Robert Tanenbaum - Enemy within

When she had finished, he asked, "So you had not intended originally to come to see me?"

"No, I was going to Boston to be with Mary Ma. My new life." Lucy rolled her eyes to mock herself.

"Very interesting. You recall that the very first time we spoke you were also running away from school. I gave you some soup."

"Yes, soup and a Confucian lecture on studying hard."

"Which clearly had no effect whatever," he said tartly. "And now that you are here…?"

Her face fell. Her fingers twiddled a packet of sugar. "I don't know. I feel stupid and wrong. But I'm just paralyzed. When I think of school… the boredom… it makes me shrivel."

"Oh, boredom. Pah! Coping with boredom is an attainment. No one unwilling to be bored has ever achieved anything grand, and I am sorry to see you have not learned how. I attribute this to your narrow genius, and to the impatience with tedium that I believe is common among people with such gifts. However, this can be corrected by cultivating the proper attitude. And you must have tutoring, in order to catch up in your studies."

"Tutoring by whom?"

"By me, it goes without saying. You will recall that I taught you how to calculate with fractions when you were eight-"

"Which I've managed to forget."

"-and your current work will pose no greater problems. As you will recall, I am a licensed teacher, and also not unskilled in the techniques of extracting information from unwilling heads. I believe similar techniques can move information in the opposite direction." He gave her one of his shark looks, and though she knew he was kidding, it still gave her a chill. She returned a hard look of her own.

"Will I have to listen to cryptic Eastern sayings that will make me a changed and better person, as in those movies?"

Tran sniffed as he had learned to in Paris in the fifties. "I assure you that my teaching methods are not cryptic at all. The opposite, in fact. I will be quite French. In any case, we will fix your school problem or kill you entirely, one or the other. Then we will see about repairing your dear mother. There is a telephone behind the cashier's desk. Please call your home immediately and tell your father of these plans."

Lucy meekly went off and did so. Meek was a relief just now. She found it encouraging that both St. Teresa and a commie gangster agreed about what she should do.

Marlene awoke and did not know where she was. This ignorance upon arising had not been unusual in recent weeks, but formerly she had, after a few moments, recognized her location as some corner of her home. This was not the case now. Above her she saw not the familiar smooth, off-white dropped ceiling of the loft, but acoustic tile, pale green. A TV hanging from the ceiling. A window, large and clean-the light said morning. A bag on a pole with a tube leading into a human wrist. A hospital? The wrist was attached to a chromed bed rail by a Velcro restraint. Her wrist, it seemed; the other was similarly tied, as were her ankles. That kind of hospital. They had somehow Velcroed the inside of her mouth, too, a technology she had not known existed. With effort she tore her tongue loose and croaked. Nothing happened. A call button was taped to the bed rail, within reach of her right hand. She pushed the button.

In came a large, ocher-colored woman in a pink pants uniform and pink harlequin glasses attached to a chain. She smiled and said, "Good, you're up. How are you feeling?"

"Water."

The woman applied the tube of a plastic squirt bottle to Marlene's lips. She sucked at it gratefully.

"Thank you," she said in a near normal voice. "Um… can I get loose now?"

"I don't see why not." The pink woman undid the restraints. "You got to promise me you won't tear up the place like you did coming in."

Marlene rubbed her wrists. "Where am I?"

"Kinney-Briard. You're in detox. I'm Dottie."

"Hello, Dottie. I'm Marlene." She stuck out her hand, and Dottie shook it uncertainly. Marlene thought most of the clientele at Kinney-Briard did not shake hands with their keepers. Kinney-Briard was one of the city's many private and expensive drunk tanks. "How did I tear the place up coming in?"

"You fought like a devil when you figured out where you were and that we were taking off your clothes. They said you were boxing them… you knocked Pat Lucas down with a punch in the jaw, and she's nearly two hundred pounds. And you gave Dr. Einkorn a split lip. I wasn't on shift then, but I heard it took six people to get you sedated and restrained. Where'd you learn to hit like that?"

"My dad taught me. He was a ranked welterweight in the forties." Marlene then added inanely, "I was drunk."

"You could say that. You had a blood level of point four one. Point one-o is legally drunk. Point five is when people start going into terminal comas. You were lucky your husband brought you in when he did."

"Yeah, lucky me." Marlene groaned and shifted in the bed. She could feel the initial pangs of what she knew would be one of the great headaches of the decade. Dottie was changing the IV bag. "What're you dripping into me?"

"Saline glucose with different electrolytes. You were seriously dehydrated, too. And malnourished. How long have you been drunk?"

"Not long. Weeks, not years."

"I guess. Rate you were going, you wouldn't have lasted a year."

On this cheerful note, Dottie departed, but not before dispensing an analgesic and directing Marlene's attention to the helpful brochures on the nightstand. Apparently "Doctor" would be by this afternoon to tell her about the program.

"The doctor I slugged?"

"Afraid so, dear."

"Did I hit anyone else besides those two?"

"No one but your husband."

"Oh, marvelous." Marlene pulled a pillow over her face. To her surprise, she fell instantly asleep.

And awoke to find Karp sitting there watching her, his expression neutral, tinged with apprehension. He had a purpling bruise under one eye.

She whimpered and placed her hands over her face. "Tell me it didn't happen. Tell me it was all a bad dream and I'm in here for an inoperable brain tumor."

He ignored this. "How do you feel?"

"Like I've been beaten with chains." She peeked through her fingers. "Jesus, Butch! I'm so sorry. What can I say? I don't remember any of it."

"The visit to the school?"

A pause, a shriek. She pulled the pillow over her head. From beneath it, she wailed, "No, I thought that was the d.t.'s. I really… Oh, God, no! That poor kid! Where is she?"

"Consorting with known criminals. She took off right after the events in question and ended up in Bridgeport. She called me last night. Apparently the plan is for her to stay up there with him until she's caught up in school. I spoke to Sister Royal about it…"

"Oh, God! Did she mention the… events?"

"Only to convey wishes for your recovery. She's a good egg. She says tutoring is a fine idea and that Lucy's welcome back if she catches up on her work."

"Did she ask who's doing the tutoring?"

"Yes. I said it was a personal friend of yours. A graduate of the Sorbonne. Take the pillow off your face, Marlene."

She did so and looked him in the eye. She reached out to touch the bruise, but he shied at her fingers. "I did that."

"Yes. A right hook, just after you coldcocked the doctor. You were also vividly negative as to my Semitic ancestry and my sexual prowess. It was quite a performance. I wasn't aware you harbored those feelings."

"It was the liquor talking," she said shortly, not wanting to consider any of that. "Am I going to have to be guilty about this for the rest of my life?"

"No, but it would be good if you fixed it so it wouldn't happen again."

"What, getting blasted? Okay, I promise I won't embarrass you in public again. I'll exercise discretion." She could feel the irritation rising. She looked at her husband's face. She blocked out the pain and love she saw there and painted it over with a smug, judgmental mask. She wanted a drink. She was ashamed of it, but there it was, not to be denied. "When am I getting out of here?" she asked, looking away.