The Twelve-Fingered Boy (24 page)

Jerry's seventy if he's a day. Jerome Abraham Aaronson, Korean vet, teller of tall tales, sufferer of massive gallstones, and totally impenetrable to any kind of mind-tinkering or intrusion. He's a jolly iron man.

“Eh.”

My side gives me a twinge of pain, but it's much better today. Dr. Stevens told me I need to move around so the tissues can get micro-tears that will help the healing process along. I read his mind when he was saying it. He didn't know if what he said was true, but it was possible and it sounded good. Dr. Stevens is in free fall. He's so terrified he'll make a mistake and someone will die that, when he leaves for lunch and sits in his car, he cries. I mean, blubbering, big-time. Titty-baby stuff. It's sad, but there's nothing I can do for him.

I stand and move to the window.

“Not that interested, Jerry.”

“Let me ask you something.”

“Do we have to?”

“Whoa. Mr. Big Shot. Can a person ask him a question? Is everything so bad? You can save a little girl, but you can't answer one old man's question?”

It's like he's my grandfather or something. Always with the questions.

“Okay, Jerry. Shoot.”

He looks like Mel Brooks, Jerry does. When I told him that, he said, “I wish that were true and the wife looked like Anne Bancroft. Now that was one gorgeous lady.”

Today he asks, “How did you know Dubrovnik had the girl in his basement?”

I sigh. Same old question. Reporters, police, all asking the same things. How did you get from Arkansas to North Carolina? How did you know he kept her in his basement?

To reporters I always respond with silence. I'm fifteen. A minor. They've got to keep their distance. At least for now.

To Jerry I tell the truth.

“I read his mind.”

Jerry laughs. “No, really. How'd you know?”

“I pulled the thought right out of his head.”

“Okay, you don't want to tell me. Why don't you just say so?”

I look out the window. I saw him yesterday.

He was standing on top of the UNC's main hospital building, peering at the building I'm in. He looked gaunt. Haggard. The wind whipped at his coat and tore at his hair. For a moment I was struck by the sight: a dark figure on an empty, wind-whipped roof, staring intensely.

The roof is the same height as this room, an easy view. I hobbled over to the window and banged on it, but he didn't see me. He's out there. He must really know how to jump now, because if he didn't he'd be as flat as a pancake and leaking fluids everywhere.

It's winter, and while there hasn't been any snow yet, Jack's got to be cold and hungry.

When Jack and I first came here, we each had three or four hundred dollars in our wallets. Except Jack paid for our tickets back to Jacksonville the night we discovered Dubrovnik. So he had far less. I can't remember if I gave Jack the rest of my cash or the paramedic took it off me for safekeeping. I guess I could ask the policeman standing at the door, but he's large and wide, and quite the low-watt bulb. Believe me, I've been inside his head. It's like a huge ballroom with nobody dancing in there. He reminds me a little of Ox, though I never had the pleasure of peeking inside Ox's head.

I'm back to being a ward of the state. Only it's North Carolina now, instead of Arkansas.

Jerome flips the channel to CNN. At the moment the pundits are talking about the new terrorist bombing in Pakistan and not about poor Elissa Jameson, the girl Dubrovnik kept in the cellar. Or me. Whenever I think about her, I have to believe it was all worth it. Whenever I think about myself, I have to hope it is.

There's blood in the water, and I don't just mean in daytime TV.

Quincrux is out there. I've felt the vibrations from his passing, seen his image and heard his voice in the minds of the nurses and doctors. I have no guests, though before long a lawyer or a representative from the Arkansas Department of Corrections is bound to show up. Maybe that is what's keeping Quincrux away.

He's going to be coming for me, and there's nothing I can do about it.

“You and that window. You waiting for the sky to fall?” Jerry takes a sip of water from a paper cup, grimaces, scratches his ass through the itchy hospital gown. “How 'bout a game of Double Shutter?”

Anything to stop his questions.

Jerry tells me Double Shutter is an ancient game invented by his ancestors. But it looks like it was packaged by Hasbro. Domino-like pieces are lodged on small axles inside a red metal tin, so you can flip down the numbers. Two rows, one to ten, going left to right and then back again on the rear row. You roll the dice; then you turn down the corresponding tiles or a combination of tiles that equals the sum. It's harder than it looks. Lowest score wins.

I walk over to Jerry. My side does hurt, but far less than a week ago. Maybe Dr. Stevens was right about the micro-tears. I should tell him. Might make him feel better.

My arm and fingers are still numb. I had to crap in a bag for nearly two weeks, and they removed a foot or two of my intestines—which is a nice conversation piece, I guess. When I look at myself shirtless in the mirror, I can count my ribs and see the bones of my pelvis. There's the puckered forget-me-not gunshot wound that Billy Cather gave me, so long ago, gracing my right shoulder and balanced now by cottonfields of dressing gauzing my left side, courtesy of the Dubrovnik twins. My left forearm is pink and shiny with new skin from where Matilda tried to skin me.

Pretty worthless to look at, really, this meatsuit. I could shuck it off and fly into the wild blue yonder and never return. What would that be like? Weightlessness? The cold empty spaces between the stars? A warm bath? Nothing?

I look at the gunshot wound. Old now, with no pain except for that in my heart.

I ran away once before and lost my little dude, my Vig. I have this wound as a reminder. I can't run again. Sometimes I feel like my insides might spill out of me, onto the floor. It's happened before. So I remain where I am, looking at my scars. My reminders. They're a symbol. A tether. A cage.

I'll stay incarcerado.

Back when I was dealing, I was thicker, to say the least. But I wouldn't recommend the Knife in Your Guts Diet Plan.

Matilda Dubrovnik did a number on me. She cut me deep and removed the possibility I'll ever be a classical pianist. Or a mountain climber.

Jerry and I play a quick game of Double Shutter, me standing by his bed while he holds the game on his blanket. They operated on Jerry to remove gallstones. They could have just let him pass them, but the pain from passing them might have screwed with his heart condition. Or they could have just operated to put more money in their pockets.

I score fifteen, a seven and an eight remaining, which isn't too bad. On Jerry's turn he shuts it down, closing all the tiles. The old bastard. He does that every time nearly. It's uncanny.

“Why do you even play me? You never lose.”

“I'm waiting for the magic to happen.” He winks. He might irritate me, but I can't stay permanently ticked. Well, maybe at night. He snores something fierce.

Nurse Larsson comes in, checks Jerry's chart, and then tells him he's off for another test. She helps him into a wheelchair.

On their way out, Jerry asks the nurse to stop. He turns his head toward me.

“Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone, okay? Like go running off to be another hero?”

“I'm not a hero. Why do you keep saying that?”

He smiles. “Be good, Shreve.”

Jerry's a good dude. I feel sorry that he's peeing rocks.

“I'll try, boss.”

Nurse Larsson wheels him out just as the announcer on CNN starts to talk about Elissa Jameson.

“And now for developing news on the horrific Elissa Jameson story. Forensics has identified the remains of two other children on the property, meaning the Dubrovnik twins held captive other children. Now we have forensic anthropologist Dr. Cherri Pittle to talk to us a little about what the police on the scene might have found…”

The Dubrovniks, the house, the girl—it all seems like someone else's memory.

Last week I was watching the news, and my face popped up on-screen. And then an exterior shot of good old Casimir, and then a driver's license mug shot of Moms.

So they discovered I'm a fugitive. But no word on Jack. Which makes me think someone is covering up his existence. And that someone has to be Quincrux.

Today, the anchor and the doctor consultant drone on about the case, and I return to staring out the window and letting the noise wash over me.

I watch for Jack. This time I'll be ready.

I hear someone come in, and I turn. An orderly. But he's staring at me intently, and he's without a mop or a cart. He walks over to the guest chair and sits down. He's got a pronounced limp.

He crosses his legs slowly, very slowly, never breaking eye contact. He looks infinitely bored with the situation. He puts his hands in his lap in a delicate manner, making me think of Englishmen on AMC.

Maybe he's a reporter. Why didn't the guard stop him?

For a long while he stares at me.

“What do you want?” I ask. “The trash is over there.” I point to the bin under the sink.

“So, Mr. Cannon, it seems you have proved more resourceful than either Ilsa or I guessed. How long have you hidden your skills?”

Ah.

Quincrux. He's possessing this guy. Driving him like a remote-controlled car. He must be near. In the building.

I don't feel so good.

They say honesty is the best policy, but I think they're idiots. I don't have any problem allowing Quincrux to go on believing something that's not true. He doesn't realize that he gave me this ability. So I stay quiet.

“No matter. No matter, Mr. Cannon. I can't take you out of here now, not with,” he tosses his head in the direction of the dull-witted police officer, “that gentleman and the reporters swarming the lobby and the atrium. But rest assured, I will take you.”

That doesn't sound so good. Might as well go on offense. Nothing to lose except everything.

“How's the leg?”

His face darkens. I do believe I've found a sore spot with Mr. Quincrux.

“Ah. Quite a surprise Mr. Graves gave us, I must admit. The doctors tell me I'll require years of painful physical therapy if I ever want to walk without a limp.”

“Nice.” I can't help but feel smug. “And the witch?”

“The witch?” He looks puzzled for a moment, and then he smiles. “Is that what you call her? How appropriate. Unfortunately, her body did not survive. Her spine was totally severed. Multiple internal injuries and brain damage. She barely had enough time to extract herself and occupy a new host. I fear she's not much use to me now, unless she receives more hearty sustenance.”

His eyes never leave me. I don't like the way he says that:
sustenance
.

“What about Norman?”

“Norman?”

“Yeah. The guy who was with you when we blew up in your face.” I try not to let the stress sound in my voice. “Did he make it?”

“I must not have made myself clear. Ilsa needed a new host. She took the vessel nearest and easiest to inhabit. Maybe we should start referring to her as ‘him' now.”

I step toward him, bringing up my fists. I have the barely contained urge to punch his self-satisfied face.

He raises his eyebrows and inclines his head slightly in an innocent, oh-I'm-sorry-did-I-offend-you? kind of way.

He can talk and talk and be polite as Jeeves, but he's a brute. A monster.

“Taking a new host is…” He shrugs. “It is hard. On everyone concerned. It takes a while to integrate.”

“You mean take over.” I spit at his feet. “Rape.”

“Semantics.” He brushes an invisible speck of lint off his dirty orderly uniform. He's a sandy-headed man, slim build, mid-fifties. Three days' beard. Wedding ring. I wonder whether he's watching this from somewhere or if Quincrux has tamped him down beyond awareness.

This is not good. This is so not good. How long do these freaks live? The witch took someone else's body?

“We live long. But not forever.”

Maybe the surprise shows on my face. Quincrux chuckles.

“No, I did not read your mind, dear boy. The day is coming soon when you will have to try and keep me out, if you can. However, I do not need to read your mind to know what you are thinking. I can make quite adroit guesses on my own.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to come to an arrangement with you.”

“You killed a man. The biker—”

He remains silent, implacable. Then he bows his head once, slowly bringing it toward his chest and then back, his gaze never leaving me.

“I have killed. Yes, this is true.”

More than one. Many, even.

I don't want to hear this. I do not want to hear it.

He goes on.

“I believe you are in contact with Mr. Graves. If you turn him over to me, I will make sure you do not end up on Ilsa's … er … should I say, Norman's … menu.” He smiles. “I can further guarantee that we will protect you. Give you employment. Teach you how to use your powers.”

“Who's we?”

“A very old society.”

“Like a government agency?”

“Related. Closely related.”

“What does that mean?”

Quincrux clears his throat. “Never you mind. All questions will be answered if and when Mr. Graves is turned over.”

“What will you do to him? Give him to the witch?”

“Hardly. He is a soldier. He will be used.”

“And what am I?”

“That is what we are trying to determine.” He stands and dusts off his overall pants legs as if he were wearing a suit. “You are, if you will pardon the pun, a loose cannon. Unquantifiable. But once we have our… match, our bit of mental contention, if you will … I'll know exactly your final … eh … disposition.”