Blood Test

“They snuck him out behind my back,” Nona was saying, squeezing my hand, digging in with the green nails. The anger was percolating within her once again. A thin film of sweat mustached the rich, wide mouth. “Like fucking thieves. She dressed up as an x-ray technician. In a mask and gown they swiped from the laundry bin. Took him down to the basement on a service elevator and out a side exit. Thieves.

“I came back to the motel and all three of them were there. My baby was lying on the bed, so small and helpless. They were packing and joking about getting away with it so easy. How nobody had recognized her behind the mask because none of them had ever looked her in the eye. Putting down the hospital. Him going on about smog and shit. Trying to justify what they’d done.”

She’d given me an opening. It was time to renew my pitch. To convince her to come with me peaceably as I carried her son out of there.

But before I could say anything the door burst open.

24

Doug Carmichael crouched in the doorway like a commando in a martial arts movie. The arm that extended into the room held a rifle. The other hefted a double-edged axe as if it were balsa. He wore a black mesh tank top that exposed lots of hypertrophied muscle. His legs were thick and corded, carpeted with curly blond hair and encased in tight white swim trunks. His knees were misshapen and lumpy — surfer’s knots. Rubber beach sandals cushioned large rough feet. The reddish-blond beard was neatly cropped, the thick layered hair precisely blow-dried.

Only the eyes had changed from the day I’d met him. That afternoon in Venice they’d been the color of a cloudless sky. Now I looked into a pair of bottomless black holes: dilated pupils surrounded by thin rings of ice. Mad eyes that scanned the trailer, shifting from the Southern Comfort bottle to the drowsy girl to me.

“I ought to kill you right now for giving her that poison.”

“I didn’t. She took it herself.”

“Shut up!”

Nona tried to straighten up. She swayed groggily.

Carmichael pointed the rifle at me.

“Sit down on the floor. Up against the wall, with your hands under you. Good. Now stay put or I’ll have to hurt you.”

To Nona: “C’mere, Sis.”

She went to his side and leaned against his bulk. One massive arm went around her protectively. The one with the axe.

“Did he hurt you, babe?”

She looked at me, knew she was my jury, considered her answer, and shook her head woozily.

“Naw, he’s been okay. Just talking. Wants to take Woody to the hospital.”

“I’ll bet he does,” sneered Carmichael. “That’s the party line. Pour more poison in and rake in the bucks.”

She looked up at him.

“I dunno, Doug, the fever’s no better.”

“Did you give him the C?”

“Yeah, just like you said.”

“What about the apple?”

“He wouldn’t eat it. Been too sleepy.”

“Try again. If he doesn’t like the apple there are pears and plums, too. And oranges.” He tilted his head at the shopping bags on the counter. “That stuff is super fresh. Just picked, totally organic. Get some fruit and fluid down him along with more C and he’ll cool off.”

“The boy’s in danger,” I said. “He needs more than vitamins.”

“I said shut up! You want me to finish you off right here?”

“I don’t think he means any harm,” said the girl, meekly.

Carmichael smiled at her with genuine warmth and just a touch of condescension.

“You go back in there with the little guy, Sis. Work on nutrition.”

She started to say something but Carmichael silenced her with a flash of white teeth and a reassuring nod. Obediently she disappeared behind the shower curtain.

When we were alone he kicked the trailer door shut and moved opposite me, his back to the counter. I stared up into the twin barrels of the rifle — a deadly figure eight.

“I’m going to have to kill you,” he said calmly, then shrugged apologetically. “Nothing personal, you know? But we’re a family and you’re a threat.”

The last thing I’d wanted to display was skepticism and I was sure I hadn’t. But his psychic radar was hot-wired to go off unpredictably, the scrambled apparatus of the truly paranoiac. He squinted angrily and lowered the rifle, aiming at the tender concavity between my eyes. Hunching his massive shoulders he stared down menacingly.

“We are a family. And we don’t need a blood test to prove it.”

“Of course not,” I agreed with a mouth full of cotton. “It’s the emotional bond that’s important.”

He looked at me hard to make sure I wasn’t patronizing him. I molded my face into a mask of sincerity. Froze it that way.

The axe swung loosely, whetted blade abrading the floor.

“Exactly. It’s feelings that count. Our feelings have been forged in pain. We’re three against the world. Our family is what it should be — a sanctuary against all the craziness out there. A safe zone. It’s beautiful and precious. And I’ve got to protect it.”

I had no plan for escape. For the time being there was no hope but to buy time by keeping him talking.

“I understand. You’re the head of the family.”

The blue eyes heated like gas flames.