Play Dead

Chapter 24

James LaRue wormed his hand through the T-shirts and underwear in his top dresser drawer until his fingers made contact with a box the size of a cigarette pack. It was said that the underwear drawer was one of the first places burglars looked when robbing you. If they found James' stash, they would most likely think it cocaine, snort a little, and be dead within a minute.

He carefully extracted the box from its hiding place and carried it down the hallway, through the living room to the kitchen, where he lifted the lid.

Nestled against cotton batting was a small glass vial filled with white crystalline powder. Beside it, a sewing needle. James removed the glass container and held it at eye level.

Tetrodotoxin. TTX. The tiny vial contained enough to kill the inhabitants of a small city.

Carefully, he removed the rubber stopper, then slipped the fine, sharp tip of the sewing needle inside, tapped it free of residue, and lifted it out, recapping the vial. He swirled the needle in a glass of water,wiped the needle clean, and replaced it and the vial inside the box, which he left on the counter.

A dangling chain brushed against his temple. He pulled it, turning on the ceiling fan.

He held the glass high, noting the clarity of the water.

James had never been a big one for extreme sports. Growing up, he'd been a little on the geeky, frail side. No rock climbing or cave diving for him. But he'd found a way to compensate for that lackluster past without leaving the comfort of his own home.

One of the biggest drawbacks of tetrodotoxin was its lack of consistency. No two grains were alike; no two grains held the same amount of poison. But for James and for a handful of other thrill seekers, that was part of the appeal. Nature was the one in control. Not man. And coming up with the right dosage, no matter how careful you were, was always a crapshoot.

James lifted the glass to his mouth. Cool liquid touched his lips. One, two swallows.

He'd taken five once and almost hadn't lived to tell about it. Since then he'd built up a tolerance. Five would probably be a pretty cool experience, but right now he was just looking for a buzz.

Then again, he'd been drinking all day. He wasn't sure what an overload of alcohol would do to the mix.

His lips began to tingle, and a familiar warmth seeped through his veins. With a slow, deliberate movement he put the glass down on the counter. A wave of sweat broke out on his body, and he had a sudden urge to vomit.

This too shall pass, he told himself, physically unable to laugh at his little biblical joke.

His ears rang, and his breathing became quick and shallow. His legs buckled, and he dropped straight down, knees crashing to the floor. He continued to fold and unfold until he was flat on his back, paralyzed.

His tongue filled his mouth. He tested it, trying to speak.

He couldn't produce even a faint vibration in his throat. He lay there, staring up at the ceiling fan that circled slowly above his head. The edge of every blade was coated with a thick layer of dust.

Rotating.

Turning.

Spinning.

If he concentrated hard enough, he could slow the fan down with his mind until he could see the individual blades. Or he could let it go, let it become one blurred but solid object, cutting into the air.

It made him think of aerodynamics and airplane wings, the amazement of flight. He was a scientist, but such things still wowed him.

His research had sparked a controversy within the scientific community that was still going on years later, with over half the scientists he ran into treating him as if he were a joke. He'd once believed tetrodotoxin could save the world. With it, he'd imagined being able to slow down the disease process. He'd hoped to put an end to severe, chronic pain and needless human suffering. He'd even hoped TTX could eventually be used to induce a state of suspended animation in astronauts while they snoozed their way into deep space.

Now he used it to get high.

The dream was over. Finished. The end. His life had been nothing but a waste. A fucking waste.

As he always said, what doesn't kill you makes you bitter.

With one hand on the steering wheel, Elise allowed herself a quick glance at the map on the passenger seat beside her. It was the morning after her visit with Strata Luna and she was following up on the James LaRue lead. It didn't seem that he owned a phone, and the Internet uncovered only a few scientific articles, no address.

Research had finally turned up an acre of land belonging to a J. T. LaRue on Tybee Island, and she was now bumping along a dirt road overgrown with vegetation. Spanish bayonet and cabbage palmetto flared out from beds of holly and wax myrtle. Sprawling live oaks were ensnared by thick muscadine vine, the languidly streaming moss creating pockets of deep darkness.

Inside those pockets, fireflies moved like tiny ghost lights, and confused crickets chirped frantically, thinking day was night. The earthy scent of stagnant water seeped slowly through the car's air-conditioning unit until the interior smelled like a bog.

Much of the South Carolina and Georgia coastland was being overdeveloped. Tybee Island had escaped to some extent when people woke up and realized that all of Chatham County would soon be a golf course if somebody didn't do something about it. But prices of real estate had escalated over the years until Tybee was now inhabited exclusively by the wealthy or by longtime residents like LaRue.

She'd ditched Gould without telling him where she was going. The whole Flora Martinez thing was still freaking her out, and she needed more time to process it-although an infinite number of hours might never be enough. Gould's coming along would have been a waste of manpower anyway. The person she was seeking was a retired scientist who could helpfully supply them with some much-needed information on tetrodotoxin; he was not a criminal.

She came to a Y and followed it to the right, continuing for a half mile. There the road ran into a cabin that wasn't much more than a shack, and ended. The poor souls with a Ph.D. in mathematics or science fields seemed to fall the hardest, but given the sketch-iness of her directions, she leaned toward thinking she'd taken a wrong turn.

She shut off the car and walked up the bowed wooden steps to knock on the screen door. The inner door was open, the interior vague shadows of an overstuffed chair, the edge of a table. The smell of mold and mildew hung in the air.

She slipped a hand inside her jacket pocket, her fingers coming into contact with the rough cloth of the wanga Strata Luna had given her. Had she been reaching for the reassurance of the charm? Or her gun? Elise the cop would say her gun, but the daughter of a conjurer wasn't so sure that was the truth.

From the belly of the house came the sound of a fall, followed by a muffled curse and footsteps. A silhouette appeared on the opposite side of the screen. The door swung open on creaking hinges.

A man.

About thirty, shirtless, barefoot, wearing a pair of ancient jeans hanging on a thin frame. The smell of sweat and alcohol wafted from his pores. His hair was dark and wild and matted. Despite his appearance, he somehow managed to exude something-a kind of strange, patronizing superiority, if one could call it such a thing when he was so lacking in personal hygiene.

He was one of those lovely occurrences of nature that sometimes came from mixtures of light and dark blood. His skin was golden; his eyes were blue. And red at the moment. He continued to stare at her as he clung tightly to the door, quite obviously stoned out of his mind.

Elise pulled out her ID, introduced herself, then folded and pocketed the leather case. "I'm looking for Professor LaRue," she told him. "He lives in the area, but I'm afraid I may have taken a wrong turn. Do you happen to know how to get to his place from here?"

"LaRue?" the man asked, thick dark eyebrows drawing together in puzzlement while his hand rubbed an unshaved chin. "Nobody around here with that name." He was sweating profusely. Water globules clung to the tapered ends of his hair.

"Perhaps I was given the wrong information. I was under the impression he'd retired on a family lot here on Tybee Island. James LaRue."

"LaRue. Sounds familiar, come to think of it. Maybe we can figure it out."

He gestured with one hand, waving her inside, then turned and shuffled into the dark interior, walking as if he had stomach cramps.

High as hell.

She caught the screen door, but remained in the doorway. Instinctively she felt the urgent need to leave, but logically he'd given her no real reason to be afraid.

There was a darkness coming from him that often accompanied drug addicts. It was a crippling, frightening hopelessness. The man in front of her was a mess. A much bigger mess than David Gould.

"He's an expert on tetrodotoxin," she explained. "Maybe you've heard about the poisonings we've had in Savannah."

While she talked, her ears strained to hear any sound that would signal the presence of another person. Her gaze swept the small room with practiced ease and nonchalance.

She took two steps inside and was immediately in the kitchen and living area. Off the kitchen was an open doorway that appeared to lead into a bedroom.

Were there any other rooms? From outside, it had been hard to tell.

He shuffled to a wooden table strewed with food wrappers and trash, stopped, and glanced over one hunched shoulder. "I don't get a paper and I don't listen to the news."

This time she felt for the reassurance of not the wanga but her gun. In his present condition he seemed fairly harmless, but she could have inadvertently stepped into the middle of a crank-making enterprise. People were killed for that kind of thing. Killed and fed to the alligators. She was beginning to regret her strictly emotional decision to leave Gould behind.

"It's hot," the man stated, acknowledging the obvious in the way of someone drunk or stoned.

"If you don't know where LaRue lives, then I'd best be going."

"I'll draw you a map."

"So you do know where he lives?"

"Sit down." He motioned toward the table.

"That's okay. I'll stand."

He walked to the sink and turned on the water. "Why'd you say you were looking for LaRue?"

"He's an expert on tetrodotoxin."

He filled a glass with water, then handed it to her. "You look like you could use a drink."

"Thanks." She accepted the glass. It looked clean.

He shuffled around a little more, found a coffee mug, dumped the contents, and filled it with water from the tap. He drank and refilled it twice before pulling up a chair at the table.

He dug through the litter to tear off the corner of a brown grocery bag, then used it to draw a map.

"It's easy to get all twisted around back here," he explained, penciling heavy dark lines to signify roads.

"This is north." He pointed to the top of the paper. "Here's the road you came in on that runs along the sloughs."

The water seemed to have revived him a little. His movements weren't as sluggish, and his voice seemed stronger.

"Here's the Y where you turned right. Remember that spot?"

"My directions said to turn right. Was I supposed to go left?" She lifted the glass to her mouth and took a swallow. Then another.

He stared at her much longer than was socially polite. "No," he finally said.

"No?" She didn't get it.

That's when she became aware of a strange tingling on her lips and in her mouth. The tingling in her mouth created a searing heat that rushed down her esophagus to her belly.

Sweat erupted from every pore, and in a matter of seconds a rivulet was trailing along her spine, soaking into the waistband of her pants.

From what seemed an observer's position, she was aware of the glass slipping from her fingers. She tried to clench her hand tighter, but her body failed her.

The glass shattered to the floor.

It was hard to breathe; her lungs didn't want to expand.

She imagined lifting a hand to her throat, but was unable to do so. /

The floor shifted beneath her.

The room slanted. And kept slanting… until her face was smashed against the gritty wood of the kitchen floor, her body pressed down, seeming ten times its weight.

It was such a relief to be horizontal, such a relief to be over the fall.

Her eyes were wide open. She tried to blink but couldn't.

LaRue-because of course the disheveled man in front of her had to be LaRue-arranged himself beside her on the floor so he could look into her open eyes. With his face inches away, he said, "I've found that the best way to learn about TTX is to experience it firsthand."

She was going to die.

How strange.

For some reason, she found the whole situation hysterically funny. She would have laughed if it had been physically possible. A shame, because she needed a good laugh.

"I'm not what you expected, am I?" LaRue asked. "Not what you expected from a Harvard graduate? That's okay. Don't feel bad. I've never been what anybody expected. I don't take it personally."

She knew people were often chameleons, ever changing, never what they seemed, even to themselves. She would have liked to apologize, explain that it wasn't his appearance or circumstances that had thrown her; it was his age. She'd been expecting someone much older.

"Close your eyes," he said, still on the floor beside her.

He reached out and forcefully pushed her eyelids down with his fingertips.

"Don't fight it. Fighting makes it worse. Just close your eyes and enjoy the ride. That's it," he said in a soothing voice, coaching her, guiding her through new terrain. Her own Timothy Leary. "There you go. That's better, isn't it? Much better. The first time's the toughest because you don't know what to expect, and because you're scared shitless. Kinda like sex," he said with a laugh. "The second time will be better. You'll see."

Second time?

She felt something against the side of her face, a sensation she couldn't quite place, then realized he was stroking her numb cheek as he mumbled soothing nonsense, whispering words meant to calm and hypnotize as if trying to talk her down from a bad acid trip.

It worked.

She began to relax.

She began to float.

Float out of her body, up, up to the ceiling, where she could see herself on the floor with James LaRue beside her, one arm looped around her head, his fingers stroking her cheek.

"It's like playing dead, isn't it?" he whispered seductively.

She was looking down on them both, but his words were tickling her ear, stirring her hair. "As close as a living person can get to the real thing."

He was insane. Completely, totally insane.

"Let go," he coaxed. "You have to let go."

She let go.