Glenn Cooper - Book of Souls

Periodically, he visited the restroom to stuff more gauze into the wound and douse it with iodine. But he was still bleeding and getting weaker by the hour.

He awoke in the tinted glare of the morning, in pain, with a dull headache and a dry mouth. He was shivering, and he clutched his jacket to his neck for warmth. The terrain outside the window was flat, brown, and scrubby. He wished the air-conditioning would fail and the temperature would equilibrate to the desert heat. Infection was probably setting in.

The last hour of the journey was an ordeal. He endured nausea and pain and spasms of teeth-chattering chills, which he fought by stiffening his joints in anger. It was going to take sheer determination to finish the job. If he gave in to the advancing infirmity, Frazier would win. He refused to let that happen. He concentrated on Nancy and his son. An image of Philly breast-feeding while she dreamily looked out their apartment window settled into his mind. Then he found himself laughing when the image was replaced by an image of Spence’s huge RV.

“I want that bus,” he cackled out loud.

Through the green-tinted windows, Las Vegas appeared in the distance, rising out of the flat plain, crystalline, like the Emerald City. He pulled himself up for one more bandage change. The fellow who cleaned the restroom bin was going to think there’d been one heck of a situation on board.

Finally, the bus pulled into the Greyhound terminal near the Golden Nugget Casino just off the Strip. Will was last off, the driver watching him suspiciously as he struggled to make his way down the aisle and down the stairs. “You okay there, fellow?”

“Feeling good,” Will mumbled to him. “Feeling lucky.”

He hobbled straight for a taxi. The hot sun made him feel more comfortable. He slowly pulled himself into the back of a cab. “Take me to Henderson. St Croix Street.”

“Fancy neighborhood,” the driver said, giving him the eyeball.

“I’m sure it is. Get me there fast and there’s an extra fifty for you.”

“Sure you wouldn’t rather go to a hospital?”

“I feel better than I look. Turn off the AC, will you?”

His previous time in Las Vegas he’d made a mental note to make it his last. It was more than a year earlier, when he flew out to interview the CEO of Desert Life Insurance Company as part of the Doomsday investigation. It had been one of those right-church, wrong-pew deals. Nelson Elder, the head of the company, had been involved in the case, just not in the way Will ever expected. And his social call to his old roommate, Mark Shackleton, had also been far from a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of experience. The trip had left him queasy about Vegas and, frankly, he’d never been a fan anyway. One way or another, this really was going to be his last time, he swore.

The rush-hour traffic was heading north into Vegas, but going in the opposite direction, they made pretty good time to Henderson. The chocolate mountains of the McCullough Range occupied the windshield as they got closer to MacDonald Highlands, Spence’s exclusive country club community. As Will pressed himself to stay conscious, defiantly balling up his fists, the driver kept checking him out in the rearview mirror.

It was a gated community on the verdant grounds of the Dragon Ridge Country Club, an enclave of ultra-high-end homes, nestled in the hills overlooking the fairways. At the gatehouse, Will lowered his window and told the guard that Will Piper was there to see Henry Spence. Will could hear Spence’s voice through the guard’s phone. The cab was waved through.

At the curb, Will was looking at the biggest house he’d ever seen, a huge Mediterranean-style affair the color of sandstone. He could see Spence at the open front door, sitting on his scooter. Kenyon came bounding down to the curb, waving and calling, then stopped with a start at the sight of Will staggering out of the taxi. He ran forward and circled him with an arm to help him up the path.

“Good Lord! What happened to you?” Kenyon gasped.

Will gritted his teeth. “The watchers. I think they got Dane.”

“We were worried sick,” Kenyon said. “We heard nothing. Come. Come inside.”

Spence backed his scooter up to let the men past. “Alf, put him on the couch in the family room! Christ, he’s bleeding! Will, were you followed?”

“Don’t think so,” he rasped.

The house was nine thousand square feet of opulence, a Vegas-style Taj Mahal built for Spence’s socialite wife. Kenyon dragged Will through the horseshoe-shaped interior to a room with a fireplace, a computer desk, and a large brown sectional facing the backyard pool. Will slumped onto the sofa, and Kenyon carefully lifted his legs to get him recumbent. He was pale and sweaty, breathing rapidly. His pant leg was soaked through with sticky blood, and there was a sickly, ripe aroma in the air. “You need a doctor,” Kenyon said quietly.

“No. Not yet.”

“Henry, do you have a scissors handy?”

Spence wheeled up next to them, his oxygen lines hissing. “In the desk.”

Kenyon found the pair and cut a big square out of Will’s trousers, exposing the bloody bandage. He sliced through it, laid the gauze back and took a look at the wound. During his stint in the Nicaraguan jungle, he had learned rudimentary first aid. “You packed this yourself?”

Will nodded.

“Without painkillers?”

“Afraid so.”

The thigh was beefy and swollen. The gauze had a fruity, fetid odor. “It’s infected.”

Spence said, “I’ve got a whole drugstore in my medicine chest. What do you need?”

Kenyon answered, “Get me some pain pills, codeine, Vicodin, whatever you’ve got, and any antibiotics you have lying around. Is there a first-aid kit somewhere?”

“Trunk of my Mercedes. Germans think of everything.”

Will tried to prop himself up. “I’ve got it,” he said. “It’s in my bag.”

Spence closed his eyes. “Thank God.”

“Let’s sort you out first,” Kenyon insisted.

Kenyon worked quickly, pumping Will full of Percocet and Cipro, then asked him to forgive him as he pulled out the old gauze pack and painfully replaced it with fresh packing. Will groaned and gritted his teeth, and when it was done, he asked for a scotch.

Kenyon didn’t think it was a good idea, but Will persuaded him to pour a stiff one anyway. When he handed back the empty glass, he said, “I’m quitting tomorrow.”

Kenyon sat down beside him, and Spence drew his scooter near. It was then that Will noticed that Spence was all dolled-up, looking his best. His hair and beard were carefully combed. He had on a nice shirt and a tie. “Why’re you dressed up?” Will asked.

Spence smiled. “I don’t have any more birthdays to celebrate. We thought we’d celebrate my death day. Alf’s been a peach. Made me pancakes. Planned the whole day, not that I’m guaranteed to participate in all the activities. Pizza and beer for lunch. We’re going to watch Citizen Kane in the media room in the afternoon. Steaks on the grill for supper. Then I’m going to unhook the oxygen and have a cigar on the patio.”

“That’s probably what’ll kill him,” Kenyon said sadly.

“Sorry to interrupt your plans,” Will said. “Hand me my bag.”

He took out his laptop, and while it was booting up, he told them about the retrieval of the memory stick and the deadly encounter with the watchers. He hadn’t seen Frazier, but he sensed his presence. “Let’s finish our business before we watch any movies, okay?” he urged.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Spence said. “Besides, I already know all about Rosebud.”

Will opened Shackleton’s database and unlocked it with the password. He announced he was ready.