by the Laminar Airflow room. But the woman had
been worrying out loud about a far more serious
rupture, one’ that threatened to rend the family as
irreparably as a guillotine on neck-flesh.:
Perhaps she’d known, then, that the wound was
too deep to heal. But she and her husband had
attempted to patch it anyway. To prevent the leakage
of the ugly secret by taking the child and running…
“They snuck him out behind my back,” Nona was
saying, squeeziv4g my hand, digging in with the
green nails. The anger was percolating within her
once again. A thin film of sweat mustached the
rich, wide mouth. “Like fucking thieves. She ‘dressed
up as an x-ray technician. In a mask and gown they
swiped from the laundry bin. Took him down to
the basement on a service elevator and out a side
exit. Th/eves.
‘-‘I came back to the .motel and all three ‘of them
were there. My baly was lying on the bed, so small
and helpless. They were packing and jo king about
getting away with it so easy.. How nobody had recognized
her behind the mask because none of them
had ever looked her in the eye. Putting down the
hospital. Him going on about smog and shit. Trying
to justify what. they’d done.”
She’d given me an opening. It was time to renew
my pitch. To convince her to come with me peaceably
as I carried her son out of there.
But before I could say anything the door burst
open.
24
Douc CARMICHAEL crouched in the doorway like a
commando in a martial arts movie. The arm.that ·
extended into the room held a rifle. The other hefted
a double-edged axe as if it were balsa. He wore a
black mesh tank top that exposed lots of hypertrophied
muscle. His legs were thick and corded, carpeted
with curly blond hair and encased in tight
white swim trunks. His knees were misshapen and
lumpy-surfer’s knots. Rubber beach sand, s cushioned
large rough feel The reddish-blond beard was
neatly cropped, the thick layered hair precisely
blow-dried.
Only the eyes had changed from the day I’d met
him. That afternoon in Venice they’d been the. color
of a cloudless sky. Now I looked into a pair of
bottomless black holes: dilated pupils surrounded
by thin rings of ice. Mad eyes that scanned the
trailer, shifting from the Southern Comfort bottle to
the drowsy girl to me.
307
“I ought to kill you right now for giving hr that
poison.”
“I didn’t. She took it herself.”
“Shut up!”
Nona tried to straighten up. She swayed groggily.
Garmichael pointed the rifle at me.
“Sit down on the floor. Up against the wall, with
– your hands under you. Good. Now stay put or I’ll
have to hurt you.”
To Nona: “C’mere, Sis.”
She went to his sideand leaned against his bulk.
One massive arm went around her protectively.
The one with the axe.
“Did he hurt you, babe?”
She looked at me, knew she was my jury, considered
her answer, ands, hook her head woozily.
“Naw, he’s been okay. Just talking. Wants to take..
‘Woody to the hospital.”
“I’ll bet he does,” sneered GarmichaeL “That’s
the party line. Pour more poison in and rake in the
bucks.”
She looked up at him.
“I dunno, Doug, the fever’s no better.”
“Did you give him the C ?”
“Yeah, just like you said.”
“What about the apple?”
“He wouldn’t eat it. Been too sleepy.”
“Try again. If he doesn’t like the apple there are
pears and plums, too. And oranges.” He tilted his
head at the shopping bags on the counter. “That
stuff is super fresh. Just picked, totally organic.
Get some fruit and fluid down him along with more
C and he’ll cool off.”
“The boy’s in danger,” I said. “He needs more
than vitamins.”
BLOOD TEST 309
“I said shut up! You want me to finish you off
right here ?”
“I don’t think he means any harm,” said the girl,
meell-y.
Carmichael smiled at her with genuine warmth
and just a touch of condescension.
“You go back in there with the little guy, Sis.
Work on nutrition?’
She’started to say something but Carmichael