Stephen King - End of Watch

At first Scapelli could barely comprehend what she was seeing: Brady Hartsfield, giving her the finger. Then, as she heard the water go off in the bathroom, two buttons popped from the front of her uniform, exposing the center of her sturdy Playtex 18-Hour Comfort Strap Bra. She doesn’t believe the rumors she’s heard about this waste of humanity, refuses to believe them, but then…

He smiled at her. Grinned at her.

Now she walks down to Room 217 while soothing music wafts from the speakers overhead. She’s wearing her spare uniform, the pink one she keeps in her locker and doesn’t like much. She looks both ways to make sure no one is paying any attention to her, pretends to study Brady’s chart just in case there’s a set of prying eyes she’s missed, and slips inside. Brady sits in his chair by the window, where he always sits. He’s dressed in one of his four plaid shirts and a pair of jeans. His hair has been combed and his cheeks are baby-smooth. A button on his breast pocket proclaims I WAS SHAVED BY NURSE BARBARA!

He’s living like Donald Trump, Ruth Scapelli thinks. He killed eight people and wounded God knows how many more, he tried to kill thousands of teenage girls at a rock-and-roll concert, and here he sits with his meals brought to him by his own personal staff, his clothes laundered, his face shaved. He gets a massage three times a week. He visits the spa four times a week, and spends time in the hot tub .

Living like Donald Trump? Huh. More like a desert chieftain in one of those oil-rich Mideast countries.

And if she told Babineau that he gave her the finger?

Oh no, he’d say. Oh no, Nurse Scapelli. What you saw was nothing but an involuntary muscle twitch. He’s still incapable of the thought processes that would lead to such a gesture. Even if that were not the case, why would he make such a gesture to you?

‘Because you don’t like me,’ she says, bending forward with her hands on her pink-skirted knees. ‘Do you, Mr Hartsfield? And that makes us even, because I don’t like you.’

He doesn’t look at her, or give any sign that he’s heard her. He only looks out the window at the parking garage across the way. But he does hear her, she’s sure he does, and his failure to acknowledge her in any way infuriates her more. When she talks, people are supposed to listen .

‘Am I to believe you popped the buttons on my uniform this morning by some kind of mind control?’

Nothing.

‘I know better. I’d been meaning to replace that one. The bodice was a bit too tight. You may fool some of the more credulous staff members, but you don’t fool me, Mr Hartsfield. All you can do is sit there. And make a mess in your bed every time you get the chance.’

Nothing.

She glances around at the door to make sure it’s shut, then removes her left hand from her knee and reaches out with it. ‘All those people you hurt, some of them still suffering. Does that make you happy? It does, doesn’t it? How would you like it? Shall we find out?’

She first touches the soft ridge of a nipple beneath his shirt, then grasps it between her thumb and index finger. Her nails are short, but she digs in with what she has. She twists first one way, then the other.

‘That’s pain, Mr Hartsfield. Do you like it?’

His face remains as bland as ever, which makes her angrier still. She bends closer, until their noses are almost touching. Her face more like a fist than ever. Her blue eyes bulge behind her glasses. There are tiny spit-buds at the corners of her lips.

‘I could do this to your testicles,’ she whispers. ‘Perhaps I will.’

Yes. She just might. It’s not as if he can tell Babineau, after all. He has four dozen words at most, and few people can understand what he does manage to say. I want more corn comes out Uh-wan-mo-ko , which sounds like fake Indian talk in an old Western movie. The only thing he says that’s perfectly clear is I want my mother , and on several occasions Scapelli has taken great pleasure in reinforming him that his mother is dead.

She twists his nipple back and forth. Clockwise, then counterclockwise. Pinching as hard as she can, and her hands are nurse’s hands, which means they are strong.

‘You think Dr Babineau is your pet, but you’ve got that backwards. You’re his pet. His pet guinea pig. He thinks I don’t know about the experimental drugs he’s been giving you, but I do. Vitamins, he says. Vitamins, my fanny. I know everything that goes on around here. He thinks he’s going to bring you all the way back, but that will never happen. You’re too far gone. And what if it did? You’d stand trial and go to jail for the rest of your life. And they don’t have hot tubs in Waynesville State Prison.’

She’s pinching his nipple so hard the tendons on her wrist stand out, and he still shows no sign that he feels anything – just looks out at the parking garage, his face a blank. If she keeps on, one of the nurses is apt to see bruising, swelling, and it will go on his chart.

She lets go and steps back, breathing hard, and the venetian blind at the top of his window gives an abrupt, bonelike rattle. The sound makes her jump and look around. When she turns back to him, Hartsfield is no longer looking at the parking garage. He’s looking at her . His eyes are clear and aware. Scapelli feels a bright spark of fear and takes a step back.

‘I could report Babineau,’ she says, ‘but doctors have a way of wiggling out of things, especially when it’s their word against a nurse’s, even a head nurse’s. And why would I? Let him experiment on you all he wants. Even Waynesville is too good for you, Mr Hartsfield. Maybe he’ll give you something that will kill you. That’s what you deserve.’

A food trolley rumbles by in the corridor; someone is getting a late lunch. Ruth Scapelli jerks like a woman awaking from a dream and backs toward the door, looking from Hartsfield to the now silent venetian blind and then back to Hartsfield again.

‘I’ll leave you to your thoughts, but I want to tell you one more thing before I go. If you ever show me your middle finger again, it will be your testicles.’

Brady’s hand rises from his lap to his chest. It trembles, but that’s a motor control issue; thanks to ten sessions a week downstairs in Physical Therapy, he’s gotten at least some muscle tone back.

Scapelli stares, unbelieving, as the middle finger rises and tilts toward her.

With it comes that obscene grin.

‘You’re a freak,’ she says in a low voice. ‘An aberration.’

But she doesn’t approach him again. She’s suddenly, irrationally afraid of what might happen if she did.

Tom Saubers is more than willing to do the favor Hodges has asked of him, even though it means rescheduling a couple of afternoon appointments. He owes Bill Hodges a lot more than a tour through an empty house up in Ridgedale; after all, the ex-cop – with the help of his friends Holly and Jerome – saved the lives of his son and daughter. Possibly his wife’s, as well.

He punches off the alarm in the foyer, reading the numbers from a slip of paper clipped to the folder he carries. As he leads Hodges through the downstairs rooms, their footfalls echoing, Tom can’t help going into his spiel. Yes, it’s quite a long way out from the city center, can’t argue the point, but what that means is you get all the city services – water, plowing, garbage removal, school buses, municipal buses – without all the city noise. ‘The place is cable-ready, and way above code,’ he says.

‘Great, but I don’t want to buy it.’

Tom looks at him curiously. ‘What do you want?’