The Jigsaw Man (12 page)

I considered calling out to the man, but I didn't want

to unnecessarily wake anyone up. H u r r y i n g to the cor¬

ner, [ was in time to see the tall man slipping into an¬

other room a few doors down the hall. I only saw the

back of him, as he was halfway through the door, but

what I saw sure didn't look like any doctor I'd ever seen.

He was too big, almost Drake's size, and his hair was

long, greasy, and wild.

Room 301 was unlocked, so I opened up the door

and, without knocking, quietly walked in. Andrew was

bundled up in his bed looking j u s t as small and pathetic

as he had yesterday; the computer terminals and video

screens were still nickering their various electronic

data, but I was taken aback there was no one else in the

room monitoring the patient or the equipment. You'd

think there ought to be
someone
in here with him. Maybe

the tall man really had been Andrew's doctor? Or his

nurse? N o t that it mattered; I could see for myself the

television was turned off and Andrew wasn't moving.

He was asleep, so I might as well get out before I dis¬

turbed him.

Two steps away from the door, my curiosity got the

better of me. I desperately wanted to get a closer look at

Andrew, and at how his father had managed to attach

all those rainbow-colored wires into his son's living

flesh. In my heart, I realized I was being a first-rate ass¬

hole. Andrew wasn't some sideshow freak people paid a

dollar to point fingers and laugh at—he was a sick, un¬

fortunate man whose life had been a living hell since

the day he'd been born. The least I could do was have

the decency to let him sleep in peace, but damned if I

didn't find myself slowly edging closer and closer to

Andrew's bed.

I felt weird sneaking around, really weird, like a clumsy

amateur burglar trying to build up his confidence be¬

fore attempting to steal his first wallet from a bedside

table. The best thing to do would be to cut the crap and

j u s t walk up to the bed and have a look. If Andrew woke

up, so what? Hadn't I come up here to introduce myself

anyway?

Get on with it, man.

Taking my own advice, I stopped inching around like

a fool, and walked over to Andrew's bed. Dr. Marshall's

son was n o t h i n g more than a small lump in the middle

of the large hospital mattress, even his face hidden from

me by the formhttmg oxygen mask he was wearing.

Now, I'm no doctor, and no one ever accused me of be¬

ing a genius, but I could tell right away that something

was w r o n g with this picture. It was dark, but enough

moonlight filtered in through the nearby window for

me to clearly see Andrew wasn't breathing. No matter

how deeply a person is asleep—even people that are

comatose—you can still count the n u m b e r of times

they're breathing by watching their chest rise and fall.

Under the thin wool blanket covering him, Andrew's

chest wasn't moving at all.

Oh my God... he's dead.

The first thought to race through my head, and I'll

admit I'm not real proud of it, was:
Fuck. There goes my

two million bucks down the drain. Dr. Marshall will never

cough up the coin now. Not when there's no—

Then I glanced behind me and noticed the video

display screens over on the wall. Every last one of them

showed Andrew's various life signs as bang-on normal.

Heartbeat, blood pressure, body temperature, oxygen

saturation levels; everything reading in the normal

range. I turned my attention back to the man in bed,

leaning over to really get a good look at his chest. Noth¬

ing. N o t h i n g at all.

Grabbing a corner of the wool blanket, I slowly

peeled back the covers to see if I could get to the bot¬

tom of this strange mystery. I immediately figured out

the problem, but in doing so, received one of the big¬

gest shocks of my life. The reason Andrew wasn't breath¬

ing was because Andrew didn't exist. Under the oxygen

mask and tightly wrapped sheet, the man in the hospi¬

tal bed was a plastic fake—a department store manne¬

quin with its arms and legs removed.

"What the fuck is going on?" I whispered out loud,

no longer worried about waking anyone up.

Looking around for answers, none were readily

found. The video monitors still spewed forth their "ev

erything's normal" nonsense. The uncountable num¬

ber of colorful wires—supposedly attached to Andrew's

nerve pathways—still snaked across the room only to

end in four tangled knots hidden beneath the sheets. It

was crazy. This entire setup was nothing more than an

elaborate sham, a cleverly designed ruse, the reason for

which I couldn't quite get my head around. Why would

Dr. Marshall do this?

Before I could even guess, I heard the sound of a

toilet flushing in a nearby room. Don't ask me how, but

I instinctively knew it was the tall, greasy-haired man

I'd caught a glimpse of a few minutes earlier. N o t a d o c

tor. N o t a nurse. But one of Drake's security team,

taking a break while guarding room 301 from any wan¬

dering eyes. He was supposed to be here, making sure

no one tried to get in, but he'd wandered off to answer

a call from M o t h e r N a t u r e or maybe have a smoke and

stretch his legs. I'd j u s t happened along at the right time.

D u m b luck.

I might have been wrong, but I wasn't planning on

sticking around long enough to find out. I trusted my

instincts, better safe than sorry, and bolted for the door.

I hit the hallway r u n n i n g , flashing by the washroom

door just as it started to open. The security guard only

caught a view of my backside, and I was halfway down

the hall before he started screaming at me to stop. Yeah,

right. I ran like the wind, p u m p i n g my arms and legs as

if the h o u n d s of Hell were nipping at my heels.

I could hear the guard—I was sure that was what he

was, now—yelling frantic orders to someone else. Prob¬

ably using a walkie-talkie to contact Drake, or someone

else from security. I wasn't looking back to find out.

Instead, I turned on the j e t s even more, flying around

the corner leading to the guestrooms. I had a brief m o -

merit of panic trying to dig my room key out of my

pocket on the run, but I managed to yank it out in time,

I had j u s t enough of a lead on die guard to safely make

it into my room, lock the door behind me, and turn off

the lights before I heard his heavy footfalls race by and

continue on down the hall.

Phew! That was cutting it close.

As
I undressed and climbed back into bed, I couldn't

help but think about what I'd j u s t seen, sorting through

the events of the last hour trying to make some sense of

them. I wasn't having much luck.

There was a knock at my door, and before my heart

had a chance to leap into my throat, Drake came charg¬

ing into my room without waiting to be invited. Obvi¬

ously he had his own key. He was dressed in a dark green

bathrobe and r u n n i n g shoes, and from the look on his

face I could tell he was surprised to see me lying in bed.

Right away, I knew he'd had me pegged as the culprit,

but his tall, greasy henchman had probably informed

him the suspect was still on the run. Barging into my

room, planning to find it empty, had been Drake's way

of confirming it was definitely me causing all this com¬

motion. N o w he wasn't sure what to think.

"Mr, Fox, are you ... are you all right?" he said.

He was squirming and it looked good on the bastard.

I wasn't about to let him off the hook. I wanted him

thinking it had been someone else prowling the halls to¬

night. Let him chase his tail elsewhere, in other words.

"What's going on, Drake? Christ! You scared the

crap out of me. W h a t ' s the matter?"

"Nothin', Mike. We had a report of a fire on the

third floor. I was j u s t checking things out. False alarm,

of course. Go back to sleep. Sorry I woke you."

And with that he was gone, more confused and an¬

grier than ever. I could relate. I was pretty confused

and angry myself. It simply didn't make sense. So there

I lay, staring at the same ceiling Fd been looking at less

than six hours ago when Fd gone to bed a happy, con¬

tented man, with one question swirling around and

around in the storm building within my head: If Dr.

Marshall could he to us about his supposedly invalid

son, what else might he be lying about?

C H A P T E R T W E L V E

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the

day. Maybe so, but it's also the most nerve-racking, sit¬

ting around trying to keep a poker face while your hosts

know someone at the table knows far more than they

are telling.

"And how did
you
sleep, Mike?" Dr. Marshall's tone

of voice was light and jovial, but his eyes were dark and

intense.

He's knows that last nights intruder had to be one of us,

and he's smart enough to have it narrowed down to two

people. The greasy-haired guard saw someone running away

from room 301—running—and since Red Beard and Wheels

are confined to their chairs, they're off the hook. That leaves

either Bill Smith or me. He's sizing me up, testing the wa¬

ters to see if Til crack.

"Me? I slept fine. W h y ? " I answered.

"Oh, no reason. I'm j u s t glad Mr. Drake didn't dis¬

turb you too much, that's all. Sorry about him barging

in on you like that."

I nodded and shrugged my shoulders, reaching to

grab another blueberry pancake from the silver platter

in front of me. I wasn't hungry—I'd already eaten my

fill—but I needed a minute to think, and filling my face

was as good a way as any to avoid having to make con¬

versation. Luckily, I wasn't alone at the table. Besides

Dr. Marshall and Drake, all four donors were present,

I'd been wrong when I figured the other three party

animals would sleep the m o r n i n g away. I should have

known none of these bums would ever willingly miss

a free feed, nasty hangover or not. Concentrating on

pouring thick maple syrup over my pancake, I decided

to let them do the talking for a while.

Maybe I should j u s t confess it had been me in An¬

drew's room last night, confront the doctor about what

I'd seen in room 301 right here in front of everyone. If

Dr. Marshall had a valid reason for lying to us about his

imaginary son, let's hear it.

I wouldn't do it, of course: I wasn't
that
stupid. The

last thing I wanted to do was tip my hat a n d A o m e clean

with them. Why would I? They obviously weren't be¬

ing honest with me, so why should I be with them? N o ,

it would be far better—far smarter—to bite my tongue

and sit in the bush for a while. I needed to figure out

what game Dr. Marshall was playing, before I could

make my next move.

If telling us the sob story about Andrew was a harm¬

less ploy to make us feel better about donating our

limbs, fine. I could live with that. But if something else

was going on around here, something darker than the

rosy picture currently being painted for us, then I planned

on slipping out the back door as quiet as a mouse, disap¬

pearing before anyone caught wind I was on to them.

That was the real problem, wasn't it? Even seeing

what I'd seen, and knowing what I knew, I still had no

idea if things were on the up-and-up here. Had I walked

into a lucky gold m i n e , or stumbled into a sinister trap?

Should I stay here and take my chances, or sneak away

and miss out on all that money? Tough call, but seeing

as there was no way Dr. Marshall or Drake could know

which one of us had been in Andrew's room—they could

guess, but they couldn't be sure—it seemed safe enough

to stick around for a while. Safe, as long as I kept my big

mouth shut and my eyes and ears wide open.

Easier said than done, of course. W h e n I looked up

from my plate, Drake was staring at me hard enough to

make me bruise. Our eyes locked, and I could tell he was

trying to intimidate me, break me by staring me down.

It was going to work, too. I found it terribly hard to

maintain eye contact with this semicivilized Neander¬

thal, and I j u s t knew if I looked away first, Drake would

see the guilt in my eyes. So I quickly thought of some¬

thing to say to him, hoping to deflect his attention

elsewhere.

"So, did you manage to put out the fire?"

Without breaking eye contact, Drake replied, "There

was no fire. I told you this morning it was a false alarm."

N o w he was really staring down my throat, as was

Dr, Marshall. Both of them were actually leaning for¬

ward in their chairs, hovering above me like birds of