shoelaces trailing. Fleeing, yet trying to remain inconspicuous. He did not look back. David jogged a few paces to keep him in sight.
He followed the man at a distance of about half a block, wondering if he was, in fact, Clyde, and if so, how he had spotted David. Had he been staking out the drugstore? The pair of earplugs grew sweaty in his hand, and David realized he had inadvertently stolen them. The man turned a corner into one of the deserted lots David had noted on his way to the drugstore, and David picked up his pace, trying unsuccessfully to keep him in view. He passed a dilapidated phone booth, the black receiver dangling from its cord inside the four shattered walls. When he turned the corner, he realized the man had entered the empty lot beside the Pearson Home.
Broken bottles, gravel, weeds, and a few chunks of concrete left over from the demolition. A scorched car sat up in blocks in the middle of the lot. Nobody in sight.
Cautiously, David stepped off the street and entered the dark, deserted lot. He noticed a slat missing in the fence at the periphery and headed toward it. An opening to another street. His Brooks Brothers loafers crunched gravel underfoot as he walked slowly forward. His mind raced with all the reasons it was foolish for him to be out here in this neighborhood in the middle of the night pursuing a dangerous fugitive, but something drew him forward, a deep-seated compulsion.
Clyde had been careful so far to attack only those who couldn't effectively fight back; David hoped he was too timid to go after an able-bodied man.
David stumbled over a beer bottle, and it shattered against a rock with a dry, popping sound. He paused, leaning on the hood of the torched car.
Through the myriad cracks of the windshield, he saw two eyes glinting in the darkness. His mouth went instantly dry, and his voice seemed to catch in his throat on the way up. 'Clyde?'
The door creaked open. David stood frozen, one hand resting on the car hood, as a rustling figure got out and slowly took shape in the darkness. The door closed with a bang, then Clyde stood over him, his face dark and shadowed.
The two men faced each other, David looking up at Clyde. Excitement mingled with fear, kicking both up a notch.
Clyde calmly drew back a large, puffy fist and struck David in the face. David's head snapped down and to the side, a splattering of blood leaving his mouth and spraying across the car's hood. The punch made a dull thud, that of a dropped orange hitting asphalt. The action was oddly matter-of-fact; the men had observed it as it occurred, as if they were both somehow detached from it. Clyde made no move to strike David again.
Slowly, David raised a hand to his mouth and pressed it to his split lip. He had felt no pain, just a sudden pressure. His stomach churned.
He turned back to Clyde, careful to keep his head lowered so as not to make eye contact. The thought of Diane's soft whimpering the first time she kissed him in the hospital room brought on a sudden, intense rage, but he fought it away. Anger did him little good here, as it did little good on the ER floor.
Only Clyde's large stomach and chest were within his view. The sickening and frighteningly familiar combination of body odor and orange candy-coating hung in the air.
It occurred to David how surreal it was to be threatened physically and how ill equipped he was to handle it. He'd been in one fight in his life-Daniel Madison in third grade over a stolen Sandy Koufax baseball card. The ass- kicking Daniel administered had convinced David subsequently to pursue other avenues of conflict resolution. And to root for the Giants.
'You don't know,' Clyde said, his words a slur. 'You don't know how scary I can be.'
'Yes, I do,' David said. Clyde might strike him at any moment. He tried to figure out where he'd hit Clyde if he had to defend himself. Neck? Crotch? 'But you're in danger. I can help. I can bring you in myself, and make sure you're taken care of.'
'I'm not a game.' Clyde's voice, deep and raspy, was pained. 'You'd better leave me alone.'
'Clyde, listen to me.' David's voice was shaking, though he was doing everything to keep it even. 'I saw the films of the fear study. I know what they put you through when you were a kid, and how wrong it was. I understand why you're angry-you have every right to be angry.' He sensed Clyde's shape relaxing slightly, shoulders starting to lower.
'No one's born with problems like mine,' Clyde said. 'Someone made me.'
'If you come with me, we can talk to the authorities together and explain everything that's happened to you,' David continued, in as calm a voice as he could muster. 'But as long as you're out here and wanted, you put yourself in danger.'
'I'm not in danger. They're the ones. They're the ones who are scared of me.'
'Clyde, I know there's a part of you that doesn't want to do these things to people. I know there's a part of you that wants to be better.' Wording the question like a statement, trying to pick up ground. David stared up at Clyde's shadowy face, framed in silhouette by the glow of a distant streetlight.
'I tried to go into a clinic,' Clyde said. 'To stop the feelings that were starting to come. I wanted them to make me better. To give me… things… to make me better.' Fear crept into his voice. 'But I got to the parking lot and saw them with their white coats and I couldn't. My hands were sweating. I dropped my orange bottle, but it was empty.'
The orange bottle-for prescription drugs? Clyde's cryptic words were confirming connections David had already made. Connolly's study had left Clyde terrified of doctors. Or at least of receiving treatment. That's why he'd been trying to cure himself.
'How about if I went with you?' David asked. 'To get help?'
A voice, small and defiant, like a child's. 'No.'
'If you won't go with me to get help, I have to believe you're not very serious about getting better.'
A low humming sound broadened into a sob-stained cry. David waited silently, shocked, as Clyde wept and then fell silent. After a pause, Clyde said, 'People talk at me but their voices don't have any color. They're metal and cold. They scrape my ears.' His words were distorted from crying, but his tone was more gentle. Confessional. 'It's like there's darkness everywhere and in my eyes until someone smiles and then it gets light.' A mournful pause. 'It hasn't been light in a long time.'
David tried to collect his thoughts.
'I'm not filled inside,' Clyde continued. 'It's like straw instead of skin, and ropes instead of veins. I'm rotting. I'm rotting from the inside out, but I still move around in my body.' Clyde beginning to cry again. Rocking on his feet, muttering. 'Three, two, one. Back from the door.' Calming himself. When he raised his head, his eyes gleamed, sharp-focused and angry. A forged connection-vulnerability followed by intense animosity.
David took a small step back. 'There are people who can talk to you.' He made sure not to mention psychologists or psychiatrists. 'Make you feel better. Plus your wounds-your wounds from the alkali-those need to be treated as well.'
Clyde turned and spat. 'I can taste my rot. It's like there's a dead rat in my throat and it's melting.'
'That's a side effect,' David said, 'and another reason you need help. You've been poisoning yourself with the drugs you're taking.'
Clyde's shadow stiffened, rearing back, and David realized he'd made a terrible mistake.
'I don't take drugs.' The fist drew back calmly again, like a piston, and drove down into David's face.
David came to with gravel in his mouth. Using the front bumper of the car, he pulled himself to his feet and spit out the gravel on the hood. His mouth was warm and salty; when he studied the gob of spit in the moonlight, he saw it was dark, lined with blood.
The vice-grip of a headache seized him suddenly and intensely, pulsed three times, then dissipated. He slid up on the hood, careful to miss his spit, and sat with his feet on the front bumper. His pants were ripped and bloody at one knee. He caught his breath slowly, blotting his split lip with a sleeve and going through a neuro checklist. He didn't have any weakness or altered sensations, and there seemed to be no clouding of his mental facilities. He thought about getting himself to the ER to be checked out, but continued toward the missing slat in the fence on the far side of the lot. Halfway there, he noticed another slat that had been shoved aside, farther down the fence. This one appeared to lead not to a street but an alley. David was fairly certain the slat had been in place before his confrontation with Clyde.
He headed over and stepped through the fence without first scanning the alley. He was tired, aching, pissed off, and no longer cared to slow down for the sake of taking precautions. A homeless man shuffled from behind a
