FLASHBACK (16 page)

Authors: Gary Braver

BOOK: FLASHBACK

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JACK CONTINUED IN A PROFOUND SLEEP.

And after two weeks they moved him from Spaulding to Greendale Rehabilitation Home in Cabot—a private long-term-care facility just twenty miles north of Carleton. There was a special rehab unit devoted to coma patients. He occasionally muttered meaningless things, but his brain activity held steady and with diminished agitation.

A white two-story stone building that looked more like a restored elementary school, Greendale boasted “high-quality and compassionate” medical care and rehabilitation. It also offered a “coma stimulation program” for patients at low levels of cognitive functioning. Beth was impressed with the staff’s professionalism and good nature.

Jack’s primary care nurse, Marcy Falco, explained that she had brought several patients out of comas in her twenty-three years. In fact, she was so successful, she said, that others on the staff wondered if she was a witch. She said that she believed in talking to her patients, telling them about herself, narrating her regular tasks, summarizing the daily news and sports scores, playing their favorite music, making simple requests—blink, wiggle your toes, squeeze my finger. “His spirit is trapped inside of him,” she told Beth one day. “But it’s listening. He can hear you. Tell him stuff, tell him you love him. And above all, tell him the truth, because it may set him free. Honesty is the best therapy.”

Beth visited Jack every other day at first, helping out with the physical activities as did Vince when he visited—turning him over, exercising his limbs, changing his bedding. They also helped out in the stimulation program—rubbing his face, his arms and legs, brushing his hair, moving his limbs, using smell stimulation. Beth brought in a CD player to play his favorite music—John Lee Hooker, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Bessie Smith. Vintage blues. She also ordered a television set to be left on as sound stimulation when she wasn’t present.

Meanwhile, the jellyfish welts faded and the flesh around his eyes had lost its puffiness. His hair had begun to grow back, although his brow was still slick with antibiotic ointment.

Beth also saw René Ballard on occasion, as Greendale Rehab Center was one of the facilities where René worked as consultant pharmacist. She was very friendly and offered good moral support. She was also interested in Jack’s dreams since she said his MRI patterns coincidentally resembled those of some Alzheimer’s patients. That meant nothing to Beth.

As time passed, she visited Jack less frequently. She also began to go to bars with women friends. She met single men and talked, and she felt no guilt. She did not wear her wedding ring. When asked, she said she was a widow.

Beth cut her visits to once a week at best, and she sat with Jack for shorter periods. She continued to talk to him when she came by—mostly monologue spurts full of chitchat nothings. But she never told Jack that she loved him.

And Jack slept into his second month.

NICK LOOKED AT GAVIN MOY point-blank. “Here’s the deal. If you want me to head up these Memorine trials, there are a few conditions. First, be prepared to spend some money.”

Moy smiled. “Why should you be any different?”

“Not me, the Zuchowskys.” He held up his fingers. “Two, no more rough stuff.”

They met at Gavin Moy’s sixth-floor condo at Marina Bay in Quincy, a sprawling oceanside haven for local celebrities, athletes, and other upscale folks who wanted the accoutrements of privacy and proximity to Boston. Because the waterfront was lined with shops and restaurants, the place had the feel of Nantucket crossed with Florida’s South Beach, especially from May through September. This was Moy’s pied-à-terre, his primary residence being a waterfront mansion on a cliff in Manchester-by-the Sea on Boston’s north shore.

The interior six rooms were done in off-white-walls, carpet, draperies, even the large curved leather sectionals, perfectly matched with accompanying chairs. Except for the vases of flowers, porcelain lamps, and watercolors, the place was bled of color. Gavin’s designer had opted for understated monochrome elegance. But Gavin’s touch was evident. On the fireplace mantel and scattered about the rooms were photographs of Gavin with various VIPs including other captains of industry, state senators, and, sitting dead center above the fireplace, a shot of him shaking hands with the president of the United States. Nick also spotted photos of Moy’s son, Teddy, and Moy’s late wife.

At the moment, Nick and Moy were sitting on the deck overhanging a spectacular view of Boston Harbor. In anticipation of Nick’s acceptance, Moy had opened a bottle of Taittinger. Nick had played coy on the phone, but he said he wanted to discuss the terms of agreement in person. And Moy was ready to meet them, champagne in bucket.

“Why you hitting me with this Zuchowsky stuff?”

“Because this is a cover-up for your welfare. And because a lot of good
people are getting poked by lawyers, going about their business in a fog of lies and anxiety over possible perjury suits. It’s wrong, and I don’t like it. And if we let them, the frigging lawyers will drag it out for years, wrecking lives and pulling the curtains on your miracle drug.”

Moy made no response except to sip his champagne and to study Nick’s face. It was his ploy to let a person lay out all his cards before he made his move.

So Nick pressed on. “Carter Lutz was given thirty days to fulfill a document production request from the Zuchowsky attorneys, which means he has to provide his own lawyers with paperwork on the security system, insurance records, Clara Devine’s medical charts, which have conveniently been doctored to protect the trials.”

Finally Gavin asked, “So, what do you propose?”

“That for everybody’s best interest, including your own, you muster your resources to getting this settled out of court ASAP.”

“Otherwise?”

“Otherwise get yourself another director.”

Moy’s eyebrows shot up. “Nick, you threatening to go to the FDA?”

“No, and I won’t have to do that because someone’s going to smell a rat if this drags on.”

“So we throw a lot of money at the Zuchowskys and make it go away.”

“Yeah. I’m sure the Zuchowskys aren’t looking to get rich, just some moral sense of justice. Maybe you can even set up a memorial fund in the name of their son.”

Gavin nodded. “Anything else?”

“Yes. Have the lawyers build into the settlement an agreement that no further legal action would be taken against the nursing homes, CommCare, its employees, or any parties associated with it.”

“Anything else,
mein Führer?”

“Yes. I also expect the clinical reports to be legitimate and complete.”

Gavin Moy was not used to people dictating behavior. But Nick had the tactical advantage here. “Nor should it be any other way. I’ll make some calls.”

“I also want to bring aboard my own people.”

“I don’t care if you hire Daffy Duck.” Then Moy’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean the Ballard girl.”

“Yes. She’s smart and capable and has a heart. She’s also a fine person, and I respect her intelligence and her integrity.” Then he added, “She’s also good
with these patients. Her own father died of Alzheimer’s a few years ago, so she’s motivated.”

“Fine.” Moy raised his glass to Nick.

But Nick did not clink him. He leaned forward so that his face filled Moy’s vision. “Somebody put a cat’s head in her mailbox.”

Moy winced as if trying to read fine print. “Beg pardon?”

“I said somebody put a severed cat’s head in her mailbox.”

There was a gaping moment. “And you think that was our people?”

“Let’s just say I know where you come from.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Gavin Moy was brilliant, handsome, and surrounded with all the accoutrements of wealth and class. Yet under all the high gloss swaggered a kid from the streets of Everett, where scores were settled with baseball bats and fists. One night back in college, some soused frat rat had insulted Gavin to his face at a party. Because the kid was surrounded by pals, Gavin sucked in his pride and walked away. But later, when he and Nick crossed the parking lot, Gavin found the kid’s car—a new model that actually belonged to his parents—and with a pocketknife he laid into the paint job. Had Nick not stopped him, Gavin would have turned the hood into a Jackson Pollock. As small a scene as that appeared through a lens of four decades, it always came back to Nick when he picked up rumors of Moy’s dealings with adversaries. “It means that I know you can play hardball. So let me just say now that if anyone makes the slightest threat against her again, there’s going to be hell to pay.”

Moy held Nick’s eyes for a few seconds. “You really have a thing for this woman.”

Nick resented the implication. “She’s a colleague and a former student.”

“Oh, hell, man, I didn’t mean anything by it. Just that she’s a real looker.”

“Yes, she is. She’s also a good person.”

“I’m sure.”

In the water below, a large, sleek outboard chuffed into the marina for its slip with two men aboard. One looked up and waved when he spotted Gavin and Nick. Moy’s adopted son and only heir.

“So we on?”

“Under the conditions specified.”

“Fine.”

And Nick clinked glasses. “Great view.”

They sat in silence for several minutes. Then Moy broke the spell, the
champagne warming his words. “Do you friggin’ believe where we’ve come from? You, a poor Greek kid from Lowell, and me a son of a shoemaker out of a three-decker in Everett. Like the old cigarette ad:’A long way, baby.’” He raised his glass. “To whatever leads to glory and makes a buck.”

Another of Moy’s favorites—one that had been with him since he was half his age.

A few minutes later, his son entered the apartment. “You remember Teddy,” Moy said, as the man emerged onto the deck. “Dr. Nick Mavros.”

It had been years since Nick last met Teddy. He was a quiet man in his thirties. Except for the implacable expression, he was good-looking. Months of exposure to the sun had bronzed his skin and lightened his hair, which was pushed back to expose the slick V of a high widow’s peak. He was not very tall, but he had clearly spent a good deal of time in a gym, because he was wadded with muscles—the tight brown T-shirt making his chest look like gladiatorial armor. He also had large thick hands—the kind that could twist the head off a cat, just like that.

Teddy made a tortured smile and shook Nick’s hand. “Good to see you again, Doctor.”

From what Nick knew, Teddy had failed to live up to his father’s dreams of heading the GEM enterprises after Gavin. He was not the scientist type. In fact, he had dropped out of college and had gotten involved with some real estate schemes that set him afoul of the law and that ended up costing Gavin Moy considerable money. Apparently Teddy did not have any steady employment—just some handyman jobs with different contractors. He lived in the condo and spent his days on his father’s boat. He also waited on his father like a valet, removing the empty champagne bottle and asking Moy if he’d like another, refilling the bowl of smoked almonds. As the two interacted, Nick could detect a curious pattern he had noticed years ago when Ted was a boy—behavior that balanced Teddy’s need for approval and Gavin’s scant servings of it.

While they sipped their champagne, Nick studied Moy’s face. The tan made his green eyes blaze all the more, reminding Nick of the handsome young scientist with the shocking red Afro who had charmed female grad students and instructors alike back at MIT, where he was known as Big Red. A ladies’ man, Gavin was never without a date, never wanting in his love life. And Nick had envied him because whenever they entered a bar or campus party, women’s heads turned as if a film star had walked into the room. And Gavin exploited that advantage, sometimes leaving Nick to whoop it up with
other guys while he headed off with some queen. And although he had filled out and had lost his hair, Moy was still attractive, and all the more so because he was about to turn a multibillion-dollar profit.

Nick nodded toward the water. “There were reports of tropical fish around the Elizabeth Islands a few weeks ago.”

“Is that right?” Moy shoved a handful of almonds into his mouth.

“Your jellyfish sent a guy into our ICU. He’s in a coma.”

Moy’s eyebrows rose up. “Is that so?” And he crunched almonds in his molars. “What the hell was he doing out there?”

“Who knows? I thought you’d seen the story. I think he was a former summer resident.”

“What his name?”

“Jack Koryan.”

“Jack what?”

“Koryan.”

Moy washed down the nuts with champagne. “Means nothing to me.”

“Me, neither.”

And they sipped their drink as shadows stretched across the harbor.

JACK KORYAN LOOKED THROUGH THE BARS to see the door click open and the large dark pointy thing entered with a hiss.

The light was dim. Flashes dashed off the bright equipment in the room—the chrome IV stand, the tubes running from his arms and side. The stacked monitors with their green squiggles. The vase of flowers from that woman.

But the fading afternoon light slashed through the blinds to catch the creature approaching the bed.

Jack’s eyes were gummy with stuff they kept putting in them. So he couldn’t make out the figure. But it wasn’t any of the nurses or aides—God, no—because this thing was big and dark and not asking how he was doing or running on about how the weather was or that movie she saw last night or how the Sox were doing in the AL standings …

And Jack was scared. Pissing scared, whimpering scared …

And something in the creature’s hand caught the light.

Some kind of pipe.

Or club.

It made no difference because he could hear the hard cracks shoot through his soul.

Gonna smash down on you, Jacky Boy. Gonna put a trough in your brow so your brain will mush up out of your ears.

Time to call the cops. The cops.

Through jellied corneas he watched the thing stop at the foot of his bed. Something hard knocked against the bars.

Gonna get cracking.

Call the cops.

Call Mighty Mouse … to save the day.

The thing scraped along the side of the bed toward Jack’s head. It hunched over him, and he could smell fishiness … and a swimming pool.

Better call … before …

(Whack! Whack!)

Your head implodes.

The creature raised its arm as Jack braced for the blow, and for a telescoped moment Jack reached down to the bottom of his being through all the layers conspiring to hold back the one vital urge not to yield:

“Meds Gama.”

And the creature was gone.

“Jack, you call? It’s Marcy, your nurse. Jack, wake up.”

“Hi, Jack.” Another female voice. “Was that you?”

“Meds Gama.”

“Nothing.”

“False alarm.”

No,
he screamed.
It was here. The monster thing was here. Right by the bed. Look down at the tracks … the wet. He was here, I swear. I swear
…

“G’night, Jack.”

And a hole opened up and sucked Jack in.