Nerve Damage (8 page)

“The Institute, sir?” said the first guard.

Roy's voice rose a little; he couldn't help it. “The Hobbes Institute,” he said. “This building you're guarding.”

“Sir?”

That was when Roy noticed the flag on a pole to one side, a flag he'd maybe seen before but couldn't identify. Then he noticed a plaque on one of the doors:
CONSULATE OF GREECE
.

He stepped back, down a few steps so he could see up to the pediment where the words
Hobbes Institute
were carved into the stone. No words there of any kind, and no sign that there ever had been, the facing smooth.

“Where did they go?” Roy said.

“Who, sir?”

“The Hobbes Institute, of course,” Roy said. “The people who own this place. Or did.”

“Never heard of it,” said the first guard, turning to the other one. “You?”

The head-shaking guard shook his head once more.

Roy backed away from the Consulate of Greece,
just stood on the sidewalk for a few moments. He looked around. Was it possible he'd made a mistake? Maybe there was more than one building with four fluted pilasters and a triangular pediment. Twin buildings: the concept was not unknown. Roy scanned the long line of facades, and there, just a few doors down, saw—But no. Moving closer, he took in the details of a much bigger structure: six pilasters, not fluted, a pediment, but rectangular, and on it the engraved words
Washington Historical Society
. Long engraved: the shapes of the letters were softened by erosion.

Roy walked on, spotted no other possibilities on either side of the street for several blocks. He returned to his original thought: they'd moved somewhere else. He backtracked, reexamined all the buildings, this time looking for
Hobbes Institute
on a sign, on a brass plaque, anywhere, but not finding it.

A little group of tourists came starting-and-stopping down the block—somewhat like walking birds—following a guide.

“Excuse me,” Roy said.

The guide turned.

“I'm looking for the Hobbes Institute.”

“Sorry.”

He pointed. “It used to be right there.”

“Isn't that the Greek consulate?” she said.

“I'm talking about years ago,” Roy said.

“It's been the Greek consulate as long as I can remember,” the guide said. The tourists rocked back and forth behind her, a crowded flock brought up short. The guide gave Roy a quick second look, as though there might be something not quite right about him. “Maybe this will help,” she said, handing Roy a map and moving on.

A tourist map, with all the famous sights well marked, but what was the chance a small private think tank like the Hobbes Institute would be included? None. Roy checked carefully anyway, reading every bit of print on the map. It wasn't there.

The security guards were watching him. Roy walked away, in no particular direction, but soon found himself on the side street where he'd parked. He got into the pickup, sat there. He gazed at the crumpled milk-shake container on the floor. The bent shapes, the balloon-style lettering, the picture of a happy cow all mesmerized him. A long time passed before he was struck by the obvious idea.

Roy opened the glove box, took out his cell phone. He didn't like cell phones, secretly believed that the technology sometime in the midtwentieth century had been good enough, but Krishna, tired of not being able to reach him instantly, had added Roy to his friends-and-family plan. An obvious idea: he called information, asked for the number of the Hobbes Institute, first in D.C., then expanding to Maryland and Virginia, after that New York, and finally the whole country. There was no listing.

 

Roy bought
a PowerBar and ate it on the way to Baltimore. Back at the hotel he changed into sweats and went to the gym on the top floor. Roy didn't spend much time in gyms—hockey, hiking, snowshoeing, skiing were enough to keep him fit. But now—now was different.

StairMaster: thirty minutes. At first, a little breathless, but that could happen to anybody. He pushed past it. Then came free weights. Roy
squatted four sets of ten at two hundred and fifty pounds, then, despite the cast, benched three sets of one forty-five. He followed that with one hundred sit-ups on the slant board. Not bad. Not bad for just about anybody. Could it all be a mistake? Or was it a dream? Had he fallen off the ladder, working with those twisted helicopter blades, say, and was he now in a coma, a coma he might soon emerge from, good as new? He checked himself in the mirror. Could that action, checking himself in the mirror, be part of a coma dream? Why not? A woman on a stationary bike was checking him out, too, a woman he'd never seen before. That pushed the coma-dream concept a little too far. Her image gave his a quick smile.

Roy went back to his room, showered, started getting dressed to go down to the bar, order exactly what he'd had last night, maybe even seconds on dessert. Outside the sun was setting, leaving streaks of gold on the highest windows of the tallest buildings. He sat on the bed to put his shoes on.

 

Roy opened
his eyes. For a moment or two, he didn't know where he was. Then reality hit, a series of blows like a combination from a clever boxer: hotel room; daytime; fully dressed except for shoes; his lungs.

He checked the time: forty-five minutes until his appointment at Dr. Chu's. He'd been out for fourteen hours. Roy put on his shoes, brushed his teeth, splashed water on his face, went down to the coffee shop.

“Three-egg omelet with hash browns, plus toast, orange juice, coffee. Oh, and bacon on the side. And fruit cup.”

No dinner. He should have been ravenous. But when the food came—taking up all the space on the serving tray—Roy found that he was not. In fact, not hungry at all. He made himself eat every morsel.

The man at the next table signed his check and walked out, leaving a newspaper behind. Roy reached across and took it. The
Washington Post
. He leafed through. Page eight, right-hand column at the top:
STILL NO LEADS IN MURDER OF TIMES REPORTER
.

Roy scanned the story. Richard Gold's credit cards hadn't been used. His flat-screen TV and other valuables hadn't turned up anywhere. Repeated neighborhood canvasses had led nowhere. The last paragraph was about a memorial service to be held that afternoon at a synagogue in Georgetown. Roy tore that part out and put it in his pocket.

 

Netty took his pulse
and blood pressure.

“Numbers okay?”

“Normal.”

“Any change?”

“Change?”

“Since yesterday.”

Netty checked the chart. “Slightly lower,” she said. “But that kind of fluc—”

“Lower being better.”

“In this range, yes.” She looked at him for a moment. “Do you want the actual numbers?”

“I do.”

“Pulse sixty-eight. Blood pressure one eighteen over eighty-one.”

“That's pretty good, right?”

She looked at him again. “Yes,” she said, and seemed about to say more, but did not. Instead she came over with a needle, filled three more test tubes with his blood.

“Where does the blood go?”

“The lab.”

“Did yesterday's results come back?”

“Not yet. But it's too early for any changes to show up.”

“Then why bother taking the blood?”

“Roy. Can I say something?”

“Sure.”

“Let Dr. Chu take care of the science. You just take care of you.”

One part of Roy knew that made sense; another part flared in anger.
Netty looked away. She busied herself with the different colored stickers. Roy got a grip.

“Did you want to weigh me today?” he said.

“Please,” said Netty.

Roy stripped down to his boxers, stepped on the scale. Netty came closer, balanced the weights.

“One seventy-three,” she said.

“And a half,” said Roy.

She peered at the numbers. “And a half,” she said.

“And yesterday?” said Roy, although he knew full well.

Netty checked. “One seventy-two.”

And he hadn't even eaten dinner! Roy kept that little fact to himself, an ace in the hole. He got dressed, followed Netty to the feng shui room, lay on the suede couch. Netty hooked him up to the cocktail, said, “Twenty minutes,” and left him alone.

Roy closed his eyes, listened to Dr. Chu's fountain. His body was a battlefield for this very quiet battle. Much too early to tell how it was going, of course, but: yesterday had been good—isn't that what the numbers were saying? And now, when all those cancer cells were still off balance—like so many teams when the opposition skates down for a quick opening goal—now here they came again, microscopic warriors by the million. Had to feel good about that.
Fight like bastards
.

Delia's voice again, so clear she might have been in the feng shui room with him. Fifteen years of silence and now he was hearing her again: What was that about? Roy didn't know, but found it comforting. He tried an experiment. “Where's the Hobbes Institute?” he said aloud. He heard nothing but the fountain.

Roy opened his eyes. The IV bag was empty, except for those last few stubborn drops, clinging to the plastic. Roy rose and squeezed the IV bag, forcing the remaining drops into the tube, on their way to the front. Netty entered.

“Roy? Everything all right?”

“Yup.”

She unhooked him. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yup.”

“Still got the card?”

“Card?”

“With the emergency number. In case you have a reaction.”

Roy shrugged; he knew perfectly well where the card was—in his wallet—but he wasn't going to need it. He bought a Hershey bar from a lobby vending machine on his way out of the hospital.

 

Roy had
never been in a synagogue before. He had a notion that men and women didn't sit together, but it wasn't like that at all; in fact, the rabbi was a woman, plus only a few men wore skullcaps—including Roy, who'd taken his from a box by the door, thinking it was expected—and just about everything was in English. But there was Hebrew writing carved on the walls; the shapes of the letters kept catching Roy's eye.

From a seat at the back, he listened to stories from the life of Richard Gold. First came someone high up at the
New York Times,
who talked about Gold's passion for getting it right. Then a woman from a gay rights organization talked about the importance of Gold's support and what a stand-up guy he was. Finally, a man named Jerry, tears streaming down his face, said that Gold was the sweetest man that ever lived and how empty the house would be without him.

After, in the parking lot, Roy waited while people said good-bye. Little clusters here and there broke up and cars drove off, one by one. A light rain began to fall, the drops much colder than the air, and the last cluster, around Jerry, broke up, too. Jerry walked alone to his car, slowly, like every step involved an act of will. Roy followed him, caught up as Jerry reached his car, an old but pristine Volvo. Jerry fumbled with the keys.

“Excuse me,” Roy said.

Jerry looked up, his eyes wet and silvery.

“Sorry for your loss,” Roy said.

“Thank you,” Jerry said. He blinked. “I'm afraid I can't quite place—”

“We haven't met,” Roy said.

“You're a friend of Richard's?”

“Not exactly,” Roy said. “We talked on the phone a few times. My name's Roy Valois.”

A little pause. Raindrops trembled on Jerry's bald head. “The sculptor?” he said.

Roy nodded.

“Richard mentioned you.” The expression on Jerry's face changed.

“Not favorably,” Roy said.

“No, maybe not,” Jerry said. “I'm not sure why. I'm not sure about anything today.” He folded his arms across his chest, hugging himself. The keys fell to the wet pavement.

Roy picked them up. “I contacted him about a story he was working on.”

“He always had so many stories on the go,” Jerry said. He gazed into the distance. “What happens to them now?”

“I don't know.” Roy held out the keys. Jerry looked confused for a moment; then he took them. “The story was my obituary,” Roy said.

The word itself made Jerry wince, as though he'd felt a sudden pain inside. “He hated obituary assignments. The future—that's what interested Richard. He always had to know what was around the corner.”

Jerry bent closer to the door lock, tried to stick in a key that was much too big. Roy pointed out the right one; Delia had had a car just like this when they first met.

“Thanks,” Jerry said. He tried with the right key, but couldn't get it to work either.

“I know this is the wrong time,” Roy said. “But Richard was looking into a mistake in his research on my background. I wonder if he mentioned anything about it.”

Jerry straightened, glanced up at Roy. He was a very small man. “Now I remember. He said you must be a megalomaniac.”

“Why?”

“Didn't you break into the morgue? Still young—already so hooked on how posterity was going to rate you. That's what he said.”

“The mistake's not about me,” Roy said. “It's about my wife.”

“I don't understand.”

“She died. I just want the facts to be right.”

“Oh, God,” Jerry said. “Recently?”

“No.”

Jerry covered his face with his hands for a moment, composed himself. “What do you want from me?”

“I'd like to know if he was making any progress on the correction,” Roy said.

“Not that he told me,” Jerry said. He gazed down at the keys. Roy took them from him and unlocked the door. Jerry sighed, a racking sound that sank deeper and deeper inside him. “Maybe there's something in his notes.”

Roy waited. He knew he should feel bad about what he was doing, but did not.

Jerry opened the door. “You can follow me if you want.”

“Thanks.”

“Don't thank me,” Jerry said. “It's what Richard would have done.” His voice rose in anger. “He cared about the facts.”

 

The house
—two stories, white with black shutters and trim, immaculate—stood on a side street off Connecticut, not far from where Roy and Delia had lived after the apartment in Foggy Bottom. Jerry parked in the driveway, Roy on the street. A locksmith was at work on the front door.

“Just about done,” the locksmith said.

Jerry led Roy inside. “I don't know why I'm bothering,” he said.

“Bothering with what?” said Roy.

“Changing the locks.” They stood in the kitchen. Tidy, except for wreckage of a wooden chair, piled in a corner.