“You’re using one woman’s car to cheat on her with three others?”
Haines nodded and tried to smile, but he winced as the smile sent new waves of
pain through his ruined nose. “I’ve always . . . had this way with the ladies.”
“For God’s sake!” Vince was appalled. “Don’t you realize these aren’t the
sixties or seventies any more? Free love’s dead. It’s got a price now. Steep
price. Haven’t you heard about herpes, AIDS, all that stuff?” Administering the
pentothal, he said, “You must be a carrier for every venereal disease known to
man.”
Blinking stupidly at him, Haines at first looked baffled and then was deep in a
pentothal sleep. Under the drug, he confirmed all that he had already told Vince
about Banodyne and the Francis Project.
When the drug wore off, Vince used the Taser on Haines, just for the fun of it,
until the batteries wore out. The scientist twitched and kicked like a
half-crushed water bug, back bowed, digging at the moss with his heels and head
and hands.
When the Taser was of no further use, Vince beat him unconscious with the
leather sap and killed him by applying the corkscrew to the space between two
ribs, angling it up into the beating heart.
Ssssnap.
Throughout, a sepulchral silence hung over the rain forest, but Vince sensed a
thousand eyes watching, the eyes of wild things. He believed that the hidden
watchers approved of what he had done to Haines because the scientist’s
lifestyle made him an affront to the natural order of things, the natural order
that all the creatures of the jungle obeyed.
He said, “Thank you,” to Haines, but he did not kiss the man. Not on the mouth.
Not even on the forehead. Haines’s life energy was as invigorating and welcome
as anyone’s, but his body and spirit were unclean.
4
Nora went straight home from the park. The mood of adventure and the spirit of
freedom that had colored the morning and the early afternoon could not be
recaptured. Streck had sullied the day.
Closing the front door behind her, she engaged the regular lock, the dead-bolt
lock, and the brass safety chain. She went through the downstairs rooms, drawing
the drapes tightly shut at all the windows to prevent Arthur Streck from seeing
inside if he should come prowling around. But she could not tolerate the
resultant darkness, so she turned on every lamp in every room. In the kitchen,
she closed the shutters and checked the lock on the back door.
Her contact with Streck had not only terrified her but had left her feeling
dirty. More than anything, she wanted a long, hot shower.
But her legs were suddenly shaky and weak, and she was seized by a spell of
dizziness. She had to grab hold of the kitchen table to steady herself. She knew
she would fall if she tried to climb the stairs just then, so she sat down,
folded her arms on the table, put her head in her arms, and waited until she
felt better.
When the worst of the dizziness passed, she remembered the bottle of brandy in
the cupboard by the refrigerator, and she decided a drink might help steady her.
She had bought the brandy—Remy Martin—after Violet had died because Violet had
not approved of any stronger drink than partially fermented apple cider. As an
act of rebellion, Nora had poured a glass of brandy for herself when she had
come home from her aunt’s funeral. She had not enjoyed it and had emptied most
of the contents of the glass down the drain. But now it seemed that a shot of
brandy would stop her shivering.
First she went to the sink and washed her hands repeatedly under the hottest
water she could tolerate, using both soap and then a lot of Ivory dishwashing
liquid, scrubbing away every trace of Streck. When she was done, her hands were
red and looked raw.
She brought the brandy bottle and a glass to the table. She had read books in
which characters had sat down with a fifth of booze and a heavy load of despair,
determined to use the former to wash away the latter. Sometimes it worked for