Taji's Syndrome (30 page)

“Quite a fellow,” said Jeff dryly.

“Well, I came to my senses, didn’t I?” She gulped down the rest of her coffee and shouted for more. “After Harold was born, we spent almost a year in Wyoming, and then we came down into Colorado. That’s when I decided that I’d find a way to leave Frank and stay here. It took me three years, but by the time Hal was old enough to go to school, I’d scraped together enough to put a down payment on this place. Not that it was anything like it is now. All I had was an old cow barn to use for a stable and a two-room shack for a house.” She folded her arms on the table. “You know, Harold was about three weeks premature. I don’t know if that means anything.”

“Neither do we,” said Susannah, “but it might have some bearing.”

“Anyway, the school has all the blood screen records on Harold. You can get ’em with my blessing. That’s the only way I’ve been able to try to keep track of him—through the Standard Public School Blood Screen. Every time he transfers he has to get one, and there are times I can find them even though they’re out of state. I had a lawyer working on it, but it got too expensive and I wasn’t getting any closer to Harold.” She picked up one of the pastries and bit into it.

“If we get a full set of SPSBS results on Harold, that would help us collate the information you and the phone company provide,” said Jeff, “and we could release the information to you once we have it.”

For an instant Alexa’s face brightened. “Would you do that for me?” Then she deliberately grew somber. “I’m not going to get my hopes up. I tried for years and years and years, and I’m not going to do that again. If you get me those records, I’ll do what I can with them, but I don’t . . .”

Susannah reached out and put her hand on Alexa’s wrist. “I know this is very hard on you. You’re being very generous to help us out. We want to do everything we can to find Harold, because we have to learn a little bit more about him. He might have a clue to the disease we’re looking for.”

“I know that.” She stared down at the custard tarts as Jeff outlined what was known about Taji’s Syndrome and what his own theories were.

Alexa listened closely and when he was through, she shook her head. “My son isn’t like that. He was never sick as a child and he wouldn’t have that kind of disease in him, Doctor Taji.”

“It wouldn’t necessarily be obvious. We have no way of knowing what he is carrying, if anything, and how it triggers the disease, if it does. It’s all supposition at this time.”

“It’s all bullshit,” Alexa said conversationally. “But I’ll have to go along with it for now. I got too much to gain from helping you out, don’t I?”

It was almost dark when Jeff and Susannah left Alexa. They had come to a distrustful understanding that troubled all three of them.

“Well, what do you think?” Jeff asked as they drove into the town of Golden.

“I think you’d better be right or she’ll kill you.” Susannah opened her purse and checked the three filled tapes. “And I hope we can mine a few nuggets from all this. She sure had a rough time of it.”

“It isn’t over yet,” Jeff reminded her sadly.

—Sylvia Kostermeyer and Weyman Muggridge—

When the alarm went off at six-thirty, Weyman found it and flung it across the room without raising his head from the pillow.

“Hey,” Sylvia protested as she heard the clock break. “I like that clock.”

“I’ll get you another,” he mumbled. “But promise not to set it for earlier than eight.” He was lying facedown; he rolled onto his side as he reached out his arm to pull her closer. “How much time have we got?”

“Depends on whether you want breakfast.” She smiled faintly and kissed the corner of his mouth.

“What if we get coffee and rolls at the office?” He nuzzled her neck.

“What about shower and shave?” she asked, this time grinning.

“Probably a wise idea. If I have my wicked way with you right now, you’ll look like you’ve been sandpapered.” To demonstrate he rubbed his chin over her shoulder.

“They wouldn’t see most of it, would they?” She was pleased and shocked with herself for how she was acting. Last night she had been astonished to realize how intense her desire for him was, and how wholly unselfconscious she felt with him. Was that what being abandoned meant? She had never done or said such things.

“They’d know. But who cares?” He tussled with her playfully, kissing her between growls.

“Weyman?” she asked seriously a bit later.

“What?” He had caught her tone; he braced himself on his elbows, his face only inches from hers, and looked her directly in her eyes. “Something the matter?”

“Did I . . . shock you?” She could not meet his gaze.

“You sure did,” he said, grinning lazily.

“I . . . I didn’t . . .”

“You shocked me the best possible way, by giving me exactly who and what you are, no lies, no deception, no frills, no bells and whistles, just whole, real you. It’s the best possible shock in the world, you know that?” He kissed her nose.

“It didn’t bother you?” She was starting to feel better, as if she might not have wrecked it after all.

“You mean worried or troubled me? no. Not in the least.” He took her face in his hands. “What does bother me, Sylvia Ingrid Kostermeyer, is that you seem to think you’ve done something that might offend me. What makes you think that?” He watched her closely, with warmth in his eyes.

“Oh, nothing.” She had to suppress a giggle and did not entirely succeed.

“Tell me, Sylvia. Please. I want to know.” He rolled onto his back and pulled her across his chest. “God, you feel good.”

“So do you,” she said, growing a little bolder.

“Go on; tell me.” He held her close without restraining her. “Sylvia.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said.

“Now you are giving me ribbons and bow and bells and whistles. I like you better just as you are. If you don’t want to talk about it, say so. But you can tell me anything. I mean that.” Suddenly he broadened his accent. “Hell, chile, I growed up in the mountains an’ there ain’t nothing I ain’t seen or heard of.” He watched her smile and felt some of the tension go out of her. When he spoke again, his voice was low and gentle. “Sylvia dear Sylvia dear Sylvia, nothing you could say would change my feeling about you, for you. No matter what you have done or might do.” He pulled her tumbled hair back. “You can trust me, Sylvia. Truly.”

“I wish . . . I wish I could believe you,” she said, and bit her lip to stop herself from crying.

“No more than I do, Sylvia,” Weyman said.

“Why can’t you simply take this for what it is,” she began only to have him interrupt her. “Enjoy the moment.”

“That’s what I’m doing. But there’s more than a moment. This isn’t a fling.” His hands were still and his eyes grew solemn. “Word of honor.”

“What makes you think it’s not? We’re thrown together for a short time during a crisis. Everything is tense and frightening. We’re working against time and an invisible enemy; we’ve got so much at stake. It’s perfect for a fling, for trying to find something positive and fun in the ruins.” She was astonished to hear how angry she was, to feel the tightness in her shoulders and arms as if she wanted to lash out at him. “If we weren’t investigating TS, this never would have happened.”

“That’s true. We met because of a horrible disease. TS might be our matchmaker, but I refuse to feel guilty about it.” He waited, holding her, and after four long minutes had passed, he asked, “Are you trying to drive me away, is that it? Are you hoping to get rid of me?”

She brought her head up so quickly that she clipped his chin. “What?”

“Well, that is what you’re trying to do, isn’t it? I’m getting too close. You’re scared to death that you might want me to stay, and so you’ll drive me away to keep from having me leave.” His hands moved slowly, languidly over her back. “Since I’m not going, it’s kinda dumb, don’t you think?”

“I’m not . . . Weyman, it’s not that.” She lowered her head so that she would not have to look into his face. His lean, craggy features held no secrets from her and she saw no deception there.

“Appears pretty much like it to me.” He continued to hold her. “Better listen up, Sylvia, because I’m putting you on notice right now. I am not leaving. I am not walking out. I am going to stay with you until one or the other of us is six feet under. That isn’t wartime panic talking, it’s the way we are together: work, sex, dinner, all of it.”

“That might be pretty soon—the six feet under, I mean,” she said, and swallowed hard against the cold tightness that had not left her throat. “With TS all over the place, who knows how long any of us is—”

“Who knows anyway? You might have another quake any day now, and it might be a really big one that will do more than wreck a few old buildings and roads. You might eat something that’s contaminated. You might be stricken with any number of illnesses. You could choke on a chicken bone. You might get run over by a car or shot by a burglar or—”

“Stop it,” she said, not quite able to laugh. “Stop it, Weyman.”

“You can’t spend your whole life wondering when it’s all going to fall apart, Sylvia. It isn’t that it’s going to end that matters, but what you do in the meantime. The meantime is what it’s all about, not the end. You can’t let that keep you in a box. Boxes are for when you’re dead, not when you’re alive.” He wrapped his long arms more tightly around her. “Who walked out on you? Who made you so afraid? Can you tell me?”

She rested her head on his shoulder, her face away from his. “Nothing’s ever certain.”

Gently he stroked her hair. “No, it’s not.”

“And if you depend on it, you’ll be disappointed or hurt.” She started to cry, and did not know how to make herself stop.

“Hey, hey.” Lying beneath her, he rocked her slowly. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Sylvia. Go on.”

“What’s the point?” she asked, but her tears continued.

“It doesn’t need a point. It’s okay.”

Quite suddenly she turned her head and kissed him, her mouth open and insistent.

“Hey,” he said when she broke away from him. “Sylvia, if that’s what you want, I’ll do it. If you want a hard, fast, deep fuck, you can have it. I won’t object. But there’s more, if you want it; more than you or I ever dreamed of. And God, God, I hope you want it. I hope you won’t be scared away.” This last was a plea, and it reached a part of her she had tried to hold inviolate.

She collapsed on him, her sobs deep and anguished. She caught the sheet in her hands and held it so tightly that it tore. She did not know what brought about this overwhelming emotion, but she could not stop it now. “I can’t I can’t I can’t,” she chanted as she wept.

“Yes, you can,” Weyman said, feeling an echo of her pain in him. “For me.” He held her until it was over. “That’s better,” he said, kissing her forehead and her eyelids. “Good for you.”

“Shit, I’m ashamed of myself. I shouldn’t have—”

“Stop that,” he said with stern kindness. “Don’t say that.”

“Say what?” She wanted to get up now, but could not get out of the circle of his arms. It was the strangest thing, she thought with a still, remote part of her mind. He did not seem to be holding her tightly, but she could not break free of him.

“Say you’re ashamed of yourself. You have no reason to be. None whatever.” He kissed her slowly, thoroughly. “No reason.”

“Weyman . . .”

Very quietly he whispered “Shut up,” before he gave her a longer, more complex kiss, one that left both of them slightly breathless. “How much time have we got?”

“An hour, tops, and that means a short shower,” she said as she peered at her watch on the nightstand. “Just a wash, nothing more.”

“Terrific,” he said, his smile widening. “I’ll hurry.”

“Hurry?” she asked incredulously. “An hour?”

“Haven’t you heard that us country boys like to take our time?” he teased, his hand sliding over her hip, fingers sensitive and playful at once.

“I heard quite the opposite, but never mind.” She was doing her best to match his bantering tone, but her attention was increasingly on the subtle and marvelous things he was doing to her, and doing so casually, so . . . laconically. It was so wonderful not to be rushed, she thought, and resolutely turned away from her watch.

“I’m going to shift you over a little,” Weyman said from beneath her. “I can’t reach everything unless I do.” He wiggled his hand to show her what he meant and she inhaled sharply.

“Go ahead.” If anyone had asked her the day before, Sylvia would have said it was impossible for her to forget the catastrophe that had struck San Diego, even for a moment: she found out now this was not so. For an undetermined length of time there was only Weyman, his hands, his mouth, the smell and taste and texture and weight of him, the way they moved together in the bars of morning sunlight across the bed. All the rest of it faded. Even while they rushed through the shower and he shaved while she tried to salvage her hair, TS hardly crossed her mind. It returned as they raced to the car, and started toward the Expressway.

They walked into their morning meeting five minutes late and were confronted by the five men in uniform they had seen not long ago.

“I’m sorry,” Weyman said while Sylvia was still trying to think up a plausible excuse for their tardiness. “My fault. I took a wrong turn on the Expressway. Serves me right for insisting on driving in a city I don’t know. God knows how much later I’d be if Doctor Kostermeyer hadn’t been with me.” He had put his attaché case on the conference table and had pulled out a chair for Sylvia as he spoke.

“We could arrange for a driver for you,” offered Captain Jacob Lorrimer.

“A good map would do,” Weyman told him. “Provided I have the sense to use it.”

“One of my assistants could prepare an orientation for you, Doctor Muggridge,” offered Commander Tolliver. “I have a staff that will be happy to assist you if you like.”

“Doctor Kostermeyer does a fine job, as well as providing an opportunity to discuss the investigation, which I doubt your staff could do, or would be allowed to do,” said Weyman as he pulled papers from the case. “And five minutes isn’t that crucial, is it?”

The men in uniform exchanged glances but said nothing. “Doctor Muggridge has updated figures on TS, most of them are . . . are not optimistic.” Sylvia took her place beside Weyman and started going through a few of the printouts. “We’ve been instructed to go back to the first reported cases of TS and to determine as much as possible about those who first died of it.”