End of Watch (Bill Hodges Trilogy #3)(52)

‘Twice.’ Holly says it without hesitation. She feels surprisingly calm. ‘The first time, I was just about your age. Because kids at school were mean to me, and called me mean names. I couldn’t cope. But I didn’t try very hard. I just took a handful of aspirin and decongestant tablets.’

‘Did you try harder the second time?’

It’s a tough question, and Holly thinks it over carefully. ‘Yes and no. It was after I had some trouble with my boss, what they call sexual harassment now. Back then they didn’t call it much of anything. I was in my twenties. I took stronger pills, but still not enough to do the job and part of me knew that. I was very unstable back then, but I wasn’t stupid, and the part that wasn’t stupid wanted to live. Partly because I knew Martin Scorsese would make some more movies, and I wanted to see them. Martin Scorsese is the best director alive. He makes long movies like novels. Most movies are only like short stories.’

‘Did your boss, like, attack you?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it, and it doesn’t matter.’ Holly doesn’t want to look up, either, but reminds herself that this is Barbara and forces herself to. Because Barbara has been her friend in spite of all of Holly’s ticks and tocks, all of Holly’s bells and whistles. And is now in trouble herself. ‘The reasons never matter, because suicide goes against every human instinct, and that makes it insane.’

Except maybe in certain cases, she thinks. Certain terminal cases. But Bill isn’t terminal.

I won’t let him be terminal.

‘I know what you mean,’ Barbara says. She turns her head from side to side on her pillow. In the lamplight, tear-tracks gleam on her cheeks. ‘I know.’

‘Is that why you were in Lowtown? To kill yourself?’

Barbara closes her eyes, but tears squeeze through the lashes. ‘I don’t think so. At least not at first. I went there because the voice told me to. My friend.’ She pauses, thinks. ‘But he wasn’t my friend, after all. A friend wouldn’t want me to kill myself, would he?’

Holly takes Barbara’s hand. Touching is ordinarily hard for her, but not tonight. Maybe it’s because she feels they are enclosed in their own secret place. Maybe it’s because this is Barbara. Maybe both. ‘What friend is this?’

Barbara says, ‘The one with the fish. The one inside the game.’





23


It’s Al Brooks who wheels the library cart through the hospital’s main lobby (passing Mr and Mrs Robinson, who are waiting for Holly), and it’s Al who takes another elevator up to the skyway that connects the main hospital to the Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic. It’s Al who says hello to Nurse Rainier at the duty desk, a longtimer who hellos him back without looking up from her computer screen. It’s still Al rolling his cart down the corridor, but when he leaves it in the hall and steps into Room 217, Al Brooks disappears and Z-Boy takes his place.

Brady is in his chair with his Zappit in his lap. He doesn’t look up from the screen. Z-Boy takes his own Zappit from the left pocket of his loose gray tunic and turns it on. He taps the Fishin’ Hole icon and on the starter screen the fish begin to swim: red ones, yellow ones, gold ones, every now and then a fast-moving pink one. The tune tinkles. And every now and then the console gives off a bright flash that paints his cheeks and turns his eyes into blue blanks.

They remain that way for almost five minutes, one sitting and one standing, both staring at the swimming fish and listening to the tinkling melody. The blinds over Brady’s window rattle restlessly. The coverlet on his bed snaps down, then back up again. Once or twice Z-Boy nods his understanding. Then Brady’s hands loosen and let go of the game console. It slides down his wasted legs, then between them, and clatters to the floor. His mouth falls open. His eyelids drop to half-mast. The rise and fall of his chest inside his checked shirt becomes imperceptible.

Z-Boy’s shoulders straighten. He gives himself a little shake, clicks off his Zappit, and drops it back into the pocket from which it came. From his right pocket he takes an iPhone. A person with considerable computer skills has modified it with several state-of-the-art security devices, and the built-in GPS has been turned off. There are no names in the Contacts folder, only a few initials. Z-Boy taps FL.

The phone rings twice and FL answers in a fake Russian accent. ‘Ziss iss Agent Zippity-Doo-Dah, comrade. I avait your commands.’

‘You haven’t been paid to make bad jokes.’

Silence. Then: ‘All right. No jokes.’

‘We’re moving ahead.’

‘We’ll move ahead when I get the rest of my money.’

‘You’ll have it tonight, and you’ll go to work immediately.’

‘Roger-dodger,’ FL says. ‘Give me something hard next time.’

There’s not going to be a next time, Z-Boy thinks.

‘Don’t screw this up.’

‘I won’t. But I don’t work until I see the green.’

‘You’ll see it.’

Z-Boy breaks the connection, drops the phone into his pocket, and leaves Brady’s room. He heads back past the duty desk and Nurse Rainier, who is still absorbed in her computer. He leaves the cart in the snack alcove and crosses the skyway. He walks with a spring in his step, like a much younger man.