Absolute Zero

wheel on the blue roller clamp.

Amy sighed and rolled her eyes up into her forehead. Allen pursed his lips and patted her leg. In a remote voice, he said, “You won’t feel a thing. I couldn’t let them shoot you, could I?”

Then he held up a glass ampule full of clear liquid and swiftly cracked it open between the two red lines on its nozzle and deposited the contents in the bag on the right.

Jolene, watching his nimble fingers, was reminded of someone who was adept at assembling things that came in boxes, good at reading instructions.

“Now, this is one hundred cc’s of Fentanyl, a very potent narcotic and the anesthetist’s drug of choice. They’re famous for abusing it and miscalculating their highs, so a lot of them OD on the stuff,” Allen said. “We leave the clamp closed on this drip for right now, let her loll around in the induction agent, then I’ll open this clamp all the way, it’ll feed through the port into the other IV tube, and in a minute she’ll be apneic.”

“Apneic?” Jolene said.

“Stop breathing.”

They left the bedroom, put on their coats, and joined Earl on the front porch. Earl had rummaged around in Broker’s travel bag and replaced Broker’s boots with tennis shoes. He found a light fall jacket on the coat rack by the door and pulled it loosely over Broker’s shoulders. Broker was turned over on his back and he kept instinctively cringing into a fetal position in an effort to keep warm.

Seeing that, Jolene looked away.

“I managed to get a third of the bottle into him,” Earl said. “But I think the drug is wearing off. What if he wakes up?”

“We don’t want him totally overdosed. He’s got to drive, remember?” Allen said. “Now, go bring our cars down here, transfer Hank’s bedding to the van, and then put Broker in the Jeep. You can drive him,” he said to Earl. “I’ll follow in my car.” He tossed his car keys to Earl, who handed them to Jolene.

Broker flopped back and forth on the porch, Ketamine going out, the scotch coming in.

“See,” Allen said. “It’s like he’s drunk. You can probably coax him to his feet and walk him to the car.”

This last idea genuinely excited Earl, who began to address Broker in a deeply sympathetic tone. “Come on, buddy. Time to get up. We gotta go feed the ostriches.”

“Cut the shit,” Jolene said.

“Aw, why? I kinda like the idea of him walking to his reward. Better’n me having to carry the sucker.”

The two of them managed to get Broker to his feet and walked him down the steps. Allen watched them stagger off toward the Jeep. Then he went back inside and stood for a moment, warming his hands at the fire. He turned and found himself staring directly in Hank’s very open, alert, angry eyes.

“Well, hello,” Allen said, curious.

Very deliberately, Hank cocked his left eye at Allen and winked.

Chapter Forty-seven

Hank was resolved to go out on his kind of play; he’d bet it all on one gesture. Either he’d get the needle or a response.

Allen was startled and his hands began to shake-from excitement, he told himself. This was exciting. So he smiled stiffly and studied Hank. “So you really are in there? Have you been eavesdropping again?” He couldn’t help giving in to a twitch of clinical fascination.

Hank blinked twice.

“Two means yes,” Allen said. “Okay. Just a minute then.” He dug Amy’s famous crumpled alphabet paper out of his pocket, smoothed it out, and held it up. Hank’s sneering eyes fixed on it and Allen granted their hot wish. “You want to talk?”

Two blinks.

Allen let his finger rove the groups and Hank began to blink.

“P”

“U”

“S”

“S”

“Y”

Hank shut his eyes.

“Bravo, Hank; crude to the end,” Allen said, but a film of sweat started to form across his forehead and on his upper lip. After everything he’d accomplished he was back where he’d started; the object of Hank’s offhand contempt. Allen felt an impulse to plunge his thumbs into those eyes and squash them like grapes.

Hank’s eyes popped open. Now he was sweating, too. They glared at each other.

“I win; you lose. Top that,” Allen smiled kindly and then he swept his upturned hand to the letter groups like a waiter indicating the way to a table.

“D”

“U”

“M”

“Who? Me? Really. I’d think the opposite was true.”

“T”

“H”

“E”

“Y”

. .

“U”

“S”

“E”

. .

“U”

. .

“K”

“I”

“L”

. .

“U”

“You mean Earl?” Allen’s voice quavered a bit. He heard car motors turn off. Doors slam. A drop of his sweat fell on the paper, blurring some of Amy’s letters.

Two blinks.

“. . And Jolene?” Allen’s voice turned dry and he swallowed a stammer; the novelty was wearing off, this pointing and blinking.

Two blinks.

The door opened and Allen dropped the paper. His hurried gesture held Earl and Jolene’s attention for a beat.

“What’s going on?” Earl asked.

“Nothing,” Allen said.

Earl eyed him for another moment, then said, “We have him in the Jeep. Now what?”

“Like I said, you drive the Jeep, I’ll follow in my car. We find a spot for him to go off the road. Jolene, you start wiping the place down. Anywhere you touched before we got here. We come back, do a walk-through, load Hank, and that’s it.”

Then Allen walked back to the bedroom and thumbed the white plastic gauge open to the bottom of the roller clamp and the Fentanyl started to flow into Amy’s IV.

Jolene watched him do it.