The Dead Man: Ring of Knives

'You've got to be kidding! A place like this can't run itself—'

She shushed him and held up a finger, then eased past an open door, and he followed.

'See?' she said. 'Control Room, like I said.'

It looked more like a file room to Matt, with two walls covered with metal cabinets labeled 'Videotapes' and 'Treatment Plans / Overflow.' But the other two walls were braced by a console that had a dozen palm-sized monitors that showed different, slightly distorted, black-and-white views of the Admin Building's entryway, the quad, and the modules' common rooms, dorms, isolation cells, and hallways. The room also had an old television/VCR set on a metal rolling rack.

'There go Hirotashi, eatin' her plate a' nasty.'

One of the grainy monitors showed Toad-Face pulling a steaming cardboard plate out of a microwave and sitting at an oval table.

'Won't she be able to see me go into the men's dorm, from whatever break room she's in?'

'Huh-uh.' Maloria led him out of the Control Room. 'They ain't no men's dorm in Module Two.' She rolled her eyes at him, gave a fat-lipped smirk. 'And Dr. Dindren wouldn't be in it, if they were.'

This made no sense to Matt. 'There's no men's dorm?'

'Nope. Module Two only got isolation cells, on account of it a forensic unit.'

Thought about that. ''Forensic.' Meaning . . .'

'Meaning For Fucked-Up Ma'fuckahs Only. Understand? It only for residents so jacked, they a danger to theyself or others.'

'Aha.' Not good. 'And why . . . why, if there was a men's dorm, wouldn't Dindren . . . ?'

Maloria didn't bother to turn as she waddled out into the quad, but he could hear the cackle in her voice. 'Boy, I let you find that out for yahself.'

With this in mind, Matt wasn't totally surprised (at first) by what he found behind the door marked 'Isolation Cell 7.'

There had been no great trick to getting into the forensic unit; Maloria had let them in through the front door with a key from her key chain, as in Module One, and navigated him past two aides who were playing poker. But there the resemblance to Module One had ended. Whereas the architect of Module One had unsuccessfully attempted to make the unit look like a college dorm, the architect of Module Two had unsuccessfully attempted to make the unit not look like a prison. Partial faux-wood paneling didn't conceal that the walls were fireproofed cinder block. Cheerful sayings taped to the wall ('Spring Has Sprung!') couldn't erase the fact that the overhead lights were protected by metal cages or that the only utensil available was the spork. Brown paint couldn't hide the fact that all the doors were metal, not wood, or that every fifty feet the hallway was bracketed by a retractable steel riot gate.

No, it was all too clear what Module Two was, Matt thought as they walked quickly down the hall. It was—as Maloria had said—a place to keep seriously fucked-up motherfuckers.

# # # # # #

So Dindren was in the right place.

Matt stared at him carefully as he stood with his back to the door, which was open a crack. When Maloria had led him to a steel portal that looked no different from the previous six, peeked in the slit, and whispered, 'He up,' Matt had felt a wave of relief.

That wave was swiftly ebbing.

'Dr. Dindren,' he said. 'Nice to meet you. My name is Matt.'

'Oh, please let's dispense with the niceties,' came a husky whisper in the toffiest of British accents. 'My friends all call me Jonna.'

Matt doubted this very much. He blinked hard, taking in the creature before him. If Dindren had any friends, they had missed their cue to come rescue him long ago.

Dindren looked like shit. Where was the solemn, nearsighted professional whose face had graced the page that Matt had torn from the library book? Gone was the trim black beard (though the shadow of it still lingered); gone, the Coke-bottle glasses; gone, the suit, the tie, the steepling fingers with the manicured nails.

Dindren's fingers now shook too much to steeple. They clutched each other like abandoned twins in a fairy tale, fighting off hypothermia. They were raw and chafed, with nails chewed to the quick.

What else? Well, Dindren had traded in his suit and tie for soiled pink scrubs with a repeating daisy pattern. His thick, wheat-colored hair was no longer gelled into a banker's part; it was lank and oily and fell to his shoulders, and had been razor cut in a rough approximation of the style Jennifer Aniston had popularized more than a decade earlier. Also like Jennifer Aniston, he had breasts, and (like her nemesis), lush, bee-stung lips. Unlike Jennifer Anniston (or her nemesis), he had an Adam's apple, a five-day shadow, thin gray teeth that leaned inward, and one eye so consumed with pinkeye that the pupil seemed to be floating in a sea of blood.

And he shook all over.

'Charmed,' he said, producing a hand, 'I'm sure.'

Matt took his hand and shook it (cool, damp, and as limp as a sock), making a mental note to get some antibacterial soap at the first opportunity. Afterwards, as casually as he could, he wiped his palm on his pants leg.

Dindren noticed, but the insult only fed his drag act. Sitting on his mattress, ankles crossed demurely, he wrapped his arms around his shins and gently propped his chin on his kneecap at a winsome angle.

'And to what do I owe the pleasure?'

That red peeper made Matt's skin crawl. And—what the fuck? Was Dindren male or female? He couldn't tell. Shifted nervously from foot to foot, saying, 'Ah, you don't know me—that is, we haven't met before—but I had written ahead to the administration to arrange a visit with a former patient of yours, Jesse Weston? It was really important that I meet with him. But when I arrived—this afternoon, actually—I was told that he'd been transferred. So I asked Maloria if she'd arrange it so I could . . . ah . . . speak with you.'

At the mention of Weston's name, Dindren's unbloodied eye went all hazy. When Matt had finished, Dindren pursed his thick, chapped lips. 'Jesse, Jesse,' he said, rocking gently.

And that was about it.

'They said he'd gone away sometime in the last few weeks,' Matt prompted.

A slow nod. ''Gone away.' Yes.' Cheeks sucked inward in a wry pout. 'You could say that, couldn't you?'

'I guess what I'd like to know is, where exactly did he go away to? Is he near here? Or out of state?'

'Hmm. You could say he returned to his former state.'

'His former . . .' Matt tried to remember where Weston was from.

'Never you mind.' Dindren's bloodred orb rolled Matt's way and settled on him with a barely suppressed tremble. 'I'd like to help, but I try not to discuss my patients' pathologies with strangers.' His jittery hands clasped together and pressed against his cheek like a 1920s pinup. 'You wouldn't happen to have any Necco Wafers, would you?'

'Um, not . . . on me.' Matt's head throbbed. He'd come all this way for this?

'I like the chocolate ones the best.'

'Who doesn't? Look, Doc . . .' Matt hunkered down in a crouch in front of him, his knees cracking loudly. 'I don't have much time.'

'Would you like some of mine? I have quite a bit to spare.'

'No. What I really need are some answers.'

'What I really need are Necco Wafers.'

Matt felt his face prickle with heat. The guy was clearly messing with him. But could he help it? He was ill, after all. Matt held out two hands in mock surrender, gave him an encouraging smile. 'Whatta you say we drop the Necco thing, okay?'

Dindren's lips peeled back to reveal the gray, leaning teeth. Huskily: 'Whatta you say we make out?'

Before he could tell them not to, Matt's hands snapped forward and grabbed Dindren by the shoulders of his pink daisy scrubs and gave him a shake, trying desperately to break through to him. 'Help me, goddammit! Help me or I'll—'