Chapter Thirteen
Topside
6:39 P.M.
Two weeks later, mid-December
“Finally, I win a round.” John Waterson swept the pile of poker chips toward him and laughed. Then stopped laughing when the movement of his lungs bumped them painfully against his ribs.
Pablo grinned. “There’s a first time for everything.” He laughed, too, generous enough to be happy for John’s score. Probably because it happened so rarely.
What usually happened was that John took wild risks with his money and lost an imprudent amount during his weekly poker nights with his police buddies. Which was probably the only reason they still came. ’Course the excuse the detectives would’ve given, if asked, was that they were supporting a sick friend. But being forced to witness said friend wither and waste was sometimes visibly uncomfortable for the three men, and John knew they would’ve found excuses to bow out long ago if not for the money they were raking in.
A part of John would’ve been okay with them ditching him, even though his buddies equaled the grand total of his human contact these days. His friends were everything John wasn’t anymore—successful, working men in good health—and some nights he could feel himself staring so intensely at the three, at their glowing skin and robust bodies, his eyeballs practically bled.
Right now he was all but drooling as Carlos, Pablo’s new partner, wolfed down one of the deli sandwiches John had ordered delivered—he couldn’t drive anymore. Or eat, for that matter. His only sustenance these days was coffee, cigarettes, and an occasional carton of Ramen noodles.
How he was still upright on earth, he couldn’t figure. He now resembled something that should be hanging in front of someone’s house on Halloween. Probably the revenge deal he’d struck with MoonRiderOne had pissed off God, and so he was being tortured. Or maybe he hadn’t switched into “acceptance mode” as thoroughly as he thought he had, but still harbored the vain, stupid, futile hope he’d go into remission again.
His last remission had been four long years ago. Oh-so-coincidentally, it happened soon after he went to Kansas to see his mother, Maggie, who he visited expressly to ask about his disease—a weird ailment called Blestem Tatălui. Specifically, he asked her about the strange element in his blood.
Were the two related?
Maggie claimed she didn’t know, but she’d shown all the signs of someone who was lying: darting eyes, a fine dew on her forehead, unfinished gestures. What possible motivation would his mother have for hiding that kind of information from him? If she gave him all the facts about his disease, he could possibly get better.
He returned to San Diego frustrated, but then—ala-kazam. He did improve. The pills he took—which arrived magically on his doorstep without prescription or payment—suddenly started working again…as if, hmm, his mother reported John’s worsening condition to someone, and that someone altered the composition of the pills.
He supposed a good detective would’ve gone back to his mother and asked more questions, but a superstitious side of him hadn’t wanted to mess with feeling so damned good. Ask too many questions and maybe he would rattle loose what he’d gained.
He enjoyed three full years of good, if not great, health before the rug was ripped out from under him again. And this time he went downhill with alarming speed. Within six months after his relapse, he was too sick to hide his symptoms: the shakes, an obscene amount of sweating, the rapid weight loss resulting from a hunger that clawed at his belly, but, ironically, made it impossible for him to eat.
He had no choice but to admit to Pablo what was going on, then go on medical leave.
He’d spent the past six months stewing in bitterness about the hand life dealt him. He had nothing. A few memories of the pleasant years spent as a cowboy in Kansas, plus his successful career as a cop, and that was it. No warm reminiscences of what was truly important—things like a loving wife, strawberry-blonde, sexy, and smart, and of doting children, of a house with a weeping willow in the front yard and skateboards strewn in the driveway, a dog or two underfoot.
Nothing. Nothing but a one-bedroom apartment with a leaky toilet and a refrigerator that periodically went on the fritz. He had nothing, and he was nothing. No more than an obligation for police buddies who would rather be home with their families instead of sitting here watching John teeter in his chair and chew the inside of his cheek raw in order to keep his constant need to groan down his—
John’s phone beeped softly from where it sat facedown on the table.
No one was allowed to check their phones during play, but Frank, out of homicide, was in the middle of dealing, so John turned his cell over and checked the screen. He’d just received an email. He clicked it, and “MoonRiderOne” popped up in the from line. Fingers trembling, he opened it.
There were only four typed words: “All is in place.”
John precisely placed his phone back in its original spot and kept his palm on top of it. If nothing else, finally, he would have one thing in his life.
Revenge.