Silent Treatment

Chapter26

The night was warm and extremely muggy — the sort of night that invariably brought out the most vivid versions of thedream. He lay facedown on a sheet that was already drenched. His fists weretightly clenched and every muscle in his body was taut. At some level, he knewthat it was all in his past, that he was only reliving the hideous experiencein his mind.

But as always, he was powerless to wakehimself.

'. . Hyconidol almost matches, atom foratom, the pain fiber neurotransmitter chemical. That means I can fire thosenerves off all at once and at will. Every single one of them. Think of it, Mr.Santana. No injury … no mess … no blood. Just pain. Pure pain. Except inthe work I do, hyconidol has absolutely no clinical value. But if we ever domarket it, I thought an appropriate name for it might be Agonyl. It'sincredible stuff, if I do say so myself. A small injection? A little tingle. Alarger one? Well, I'm sure you get the picture.'

Ray's mouth becomes desert dry. Thepounding within his chest is so forceful that he feels certain The Doctor cansee it.

Please don't do this, he screams silently. Please. .

Perchek's thumb tightens on the plunger.

'I think we'll start with somethingmodest,' he says, 'equivalent, perhaps, to nothing more than a little coolbreeze over the cavities in your teeth. Our interest is in the identities ofthe Mexican undercover agents, Mr. Santana. Mr. Orsino will write down anynames you choose to give. And I should warn you. Some of the names we wish youto give us we already know. It would be most unpleasant for you should we catchyou attempting any sort of stall or deception.'

'Go fuck yourselves. How's that for astall or deception?'

The Doctor merely smiles.

The last voice Ray hears before theinjection is Joe Dash's.

There are three ways a man canchoose to handle dying…

The plunger of the syringe is depressedjust a bit.

In less than half a minute, Rayexperiences a mild vibration throughout his body, as if a low-grate electriccurrent has been turned on. His scalp tightens. The muscles in his face twitch.He rubs his fingertips together, trying to rid them of an unpleasant numbness.Perchek, meanwhile, has taken a handheld stopwatch from his valise.

'I would expect that miniscule dose tolast one minute and twenty seconds,' he said. 'Higher doses persist somewhatlonger. Although in this business, for you, time will become quite relative. Afew seconds will seem like an hour. A minute like a lifetime. Have you somenames for us?'

'Cary Grant, Mick Jagger, Marilyn Monroe.. '

Perchek shrugs and depresses the plungeronce more. The sensation doubles in intensity and quadruples in unpleasantness.This time, the pain is more burning than electric. Hot knives cut into Ray'shands and feet, into his abdomen, groin, and lower back. Sweat bathes him withthe suddenness of a summer thunderstorm, stinging his eyes, soaking hisT-shirt.

'Just a slightly higher dose and we'llhold it at that level for a while,' Perchek says, checking Ray's blood pressureand pulse. 'We're in no particular hurry, are we, Mr. Orsino?'

From outside, above and just beyond thewalls of the chamber, Ray can hear the revelry of the Fiesta de Nogales. Thefireworks and the music. The noisy celebration will go on throughout the night.It is doubtful he will be alive by the time it ends.

The Doctor is right. For Santana, the hourthat follows is an eternity. Twice he nearly passes out from the pain. Eachtime, Perchek uses a shot of some sort and an increase in the IV infusion tobring him around for the next series of injections. Ray becomes used to thesound of his own screaming. Somewhere along the way he wets himself. In betweeninjections, his muscles now continue to spasm uncontrollably. Several times hegroans out names. Perchek glances over at Orsino, who shakes his head. Ray'spunishment for lying is an increase in the dosage. His response, morescreaming.

. . Three ways a man can handledying. . three ways. . three ways. . three ways. .

His head lolls back. His vision blurs.Staring at the light from the bare bulb overhead no longer bothers his eyes. Itis as if the hideous pain has dulled his sight. Sweat continues pouring fromhis body. His nervous system is shattered, his mind ready to snap. He has togive them a name they can verify — something, anything to stop Perchek'schemical onslaught, even for a little while. He has done his best to drag outJoe Dash's first two stages. Now, his resistance is gone. He has to give themsomething that will stop the pain.

'You bastard!' he screeches as the dose isincreased once more. 'You fucking bastard! Okay. Okay. No more. I'll-'

He is cut short by the tunnel door behindhim scraping open. Through a dense haze, he hears a man's breathless voice.

'Anton, there are government troopsoutside!' the man exclaims in perfect English. 'Dozens of them. I think theyhave Alacante. U.S. agents just raided the Arizona house, too. The tunnelentrance is still closed, but it's only a matter of time before they find it.They're after you, Anton. I don't know how they found out, but they know you'rehere.'

The voice. Ray strains to pull togetherthe floating fragments of his thoughts. He knows the voice.

'Orsino, is there another way out ofhere?' Perchek asks.

'Through that door, Doctor. There's ashort tunnel to a house across the street. Alacante had it built.'

'Listen,' the voice says, 'I've got to getback before they find the main tunnel and me in it.'

'I am grateful for the warning, myfriend.'

'You know how to reach me if there'sanything I can do.'

The tunnel door scrapes shut. There are afew seconds of echoing footsteps, then silence. But in those moments, Ray'sclouded mind locks in on the voice.

Sean Garvey!

'Garvey, you bastard!. . You son of abitch!' he shrieks, remembering the moment he and his boss had been hauled offby Alacante's men.

The signs that something wasrotten with Garvey had been there a dozen times over, he thinks now. How carelessit had been not to have picked up on them. How stupid.

'Mr. Santana, it appears our business mustcome to a premature closure,' Perchek says.

From somewhere on the floor above themcomes the sound of a door being smashed in. Then there is gunfire.

'Doctor, I think we should go,' Orsinosays.

'You are right, Mr. Orsino,' Perchekreplies. 'But only up to a point.'

His back turned, he reaches into hisvalise. When he turns back, he is holding a snub-nosed revolver. Before Orsinocan react, he is shot through the bull's eye that is his half mouth. His headsnaps back. He spins full-circle in a graceless pirouette, then crumples to thedusty floor.

The shooting upstairs has stopped. Thefootsteps are closer now, and they can hear voices. The Doctor levels theautomatic at the center of Santana's forehead. Ray clenches his teeth andforces his eyes to remain open for the last moment he will ever see anything.Then, with the smile Ray has come both to fear and loathe, Perchek lowers therevolver, steps forward, and empties the still nearly full syringe into theintravenous line.

'Don't worry,' he says. 'You should diefrom this dose long before it has its full effect.'

He whirls, steps over Orsino's corpse, andhurries toward the escape tunnel.

'Garvey!' Santana screams, his final furyfixed not on the madman, but on the friend who has betrayed him. ' Garvey,you'll rot in hell for this!'

A moment later his nervous system explodesin a volcano of pain. He shrieks again and again. He thrashes his head about.He bites through his lip and hurls himself sideways on to the floor. The agony,in every nerve, every fiber of his body, intensifies.

'Garveeeey!'

Soaked in sweat, Walter Concepcion sat boltupright in bed. After more than seven years, he had almost become inured to thenightmare. But some journeys back to the basement sessions with The Doctor werestill worse than others. And this one — his first in the weeks since arrivingin Manhattan from his home in Tennessee — had been a motherfucker.

It was the pain that had brought on theflashback. It usually was. The electric nerve pain that had been part of hislife for almost every moment of the seven years since The Doctor emptied thesyringe into his body. Ray wiped off his forehead and face with the sheet andfumbled through the bedside table drawer for the Bible he had hollowed out tohold his Percodans. He could stand to have everything he owned in the rentedroom ripped off, even his gun. But not his Percodans. His doc at homeunderstood. After years of neurologic consultations, psychotherapy, AA, NA, andhospitalizations, the man had given up trying for a cure, and now just wrotethe scripts. The local pharmacist understood, too, and just filled them. Tothose men and the others who knew the whole story, Ray was a legend. The manwho had captured Anton Perchek.

Santana had brought along enough pills tolast a month, provided the chronic pain didn't get any worse than it had been.He had no desire to take to the street for drugs, but he would if he had to.Anton Perchek was alive and plying his miserable trade in New York. And therewas no way Ray was leaving the city until the man was dead.

He had heard from Harry about thesuccessful session with the hypnotist. Next, Maura would be meeting with thecriminologist her brother knew. Together, they would make computer renderingsof her drawing in a variety of disguises. Those drawings would be put up inhospitals throughout the city. Santana's plan was simple. Keep jabbing at TheDoctor. Irritate him enough, and sooner or later, he would do something rash.Sooner or later, he would make a mistake.

He tossed two Percodans into the back ofhis throat and washed them down with a glass of water. Then he set out clothesfor his meeting with Page. He would wear his sports jacket so that he couldconceal the shoulder holster and his.38. He didn't expect trouble, but heanticipated it. Since his betrayal and capture in Nogales, he alwaysanticipated it.

He reached beneath the pillow, withdrewhis pistol, and unscrewed the silencer. It was bulky, and although it hadworked just fine that evening in Central Park, it tended to cut down onaccuracy. Besides, he thought, when he finally stood face-to-face with AntonPerchek, when he finally leveled the.38 at a spot between his eyes and pulledthe trigger, he wanted The Doctor to hear the sound.