The Death Gods (A Shell Scott Mystery) (57 page)

“
Hank, he didn’t say that,
you’re making this up—”

“
I am only making it
interesting. Believe me, Sheldon, I do no violence to truth, merely
salt-and-pepper it a little. As Belking related this fantasy, the
wonderful Doctor Wintersong convinced the Vungers they might, only
might—in medicine there are no for-sure promises—live days longer,
or weeks, maybe even forever if they were lucky, without their
dying bodies making them sick.”

I opened my mouth, closed
it.

“
Besides which, this was
their chance to make a contribution, play an important part in the
advance of medical science, bring joy to human beings, make other
people well—the same bullshit doctors tell dumbbells when they want
to try out experimental drugs on them and find out whether it kills
more mice or people. So Guenther and Helga signed the papers,
agreeing Wintersong could perform craniectomies on
them.”

“
I don’t damn believe it.
Not if cranie-whatever means lopping their noodles off.”

“
It does. Especially in
this case. But I don’t believe it, either. Sheldon, I am telling
you the lies Belking lied on TV, comprende? And very cleverly lied,
knowing it is widely understood people, especially sick people—and
who isn’t—will sign anything a licensed physician or used-car
salesman tells them to. After all, any release Guenther and Helga
might have signed would only be the same kind of release all
hospital patients sign before operations, agreeing with the doctor
that the doctor may do whatever in his wisdom the doctor decides is
necessary or amusing. So Belking said to the many reporters yes, he
had in his possession those signed papers, making everything
hunky-dory.”

“
In his possession? That’s
not possi—”

“
Caramba, I said he said he
had them, not that he had them. He was not waving them about,
holding up wiggly signatures before the TV cameras. If necessary,
he promised they would be made available. Which, no doubt, they
will be, as soon as they’re finished.”

I was shaking my head.
“Hank, that’s monstrous. Belking may be the most convincing liar in
the country, but that’s so goddamned ridiculous. Surely people
won’t believe that crap.”

“
People already believe
mostly crap, Sheldon. And as I have told you lies believed become
truth, after which those who speak truth, become liars. Those
things, about my friends the Vungers, are bad lies. But there is
something else I must tell you that is even worse.”

“
Come on. What could be
worse?”

That distinctly unnerving
impression I mentioned earlier had not withered away. On the
contrary, it was blooming. I said cautiously, “Like what? And worse
for whom?”

“
Ah, you. For you, Sheldon,
worse. And it is of this I have been cogitating how best to inform
you. It is essential you be most alertly aware of your increasing
peril, concocted by Hobart Belking with vile
cleverness.”

“
Increasing peril?” “Wasn’t
there enough to begin—”

“
Mainly because of this new
peril, more so than your other enumerated crimes and misdemeanors,
everybody has been searching for you all this evening some
searching in veritable frenzies. Everybody—”

“
Hank, there’s that
‘everybody’ again. You mean lots of cops, right? Which doesn’t
exactly surprise the hell—”

“
Cops, yes. Also deputies,
federal police persons, maybe even National Guards. And, of course,
every physician in California, each pediatrician, podiatrist,
oncologist, all the gynecologists and immunologists and
virologists, plus especially every official or employee of federal
and state and local health departments including M.D.s and Ph.D.s
and statisticians—”

“
You’re going to drive me
nuts, Hernandez. What do you mean, health departments? Why would
all those goddamn doctors be looking for me in
frenzies—including... I’ll swear you said gynecologists,
gynecologists? What are you doing, pulling my—wait!”

I stopped suddenly,
getting a ghastly much worse than merely an unnerving impression a
definitely scary-all-over feeling. Because, though I did not
understand exactly where Hank was going, I had in that instant
gotten a kind of subconscious inkling and even a single inkle was
enough. I couldn’t grab it; but the slippery thought brushed my
mind like a feather of ice.

“
You see, Sheldon, during
your invasion of Omega you blundered recklessly into Dr.
Wintersong’s own sanctum of virological va-va-voom where, following
a full year of painstaking genius, the doctor has at last succeeded
in isolating, purifying, putrefying, and propagating a
super-virulent mutation of the IFAI virus—”

“
No, don’t say it, I won’t
believe—”

“—
from which he hoped to
develop a newer and even better IFAI vaccine for a newer and better
world. Unfortunately, blundering Sheldon Scott—that’s
you—blun—”

“
The hell it
is—”

“—
dered into and broke to
smahereens the sealed pyrex glass flask containing that
super-virulent super-savage super-deadly new IFAI virus, thus not
only destroying the entire Wintersong experiment but
simultaneously, and inevitably, becoming infected by it himself.
What this means—”

“
God in Heaven,” I
murmured, instantly becoming nauseous.

“—
is that he—you—Sheldon,
are simply swarming with billions of multiplying an even more
invariably-fatal superviruses that cause Invariably Fatal Acquired
Illness, and are therefore super infectious, a threat to the lives
and vacations of every man, woman, and child in the city of Los
Angeles.”

“
Why not the goddamn State
of California?”

“
Verdad, is true—a deadly
danger to the entire United States of America!”

“
Tomorrow, the
World.”

“
Do you comprehend, then,
what this means?”

“
Sure,” I said, glumly.
“Means I’m an epidemic.”

CHAPTER
THIRTY-SIX

“
If you are lucky,” Hank
said, “maybe you will only be quarantined.”

“
Yeah, in the morgue,
right? And what makes you think I’ll be lucky?”

“
Sheldon, this is a most
serious matter!”

“
Did I say anything
different? Hank, you know this Belking baloney about my smashing
some kind of bug soup is baloney, don’t you?”

“
Of course. Is worse than
baloney, is the usual epidemiological bullshit, which would still
be pure bullshit even if you had blundered into his cultured
bugshit and scattered it all the way to Bakersfield. But consider
how clever Belking is, Sheldon. By putting into everybody’s ears a
horrifying warning that they may catch their deaths from some
little bugs you maybe stepped on, he has shifted their petrified
attention from their heads to your feet, from him and Wintersong
and murder and medical madness, to a pathological fear of The
Walking Death, Sheldon Scott.”

“
Yeah,” I said glumly—I
seemed to be getting glummer and glummer. But not, I thought,
without reason. “Well, I continued, you do have a sickening way
with words, Hank. I’ve been called some pret-ty miserable things
before, but never anything so profoundly depressing as The
Walk—”

“
So I suggest you come with
alacrity, Sheldon, come here. It would be better I could go to
where you are, but I cannot, I must stay, some associates have come
to my office, there have been many calls, because of the situation.
But we must talk, consider everything, you and I. We will think of
something, maybe. Maybe not. Caramba! So, come with alacrity but
also care—great care—you and ah, all you people.
Caramba!”

“
Yeah. I believe those are
pretty much my sentiments. Consider though, just for the joy of it,
it’s probably a good thing I’ve got those two bozos under
precarious control, instead of their wandering around talking to
reporters and Congressmen and psychiatrists, judges...and
ah...”

“
We are both going to jails
for thousands of years.”

“
Buck up, old man, that’s
not like you. But you’re probably right.” I paused, a feeling in my
stomach as if I’d eaten a used meal. “But you’ll think of
something, Hank. I have lots of confidence in you. Lots. Yeah,
you’ll think of something stupendous. Won’t you?”

“
If I don’t, you had better
do it.” He sighed. “At least, Sheldon, you will now understand why
it is best, if you get here—”

“
When. When I
get—”

“—
that you park backwards
in my driveway, not out in the street where, obtrusively visible,
would be your automobile containing a USA President and famous
Nobel-Prize-winning—”

“
Got it. I probably should
park in Pasadena. I may even smear the license plate with my
luminous blood.”

“
Bueno. Do not let
them—anyone—catch you. They probably would not wish to get close
but they might kill you from a safe distance.”

“
Swell. That’s just swell,”
I said. “Man, you really know how to cheer a guy—hey?” He’d hung
up.

I hung up, too, scowling,
grinding my teeth together, thinking dark and ugly
thoughts.

A woman standing in the
middle of the room said, “Are you hurting again, Shell? In
pain?”

“
Huh. Forgot you were here,
Dane. Pain?”

“
Forgot? You
forgot?”

“
Don’t push it. It was only
for a minute, anyway. A second or two. See, I’ve got a few little
things on my mind. Why the hell would you ask if I’m in pain,
anyway?”

“
Well, you
look—horrible.”

“
Uh-huh, uh-huh. I think I
better explain—”

I stopped because on the
television screen, and instantly recognizable, was a long-shot of
the Omega Medical Research Center, guardhouse and chain-link fence,
heavy gate—wide open—and the low white windowless building beyond.
The only difference from the last time I’d seen it was that, beyond
the fence, in the open area before the central building, a lot of
little people were scurrying around like bugs. I could even make
out tiny signs the bug people were carrying.

I turned up the sound,
stepped back. Dane watched, and listened with me, which meant
there’d be fewer things I would have to explain later. We began
absorbing the various disasters at about a minute after twelve, and
it was twelve-oh-nine before the Midnight News’ “Top Story of the
Day” ended.

So, subtracting sixty
seconds for a commercial—in which a middle-aged cowboy actor
wearing a white hospital jacket equipped with stethoscope assured
one and all that this here box of IntestiBliss pills, because it
was highly recommended by eight out of ten doctors, was two and a
half times better for Stubborn Constipation. The news team devoted
seven full minutes to their top story. In the first three minutes,
they covered Omega, Wintersong, Belking, severed heads, IFAI and
Super-IFAI, the need for animal research to save human lives, and
the FDA’s approval of an IFAI vaccine to save human lives—plus
Henry Hernandez, who was “once again facing charges of medical
malpractice,” and Shell Scott, local private investigator, who was
facing charges of practically everything that had so far been
invented. And that was before Hobart Belking’s beefy face appeared
on screen, its mouth open and moving malevolently, and there was no
denying once he got around to Shell Scott he made him sound like a
criminal psychopath even I would love to hate.

Some people, honest
people, can’t lie worth a damn. Unconsciously, they give the game
away every time. Even if it’s just a little one, they’ll wiggle
their ears, or say “Er, ah,” or start biting pieces of skin off
their lips. Losers, tragically unequipped to make it in real life.
But not Belking. He must have been born lying, because the bastard
laid it on with polish and savoir-faire, with almost hypnotic
conviction, and the enthusiasm that comes only after long
practice.

In response to a question,
about the one dog and two murdered-human heads, Hobart frankly
revealed that he already knew of the “incredible” situation, but
had learned of it only this very day, during an early-morning
meeting with Dr. William Wintersong at Omega. Naturally he was
shocked, even horrified, at first. But only at first. Because when
Dr. Wintersong told him the truth—including the uniquely disturbing
circumstances compelling him to do what he’d done—Belking
understood Dr. Wintersong’s dilemma, and reluctantly approved the
courageous decision he had made. Not only approved, but admired Dr.
Wintersong for his courage in acting decisively, indeed even
humanely and compassionately, in the highest and best traditions of
medical science.

The man was confident,
self assured, so convincing that when he spoke of the Vunger’s
“signing a release required by law,” it sounded as natural as
organic carrots, a most sensible thing to do, and not even one of
the assembled reporters said anything like, “Come on, pal, you’ve
got to be full of IntestiBliss.” Of course, Hobart Belking spoke
with the natural authority of a billion dollars or so. Would a
billionaire lie? Would he cancel a million bucks worth of
advertising?

Nobody had yet asked him
how long—and why—Dr. Wintersong had been experimenting with keeping
heads without bodies alive. I’d begun thinking the question wasn’t
going to be brought up, which would be unfortunate, because Belking
would surely have a difficult time coming up with an acceptable
answer to that one. I was wrong.