out.
Even if I die.
He came down off the rock and followed a path of sand and shells that curled around the sea grass, and it occurred to him that what Cawley had thought suicidal in him was not quite that. It was more a death wish. For years he couldn’t think of a good reason to live, true. But he also couldn’t think of a good reason to die, either. By his own hand? Even in his most desolate nights, that had seemed such a pathetic option. Embarrassing. Puny.
But to—
The guard was suddenly standing there, as surprised by Teddy’s appearance as Teddy was by his, the guard’s fly still open, the rifle slung behind his back. He started to reach for his fly first, then changed his mind, but by then Teddy had driven the heel of his hand into his Adam’s apple. He grabbed his throat, and Teddy dropped to a crouch and swung his leg into the back of the guard’s and the guard flipped over on his back and Teddy straightened up and kicked him hard in the right ear and the guard’s eyes rolled back in his head and his mouth flopped open.
Teddy bent down by him and slid the rifle strap off his shoulder and pulled the rifle out from under him. He could hear the guy breathing. So he hadn’t killed him.
And now he had a gun.
HE USED IT on the next guard, the one in front of the fence. He disarmed him, a kid, a baby, really, and the guard said, “You going to kill me?”
“Jesus, kid, no,” Teddy said and snapped the butt of the rifle into the kid’s temple.
THERE WAS A small bunkhouse inside the fence perimeter, and Teddy checked that first, found a few cots and girlie magazines, a pot of old coffee, a couple of guard uniforms hanging from a hook on the door.
He went back out and crossed to the lighthouse and used the rifle to push open the door and found nothing on the first floor but a dank cement room, empty of anything but mold on the walls, and a spiral staircase made from the same stone as the walls.
He followed that up to a second room, as empty as the first, and he knew there had to be a basement here, something large, maybe connected to the rest of the hospital by those corridors, because so far, this was nothing but, well, a lighthouse.
He heard a scraping sound above him and he went back out to the stairs and followed them up another flight and came to a heavy iron door, and he pressed the tip of the rifle barrel to it and felt it give a bit.
He heard that scraping sound again and he could smell cigarette smoke and hear the ocean and feel the wind up here, and he knew that if the warden had been smart enough to place guards on the other side of this door, then Teddy was dead as soon as he pushed it open.
Can’t.
Because it all comes to this.
All of it. Everything.
You. Me. Laeddis. Chuck. Noyce, that poor fucking kid. It all comes to this. Either it stops now. Or I stop now.
No. What?
Teddy knew what she meant. He knew something about Chuck’s hands was important, but not so important he could waste any more time in this stairwell thinking about it.
I’ve got to go through this door now, honey.
Teddy crouched to the left of the door. He held the rifle butt against his left rib cage and placed his right hand on the floor for balance and then he kicked out with his left foot and the door swung wide and he dropped to his knee in the swinging of it and placed the rifle to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel.
At Cawley.
Sitting behind a table, his back to a small window square, the ocean spread blue and silver behind him, the smell of it filling the room, the breeze fingering the hair on the sides of his head.
Cawley didn’t look startled. He didn’t look scared. He tapped his cigarette against the side of the ashtray in front of him and said to Teddy:
“Why you all wet, baby?”
21
THE WALLS BEHIND Cawley were covered in pink bedsheets, their corners fastened by wrinkled strips of tape. On the table in front of him were several folders, a military-issue field radio, Teddy’s notebook, Laeddis’s intake form, and Teddy’s suit jacket. Propped on the seat of a chair in the corner was a reel-to-reel tape recorder, the reels moving, a small microphone sitting on top and pointing out at the room. Directly in front of Cawley was a black, leather-bound notebook. He scribbled something in it and said, “Take a seat.”
“What did you say?”
“I said take a seat.”
“Before that?”
“You know exactly what I said.”
Teddy brought the rifle down from his shoulder but kept it pointed at Cawley and entered the room.
Cawley went back to scribbling. “It’s empty.”
“What?”
“The rifle. It doesn’t have any bullets in it. Given all your experience with firearms, how could you fail to notice that?”
Teddy pulled back the breech and checked the chamber. It was empty. Just to be sure, he pointed at the wall to his left and fired, but got nothing for his effort but the dry click of the hammer.
“Just put it in the corner,” Cawley said.
Teddy lay the rifle on the floor and pulled the chair out from the table but didn’t sit in it.
“What’s under the sheets?”
“We’ll get to that. Sit down. Take a load off. Here.” Cawley reached down to the floor, came back up with a heavy towel and tossed it across the table to Teddy. “Dry yourself off a bit. You’ll catch cold.”
Teddy dried his hair and then stripped off his shirt. He balled it up and tossed it in the corner and dried his upper body. When he finished, he took his jacket from the table.
“You mind?”
Cawley looked up. “No, no. Help yourself.”
Teddy put the jacket on and sat in the chair.
Cawley wrote a bit more, the pen scratching the paper. “How badly did you hurt the guards?”
“Not too,” Teddy said.
Cawley nodded and dropped his pen to the notebook and took the field radio and worked the crank to give it juice. He lifted the phone receiver out of its pouch and flicked the transmit switch and spoke into the phone. “Yeah, he’s here. Have Dr. Sheehan take a look at your men before you send him up.”
He hung up the phone.
“The elusive Dr. Sheehan,” Teddy said.
