Shutter Island(81)

Cawley lifted a page of his notebook, glanced at the one underneath, then let it drop from his fingers. “Not so well. I’d had higher hopes.”

He looked across at Teddy and Teddy could see in his face what he’d seen in the stairwell the second morning and in the staff meeting just before the storm, and it didn’t fit with the rest of the man’s profile, didn’t fit with this island, this lighthouse, this terrible game they were playing.

Compassion.

If Teddy didn’t know any better, he’d swear that’s what it was.

Teddy looked away from Cawley’s face, looked around at the small room, those sheets on the walls. “So this is it?”

“This is it,” Cawley agreed. “This is the lighthouse. The Holy Grail. The great truth you’ve been seeking. Is it everything you hoped for and more?”

“I haven’t seen the basement.”

“There is no basement. It’s a lighthouse.”

Teddy looked at his notebook lying on the table between them.

Cawley said, “Your case notes, yes. We found them with your jacket in the woods near my house. You blew up my car.”

Teddy shrugged. “Sorry.”

“I loved that car.”

“I did get that feeling, yeah.”

“I stood in that showroom in the spring of ’forty-seven and I remember thinking as I picked it out, Well, John, that box is checked off. You won’t have to shop for another car for fifteen years at least.” He sighed. “I so enjoyed checking off that box.”

Teddy held up his hands. “Again, my apologies.”

Cawley shook his head. “Did you think for one second that we’d let you get to that ferry? Even if you’d blown up the whole island as a diversion, what did you think would happen?”

Teddy shrugged.

“You’re one man,” Cawley said, “and the only job anyone had this morning was to keep you off that ferry. I just don’t understand your logic there.”

Teddy said, “It was the only way off. I had to try.”

Cawley stared at him in confusion and then muttered, “Christ, I loved that car,” and looked down at his own lap.

Teddy said, “You got any water?”

Cawley considered the request for a while and then turned his chair to reveal a pitcher and two glasses on the windowsill behind him. He poured each of them a glass and handed Teddy’s across the table.

Teddy drained the entire glass in one long swallow.

“Dry mouth, huh?” Cawley said. “Settled in your tongue like an itch you can’t scratch no matter how much you drink?” He slid the pitcher across the table and watched as Teddy refilled his glass. “Tremors in your hands. Those are getting pretty bad. How’s your headache?”

And as he said it, Teddy felt a hot wire of pain behind his left eye that extended out to his temple and then went north over his scalp and south down his jaw.

“Not bad,” he said.

“It’ll get worse.”

Teddy drank some more water. “I’m sure. That woman doctor told me as much.”

Cawley sat back with a smile and tapped his pen on his notebook. “Who’s this now?”

“Didn’t get her name,” Teddy said, “but she used to work with you.”

“Oh. And she told you what exactly?”

“She told me the neuroleptics took four days to build up workable levels in the bloodstream. She predicted the dry mouth, the headaches, the shakes.”

“Smart woman.”

“Yup.”

“It’s not from neuroleptics.”

“No?”

“No.”

“What’s it from, then?”

“Withdrawal,” Cawley said.

“Withdrawal from what?”

Another smile and then Cawley’s gaze grew distant, and he flipped open Teddy’s notebook to the last page he’d written, pushed it across the table to him.

“That’s your handwriting, correct?”

Teddy glanced down at it. “Yeah.”

“The final code?”

“Well, it’s code.”

“But you didn’t break it.”

“I didn’t have the chance. Things got a bit hectic in case you didn’t notice.”

“Sure, sure.” Cawley tapped the page. “Care to break it now?”

Teddy looked down at the nine numbers and letters:

13(M)-21(U)-25(Y)-18(R)-1(A)-5(E)-8(H)-15(O)-9(I) He could feel the wire poking the back of his eye.

“I’m not really feeling my best at the moment.”

“But it’s simple,” Cawley said. “Nine letters.”

“Let’s give my head a chance to stop throbbing.”

“Fine.”

“Withdrawal from what?” Teddy said. “What did you give me?”

Cawley cracked his knuckles and leaned back into his chair with a shuddering yawn. “Chlorpromazine. It has its downsides. Many, I’m afraid. I’m not too fond of it. I’d hoped to start you on imipramine before this latest series of incidents, but I don’t think that will happen now.” He leaned forward. “Normally, I’m not a big fan of pharmacology, but in your case, I definitely see the need for it.”