بخش 02 - فصل 07

7

Dr. Felix Babineau is wearing a thousand-dollar suit beneath the white coat that goes flying out behind him as he strides down the hallway of the Bucket, but he now needs a shave worse than ever and his usually elegant white hair is in disarray. He ignores a cluster of nurses who are standing by the duty desk and talking in low, agitated tones.

Nurse Wilmer approaches him. “Dr. Babineau, have you heard—”

He doesn’t even look at her, and Norma has to sidestep quickly to keep from being bowled over. She looks after him in surprise.

Babineau takes the red DO NOT DISTURB card he always keeps in the pocket of his exam coat, hangs it on the doorknob of Room 217, and goes in. Brady Hartsfield does not look up. All of his attention is fixed on the game console in his lap, where the fish swim back and forth. There is no music; he has muted the sound.

Often when he enters this room, Felix Babineau disappears and Dr. Z takes his place. Not today. Dr. Z is just another version of Brady, after all—a projection—and today Brady is too busy to project.

His memories of trying to blow up the Mingo Auditorium during the ‘Round Here concert are still jumbled, but one thing has been clear since he woke up: the face of the last person he saw before the lights went out. It was Barbara Robinson, the sister of Hodges’s nigger lawnboy. She was sitting almost directly across the aisle from Brady. Now she’s here, swimming with the fish they share on their two screens. Brady got Scapelli, the sadistic cunt who twisted his nipple. Now he will take care of the Robinson bitch. Her death will hurt her big brother, but that’s not the most important thing. It will put a dagger in the old detective’s heart. That’s the most important thing.

The most delicious thing.

He comforts her, tells her she’s not a horrible person. It helps to get her moving. Something is coming down MLK, he can’t be sure what it is because a down-deep part of her is still fighting him, but it’s big. Big enough to do the job.

“Brady, listen to me. Z-Boy called.” Z-Boy’s actual name is Brooks, but Brady refuses to call him that anymore. “He’s been watching, as you instructed. That cop . . . ex-cop, whatever he is—”

“Shut up.” Not raising his head, his hair tumbled across his brow. In the strong sunlight he looks closer to twenty than thirty.

Babineau, who is used to being heard and who still has not entirely grasped his new subordinate status, pays no attention. “Hodges was on Hilltop Court yesterday, first at the Ellerton house and then snooping around the one across the street where—”

“I said shut up!”

“Brooks saw him get on a Number 5 bus, which means he’s probably coming here! And if he’s coming here, he knows!”

Brady looks at him for just a moment, his eyes blazing, then returns his attention to the screen. If he slips now, allows this educated idiot to divert his concentration—

But he won’t allow it. He wants to hurt Hodges, he wants to hurt the nigger lawnboy, he owes them, and this is the way to do it. Nor is it just a matter of revenge. She’s the first test subject who was at the concert, and she’s not like the others, who were easier to control. But he is controlling her, all he needs is ten more seconds, and now he sees what’s coming for her. It’s a truck. A big black one.

Hey, honey, Brady Hartsfield thinks. Your ride is here.