Nerve Damage (25 page)

There were lots of farms in Roy's part of Vermont
, but none like this. Sweetbriar Farm stood on a gentle slope near a bend in the Potomac, with bigger hills rising on the West Virginia side. Everything—house, barn, even the sheds and other outbuildings—looked grand, old and pristine at the same time, as though a set decorator with an unlimited budget had just left. Nothing moved except a flock of birds that came soaring over the river and landed in the bare branches of the orchard beyond the riding ring. Roy drove up a long lane, pea stone crunching under his tires, and parked in front of the house.

He sat in his rental car for a moment or two—the only car around—and tried to think through at least the first few steps of some plan. But he didn't get past knocking on that oversize double door—white, with a golden horseshoe knocker—and waiting to see who answered. A fat raindrop landed on the windshield, setting off a tiny dust explosion. Roy got out of the car and banged the knocker.

No one answered.

Roy knocked again, harder. He listened, heard nothing except a neighing horse, somewhere nearby. Even step one: incomplete. He had no time for this. Manners, politeness, convention: What role could they play now? Roy tried the door. Locked.

He backed away, glanced around. A single sheet of rain swept across the lawns, like a drifting curtain. It slapped silently against the side of the barn, three or four hundred yards away. Or maybe farther than that: as Roy walked toward the barn, he saw he'd underestimated its size by a lot.

He circled the barn. There was a huge roll-up door at the front, closed and unbudgeable, and another like it at the back, overlooking the river, also closed. Dark clouds now covered the hills on the West Virginia side. Somewhere in their depths, a lightning bolt flashed, very faint. The texture of the river roughened, rain on the way.

Roy went around to the side of the barn, found a normal-size door. Also locked, but it had one small, single-pane window. He peered through, into a vast, shadowy space. Some big rectangular structure stood in a distant corner. It looked like a trailer, one of those doublewides.

The horse neighed again, louder now, the sound coming from inside the barn. It startled Roy, at the same time triggering something inside him. He picked up a white-painted stone from the side of the path and smashed the window. A moment later he was inside.

Dark: and full of smells—hay, manure, saddle oil. Roy walked along a row of stalls, all empty with their gates open, except for the last. A tall black horse looked over the barrier, big liquid eyes nervous. Roy stroked its face.

“It's all right,” he said.

The horse stomped back in a stiff-legged way, banging hard into the back wall.

“Easy, boy,” Roy said.

The horse raised its head, snorted, then stood still, nostrils flared.

Roy moved across the wooden floor, worn soft and smooth, came to the far corner. Yes, a double-wide trailer, mounted on a low, wheeled platform; a sandy-colored trailer with no markings, and blinds in all the windows. Roy studied it from a few different angles. Then he stepped onto the platform and tried the door, a narrow door with an oval top, cut flush in the trailer body. The door opened.

Almost complete darkness in the trailer: a minute or so went by before Roy's eyes adjusted. He began to make out details: office-style cubicles with desktop computers; video monitors hanging from the ceiling; big maps on the walls, their details obscure in the dimness, no lights showing at all on any of the electronics. No workers, no sound, nothing going on, but Roy had caught a glimpse of this place before, beyond the employees-only room at Wine, Inc.: the office he'd tried and failed to show Sergeant Bettis. A portable office, a wall quickly bricked in—Tom Parish, Lenore, Westie, they'd all fooled him so easily. Why? Because he hadn't been imaginative enough, supposedly one of his strengths. He hadn't believed in the existence of—what would you call it?—a parallel world, maybe. Now he believed. What was it Delia had told Turk behind the mountain hut?
When you see how things really happen, the fun goes out pretty quick.
Why hadn't she ever said anything like that to him? Then maybe he would have—But at that moment Roy remembered:
Fuck the pineapples.
And were there other examples? He could feel them stirring, things she'd tried to tell him, deep in his mind.

Roy entered the trailer. He went into the nearest cubicle, sat at the computer, pressed a key. Nothing happened. He found the switch, on; and the power cord, plugged in. Roy opened a desk drawer. Empty. He checked the other drawers, feeling around in the gloom, all empty.

Roy got up, went from cubicle to cubicle, pressing keys, switching switches, opening drawers and banging them shut.

“Goddamn it.”

He needed answers, needed them fast. What about those wall maps? He went to the nearest one—Middle Eastern shapes barely visible in the darkness—and ran his hands over it. The map, which felt like plastic, quivered and started to slip off the wall. Roy tried to catch it, but the map, surprisingly heavy, fell to the floor and shattered; not plastic, but glass. The noise deafened him. He looked around, a little wildly—but nothing moved in the darkness. Sound returned, his heartbeat, too fast, too light, coming first.

Roy looked up at the wall where the glass map had hung. He saw that it had concealed a whiteboard, the kind for writing on with liquid mark
ers. And this one had writing on it, maybe readable if he leaned closer. Roy leaned closer. He read the heading:
Roy Valois.

Next came three or four lines, the writing smaller, just small enough that Roy couldn't make them out. He went back to the trailer door, found a panel of wall switches, flicked them all without result. Wouldn't there be a flashlight somewhere in the barn, a lantern, matches? He opened the trailer door. The horse neighed again. Roy paused, one foot on the raised platform, and then the small barn door Roy had broken through opened, silhouetting a man in a rectangle of outside light. Rain slanted down behind him, falling hard. A big man: he entered the barn. Roy backed into the trailer and silently closed the door.

He stood there, listening. He could hear the rain on the barn roof, like countless drumming fingers. Then came a faint clatter, maybe the horse shifting in its stall. Roy backed deeper into the trailer. He bumped into the edge of a desk. Something fell off and landed on the floor, something light—a pencil maybe—that made no sound at all; or almost none. He stepped behind a cubicle wall.

Silence; and then an almost inaudible squeaking sound that came and went, a sound Roy heard only because it was coming from so close—inside him, actually—with every breath. Not important: he was breathing easily, felt strong, still protected by Dr. Chu's cocktail. At that moment, Roy stopped being afraid of what might happen next. It took no effort at all, simply happened, a sudden ascent into courage, or at least total fearlessness, probably not the same thing. Was it a side effect of the cocktail? Roy took a small dark object off the desk. It turned out to be a stapler. He waited.

Nothing happened. Another triangle was forming, this one with two points fixed—he and the horse—and one on the move—the man at the barn door. Roy could feel it changing shape. So much silent time went by—silent except for the tiny rhythmic squeak—Roy grew sure that the moving point was back outside the barn, drawing farther and farther away. Then the trailer door opened.

A flashlight beam shone inside. It poked into corners, then began sweeping slowly back and forth. For a brief moment it must have shone
on something shiny, because the man's face suddenly appeared in a weak reflected glow, a round face, shaped for looking friendly, but there was nothing friendly about it now: Westie. The beam swung toward Roy. He crouched as it passed over the cubicle wall.

Westie spoke. “Raise your hands and come out.”

Roy peered over the cubicle wall. The beam had found the broken map remnants; shattered pieces glittered in its light.

“There's only one way out,” Westie said. “Your situation is hopeless.”

Roy didn't move. Westie entered the trailer, his footfalls soft for such a big man.

“You're one of those kids from the campground, right?” he said. “Do we really want to bring the police into this?” He whirled around, stabbed the light into a cubicle near Roy. Roy ducked, but not before he saw the gun in Westie's other hand. Then the beam sped up, zigzagging across the back wall of his cubicle in a quick clever way as though it had a mind of its own; just missing him.

“Nothing bad's going to happen,” Westie said. “We can work this out.” He came closer. On the other side of the wall, Roy listened to his footsteps, faint, cautious. They paused, only a foot or two away.

Was time on Roy's side? Deep down, he knew the answer to that very well. So if not now, when? Roy rose—not with the speed he'd counted on—reached over the top of the wall and brought the stapler down hard on Westie's head. He'd never done anything like that in his life—a sneak attack—but the thought of Skippy made it quite easy.

Easy to do, but that didn't mean Roy did it well. First, the stapler only glanced off Westie's head, most of the force of the blow landing on his shoulder or even upper arm. Second, the gun went off. Third, Roy lost his balance, fell against the partition wall. It toppled over, Roy above, Westie underneath. Almost at the same time came the sickening sound of a human head striking something hard.

Roy lay twisted, jammed between the floor and an edge of the fallen wall. This was a time for action but all Roy could do was lie there and breathe, shallow, panting breaths. That left Westie free to do anything he wanted. Nothing happened. Roy's breathing settled down. He rolled
over, onto his knees. The flashlight lay on the floor, pointing at Westie. His chest was rising and falling but his eyes were closed. Roy took the flashlight and stood up.

The light gleamed on the gun, in a corner by the next cubicle. Smith & Wesson, short barrel, wooden grip: the same model as the one Lenore had planted in Skippy's glove box. Roy stripped off Westie's belt, rolled him over and tied his hands behind his back.

“Wake up,” Roy said, picking up the gun.

No response. Westie kept breathing, nice deep breaths.

“Wake up.”

Westie groaned softly, but didn't wake up. Roy stepped over the fallen partition, went closer to the whiteboard, shone the light.

Roy Valois

1. What does RV know about Operation Pineapple?
   
2. Why his sudden interest after so long?
   
3. Connection between RV and Gold?
   
4. Mountain hut connection.
   

Roy reread the four points on the whiteboard. He wet his finger, rubbed it on one of the letters. The ink smeared. Here was the parallel world, all real. His heart switched into that too-fast, too-light rhythm again. To calm it, Roy tried to get more air in his lungs, sticking his chest out and elbows back in the way that had worked before, at least a little. But not this time: instead Roy felt a sudden pain deep in his chest, a heavy pain as though he'd been kicked from inside. He staggered into a chair, lowered his head between his knees. Behind him, Westie groaned again. Roy got hold of the arms of the chair, pushed himself up; it took all his strength. He aimed the beam at Westie. Westie's eyes were open now: he squinted in the light.

“Who are you?” Westie said.

Roy shone the light on the whiteboard, let it linger there so Westie could see, then turned it back on him.

“I found Skippy,” Roy said.

Westie said nothing.

“Talk,” Roy said.

“What did you do to my leg?” Westie said.

“Nothing.”

“I'm bleeding.”

Roy shifted the beam, saw a wet patch on one of Westie's pant legs, midthigh. “You shot yourself,” he said. “I'll get you to the hospital, but first, some answers.”

“About what?”

“Start with the Hobbes Institute.”

“Never heard of it.”

Roy stood over him. “Can't you see this is over, whatever you've been doing? You killed an innocent kid.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

Roy came close to kicking him. Westie flinched, although Roy hadn't moved at all.

“I'm bleeding.”

Roy glanced down at the wet patch on Westie's leg, maybe bigger than before. “Who wrote what's on the board?” he said.

Westie shook his head.

“Was it Tom Parish? Ned Miller, whatever his real name is?”

Roy caught a flicker in Westie's eye.

“What was Operation Pineapple?” he said.

“I don't feel so good.”

“I'll get you to the hospital,” Roy said. “What was Operation Pineapple?”

No reply.

“What's the mountain-hut connection?”

Westie shook his head.

“Is that where you killed Skippy? What were you doing up there?”

“I didn't kill anyone. It—” Westie stopped himself.

“It was Lenore? Is that what you were going to say?”

Westie was silent. There was no time for this. Roy kicked him, not as
hard as he could, in the leg, the bleeding one or the other; at that moment he didn't care. But it must have been the bleeding one, because Westie cried in pain; out in the barn the horse neighed again.

In the quiet that followed, Roy said, “Was it Lenore?”

Westie raised his head, gazed down his body. The wet patch was much bigger now, and there was more wetness on the floor. Westie's face changed, seemed to grow younger: he wasn't too much past being a kid himself. “I could die,” he said.

“Your choice,” Roy said; which made Westie the luckier of the two of them.

“What do you mean?”

“Talk first, hospital second,” Roy said. “All these secrets—are they worth dying for?”

Westie thought about that.