Megan's Cure (5 page)

Chapter 9

WALTER NOVAK KNEW he had cut himself before the blood appeared on the right side of his jaw and dripped into the sink.
 
Even clamping his left hand on his right wrist for added support after he saw the razor quivering in his hand hadn’t been enough.

He rinsed off the blood, tore off a piece of toilet paper, twisted it between his thumb and finger, and put it on the cut to stop the bleeding.
 
He dried the razor on the motel towel, put it back in his toilet kit and zipped it closed.
 
He had shaved earlier that day but it had been before dawn in California, before the flight to New Orleans, before the trip along the Gulf Coast to get Megan and before the long haul to put as many miles behind them as he could.

Panic had consumed him early on.
 
He kept expecting a patrol car to pull up behind him with lights flashing.
 
Or maybe someone else.
 
He kept watch behind him for the first hour, looking for anyone following him.
 
How would hired killers look?
 
What would they drive?
 
Probably something big, dark and powerful.

Finally, he settled down and fixed on a couple of key objectives.
 
He would keep it at a steady 75 miles per hour, fast enough to eat up distance but without the risk of getting pulled over for a speeding ticket or otherwise attracting attention.
 
He would stop only the one time for gas until they were out of Alabama.
 
He really didn’t know if that was important or not – getting across the state line.
 
Maybe the police communications broke down between states or were somehow delayed.
 
He had no idea.
 
But it gave him a goal that he could focus on.
 
And when he saw the “Welcome to Tennessee” sign he felt better.

Novak looked at himself in the bathroom mirror and blinked hard.
 
He felt better after the shower and shave.
 
He had on a plain blue T-shirt and jeans.
 
His white hair was slicked down from the shower but already started to spring back to its usual uncontrolled state.

He could still feel the anxiety coursing through him as if it had its own system of veins and arteries.
 
But, he felt in control this time and knew its source.
 
Nine months earlier it had been a much different story.
 
Back then the panic attacks that hadn’t plagued him for years returned.
 
They hit him like a set of massive waves.

They left him breathless, then huddled in bed unable to leave the house, and finally in abject terror of things he knew were impossible but wouldn’t stop invading his consciousness.
 
Giant spiders cocooning him in sticky silk when he fell asleep.
 
Tiny insects entering his brain through his ears.
 
He thought he could hear the scratching.
 
The air being sucked out of the room, making it nearly impossible to breathe.
 
He thought he felt the faint breeze of oxygen escaping.

Ninety days of psychotropic drugs, therapy and long walks in the mountainous foothills outside a private psychiatric facility in Arizona had eased the paralyzing fears and brought him fully back to reality.
 

Upon his release and return to California, he took a few more days to adjust.
 
With the help of a local psychiatrist, he continued to push back the old fears until they felt as if he had experienced them in another life.
 
He thought of them as being locked away in a closet that he was starting to forget even existed.

When he got back to work, he expected the stares, the careful slaps on the back as if his co-workers feared he would break or, even worse, somehow infect them with the crushing weakness that had possessed him.
 
But what he didn’t expect was the assault on his work.
 
Had he gone from genius to fool in three months?
 
Was he still crazy?
 
Had he been crazy for a long time, misinterpreting everything that had gone on in his life and seeing it through some fractured reality?

He searched for anchors, hard facts he could use to moor himself and the past as he remembered it.
 
There were the degrees.
 
Those were real.
 
They documented a brilliant scientific career that spanned both mathematics and, later, biology.
 
He could find his old papers, published in prestigious journals and representing more than two decades of research.

The money in his investment accounts and financial statements was real, too.
 
They had paid him tens of millions of dollars for what he had developed.
 
It would only have happened if his work had been valued as he recalled.
 
What had changed?
 
What had happened while he was away?
 
He untangled the data, slowly at first and then with urgency.
 
Roxanne, the only person he trusted at work, provided an email that she had been copied on by mistake while he was incapacitated.
 
It hinted at much more.
 

When he dug deeper he saw that he had been excluded from the questions and doubts – the steady drip of misgivings about his work.
 
It made no sense.
 
The accusations couldn’t be right.
 
And, then he saw it.
 
In the reports of damaging side effects and even death, he saw the hints that something else was at work. At first he wondered if it could really be true.
 
Was he seeing the world clearly and accurately now?
 
Could he trust himself?
 
Or was he slipping back into fantasy?

Novak suddenly remembered that he was in a Tennessee motel room, staring at himself in the bathroom mirror.
 
Had he been standing immobile for three minutes or 30?
 
He looked at his jaw.
 
He peeled the paper off.
 
The bleeding had stopped.
 
Novak forced himself to move, turn to the door, open it and walk out.

It was only a step but he felt the change of worlds.
 
Low lights instead of bright fluorescence.
 
Wood paneling, brown upholstery and yellow bedspreads instead of white tile. There she was, sitting at the foot of one of the beds watching for him.
 
She was shuffling a deck of cards.
 
Looking down at them.
 
Then, back at him, tilting her head up just for a moment.
 
But all the questions were there in the glance.
 
What had he been doing?
 
Was he okay?
 
What in God’s name were they doing here?
 
Was he capable of handling this situation?
 
Had she made a mistake?

“Don’t freak her out,” he said to himself.
 
“Act normal.
 
Act normal.
 
Act normal.”

“Want to play cards?” she asked, looking up again from her shuffling.

“Okay,” said Novak.
 
He moved to the other end of the bed that she was on.
 
He sat with his back against the headboard and his long thin legs running along the side.
 
She swiveled to face him.

“Five-card draw?” Megan asked.
 
He nodded and smiled.
 
It occurred to Megan that it might have been the first time he had smiled at her all day.

They played the first game in silence.
 

She drew a pair of kings to go with the one she had kept when she discarded three cards.
 
It beat his two pairs.
 
She shuffled again.
 
As she began to deal out the next hand, Novak slumped against the headboard.
 
The long day was sinking in.

“Walter,” he said as she finished the dealing and picked up her cards.
 
“It’s my name.”

Megan nodded as she studied her cards.

“‘Walter Novak,’” she said.
 
“I remember.
 
Plus, there’s a luggage tag on your suitcase.”

She gave him two cards.
 
He added a third jack to the pair already in his hand.

“Are you a doctor?” she asked.
 

“No,” he said.
 
“Well, not a medical doctor.
 
You see, when you get a doctorate degree…”

Megan nodded her head twice.

“I know the difference,” she said.
 
She turned her cards over.
 
“Straight.
 
Beats three-of-a-kind.”

Novak looked at her and then down at his cards which he hadn’t shown her yet.
 

“Where did you learn to play poker?” he asked.

Megan shrugged.

“A boy at school taught me,” she said.

“A friend?”

“He is now,” said Megan.
 
“He’s the biggest kid in fifth grade.”

Novak was feeling better.
 
The cards.
 
Having a game to focus on, to talk about.
 
Had she planned that?

He held out his hand for the cards.
 
She picked up the ones on the bedspread, added them to the stack in her hand and handed it to him.

“Do you know how to play gin rummy?” he asked.

Megan shook her head.

“It’s a good game for two,” said Novak.
 
He shuffled twice and began dealing out the cards.
 

Megan nodded her agreement, settled down to learn the new game and, almost imperceptibly, breathed out a long sigh born as much from relief as her fatigue.

Chapter 10

“GODDAMN LAZY GOVERNMENT bureaucrats,” Salvatore “Murph” Murphy thought to himself as he pulled into the parking lot of the Magnolia Motel a little after 9:30 in the morning.
 

The FBI clerk in Las Vegas who was on the payroll of his organization had dutifully put an unofficial watch on the handful of numbers they had unearthed that were thought possibly connected to Megan Kim’s mother, Mary.
 
The call had come in at 9:45 pm the previous evening to the cell phone of An Dung “Billy” Kim, Mary’s cousin.

It was a simple matter to trace the calling number to the motel.
 
Unfortunately, that had only happened after the clerk got to work the next morning and obtained the information from AT&T.
 
That was just a little more than an hour ago.

“Bastard probably had three coffees and four donuts before he got busy,” thought Murphy.
 
He used the rear view mirror to check his hair.
 
He ignored the lump on his nose, the product of repeated breakings during a respectable boxing career in his youth.
 
Then he opened the briefcase in the passenger’s seat and pulled out his Smith & Wesson 4506.
 
It was a lot of gun but Murphy didn’t like to take chances.
 

As Murphy got out of the car, he slipped the gun into the Galco Summer Comfort holster strapped to his belt and pulled down his black nylon windbreaker until he was sure the gun was invisible.
 
A small, throw-down .22 was already in the pocket of the windbreaker.

“Quaint,” he thought when he heard the tinkle of the bell that signaled his entrance into the Magnolia’s office.
 
He heard the guy in the back making his way to the front desk.
 
No one else was around.
 
The parking spaces in front of the motel were all empty.
 
Still, he moved down the counter so he could keep his back to the far wall and see the parking area and the front door.

“I’m looking for them,” said Murphy, as he put down on the counter a sheet of paper with color photographs of Walter Novak and Megan Kim.

The clerk studied the page and then looked at Murphy.

“Police?” the clerk asked.

Murphy shook his head.

“Private,” he said.
 
“Custody matter.
 
He took the kid and her mother wants her back.
 
They called last night from here.”

The clerk bit his lip for a moment as he continued to stare at the photos.
 
Then, he shrugged his shoulders.

“Guess it don’t matter,” he said.
 
“They checked out…oh.
 
I don’t know.
 
Call it 40 minutes ago.”

“Figures,” said Murphy, shaking his head.
 
“Say, you wouldn’t have a license number, would you?”
 
He pulled two $20 bills out of his pocket and laid them on the counter.

The clerk barely glanced at the money before turning around to a desk and pulling the top card from a small stack that sat there.
 
He placed it on the counter and gently picked up the twenties and slipped them into his front pocket while Murphy jotted down the car information.
 
Murphy grunted his thanks when he left the office.
 
On his way back to the car, he noticed the thick, cloying stink from the huge flowering tree on the other side of the office.

On the other side of the highway, directly across four lanes of traffic from the Magnolia, Walter Novak sat in the Waffle House and watched the man with the lumbering gait drive away in the blue Navigator that he judged as big, dark and fast enough.
 

Megan had her back to the window.
 
She was eating a waffle smothered with blueberry syrup.
 
With the height of the booth, Novak knew she wasn’t visible from the street.
 
He said nothing to her.

Five minutes later, they left the Waffle House and walked along the sidewalk in front of the restaurant to the parking lot on the side of the building.
 
Novak saw the clerk in the motel office watching them closely even after Novak returned the stare.
 
He knew then that luck had been on their side.
 
He hoped it stayed there.

* * *

The telephone rang as Enzo Lee was putting the finishing touches on a story about a new dromedary at the San Francisco Zoo whose over-the-top sex drive was terrorizing the female camels. The zoo had posted signs warning families of potentially traumatic X-rated displays.

(“When 10,000 voters gave ‘Humpy’ his name, they couldn’t have known exactly how appropriate it would be.
 
Or, maybe he just took it as a challenge.”)

 
“Hi,” said Lorraine Carr.
 
“It’s me.”

“Hey you,” said Lee.
 
“I’ve just spent the afternoon watching a desperately horny camel on the rampage at the zoo.
 
It was breath taking.”

“I see,” she said.
 
“Give you any ideas?”

“Yes, actually,” said Lee.
 
“I’ve been trying to find costumes for Richard III or the Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

“I see,” she said.
 
“For you or for me?”

 
“Umm.
 
Both?”

“You know,” she said.
 
“That would be pretty funny, if politically incorrect.”

“Yeah, I know.
 
We’d have to wear masks for the video.”

Carr laughed.

“You’re just trying to put these images in my head so nothing erotic can get in, right?” she said.

“You got it,” said Lee. “At least until you hop off the plane.
 
Speaking of which…when are you flying in?”

In her half-second delay, Lee knew he would be spending the weekend alone again.
 
Carr had been his boss as city editor at the San Francisco News as well as his lover for almost a year when the last round of layoffs hit the newspaper.
 
She hadn’t been dumped unceremoniously as had so many others, but Carr received a clear signal from her superiors that her best move was jumping off the sinking ship while she still had a choice.

So, she had taken a long-standing job offer from the Wall Street Journal.
 
The problem was that her position was covering East Coast high tech companies from New York.
 
She and Lee had been trading monthly trips back and forth.
 
But his grandmother’s illness holding him in San Francisco and Carr’s incessant travel up and down the East Coast had taken its toll.
 
They hadn’t been together in six weeks.

“I’m sorry, babe,” she said.
 
“I’ve got to be in Munich on Monday.
 
A big Siemens announcement.
 
Fiber optics breakthrough or some such nonsense.”

“Aarrgh,” said Lee loud enough to get a few stares in the newsroom.
 
He put his face in his hand and took a couple of deep breaths as his emotional state cycled quickly from anger to desperation before settling into self pity.

The weekends they had together now – usually stretched to three days – were incredibly intense.
 
But just when they were getting back to their old rhythms – past satisfying the pent up passion and the celebration of reuniting – Carr was gone again.
 
The emotional rollercoaster was getting old.
 
Each time Carr slipped away, Lee could feel the gulf between them widen a bit more.
 

“Are you still there?” said Carr.
 

“Yes,” said Lee with a heavy sigh.
 
“This is getting a little ridiculous.”

“I know,” she said.
 
“Look.
 
I will try, try, try to be there next week, okay?
 
Meanwhile…I don’t know.
 
Maybe we should resort to phone sex.”

“
Phone
sex
,” said Lee, drawing a few more glances.
 
“Then I’ll have
no
idea if you’re faking it.”

Carr laughed and then switched to her seduction voice – low and purring.
 

“I
never
fake it,” she said.
 

“Okay,” he said.
 
“You can convince me of that the next time we’re in bed.”

“The pleasure will be mine,” she said.
 
“And hopefully yours, too.”

 
They both laughed.

 
“Listen,” said Lee.
 
“Before you go I need to ask you something...non-sex related.
 
It’s about my grandmother.
 
Her doctor was telling me about some new drug…some big breakthrough that seems to have vanished mysteriously.”

“Okay.”

“I’m trying to track it down and see what I can find out,” he added.
 
“There are a few mentions of something that looked pretty exciting a couple of years ago.
 
I don’t know if it’s the same thing or not.
 
Maybe there are some trials going on somewhere.

“I came up with a guy’s name, but I’m not finding much when I Google him,” Lee added.
 
“You have access to the scientific journals, right?
 
There must be a huge database of that kind of stuff.”

“You have no idea,” she said.
 
“You’re right.
 
There are services that have all that.
 
We have access.”

“Okay,” said Lee.
 
“Maybe you can run this guy through them and see what turns up.”

“I’ll do it tomorrow,” said Carr.
 
“What’s his name?”

“It’s Novak,” said Lee.
 
“Walter J. Novak.”