Shutter Island(53)

Cawley walked into the compound, paused to pick up a piece of his roof and stare at it before dropping it back to the watery ground. His gaze swept past Teddy and Chuck twice before he recognized them in their white orderly clothing and their black slickers and black ranger’s hats. He gave them an ironic smile and seemed about to approach them when a doctor with a stethoscope around his neck jogged out of the hospital and ran up to him.

“Number two’s gone. We can’t get it back up. We’ve got those two criticals. They’ll die, John.”

“Where’s Harry?”

“Harry’s working on it, but he can’t get a charge. What good’s a backup if it doesn’t back anything up?”

“All right. Let’s get in there.”

They strode off into the hospital, and Teddy said, “Their backup generator failed?”

Chuck said, “These things will happen in a hurricane apparently.”

“You see any lights?”

Chuck looked around at the windows. “Nope.”

“You think the whole electrical system is fried?”

Chuck said, “Good possibility.”

“That would mean fences.”

Chuck picked up an apple as it floated onto his foot. He went into a windup and kicked his leg and fired it into the wall. “Stee-rike one!” He turned to Teddy. “That would mean fences, yes.”

“Probably all electronic security. Gates. Doors.”

Chuck said, “Oh, dear God, help us.” He picked up another apple, tossed it above his head, and caught it behind his back. “You want to go into that fort, don’t you?”

Teddy tilted his face into the soft rain. “Perfect day for it.”

The warden made an appearance, driving into the compound with three guards in a jeep, the water churning out from the tires. The warden noticed Chuck and Teddy standing idly in the yard, and it seemed to annoy him. He was taking them for orderlies, Teddy realized, just as Cawley had, and it pissed him off that they didn’t have rakes or water pumps in their hands. He drove past, though, his head snapping forward, on to more important things. Teddy realized he had yet to hear the man’s voice, and he wondered if it was as black as his hair or as pale as his skin.

“Probably should get going, then,” Chuck said. “This won’t hold forever.”

Teddy started walking toward the gate.

Chuck caught up with him. “I’d whistle, but my mouth’s too dry.”

“Scared?” Teddy said lightly.

“I believe the term is shit-scared, boss.” He rifled the apple into another section of wall.

They approached the gate and the guard there had a little boy’s face and cruel eyes. He said, “All order lies are to report to Mr. Willis in the admin office. You guys are on cleanup detail.”

Chuck and Teddy looked at each other’s white shirts and pants.

Chuck said, “Eggs Benedict.”

Teddy nodded. “Thanks. I was wondering. Lunch?”

“A thinly sliced Reuben.”

Teddy turned to the guard, flashed his badge. “Our clothes are still in the laundry.”

The guard glanced at Teddy’s badge, then looked at Chuck, waiting.

Chuck sighed and removed his wallet, flipped it open under the guard’s nose.

The guard said, “What’s your business outside the wall? The missing patient was found.”

Any explanation, Teddy decided, would make them look weak and place the balance of power firmly in this little shit’s hand. Teddy had had a dozen little shits like this in his company during the war. Most of them didn’t come home, and Teddy had often wondered if anyone really minded. You couldn’t reach this type of asshole, couldn’t teach him anything. But you could back him off if you understood that the only thing he respected was power.

Teddy stepped up to the guy, searched his face, a small smile tugging the corner of his lips, waiting until the guy met his eyes and held them.

“We’re going on a stroll,” Teddy said.

“You don’t have authorization.”

“Yes, we do.” Teddy stepped closer so the boy had to tilt his eyes up. He could smell his breath. “We’re federal marshals on a federal facility. That’s the authorization of God himself. We don’t answer to you. We don’t explain to you. We can choose to shoot you in the dick, boy, and there’s not a court in the country that would even hear the case.” Teddy leaned in another half inch. “So open the fucking gate.”

The kid tried to hold Teddy’s stare. He swallowed. He tried to harden his eyes.

Teddy said, “I repeat: Open that—”

“Okay.”

“I didn’t hear you,” Teddy said.

“Yes, sir.”

Teddy kept the evil eye in the kid’s face for another second, exhaled audibly through his nostrils.

“Good enough, son. Hoo-ah.”

“Hoo-ah,” the kid said reflexively, his Adam’s apple bulging.

He turned his key in the lock and swung back the gate, and Teddy walked through without a look back.

They turned right and walked along the outside of the wall for a bit before Chuck said, “Nice touch with the ’hoo-ah.’”

Teddy looked over at him. “I liked that one, myself.”