The Jigsaw Man (34 page)

to m e , I was holding a pillow with it, about to murder

him using the strength of his own flesh.

"I'm sorry, Red," I said, knowing I had to say some¬

thing to make him understand. "I didn't have a say in

any of this, same as you. It's Dr. Marshall that caused

all this suffering. It's his fault. He put me to sleep and I

woke up looking like this. Please don't hate me."

Red Beard didn't say anything for a long t i m e , but he

was looking into my eyes again. His trembling slowly

subsided, but tears were still streaming out of his swol¬

len eyes. "I don't hate you, Mike. Christ, n o , you know

that. I j u s t can't take it anymore. I've hit the wall and I

wanna go away. Heaven or Hell or j u s t a big black hole

in the ground, I don't much care. Just get me out of

here, okay? Please."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak right now.

Grabbing the pillow, I moved to the side of his bed and

numbly prepared to commit murder again.

"Promise me something, Mike?" Red Beard asked as

I was lowering the pillow.

"I'll get him, Red," I said, knowing what he needed

to hear. "Count on it, my friend. N a t h a n Marshall will

be dead within an hour."

I didn't have total faith in what I was saying, but ev¬

ery word came straight from my heart and I vowed to

do everything in my power to make it reality—or die

trying. Red Beard nodded and smiled. I smiled back,

then placed the pillow down on his face before he could

see me break down in tears.

C H A P T E R T H I R T Y - N I N E

Red Beard was gone and his death weighed heavily on

my mind. The pillow I'd used was still resting on his

face, a poor man's shroud if ever there was one. I'd been

too distraught—and I'll admit it, afraid—to remove the

pillow and look at him. I didn't want to see if he'd been

suffering in his last few moments. I wanted to believe

he was smiling under there, j u s t like Lucas had been,

but damned if I was going to find out. No way.

My head was spinning. I had to fight to keep my

thoughts moving in the right direction. If I stopped to

think too hard about what I'd j u s t done I'd go mad,

probably He down on the floor between Lucas and Red

and be done with it. I still had a j o b to do, though, and

more importantly, a promise to keep.

Before leaving the Bleeders' room I gathered up my

growing arsenal of weapons and supplies. I now had two

guns: Drake's and Jackson's; two knives: Drake's buck

knife and Junie's switchblade; a Bic lighter; and the

wooden grave marker.

Problem was, I couldn't carry it all. The knives could

slip into my pant pockets, no problem, but with my in¬

jured wrist I could only carry one of the guns. I could

stuff one down the front of my pants but with my luck

I'd probably blow my dick off. N o , one gun was surely

all I'd need. Drake's gun still had a full clip, so I grabbed

it and left Jackson's on one of the spare beds. I almost

left the wooden cross behind, but on a whim I stuck it

down the front of my shirt.

Last but not least, I made sure I cranked on all the

oxygen gas valves—one stationed at the head of every

bed in the room—before saying good-bye to Lucas and

Red and heading out into the fourth-floor hallway.

Thankfully, it was deserted, but I knew I'd really

have to be on my toes now. If Drake had come back to

the castle, no doubt the rest of his boys were back, too,

and none of them would let me walk on by like the

nurse and the orderly had done earlier. If I was spotted

again I was in big, big trouble.

Mind you, so was whoever spotted me because I was

armed and determined to go down fighting. I didn't give

a damn whether I got my throat cut in a fight or was

gunned down in a standoff, but I desperately needed to

get somewhere that I could ignite the gas before I let

them take me down.

And I knew j u s t the place.

I headed for the front stairwell.

My guess was all of the remaining security team

would be congregating down in Drake's office on the

ground floor. They'd be waiting to see what Drake

wanted to do next. They weren't stupid and would soon

start trying to reach their leader on the walkie-talkies,

but they'd stand around talking amongst themselves

for ten or fifteen minutes, at least, before anyone started

to get antsy. Then they'd spread out and start looking

for him, which didn't bother me because I wasn't going

anywhere near Drake's security office, or for that mat¬

ter, anywhere in the labs, operating theaters, or patient

rooms where the guards might eventually start search¬

ing. N o , I was going to the one place I didn't think they'd

bother looking—the tower room above the fourth-floor

stairwell at the front of the building.

Andrew's room.

It had been Drake's room when I first came here, but

now that Dr> Marshall no longer needed his wheelchair,

I'm pretty sure Andrew had been moved up there on a

permanent basis. Maybe they'd all slept in the tower

together. One big happy family. Regardless, if Andrew

was alive I knew that's where he'd be. Partly I wanted to

find him out of curiosity; I'll admit that. I wanted to

know what had happened to him. I needed to see if Dr.

Marshall's son was dead and gone or if he was wearing a

flesh suit the same as me—only his would be Bill Smith's

upgraded model with a hell of a lot less scars on it. The

main reason, though, was I knew the tower room had

several oxygen hookups and its small confined space

would be a perfect spot to spark the first explosion.

I considered trying to hunt down Dr. Marshall first

and pull an incredibly satisfying Rambo on him, ful¬

filling my promise to Red Beard as well as getting the

face-to-face revenge I so richly deserved, but I was smart

enough to know it was a bad idea. I had no idea where

Dr. Marshall might be, and any attempt to locate him

would probably get me killed—either by the insane

doctor himself, or by one of his guards—before I could

ignite the spreading gases. That was a risk I wasn't will¬

ing to take.

Besides, it was pointless. If Dr. Marshall was still in

the building when the explosion went off—and I was

99 percent sure he was—he was going to get what was

coming to him, whether I was standing there to see it

happen or not. Sure, I'd have loved to see the look on

his face knowing I'd gotten the last laugh on the rich

psycho, but knowing without a doubt he was going to

die along with his cruel staff members and his unethi¬

cal medical secrets was good enough for me.

As soon as I opened the door leading into the front

stairwell I heard voices. Two people, their voices muf¬

fled, neither one sounding happy. They were clearly ar¬

guing, but I couldn't make out what about. I prepared

to duck back into the fourth-floor hallway, but no foot¬

steps were coming up the stairs and I figured I could

slip into the tower room before anyone spotted me.

Quiet as a mouse, I climbed the last staircase, and was

halfway around the corner when I realized the voices I

was hearing were getting louder, clearer.

Someone's in the tower room.

Andrew? Who else?

This wasn't good. Definitely not part of the plan. I

inched up the stairs, hearing the voices clear enough

now that I recognized one of them as Dr. Marshall's.

My heart shot into my throat, fear trying to strangle

me, but I fought it hard, swallowing the anxiety down

with the soothing realization that I'd be getting my

chance at personal revenge after all. The other voice

sounded familiar but I couldn't place it yet. My gun at

the ready, I took another few steps up and peered over

the riser to see who Dr. Marshall was arguing with.

It was Andrew, but not the Andrew Marshall I re¬

membered meeting. He was no longer a disembodied

man trapped in a glass tank, but like me, his body had

been made whole again. He sat upright, strapped into a

silver high-backed wheelchair equipped with a head

brace, near the skillfully restored stained glass window

I'd tried to take a header out of on my last visit to this

room.

Although Andrew was fully dressed, wearing a dark

blue wool sweater and baggy j e a n s , I knew he was trans¬

planted into Bill Smith's flesh suit, which accounted for

his familiar voice. It was Bill's voice I was hearing. An¬

drew had inherited his benefactor's vocal chords along

with the rest of his body. I hadn't known Bill for long,

but k was kind of creepy hearing his voice. Made me

wonder again whose voice I was speaking with.

Doesn't matter^ don't get sidetracked. Just run up there

with your gun blasting.

I was full of good ideas today, but that wasn't one of

them. I wasn't sold on the notion of shooting Dr. M a r

shall. A bullet was too clean of a way for him to go out. I

was also worried about the shot being heard all over the

building and Drake's guards coming on the run. Be¬

sides, I wanted to hear what they were shouting about,

so I stayed put, listening in on their argument.

"You're a fool," Dr. Marshall said to his son. "An
un

grateful
fool. I've spent my life trying to help you walk

and you want to quit on me now when we're this close

to success?"

"Success?" Andrew yelled back. "You call
this
suc

cess? Look at m e , father. You cut my real body away

piece by piece until there was nothin' left, then you try

sewing me up inside another man's dead body, but guess

what, Dad, I still can't walk."

"I know that, Andrew. And I transplanted you into

another man's
living
body, not dead. There's a big dfference."

"Not to m e , there isn't."

"The problem was you were in the submersion tank

for too long. The infection spread to your spine and

shut down a lot of your neuropathways, basically leav¬

ing you a quadriplegic in your new body. Don't worry,

though, we aren't out of options yet, son. All we have to

do is take a few steps back. We'll get another flesh suit

for you, only this time what we do is leave the spinal

column of the donor intact and j u s t transplant y o u r

head onto the healthy neck. I can do it, son, I swear I

can!"

"Oh Christ! W h a t ' s next after that, Dad? You gonna

j u s t scoop my brain out and dump it into another

stranger?"

"I won't have to, Andrew. This time it'll work. You

have to trust me."

"No way. Never again. I don't want to live like this

anymore, Dad.
Please.
I can't handle being cut apart

again. You have to stop this insanity."

"Never! I'm going to make you walk again, Andrew.

One day, you'll thank me."

"No, Dad. I won't. You treat me like a lab animal and

expect me to worship your genius like the other sheep

around here. I hate you for what you've done. You can't

make me go through that again. I'd rather die."

"Don't be so naive. Of course I can make you, and I

will. W h o ' s going to stop m e ? "

From my hiding place on the stairs, I knew that was my

cue. Ii" ever there was a time for me to play the action

hero, this was definitely it. In the movies, this was where

any good secret agent worth his salt steps out into the

open and confidently says, "I will." Unfortunately, this

wasn't the movies. I had no intention of being so civil

and—let's face it—stupid enough to give away the ele¬

ment of surprise I was going to need.

For all my big talk about finding Dr. Marshall and

getting my face-to-face revenge, I would have preferred

to have found this room empty and gone about my plan

of blowing up the castle quietly, without complications.

That obviously wasn't going to happen, but if I was

forced into confronting Marshall, I could at least do it

on my own terms, hopefully sneaking up and taking

him out before he knew I was there. I was too banged

up and exhausted for another fight.

Just shoot him, then,
my conscience suggested again,

but I dismissed the notion a second time. It would be a

cowardly thing to do—which I had no problem with at

all—but I couldn't risk having Drake's security team

hearing the shot. N o , the gun was out, which left me

with only two options. Drake's knife was sticky, liter¬

ally painted red with his blood, but so too was Junie's

blade that I'd killed Jackson with. I really didn't have

any desire to touch either one again but I had to so I

went for Drake's. I'd have to push the blade release but¬

ton on Junie's and in this cramped stairwell I was fairly

sure Dr. Marshall would hear the sound of the blade

sliding out. Maybe not, but it wasn't worth the risk.

I laid the gun down on the top stair, grabbed the