Читать книгу DeVille's Contract - Scott Zarcinas - Страница 13

Louis’ Choice

LOUIS stirred to the sound of scuffling footsteps. He was lying on something comfortable, not what he expected a hospital bed to feel like, lumpy and hard and sheeted with plastic in case your sphincters opened before a nurse slid a bedpan beneath your smelly ass. More like a leather seat with the flip-out footrest, the kind in first-class you can just lay back and sink into with a pillow and blanket all the way to LA or London, or wherever the hell it was you were going.

He then heard scuffles again, though couldn’t pinpoint exactly where they were coming from. One second he could have sworn they were to his left. The next, they were to his right. Then in front. Then behind. Then, amazingly, on the ceiling.

When they faded completely, he kept looking around. He saw only whiteness. No door. No window. Just whitewashed walls and a ceiling. A modern building, he reckoned, or recently renovated. Probably St. Mary’s Hospital, one of the private rooms in the ITU, which didn’t quite make sense either. There was no medical equipment. No beeping cardiac monitors. No whispering artificial ventilators. No bags of blood or fluid over his head. Nothing. Absolutely nothing to suggest where he might be. There wasn’t even a call button.

“Nurse! Nurse!” he yelled. “Goddamn it! I need some help here!”

No one answered. Just good ol’ Louis DeVille and this goddamn white room, he mused. At least that horrid blackness had gone. His vision seemed pretty much back to normal, too. Better than normal, in fact. He could see everything without the need for bifocals. Close, far, in between, everything was as clear as daylight, as if the medics had fixed his eyesight while they were rerouting his clogged up coronaries. Goddamn paid a fortune for medical insurance; they damn well should have fixed his eyesight while he was under the knife.

Maybe that explained the bandages. He was covered like a goddamn mummy wrapped head to tail in cotton strips: his arms, legs, torso, just about every goddamn inch of his body. The medics had left holes for his mouth, nose and eyes, but not his ears. He didn’t feel uncomfortable, just stupid. What if he had to go to the bathroom in a hurry and there was no one around to help him unwrap? What about that, huh? Which brought him back to the room. He would have to ask the nurses to do something about it. A TV would do for starters. God knew what had been happening while he was infirmed. Another goddamn war in the Middle East could have started and he wouldn’t have had the foggiest. Worse, the stock market could have collapsed. How much money had he lost lying unconscious in this goddamn place?

Some things didn’t need to change, however. The leather bed, or layback thing, whatever it was, was comfy enough. A pillow and blanket would have been in order, but he was all right for the moment. The temperature was rather pleasant, actually, for a hospital. Damned frigid places, usually. Or worse, damned hot. They were always one way or the other. You either had to wear a coat and gloves like you were stepping into a goddamn refrigerator, or you had to strip everything off like a sauna. This hospital had it just right, though. Nice and cozy. Not too hot. Not too cold.

Still, the light was too damn bright. He would ask the nurse when she came to pull the drapes. But was there a window? He couldn’t exactly say. The light seemed to emanate from the walls and ceiling as if they were made of some kind of fluorescent putty, the kind of Glow In The Dark stuff his grandkids used to play with that radiated unnatural lime when the lights were switched off, like it had been bombarded with x-rays or gamma rays or whatever. Not that he thought this room was radioactive. The emanating light almost caressed him, you could say. Bright, but without heat, and it certainly didn’t glare his eyes like the low-lying winter sun. The emanation was – dare he say it? – almost cathartic.

It was. He had no more chest pain, and the head-crushing warble was gone. He felt fantastic, actually. Kind of refreshed, in a well-rested kind of way, like he had slept for a whole week or just returned from holidaying in the Bahamas. In fact, he hadn’t felt so goddamn good since he was a kid quaffing homemade ice cream on his grandfather’s farm just outside Fairmont, Indiana. Ice cream that was exactly what the name implied: iced cream. Not that watered down chemical crap the dairy companies had the gall to sell the kids nowadays. The stuff grandma made was the real thing. Cream churned from cows that he had even helped to milk himself, whipped fluffy and then left to settle overnight in the icebox.

Those were the days, weren’t they? Yes sir-ree, he remembered them well. He wouldn’t be able to sleep after grandma had set to work. He would lay awake all night thinking of ice cream melting in his mouth, filling his belly until it overflowed from his ears and nose. Then next morning before the rooster crowed he would sneak downstairs to the kitchen and help himself to the tub on the bottom shelf. One spoonful was enough to send him into spasms of ecstasy. Good ol’ grandma.

He probably didn’t feel quite as good as that now, but he felt pretty damned fine all the same. He wondered what miracle drug the medics had suffused him with, some kind of magic ice-cream infusion that had mended his palpitating heart and put him on top of the world. Not to mention what it had done to his vision.

Scuffled footsteps coming his way brought him back to reality, then kept going. “Nurse!” he shouted. “Don’t you leave me here! Don’t you leave me!” The scuffles faded, then they were gone. “Goddamn it! I need some help!”

All right, he thought, trying to get off the leather layback, if nobody’s going to help me, I’ll just help myself.

He couldn’t get up, however. Something was restraining him. He could move his arms and legs and neck, but something was immobilizing his torso, something like a seatbelt strapped around his guts (Waistline, dear, it’s a waistline!). He felt around for the offending item, finding nothing save the bandages. Straining against the invisible restraint, he gave up and sunk back into the leather layback wondering what he could do next.

Stuck as a pig in muck, Louis, he mused, staring at the ceiling. That’s what his grandma would have said. Yar gone and put yarself thar. Now yar gone haf’t git yarself ait.

Only he couldn’t remember how he had got there. How could he? He had been floating in a goddamn sea of blackness for god knows how long.

Yet that didn’t ring quite true. Where he had been was closer to nothing than blackness. Blackness was at least something. You might not like it, but you could at least tell it existed. Nothing, on the other hand, was nothing. It wasn’t even blackness. That’s what he remembered. Goddamned nothing. Time and space had just folded in on itself and vanished into nothingness. Then he was here. Wrapped head to tail in bandages and strapped with an invisible seatbelt to a leather layback in a room whose walls and ceiling were made of Glow In The Dark putty. What the hell was he supposed to do next?

Goddamn it, he hated losing control. That’s what he hated most about this little prank.

And it was a prank. No two ways about it. Someone – some goddamned medic and his good-for-noth’n nurse – was having a laugh at his expense. Maybe his wife had put them up to it. Maybe they were all laughing at him behind the white walls, having a little chuckle at his expense. Maybe these walls were really two-way mirrors. They could see in, but he couldn’t see out. “This isn’t funny anymore!” he shouted, straining against the invisible strap. “Get me outta this goddamn chair!”

No one came, as he had half expected. He didn’t even hear any scuffled footsteps.

“That’s goddamn it!”

He arched his back and thrashed his arms and legs, shaking his head from side to side and screaming, “Get me outta this goddamn chair!” After a minute or so (it could have been longer, five or ten minutes maybe, it was hard to tell, maybe even shorter) he gave up and sunk into the leather layback. Though he hated it, absolutely hated it, he would just have to wait until the prankster returned and let him loose.

And wouldn’t he give the scumbag a piece of his mind when he did.

Then, just as he felt his eyelids begin to sag, he heard scuffled footsteps approach and stop (from left or right, or up or down, he couldn’t tell). This time they didn’t fade away. This time he heard whispers. Like the scuffles, they were hard to locate; they were just everywhere. He couldn’t catch the whole of the conversation, but there was no doubt who they were talking about. He strained against the invisible strap and yelled, “Who the hell is there?”

The whispering ceased. Then a booming voice almost shook him off his layback, reverberating from all corners of the room. “LOUIS DEVILLE!” He was too stunned to answer. Though loud, the voice wasn’t painful like the warbling had been, just something that seemed to emanate, the verbal equivalent of the light. “ARE YOU READY?”

Ready for what? he thought. “It’s Lewey. Not Lewis,” he said, directing himself to the ceiling. Whoever was talking to him must be talking from somewhere up there. “And you’d better have a goddamn good excuse for tying me up like this. I know my rights. My lawyers will sling your sorry ass to court quicker than you can call your defense union.”

He sank back waiting for the retort, but the voice remained silent for some time. For a horrid moment, he thought he’d been left alone again. Then it spoke.

“LOUIS DEVILLE! ARE YOU READY?”

“Stop calling me Lewis! It’s Lewey, goddamn it!”

Another momentary pause, then, “ARE YOU READY?”

Struggling to prop himself on his elbows, he said, “Ready for what you goddamn piece of shit?”

“TO SIGN THE CONTRACT!”

Louis kept scanning the room for originator of the voice, failing to see anything past the bright walls and ceiling that were continuing to radiate like some x-rayed slab of Glow In The Dark putty. He wasn’t surprised. His first hunch was becoming increasingly likely; he was in one of those two-way mirrored rooms watched by god knows how many medics and professors analyzing his every word and gesture. He had seen the TV shows. He knew what they were doing behind the screen. Still propped on his elbows, he said, “What contract? My health insurance is paid up. I don’t owe you a damn thing.”

“YOU HAVE A CHOICE.”

Two contracts? Now there was a goddamn novelty. “I’m not signing anything until I read them,” he said. Then, as an afterthought: “I want my lawyers to go through them, too.”

He heard a whisper hushing around the room, above, below, forward, behind, left and right, everywhere in fact. It was difficult to tell whether there was more than one or whether the voice was just whispering to itself. Then: “NO LAWYERS.”

“Goddamn it!” he shouted to the ceiling. “Just who the hell do you think you are? I’m entitled to legal representation.”

Again, more whispering followed a studied pause. Then: “NO LAWYERS.”

Louis took a moment to think. He was in a Mexican standoff. Except he wasn’t really, was he? They – whoever they were – had him by the short and curlies. They could see him, but he couldn’t see them. They came and went as they pleased, while he was restrained like a goddamned psychopath the medics were too afraid to untie for fear of letting loose the devil. He hated it, but he really had no choice apart from accepting their conditions and making some sort of compromise. Still, at least they were offering him a choice. It probably wouldn’t do any harm to have a look. Maybe he could stall for time while he tried to work out just what the hell was happening. He didn’t have to put pen to paper just yet.

Louis said to the ceiling, “I’ll look at the contracts on one condition.”

Whispers hushed around the room before it spoke again. “STATE YOUR TERMS.”

Louis smiled. A minor victory, Louis my boy, but there’s a long way to go yet. “Remove these goddamn shackles,” he said.

Instantly, the invisible restraint loosened around his waist. He sat up and dangled his legs over the edge. On the floor at the base of the layback were two contracts he hadn’t noticed before; one a wad of paper as thick as a telephone directory, the other a single folio scrolled and tied with a purple ribbon. He jumped down, surprised at the ease and litheness at which he landed on the floor, and picked them up. Now that he had the medics listening to him, it was time for the next item on the agenda.

“How long do I keep these bandages on?” he asked, putting the contracts on the leather layback.

The voice didn’t answer immediately. “YOU HAVE A CHOICE.”

Louis glanced up at the ceiling, slightly bemused. “You’re the docs. Aren’t you supposed to tell me when they can come off?”

The voice repeated itself.

Louis shrugged. If that was the way it was, then he chose now. He grabbed a loose end of a bandage on his wrist and unwound it. There was another bandage underneath. He unwound that one too. There was another. And another. “What the hell’s going on?” he said, growling under his breath. Then to the ceiling: “Get these goddamn bandages off me!”

“MAKE YOUR CHOICE,” the voice said. It wasn’t a threat, just a simple statement of fact.

Louis glanced down at the leather layback and picked up the scroll with the purple ribbon. He was surprised to read that it wasn’t a contract at all. It was a goddamn party invitation. Louis DeVille is hereby invited to attend the Celebration of Life at the Mansion of Many Rooms. He reread it, thinking it some kind of childish joke. There was no name, no indication as to who had written it. Nor was it dated; and he had no idea where in hell he was supposed to find the address of the Mansion of Many Rooms. His signature wasn’t even required at the bottom. What kind of goddamn contract was this? Something his useless wife would have come up with. It was even hand written in amateurish scrawl. The whole thing was farcical, just like this entire goddamn state of affairs.

When he glanced down at the thick wad of paper, it suddenly clicked what he was meant to do. Maybe that’s it. Maybe this whole thing is a test.

He tossed the scroll over his shoulder and flicked through the other contract. Now this was more like it. Six hundred and sixty-six typed pages of detailed contractual obligations. Though, to his dismay, there were more clauses and sub-clauses than he had seen on any document, more than he reckoned he would find on the latest amendment to the constitution of the United Goddamn States of America. It would take him over a month to get through all the legalese mumbo jumbo.

He skimmed over the first few pages. It seemed the issuing authority, LeMont International Enterprises Ltd, was undertaking a major restructuring program and he was being headhunted to oversee the project, and at his age that was a goddamn laugh. Still, on page thirteen, the contract defined the proposed position as “Interim Management Consultant,” IMC, and went on to list the terms of his employment over the next four or five pages. Which was the first thing he needed to negotiate. He couldn’t devote himself to another fulltime position whilst remaining head of Global Resolutions Network. Goddamn it. That would mean working around the clock. It just couldn’t be done; and though he was flattered at their interest in him, he would just have to tell them that their expectations were a little unrealistic, to say the least. If they really wanted his consulting services, they would just have to accept he couldn’t do it at the drop of a hat. It would have to be part-time, once a week at most, or nothing.

He continued reading. On page one hundred and four he saw something about “exclusivity of intellectual property” and made a mental note to query it with his lawyers (and he would, goddamn it, even if LeMont International Enterprises had a problem with getting his lawyers involved). There was more, too. The position of Interim Management Consultant entailed living on site, which was just goddamn ridiculous. He would be buggered before he packed up and left his penthouse on Beeker Street. But it was there, in writing. Clause one hundred and sixty-nine, sub-clause (b) on page two hundred and seventy-three: “It is agreed that the IMC undertakes immediate residency within the premises of LeMont International Enterprises Ltd.”

He kept flicking through, shaking his head. From what he could gather, LeMont International Enterprises was some kind of industrial export park where all the employees worked and lived, from cleaners and maintenance workers to administrative and executive staff. It sounded massive, in fact, a corporation leviathan. A corporation metropolis.

How hadn’t he heard of them before? He hadn’t a goddamn clue who LeMont International Enterprises were, and there was nothing in the contract from what he had briefly seen to indicate what they actually produced. They weren’t listed on the New York Stock Exchange, that was for sure; something this big he would have known about. They had to be privately owned. When he got out of hospital, he would make sure Sarah got onto it straight away. Find out just who these guys were, and what in hell they had to do with his rehabilitation.

He put the contract back down on the leather layback. All in all it looked like the real deal. It was tempting all right. Tempting enough that he might just take them up on their offer. Maybe he could manipulate the position of IMC for the good for his own business. Maybe this company was the answer to the recent problems he had been facing.

“I’ll need some time to go through it,” he said to the ceiling. “Devil’s in the detail, you know. I’m not just putting my name down on something without going through it with a fine-tooth comb.”

Louis heard whispers before the voice answered: “YOU HAVE ALREADY CHOSEN.”

“What do you mean? I haven’t signed anything yet.”

“YOU HAVE REJECTED THE OTHER. YOUR CHOICE HAS BEEN MADE.”

Louis glanced over his shoulder at the scroll he had tossed away. He was about to say that the assumption of choice made through indirect action was goddamn ridiculous, and about as legally binding as same sex marriage in the state of Utah, but the voice cut him short.

“LOUIS DEVILLE. ARE YOU READY?”

“What, goddamn it? Ready for what?”

“YOUR JUDGMENT.”