By reflex, Devereux sucked in his breath. “I don’t know. Please let me go.”
“Think.”
“I don’t know. Maybe because we were trying to prove that religious experience was just brain chemistry.”
Roman felt a small jab to his solar plexus. “You think they’re on to something?”
“I don’t know. Please don’t kill me.”
“What else do you know? Who else worked with you?”
“All I know is they got a test subject with positive results.”
“Meaning what?”
“He’s neurosensitive. I don’t know. I just worked on the imaging software. His name was in the paper a while back. He woke from a coma and people thought Jesus was talking through him or something.”
“You got a name?”
“No. Some college kid. That’s all I know.”
“What happened to him?” Roman slipped to his knees and pushed the silencer near his mouth. “Tell me the truth. Tell me names of any others. Or where I can find them, and I’ll let you live.”
“I—I don’t know any others. I worked on the side and gave the results to Morris.”
“Morris who?”
“Morris Stern. That’s all I know. I swear I know nothing else. I swear.”
“Anything else about this kid?”
“No.”
Roman studied him for a moment as he sat shuddering in the armchair, his face colorless, his mouth panting, his eyes twitching. Roman then jammed the silencer into Devereux’s mouth and pulled the trigger. The bullet exited the back of his skull, splattering blood and brain matter onto the back cushion and far wall.
Roman had been careful not to touch anything. He put on a pair of surgical gloves, removed the silencer, and wiped the pistol clean of his prints. He then pressed the gun in Devereux’s hand and let it fall as if he had committed suicide after shooting his wife.
Before he left the apartment and took the exit stairs to the street, he looked back on the scene of the dead Devereux.
38
“It’s going well. I sleep and they pay down my Discover card, thanks to you.”
“Glad it’s working out,” Damian said.
“So the good news is this dinner is on me.”
Damian looked down at his chicken burrito. “Hell, we could have been at Davio’s.”
“Next time.”
Zack had met Damian at Qdoba, a Mexican eatery that bordered the Northeastern campus and sat at the same Huntington Avenue intersection where five months ago he had hit a pothole on his bike and landed in a coma.
“So what are they testing for?” Damian asked.
“They wire my head and measure the activity while I’m dreaming.” He didn’t like being vague, especially since Damian had gotten him the gig. But he had signed the nondisclosure forms, and Dr. Luria was insistent that what they did in the lab had to remain in the lab.
“Any interesting dreams?”
“Just fantasies of a hot neurobiologist on the project.”
“That gives you something to look forward to.”
“Yeah,” Zack said, thinking about the eddy of emotions that had swirled in him since the helmet episode. No doubt aftereffects of the stimulation, deep sweet memories of his father would poke through the resentment that had stratified over the years. Like this morning while at the library. He was working on his thesis when his mind clicked back to a silly game they’d played when he was maybe four years old. He would slip under his little-boy blanket with the goofy cats, and when he called, “Ready,” his father would come into the room. “Where’s Zack? Where, oh, where can little Zack be?” And he’d hear his father look in the closet, under the bed, in bureau drawers, all the while saying, “Where’s my Zack? He’s got to be here somewhere.” And this would go on until Zack couldn’t hold in the giggles anymore and threw back the blanket and announced, “Here’s your Zack!” And his father would slap his chest in mock surprise and say, “There’s my Zack!” And he’d jump on the bed and smother him with kisses that turned into a tickle attack that left Zack giddy with laughter. The memory was as fresh as yesterday, and it had left him hollow with yearning.
When they were finished eating, Damian offered to give Zack a ride home. “Thanks anyway. I’m being picked up just down the street.”
“More sleep?”
“Something like that. By the way, can I borrow your car this weekend?”
“A date with the hot neurobiologist?”
“If there’s a God.”
“There is,” Damian said, and flashed his saintly smile. “Unfortunately, I’m going on a retreat in Vermont. But any other time. Going to be great weather, so go for a walk with her.” Then he added, “Live in light, go in faith.”
It was one of his little salutations, born more of habit than stubborn efforts to convert him. “Thanks, I’ll try.”
* * *
At six o’clock, Bruce showed up and drove him to the lab to Beethoven’s Third. By seven thirty, he was changed, on the gurney, and hooked up to the IV and monitors. Then they rolled him into the fMRI machine. When Sarah asked if he was ready, he nodded. And the last thing he remembered was her depressing the anesthesia into his IV.
He woke up with a mouthful of sand.
He couldn’t catch his breath. Throat was clogged. Lungs were sacs of concrete.
He pushed against the weight, trying to free his hands. With every ounce of strength, he loosened them and clawed his way out. The cold night snapped against his skin. He rolled onto his knees, his diaphragm racking for air, his mouth drooling grit.
His eyes. They were swollen slits and lined with sand. His mouth, nostrils, and ears were clogged. His hair. Gritted. And mites were eating him all over.
Through the gloom, he could make out the water’s edge—black curls lapping the shore. Like a crab, he scuttled toward the surf and lunged in. The salt water stung his eyes and skin, but he forced himself to stay under until the bugs and sand washed away.
Then he was lying on his back, filling his lungs with sweet, cool air.
“How you doing?” A woman was peering down at him.
Then others.
He had no idea who they were. His body jolted. He had no idea who he was.
“Welcome back.”
