Alicia had sent that manila envelope with some extracts of the clinicals and instructions to Laura to open the envelope if something happened to her. When Alicia was killed, Laura saw the clinicals, didn’t realize what they meant and contacted Chisolm. She was so innocent. So trusting. She didn’t know it meant her own death.
The envelope was postmarked the day before Alicia was killed-the day after I’d turned down her plea for help. Was that why Alicia wanted to see me? Would she have given me the clinicals? Would I have been able to save her?
The first carton was filled. I folded the top flaps down so they interlocked and started filling the second box.
Why didn’t Laura come to me instead of Chisolm? Do you have a closer bond with somebody you fuck than with somebody you don’t?
The second carton couldn’t hold any more files. I shoved down the contents as much as possible and closed it.
The boxes were too heavy to carry both at once. I grabbed the first one and backed out of the room, shoving open the door with my shoulder. I retraced my steps through the lab back to the exit and dropped the box there.
Then the alarm went off. The goddam bloody alarm went off. My heart started pounding like a jackhammer.
Why the hell did it have to go off now?
It was loud and it didn’t stop. I couldn’t tell which was louder-my heart pounding or that damn alarm. It howled through the night like a wounded beast in its death throes. At most I’d have five minutes.
I went back to the file room. I picked up the second box and lugged it through the narrow aisle between the counters in the lab. My side was aching again but I couldn’t put the box down.
Then a door slammed behind me.
I tried to turn in the darkness but I couldn’t move fast enough with the box in my hands.
I heard Chisolm’s scream a couple of feet away. “Rogan-you son of a bitch.” His yell was high-pitched, like an angry woman. “Let go of my papers. Give me my papers.” He sounded frantic, hysterical. Like he’d lost control of himself. “I want my papers.”
I saw the flash from the muzzle out of the corner of my eye and felt the slug hit my shoulder at the same moment. It knocked the wind out of me. I lost my grip on the box and it fell into Chisolm’s path. He stumbled over the box and fell on top of me in a dance of death that felt so slow, it was as if time had stopped.
I couldn’t get to my gun. My right arm was useless. He was on top of me. My back was twisted over the edge of a counter and he was pounding my head with both fists. The guy was grunting and moaning and screaming all at the same time and in the dim light his eyes had a weird intensity.
I swung my left fist and missed him. Or rather I hit him a glancing blow on his shoulder that seemed to make him even more insane. He kept on shrieking wildly into my ear. I couldn’t understand what the hell he was screaming.
There was no feeling at all in my right arm. The blood from my wound was all over the side of his face and his neck. He grabbed my head with both hands and began ramming it against the countertop.
I started to black out.
“Don’t trouble yourself, dear,” a woman’s voice said evenly. “I’ll finish him off.”
I tried to make out who it was. I took a deep breath and shook my head to clear it. In the dim light I could see Mrs. Chisolm holding a gun. She was the one who’d put the hole in my shoulder.
Chisolm turned to look at his wife. “Do it,” he whimpered. “Kill him, for God’s sake.” He was crying uncontrollably.
I could see her white teeth in the darkness as she smiled. “My husband couldn’t kill a cockroach. He’s too much of a pussy. Too fastidious. He’d never get his hands dirty.”
“Kill him now,” Chisolm sobbed. “Please, kill him now.” He started to move off me to give his wife a clear shot.
She raised the gun in a police grip with her left hand supporting the right hand. She looked like a real cool pro.
I bit down hard on Chisolm’s ear and held on like a beaver in heat. Nothing in this world or the next was going to make me let go. I could taste the warm blood. I didn’t know if it was his or mine. He let out a surprised shriek. At the same time, I slid down under Chisolm and pulled my gun out with my left hand.
Mrs. Chisolm hesitated, but she shouldn’t have. She fired and her slug caught Chisolm between the shoulders, right where my head would have been.
I went down and stuck my left hand with the gun out from under Chisolm’s crotch.
She saw the gun and her eyes widened in fear. She opened her mouth.
I gave it to her in the chest. Twice. The impact of the slugs knocked her back against the wall.
She slowly slipped down the wall and left a broad red streak behind her to mark the beginning of her descent into hell.
I didn’t have much strength left. My vision was narrowing, like in a tunnel. Black and narrow. I couldn’t see very well.
Chisolm dropped off me and hit the floor on his back.
He didn’t move. Mrs. Chisolm didn’t move.
Neither did I.
I couldn’t move.
But Mrs. Chisolm’s eyes were still open and there was still a little light in them.
I could talk. Or at least I could whisper. I could say a few words before I blacked out. So I did.
“You bitch,” I said. “That was for Laura.”
