He swiped his hand across the bed sheet in front of him sending the newspaper onto the floor and he jabbed at the “off” button on the remote.
His hand shook as he stretched across for the vial that was perched on the edge of his bedside table. It had been lingering there since ten o’clock last night when he had slipped it out of his toiletry bag.
Damn these childproof caps. Mike sat up straight and wiped his hands dry on the bed sheets and tried again. Third time, he succeeded. As he drank it, he remembered something his dad used to tell him as a kid when he was feeling down: if at first you don’t succeed, forget the skydiving.
But this time it wasn’t funny.
Hot sweat dripped down his back and the clear liquid streamed cold down his throat.
Truth.
Consequences.
IN London’s St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Registered Nurse Jeni Crompton was completing her morning rounds and came to Room 603. An insensitive creep had taped a hand-written sign below the room number: “Burns Unit”. Jeni ripped it down. To her, the allusion to Jax Mason’s shocking encounter with the famous Scots poet was not at all amusing. Inside Room 603 it was quiet… only the beep, beep, beep of Jax’s heart monitor sounded. Here, no one answered back to her, unlike the man two rooms up.
She always spoke to Jax, babbled really, but had never got a single response in the month he’d been under her charge. Probably a good thing, given what she’d told him, otherwise he’d know everything about her sex life (lack of, really), her parents’ divorce, the bank loan she was hoping for, and the fact she was sick of nursing and wanted to try out working in her sister’s café (where she might meet someone “nice”).
Jax’s doctor had told her—probably the only time the old fart had deigned to speak to someone like her for more than three seconds—that he’d be surprised if Jax would ever come out of the coma; that the paramedics should have let the “poor young bugger” die.
Jeni rolled Jax over onto his stomach, untied his gown at the neck and laid it out on either side of him. She had brought in a basin of warm soapy water with her and bathed him top to toe, hesitating over the tattoo at the base of his spine, a disk with a “Y” stamped out of it. It was in fact a representation of an old New York subway token, but she guessed it was a peace symbol, though the words “Good for one fare” didn’t really match with that. She dried him and rolled him over onto his back.
“You’re a bit of a hunk,” she said aloud for the umpteenth time as she sponged him down. He was her age, she’d noted from his chart the first time.
Just as she was about to shave him, her pager vibrated against her leg. Damn. Room 605. That bastard again. Why doesn’t he just lie there like everyone else? Jeni towelled Jax down, dressed him in a fresh gown, tucked him in and left his room. She could shave him later. Or tomorrow. He wouldn’t know.
As the door closed behind her, she didn’t see the flicker in Jax’s left eyelid nor hear the stutter in the heart monitor beeps.
29
ISABEL FIRST HEARD about Mike Mandrake’s suicide from Gregory. A friend of his had been breakfasting at the Watergate. Habits are hard to break, and Isabel’s former staffer called her even before he phoned Hank.
Hank’s campaign was flailing. “I’m quitting,” Gregory said, the real reason for phoning. They’d argued about this many times recently, but this was it. After the nightclub fire, he felt he couldn’t keep working with Hank and retain any vestige of dignity. “I love a political joke as much as the next guy, but I can’t work for one.”
He was right about Hank, she knew it, but with backup Hank was still a better option than the alternative.
“Unless we pull a rabbit out of a hat, the campaign is D-E-A-D. It’s…”
“You’ve got to hang in there, Gregory. He needs you… I need you.” Her appeal to loyalty was a low blow, but she knew Gregory was nothing if not devoted to her.
“MANDRAKE?” Foster remarked. “What d’you expect from a beard guy? No beards in my administration… Note that down, Don.” He glanced over to his deceptively bookish but hardnosed campaign strategist, Don Thomas, to check if he had.
What Don noted, though not in writing, was that his candidate was getting way too cocky. A bad sign. He knew voters easily detected smugness, and punished it.
SNAP!
“Damn that woman,” Don swore behind the glass partition out of Niki Abbott’s earshot. Why had he ever agreed to this intrusive photographic record? Each time he picked his nose Niki snapped him with her camera. Hell! He didn’t want shots of Foster out there crowing like a rooster.