Miss Gracie stood by my bedside. Her hand rested on the sheet an inch from mine. I had a feeling she wanted to touch my hand, make contact.
She said, “I been told to take the night off.”
“Who gives you your orders, Miss Gracie?”
“Him. Cran-man. It’s like always when he comes. If it ain’t done his way, he won’t take the job.”
It made sense from what I knew of Crandell. He’d want absolute control to lessen the chance of error. I rattled my wrists in the straps.
“Miss Gracie, can you help here?”
She turned away.
“He’s out there now, a bunch of the security folks, too. They’re sure Lucas is trying to get to Miz Kincannon. They say he wants to kill her. I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“You’re not sure Lucas is psychotic?”
“I been told that a thousand times since he came here. That he’s sick. Not to trust him, he lies, pretends to be well. I think he was all mixed up as a kid is all.”
“How about Dr Rudolnick? What did he think?”
Her eyes closed. “He wrote up papers they gave to Miz Kincannon, saying how Lucas had to be kept here for his own safety, the safety of others. The doctor got told what to say before he even met Lucas. Dr Rudolnick was a troubled man and they had hold of him in some way. It’s what they do, hold.”
“But Ms Kincannon …” I let the words hang in the air.
“She wanted the doctor to check on Lucas every month. See if he could get better. The doctor came to see things as they really were. It made him sick at himself, his part in the lie.”
And eventually made him dead, I thought. Had the decompensating Buck grown paranoid over Rudolnick? Or was the doctor simply another loose end?
I looked at my strapped wrists. “You can’t undo my arms, legs, Miss Gracie? Give me a chance?”
“If he found out I did that, if they found out …”
“You’d be gone. And your son, too. Tyler.”
An intake of breath. Eyes shimmering with sudden fright.
“You know?”
“Tyler’s too dark-skinned to be one of the Kincannon children. And you would have told me if he was, like you did the others.”
Miss Gracie turned away, fear and shame in her voice. “Tyler’d have to go to a charity hospital, a ward. He wouldn’t get nothing like he gets here. Tyler don’t know much but love, and I can give it to him here. And I get to be with him all through his life.”
“I understand.”
She reached to the cart, held up two IV bags. She began slipping them into the holder. “I got told to put these in you. One’s the muscle relaxer. The other’s a tranquilizer. That man wants you fuzzy-headed. He says make it drip slow so it lasts ’til midnight.”
“He’s coming for me.”
“I can’t tell the future. But I’ll do the same as I done yesterday. I’m gonna let the tube drip in the waste can.”
Miss Gracie disappeared out the door.
Crandell showed up a half-hour later, mining his canines with a toothpick. He looked freshened, alert, happy with his life and choices.
“You’ll be by yourself tonight, Ryder. I sent Auntie Jemima packing. If you gotta crap, you’ll have to fill the old diaper. Must be nice to roll over and shit when you want, like the old burnout upstairs, like most of the whatevers in this place.”
I turned my head his way, a drowsy smile on my face, a man drifting in a sea of muscle relaxants and tranquilizers.
“Who say what?”
“Must be nice floating around in there, Ryder. Just checking before I go to work. Buck’s got your former juice hole coming to his place around nine and I got to get the stage set.”
“Unh-hunh. Sure was.”
“Just for your records, Ryder, wasn’t me killed Holtkamp and Franklin. Buckie volunteered for the job. He needed to work them girls over. Ain’t life a bitch, Ryder? Guy looks like Buck Kincannon, and he’s all screwy about women.”
Crandell grinned and flicked the toothpick at me. It hit my nose and I looked a foot left of his head. He dusted his hands together.
“I’ll be by later. I got to rip up your clothes, splash ’em with your blood, drop them where they’ll roll up on a beach. Probably scare hell out of some tourists from Wisconsin. There’s a hole in a barn floor about ten miles from here. It’s a lonely hole and needing company.”
I batted my eyes, like trying to stay awake.
Crandell said, “Now I got to deal with your old buddy, Shuttles. Remember him? Got a little problem over on that side. Pain in the ass, but I just keep repeating, Rio de Janeiro.”
“Whuff?”
“You’re no fun when you’re like this, Ryder. But we’ll have a few final laughs before you hole up tonight, I gar-on-tee.”
“Incoming,” Nautilus said twenty minutes after he’d sent the message. Claypool ran to Nautilus, leaned over the detective’s shoulder.
Hang tight, help on way. Meet loc B 11 p.m. Tell partner he’ll get his payoff. Cash. Respond when you get a chance, ASAP.
Nautilus said, “He probably thinks Shuttles is with Logan right now.”
“Where’s location B?” Claypool asked.
“That’s my next problem,” Nautilus said, rising from the computer and running out the door.
Hearing the outer door close, I started fighting my restraints. The leather was four inches wide, twice as thick as a belt. It was like fighting cast iron.
Freddy walked by in the hall, talking to himself, his puppet held high.
“Rowf! Rowf! Shhh, don’t be so loud, Puppy. Carson is sleeping.”
“I’m not sleeping, Freddy. I’m just laying here.”
His head spun to me. He raced into the room.
“Want to play, Carson? Puppy just woke up, too. He takes an after-supper nap with me.”
We played, which meant Freddy licked the puppet over me while I chanted, “Good boy, nice Puppy.”
A few minutes passed.
“Freddy, could you do me a favor?”
“You want a drink? More purpleberry?”
“I’m interested in what’s going on outside. It’s kind of a special night. Now and then could you check at the window up front for me, tell me what you see?”
“What I see where?”
“At the house across the way.”
“Uncle Buck’s house?”
“That’s the one,” I said. “How about taking a look now.”
He tottered away, the puppet face dangling off his hand, returning after a couple of minutes.
“There’s just one car at Uncle Buck’s, Carson. It’s the one that belongs to that man I don’t like.”
“Which man is that, Freddy?”
“That man that comes around sometimes. He fired Miss Holtkamp, my teacher. Then he came and fired Dr Rudy, Lucas’s teacher.”
“Fired them?”
“That’s what Uncle Buck said. It means they had to stop working here. Dr Rudy only came once in a while, but I liked him. I loved Miss Holtkamp. She taught me words and numbers.”
“The man you don’t like …You’re talking about Mr Crandell?”
Freddy dropped his eyes to the floor. “One time when no one was looking he stepped on Puppy, asked me if that hurt him. When I said yes, he laughed and did it again.”
“Freddy, I’m going to tell you the truth. There’s going to be some trouble outside. Something bad is going to happen if I can’t go help a friend of mine.”
He frowned. “What’s that mean?”
“I’ve got to get these belts off my arms and legs. They’re holding me down. Keeping me from helping my friend.”
“They’re tight, Carson. I don’t think you can.”
“I know. That’s why I need for you to help me. You can take them off, Freddy. Unbuckle the belts.”
He shook his head.
“I can’t, Carson.”
“Because it’s red?”
“I don’t do red things. That’s what Lucas does.”
“You’ve got to help me, Freddy. I need to get off the bed. It hurts. Do you want a friend of yours to hurt?”
“Lucas says things like that when he’s in the red bed and the red room. He asks me to help.”
“And you help Lucas, right?”
It was a simple statement of fact, without moral judgment or sense of consequence. He’d been told not to unbuckle someone under restraint, thus he wouldn’t.
“Please,” I said.
“Let’s just play, Carson. Puppy wants to play. He likes you.”
“I don’t want to play, Freddy. I need to GET THE HELL OUT OF THIS BED!”
His face screwed up and he started crying.
“You’re acting like Lucas does sometimes. I’m leaving.”
He turned and stomped toward the door. I called at his back.
“Freddy, I’m sorry. I’m distraught.”
He turned, wiping an eye with a finger. “What’s distroffed mean?”
“It means I like you and want you and Puppy to stay.”
Freddy’s smile was wet and lopsided. He ran to the bed. I let the puppet lick my face, bounce on my belly, bark at my toes. Freddy worked the puppet up my leg.
“Walking, walking, walking the doggie …”
I said, “Could you take another look outside for me, Freddy?”
His bottom lip pouted outward. “It’s way over on the other side of Heaven, past the rooms where Miss Gracie lives. Do I have to?”
“It would make me happy.”
He sighed. “All right, Carson.”
He scampered away, returning moments later. He held up the puppet like it was talking. “Rowf! There’s no cars over there now. Puppy says it’s empty.”
I wondered what time it was. Crandell had mentioned Dani going to Buck’s place near nine p.m.
“Do you know how to tell time, Freddy?”
He stared at the ceiling, remembering. “Miss Holtkamp said there are two hands on a clock, like on a person. The big hand –”
“Why don’t you look at a clock if there’s one around?”
“There’s one in Tyler’s room.”
“Let’s see if you really can tell time. I’m thinking you can’t.”
“Betcha I can.”
He was back in a minute. He held his arms out to indicate 6.40. “It’s six and forty, ha ha. Here comes Puppy, Carson.”
It was getting annoying, trying to think with the puppet slapping across my arms, chest, and face.
“How about you give Puppy a break for a few minutes, Freddy?”
Freddy kept up the licking and gnawing motion.
“I can’t stop him, Carson. Watch out.”
The sock puppet gnawed on the bedrail, licked my arm. I started to again ask Freddy to stop, but heard his words repeat in my head: I can’t stop him.
Was Puppy an independent entity? Cold sweat prickled on my forehead. I kept my voice light and even and smiled at Freddy. I had one final shot at life, the strength of the fantasy of a retarded man.
“You’ve been told not to unbuckle the belts, right, Freddy?”
“Yup. Puppy’s licking your shoulder, Carson.”
I giggled, a happy guy. “You’re right not to unbuckle the belts, Freddy. But if you hadn’t been told not to unbuckle the belts, you could unbuckle the belts. Isn’t that right?”
“I was told not to do it. And like a good boy I do what I’m told. Lick, lick, lick.”
I took a deep breath.
“What?”
“Has Puppy been told not to unbuckle the belts?”