“I won’t . . . I can’t . . .” Babineau looks down at his wife. Ah God, her eyes. Her bulging eyes. “The police would never believe . . . I’m a respected doctor! We’ve been married for thirty-five years!”
“Hodges will. And when Hodges gets the bit in his teeth, he turns into Wyatt fucking Earp. He’ll show the Robinson girl your picture. She’ll look at it and say oh wow, yes, that’s the man who gave me the Zappit at the mall. And if you gave her a Zappit, you probably gave one to Janice Ellerton. Oops! And there’s Scapelli.”
Babineau stares, trying to comprehend this disaster.
“Then there’s the drugs you fed me. Hodges may know about them already, because he’s a fast man with a bribe and most of the nurses in the Bucket know. It’s an open secret, because you never tried to hide it.” Brady gives Library Al’s head a sad shake. “Your arrogance.”
“Vitamins!” It’s all Babineau can manage.
“Even the cops won’t believe that if they subpoena your files and search your computers.” Brady glances down at Cora Babineau’s sprawled body. “And there’s your wife, of course. How are you going to explain her?”
“I wish you’d died before they brought you in,” Babineau says. His voice is rising, becoming a whine. “Or on the operating table. You’re a Frankenstein!”
“Don’t confuse the monster with the creator,” Brady says, although he doesn’t actually give Babineau much credit in the creation department. Dr. B.’s experimental drug may have something to do with his new abilities, but it had little or nothing to do with his recovery. He’s positive that was his own doing. An act of sheer willpower. “Meanwhile, we have a visit to make, and we don’t want to be late.”
“To the man-woman.” There’s a word for that, Babineau used to know it, but now it’s gone. Like the name that goes with it. Or what he ate for dinner. Each time Brady comes into his head, he takes a little more when he leaves. Babineau’s memory. His knowledge. His self.
“That’s right, the man-woman. Or, to give her sexual preference its scientific name, Ruggus munchus.”
“No.” The whine has become a whisper. “I’m going to stay right here.”
Brady raises the gun, the barrel now visible within the blown-out remains of the makeshift silencer. “If you think I really need you, you’re making the worst mistake of your life. And the last one.”
Babineau says nothing. This is a nightmare, and soon he will wake up.
“Do it, or tomorrow the housekeeper will find you lying dead next to your wife, unfortunate victims of a home invasion. I would rather finish my business as Dr. Z—your body is ten years younger than Brooks’s, and not in bad shape—but I’ll do what I have to. Besides, leaving you to face Kermit Hodges would be mean of me. He’s a nasty man, Felix. You have no idea.”
Babineau looks at the elderly fellow in the mended parka and sees Hartsfield looking out of Library Al’s watery blue eyes. Babineau’s lips are trembling and wet with spittle. His eyes are rimmed with tears. Brady thinks that with his white hair standing up around his head as it is now, the Babster looks like Albert Einstein in that photo where the famous physicist is sticking his tongue out.
“How did I get into this?” he moans.
“The way everybody gets into everything,” Brady says gently. “One step at a time.”
“Why did you have to go after the girl?” Babineau bursts out.
“It was a mistake,” Brady says. Easier to admit that than the whole truth: he couldn’t wait. He wanted the nigger lawnboy’s sister to go before anyone else blotted out her importance. “Now stop fucking around and look at the fishies. You know you want to.”
And he does. That’s the worst part. In spite of everything Babineau now knows, he does.
He looks at the fish.
He listens to the tune.
After awhile he goes into the bedroom to dress and get money out of the safe. He makes one more stop before leaving. The bathroom medicine cabinet is well stocked, on both her side and his.
He takes Babineau’s BMW, leaving the old Malibu where it is for the time being. He also leaves Library Al, who has gone to sleep on the sofa.
2
Around the time Cora Babineau is opening her front door for the last time, Hodges is sitting down in the living room of the Scott family’s home on Allgood Place, just one block over from Teaberry Lane, where the Robinsons live. He swallowed a couple of painkillers before getting out of the car, and isn’t feeling bad, all things considered.