When The Bough Breaks

"Not feeling loquacious tonight, Willie? That's all right. We'll talk later." The colorless eyes narrowed. "Right now there's business to attend to."

"Is this your idea of altruism?" I looked at Melody's limp form.

"Shut up!" he snapped. To Towle: "Remove the child's clothing."

"Gus - I - why?"

"Just do as I say, Willie."

"No more, Gus," Towle pleaded. "We've done enough."

"No, you idiot. We haven't done enough at all. This smartass here has the potential to cause us - you and me - lots of trouble. I made plans to eliminate him, but apparently I'll have to do the job myself."

"Plans," I sneered. "Halstead's rotting in a vacant lot with a spike in his throat. He was a humbler, like all of your slaves."

McCaffrey pursed his thick lips.

"I'm warning you," he said.

"That's your specialty, isn't it?" I continued, playing for time. I saw his massive silhouette shift as he tried to keep me in his sights. But the darkness made it difficult as did Towle's body, which had gotten between us as he fidgeted under his master's glare. "You have a knack for finding bumblers and losers, emotional cripples, misfits. The same knack flies have for locating shit. You zero in on their open wounds, sink your fangs into them, suck them dry."

"How literary," he replied in a lilting voice, obviously fighting to maintain control. We were in close quarters and impulsiveness could prove hazardous.

"Her clothes, Will," he said. "Take them all off."

"Gus - "

"Do it, you sniveling piece of turd!"

Towle raised his arm in front of his face like a child warding off a blow. When none was forthcoming he moved toward the child.

"You're a doctor," I said. "A respected physician. Don't listen to him - "

Fast, faster than I thought possible, McCaffrey stepped forward in the clearing Towle had created. He slashed with one elephantine sleeve and raked the side of my head with his gun. I fell to the floor, my face exploding with pain, hands protecting myself from further assault, blood running between my fingers.

"Now you stay there, sir, and keep your fucking mouth shut."

Towle removed Melody's T - shirt. Her chest was concave and white, the ribs twin grilles of gray - blue shadow.

"Now the pants. The panties. Everything."

"Why are we doing this, Gus?" Towle wanted to know. To my ears, which were far from perfect, one being ripped and bloody, the other filled with watery echoes, his speech sounded slurred. I wondered if stress could break through the biochemical barrier he'd erected around his damaged mind.

"Why?" McCaffrey laughed. "You're not used to seeing this type of thing firsthand, are you, Willie? You've had a sanitized role up until now, enjoying the luxury of distance. Well, no matter, I'll explain it to you."

He raised an eyebrow at Towle contemptuously, looked down at me and laughed again. The sound reverberated painfully in my injured skull. The blood continued to run down my face. My head felt mushy, loose on its stalk. I began to grow nauseated and dizzy, and the floor rose up at me. Terror gripped me as I wondered if he'd hit me hard enough to cause brain damage. I knew what a subdural hematoma could do to the fragile gray jelly that made life worth living… Crazily, fighting for strength and clarity, I pictured my brain in an anatomist's tray, pinioned and splayed, and tried to localize the site of the injury. The gun had smashed against my left side - the dominant hemisphere, for I am right - handed… that was bad. The dominant side controlled logical processes: reasoning, analysis, deduction - the stuff to which I'd grown addicted over thirty - three years. I thought about losing all of that, of fading into dimness and confusion, then remembered two - year - old Willie Junior, struck down in much the same way. He'd lost it all… which might have been merciful. For had he survived, the damage would have been great. Left side right side… the tides…

"We're going to put on a little stage play, Willie," McCaffrey lectured. "I'll be the producer and director. You'll be my assistant, helping me with the props." He swung the camera in an arc. "The stars of the show will be little Melody and our friend Doctor Alex Delaware. The name of the play will be - "Death of a Shrink," subtitled "Caught in the Act." A morality play."

"Gus - "