to be in the shape of a door, although the edges have been sealed in what seems to be black rubber. Perhaps if he pushes on it, it may simply open into the next room? He works his way along the wall, leaving clusters of knuckle and finger prints on the perfectly polished surface, his feet shuffling and whispering in their paper shoes.

This is definitely a hospital gown. Willie is conscious of the cool air on his bare buttocks. Another sneeze and this fucker
hurts
. His nose seems to be running like a damned faucet. He pushes on the flat surface outlined in black rubber, but it does not move. Willie Pepper shoves harder, tries to slide it to one side but it is rock solid and perfectly sealed.

"Hey!" The effort to speak punishes. His sinus passages are on fire. This cold sucks the big one. Willie hears some static coming from a hidden speaker. He looks around for it but can't see anything. Then a melodious, calming baritone voice speaks to him.

"You are in a hospital, sir. We recommend that you sit down on the bed, if you do not mind."

The man has an accent of some kind. Willie knows he has heard that accent before, Mexican or Greek or something; he cannot quite place it. Like from the movies maybe. Whoever he is, the dude certainly sounds like he's in charge. Willie considers the request, elects to comply. He works his way across the room again. Once seated on the cot, hands folded in his lap like a good schoolboy, he tries again.

"Excuse me, but where am I?"

A hiss, the voice: "This is a medical facility, sir. We are sorry to inform you that you have been quite ill."

"Somebody tried to kick my ass, is what happened."

"Excuse me?"

"Hey, I said some asshole tried to strangle me. What the hell do you mean I've been sick? For how long?"

The voice laughs, rattling the speaker. Willie begins to search the room again with his eyes, and now he finally notices the small box above the doorway and the four video cameras mounted in the upper corners of the room. "You have been very ill with alcoholism, sir. We have taken the liberty of performing a rapid detoxification procedure."

"Huh?"

"We first administered some Halcyon and then used an intravenous solution of glucose and benzodiazepine to slowly withdraw your body from the alcohol while you slept. Except for your cold, you must be feeling better than you have in years, yes?"

Willie Pepper rolls his shoulders. He doesn't want to admit it, give the son of a bitch the satisfaction, but except for his sinus problem he does feel good.
Very
good. He grunts instead of speaking.

After a long moment the voice continues: "May we have your age, sir?"

"I'm forty-five. No, forty-six."
Jesus, am I that old? Yeah, last November. That means it has been nine years since I talked to my sister Lisa up there in Santa Rosa
. Willie shakes his head, sets off more throbbing. He is amazed at the passage of time. He also feels something unfamiliar but not entirely unpleasant happening in his midsection. Emotions are surfacing. It has been a long time since he has felt anything but rage, fear, or the ravaging lust of his addiction to alcohol.

"And have you had any other serious accidents or illnesses in your life?"

Willie picks at his fingernails absently, mind elsewhere. "Measles when I was a kid, and I broke my leg once."

"Anything else?"

"Not that I remember." But he suddenly does remember being a boy, playing with Lisa in the yard of their home in Pomona, waiting for his father to get home. Amazingly, he can recall the scent of the freshly-cut grass and the faint, snoring drone of an airline passing overhead. The back of his neck heats up as if the summer sun was burning down, reddening his skin. Willie Pepper suddenly wants to curl up and cry. He rubs his eyes. Another sneeze.

"Are you still with us, sir?" the impersonal voice asks. He clearly cares little one way or the other.

"Yeah. Fine. I'm fine. How did you people find me?"

The speaker clicks. "We brought you here."

An odd and chilling thought occurs to Willie Pepper:
They haven't even asked me for my name. I don't carry ID, I'm not wearing any bracelet like they give you in the emergency room in Santa Monica or over at Cedars Sinai, so what the fuck is this place? Where did they take me?

"Doc?" This must be a doctor, right? "You still there, Doc?"

"Yes," the voice replies, "we are still here."

Another sneeze, another wipe on the top of his forearm. Hundreds of ants crawling his flesh: this time there is some blood in the clear mucous.

"Fuck!"

"What is it, sir?"

"Look, I want to know where I am and what's going on, all right?" Willie gets to his feet, surprised to find that he feels pretty strong, now. Most of the wooziness is gone. "What have you people done to me?" His limbs are flushed with blood and fear is giving him strength.
Weird.

A low chuckle. "You are feeling somewhat better now, sir. Quite suddenly, yes? We can see that."

Willie rubs his belly. "Yeah, but I have a shitty cold, man. And I think I'm gonna be sick to my stomach. Can I have some more water?"

"I doubt you would be able to keep it down at this stage."

The fuck does he mean by that?
Willie shivers abruptly, licks his lips. His now chattering teeth really hurt. He stumbles to the mirror while the cameras carefully track his every move. He opens his mouth and shrieks. There are pustules on his gums, black dots that look like blood blisters. Before he can manage to form new words the drinking water comes back up in a rush and splatters the mirror.

"Doc, h-h-help me!"

"Be calm. It will not be long, now."

What won't be long?

Willie Pepper looks at the pustules again. He watches himself in the gooey mirror, helpless to intervene or cry out, as his facial muscles begin to twitch and tremble. The right side of his body goes completely numb for a few seconds. Now that his mouth is open, it seems to lock into place as if he had rabies. He cannot close his jaws or move them to speak. He feels an electric shock run through his entire body and he stiffens, like a mannequin. After a long moment his rigid body leans forward against the mirror, tilted like a fallen statue. He is silent, still. The cameras zoom in for a close-up of his full body.

"
Hunh!
"

The frozen feeling only lasts for a short time. It is followed by something akin to an epileptic seizure. Willie Pepper hits the hard surface of the floor, twitching and moaning and grunting like an animal. He chews in a grinding, devilishly effective manner until he begins to devour his own lips and tongue. A few seconds later he hears a voice, from somewhere far away, say something about
damage to the mid-brain
and
basal writhing
.

Willie shits himself.
Bowels evacuated.

His spine arches hideously, impossibly, until it bends so far back it seems certain to break. Blood is gushing from his nose and eyes, now (meanwhile, the voice says
epistaxis
) and Willie Pepper knows in some dark and dim corner of his mind that he is going to die. He no longer cares. His eyes have rolled back into his skull and he is rigid and silent and nearly insane from the pain. A deep and racking cough occurs; another gout of blood, this one bursts from his mouth like an alien creature to land on the now-messy floor, a foot or so away. Willie Pepper feels all of the tension leave his body and it feels good, almost orgasm good, to have the fit over with. His eyes glass over and his vision darkens. It comes to him that he is no longer breathing, he tries but
cannot
breathe. The image of his sister in the sunshine returns.

The voice: "We have respiratory failure at 10:19:26."

. . . Willie Pepper gives his little sister Lisa a big hug. It is so good to see her again, and wonderful that she is still a child. Then the most remarkable thing happens, Willie can really feel the hot sun on his skin, warm and gentle, smell that newly-cut lawn. He lets himself slide down a hill made of that fresh, green grass and drops away into an endless summer . . .

TWENTY-SEVEN

"Okay, one more time from the top."

Less than an hour after the fight with Dinky Martin, Gina brought a weary Burke an ice bag and commenced playing mother hen. They were seated in the office, blinds lowered and lights high. Gina had proffered five aspirins and made coffee strong enough to lube a lawn mower. Burke held the ice close to the bruised rib on his right side. He cleared his throat, but carefully. "Your turn, run it down."

Gina was wearing a tight tee shirt and jeans with a large belt and cowboy buckle. She was a night person anyway, so she was already focused. "Okay, we have a horror novelist who likes silly word games. He seems to have committed suicide at the Universal Sheraton. Cuts off various body parts, anesthetizes his ass, and then starts up again. He does it all over several hours. The daughter probably wants more money from insurance, wants it to be foul play, so Bowden turns her on to you and me."

"Check."

"You go to toss the guy's house and somebody else has already been there, in fact is still there. There's a load of books on all kinds of spooky stuff, religious artifacts, a couple of hidden panels. He has some kind of symbols on pieces of paper in a hidden place, they get swiped."

"Uh huh."

"Lots of people hate Stryker, the daughter says. You interview Merriman and Pal in the same day and come up empty both times."