Stephen King: End of Watch

‘It’s control ! I assert control ! You tried to stop me and you couldn’t! You absolutely couldn’t! And neither could she!’ He kicks Holly in the side. Her body rolls a boneless half a turn toward the fireplace, then rolls back again. Her face is ashen, her closed eyes sunk deep in their sockets. ‘She actually made me better! Better than I ever was!’

‘Then for Christ’s sake, stop kicking her !’ Hodges shouts.

Brady’s anger and excitement have caused Babineau’s face to flush. His hands are tight on the assault rifle. He takes a deep, steadying breath, then another. And smiles.

‘Got a soft spot for Ms Gibney, do you?’ He kicks her again, this time in the hip. ‘Are you fucking her? Is that it? She’s not much in the looks department, but I guess a guy your age has to take what he can get. You know what we used to say? Put a flag over her face and fuck her for Old Glory.’

He kicks Holly again, and bares his teeth at Hodges in what he may think is a smile.

‘You used to ask me if I was fucking my mother, remember? All those visits you made to my room, asking if I was fucking the only person who ever cared a damn for me. Talking about how hot she looked, and was she a hoochie mama. Asking if I was faking. Telling me how much you hoped I was suffering. And I just had to sit there and take it.’

He’s getting ready to kick poor Holly again. To distract him, Hodges says, ‘There was a nurse. Sadie MacDonald. Did you nudge her into killing herself? You did, didn’t you? She was the first one.’

Brady likes that, and shows even more of Babineau’s expensive dental work. ‘It was easy. It always is, once you get inside and start pulling the levers.’

‘How do you do that, Brady? How do you get inside? How did you manage to get those Zappits from Sunrise Solutions, and rig them? Oh, and the website, how about that?’

Brady laughs. ‘You’ve read too many of those mystery stories where the clever private eye keeps the insane murderer talking until help arrives. Or until the murderer’s attention wavers and the private eye can grapple with him and get his gun away. I don’t think help is going to arrive, and you don’t look capable of grappling with a goldfish. Besides, you know most of it already. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. Freddi spilled her guts, and – not to sound like Snidely Whiplash – she will pay for that. Eventually.’

‘She claims she didn’t set up the website.’

‘I didn’t need her for that. I did it all by myself, in Babineau’s study, on Babineau’s laptop. During one of my vacations from Room 217.’

‘What about—’

‘Shut up. See that table beside you, Detective Hodges?’

It’s cherrywood, like the buffet, and looks expensive, but there are faded rings all over it, from glasses that were put down without benefit of coasters. The doctors who own this place may be meticulous in operating rooms, but out here they’re slobs. On top of it now is the TV remote and a ceramic skull penholder.

‘Open the drawer.’

Hodges does. Inside is a pink Zappit Commander sitting on top of an ancient TV Guide with Hugh Laurie on the cover.

‘Take it out and turn it on.’

‘No.’

‘All right, fine. I’ll just take care of Ms Gibney, then.’ He lowers the barrel of the Scar and points it at the back of Holly’s neck. ‘On full auto, this will rip her head right off. Will it fly into the fireplace? Let’s find out.’

‘Okay,’ Hodges says. ‘Okay, okay, okay. Stop.’

He takes the Zappit and finds the button at the top of the console. The welcome screen lights up; the diagonal downstroke of the red Z fills the screen. He is invited to swipe and access the games. He does so without being prompted by Brady. Sweat pours down his face. He has never been so hot. His broken wrist throbs and pulses.

‘Do you see the Fishin’ Hole icon?’

‘Yes.’

Opening Fishin’ Hole is the last thing he wants to do, but when the alternative is just sitting here with his broken wrist and his swollen, pulsing gut and watching a stream of high-caliber bullets divide Holly’s head from her slight body? Not an option. And besides, he has read a person can’t be hypnotized against his will. It’s true that Dinah Scott’s console almost put him under, but then he didn’t know what was happening. Now he does. And if Brady thinks he’s tranced out and he’s not, then maybe… just maybe…

‘I’m sure you know the drill by now,’ Brady says. His eyes are bright and lively, the eyes of a boy who is about to set a spiderweb on fire so he can see what the spider will do. Will it scurry around its flaming web, looking for a way to escape, or will it just burn? ‘Tap the icon. The fish will swim and the music will play. Tap the pink fish and add up the numbers. In order to win the game, you have to score one hundred and twenty points in one hundred and twenty seconds. If you succeed, I’ll let Ms Gibney live. If you fail, we’ll see what this fine automatic weapon can do. Babineau saw it demolish a stack of concrete blocks once, so just imagine what it will do to flesh.’

‘You’re not going to let her live even if I score five thousand,’ Hodges says. ‘I don’t believe that for a second.’

Babineau’s blue eyes widen in mock outrage. ‘But you should! All that I am, I owe to this bitch sprawled out in front of me! The least I can do is spare her life. Assuming she isn’t suffering a brain bleed and dying already, that is. Now stop playing for time. Play the game instead. Your one hundred and twenty seconds start as soon as your finger taps the icon.’

With no other recourse, Hodges taps it. The screen blanks. There’s a blue flash so bright it makes him squint, and then the fish are there, swimming back and forth, up and down, crisscrossing, sending up silvery trails of bubbles. The music begins to tinkle: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea…

Only it isn’t just music. There are words mixed in. And there are words in the blue flashes, too.

‘Ten seconds gone,’ Brady says. ‘Tick-tock, tick-tock.’

Hodges taps at one of the pink fish and misses. He’s right hand-dominant, and each tap makes the throbbing in his wrist that much worse, but the pain there is nothing compared to the pain now roasting him from groin to throat. On his third try he gets a pinky – that’s how he thinks of them, as pinkies – and the fish turns into a number 5. He says it out loud.

‘Only five points in twenty seconds?’ Brady says. ‘Better step it up, Detective.’

Hodges taps faster, eyes moving left and right, up and down. He no longer has to squint when the blue flashes come, because he’s used to them. And it’s getting easier. The fish seem bigger now, also a little slower. The music seems less tinkly. Fuller, somehow. You and me, you and me, oh how happy we’ll be . Is that Brady’s voice, singing along with the music, or just his imagination? Live or Memorex? No time to think about it now. Tempus is fugiting .

He gets a seven-fish, then a four, and then – jackpot! – one turns into a twelve. He says, ‘I’m up to twenty-seven.’ But is that right? He’s losing count.

Brady doesn’t tell him, Brady only says, ‘Eighty seconds to go,’ and now his voice seems to have picked up a slight echo, as if it’s coming to Hodges from the far end of a long hallway. Meanwhile, a marvelous thing is happening: the pain in his gut is starting to recede.

Whoa, he thinks. The AMA should know about this.

He gets another pinky. It turns into a 2. Not so good, but there are plenty more. Plenty, plenty more.

That’s when he starts to feel something like fingers fluttering delicately inside his head, and it’s not his imagination. He’s being invaded. It was easy , Brady said of Nurse MacDonald. It always is, once you get inside and start pulling the levers .