David ed. - Face Off (2014) Anthology

“Africa?”

“Big game hunting. I was never killed by a lion, however.” She smiled thinly. “Let me just say this, Aloysius. Let me get this off my chest. I’m not proud of myself for leaving you—but I began to fear for my safety. Living with you became increasingly dangerous. Through it all, Diogenes was a saint. He learned of this experimental treatment here at Stony Mountain. It was our last option.”

Pendergast nodded slowly. “What will become of me now?”

“I’m told the recovery will take time. You’ll have to stay here until the doctor feels it’s complete. It might be another six months.”

“You mean, I can’t leave?”

Helen hesitated. “You’ll have to face the fact that you’ve been legally committed. But it’s for your own good. After all, it took you years and years to develop these delusions. You can’t expect to get well overnight. In time, you’ll be able to return to Penumbra and pick up your old life of leisure.” She took both his hands in hers. “After that, who knows what might happen? Maybe there’s even hope for us.”

She squeezed his hands. He returned the pressure.

She smiled, stood up. “I’ll come see you tomorrow, around noon.”

Pendergast watched her go. A long moment passed as he fell deep into thought. For a very long time the room was utterly silent. A strip of moonlight marched slowly across the floor.

Finally, perhaps two hours later, he rose from the bed. On the far side of the room was a heavy metal locker, no doubt added at the time the space was converted into a hospital room. It was secured with a padlock. He looked about. On a table in one corner sat some papers. He flipped through them, but they were only newsletters and hospital menus. Slipping two paper clips off the documents, he went to the locker and—with a movement that was almost automatic—unbent both clips, inserted first one and then the other into the padlock, and with a single deft movement sprung it open.

He paused. How did he know how to do that? From his Special Forces days? His memory of that time was still so damnably miasmic.

He peered into the cabinet. It held a black suit, a white shirt, a tie, shoes, and socks. He touched the material of the suit, soft and elegant, as familiar as his own skin. He felt a prickling sensation at the base of his neck. He searched the suit and pants, going first to the pocket that—he supposedly remembered—held his FBI wallet. Nothing. The other pockets, all the little custom-made slots and pouches, were there. And all were empty. No ID, nothing.

He slipped off his hospital gown and put on the shirt, stroking the fine pinpoint cotton. Then came the pants, the Zegna tie, the jacket, the socks. As he picked up the John Lobb shoes, he thought of something, flipped over the left shoe, and detached the heel. There, nestled in a carved hollow, was a razor blade, a set of lock picks, two sealed ampoules of chemicals, and a tightly folded hundred-dollar bill.

He stared. Could this, too, be a product of his delusional FBI period?

Refastening the heel, he put on the shoes. He walked to the window, unlatched it, and swung it open. A breeze scented with hemlocks flowed through the vertical iron bars. He tried again to summon his last memory. They said he had been in there six months. Had it been winter, then? He tried desperately to remember, to see the landscape in front of him covered with snow, but could not.

Flexing his arms, he reached out and grasped two adjoining metal bars. They were wrought iron, of poor quality, and corroded. With all his force, he pushed outward with each hand. Slowly but surely, the wrought iron deformed under his immense strength until an opening large enough for him to slip through had been made. He let go, breathing hard. But now was not the time to leave. No—he needed answers first.

He fastened the window shut and drew the curtains. Moving cautiously, he went to the door of his room, tested the knob. Locked, of course. In ten seconds he had picked it with the aid of the paper clips, again marveling at his instinctual skill.

He cracked the door and peered out. The lights were on in the hall, and at the far end he could see a nurse’s station attended by a nurse and two orderlies. All were alert and busy. He waited, timing his exit until their attention was elsewhere, then ducked out of the door and pressed himself into the darkness of the next doorway. Another patient? With a deft twist of the paper clips, the lock opened, and he found himself in a room like his own, only much smaller. A man lay in the single bed. He, too, had a shaved head, but he looked thin and wasted, and his bare arm sported the old tracks of a heroin addict. His bed had been outfitted with the same medical device Pendergast had noticed in his own room.

With extreme caution, Pendergast exited the dark space and moved down the long hall. Each room he peered into was similar: a sleeping patient with a shaved head, frequently gaunt and wasted-looking.

This was getting him nowhere.

He paused to consider the possibilities. Either his version of reality was correct, or theirs was correct. Either way, unfortunately, seemed to indicate that he was crazy. He needed more information to choose which of the two insanities was real.

Stepping out of the last patient’s room, he stuck his hands in his pockets and—not sure, exactly, what he was doing, and yet strangely certain of his actions—strolled back down the hall toward the nurse’s station. The two orderlies—big strapping blond men, six-feet-four inches, a matched set—watched him approach, first with incomprehension on their faces and then with alarm. He saw that both men were armed.

“Hey . . . hey!” one of them cried, flummoxed at his appearance. “Who the hell are you?”

He strolled up to them. “Pendergast, at your service. The patient from room 113.”

In a practiced move, they parted and took up positions on either side of him. “Okay,” the first said, speaking calmly, “we’re going to take you back to your room, nice and easy. Understood?”

Pendergast did not move. “I’m afraid that’s not acceptable.”

They both moved a little closer. “Nobody wants any trouble.”

“Incorrect. I do want trouble. In fact, I positively welcome it.”

The first orderly reached out and gently grasped his arm. “Enough with the tough talk, friend, and let’s go back to bed.”

“I do hate being touched.”

The second orderly had now moved in, crowding him.

The orderly’s grip tightened. “Let’s go, Mr. Pendergast.”

There was a flicker of movement; the sound of a fist hitting a gut; the sudden wheeze of expelled air—and then the orderly buckled over and collapsed to the floor, grasping his diaphragm. The second orderly swung to grab Pendergast and a moment later was doubled up on the floor as well.

The nurse at the station turned toward an alarm, pulled it, and a siren began to wail. Red lights went on and Pendergast could hear automatic bolts shooting in various door locks. Almost instantly, half a dozen monster orderlies appeared out of nowhere and converged on the nurse’s station, where Pendergast stood calmly with crossed arms. They surrounded him, weapons drawn. The two orderlies on the floor continued to lie in a fetal position, gasping and sucking in air, unable to speak.

“Gentlemen, I am ready to go back to my room,” said Pendergast. “But please don’t touch me. I have a ‘thing’ about it, you might say.”

“Just get the hell going,” said one of the orderlies, apparently the leader. “Move.”

Pendergast strolled down the hallway, orderlies before and after. They entered the room and one turned on the light, the last one shutting and locking the door. The lead orderly gestured toward the open metal cabinet, at the foot of which lay Pendergast’s hospital gown.