Текст книги "Night Freight"
Автор книги: Bill Pronzini
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It'd be easier if she just answered the phone, talked to him, but she never did when he was away. Never. Sheila or anybody else wanted to get hold of her, they had to call one of the neighbors or come over in person. She didn't want anything to do with him when he was away, didn't want to know what he was doing or even when he'd be back. "Suppose I picked up the phone and it wasn't you?" she'd said. "Suppose it was somebody telling me you were dead? I couldn't stand that." That part of it didn't make sense to him. If he were dead, somebody'd come by and tell it to her face; dead was dead, and what difference did it make how she got the news? But he didn't argue with her. He didn't like to argue with her, and it didn't cost him anything to do it her way.
He slotted the quarter again and called the Shooter's number. Four rings, five, and D'Allesandro's voice said, "Yeah?"
"Mr. Carson?"
"Who?"
"Isn't this Paul Carson?"
"No. You got the wrong number."
"Oh, sorry," Deighan said, and rang off.
Another quarter in the slot. This time the number he punched out was the Nevornia's business line. A woman's voice answered, crisp and professional. He said, "Mr. Mannlicher. Tell him it's urgent."
"Whom shall I say is calling?"
"Never mind that. Just tell him it's about what happened last night."
"Sir, I'm afraid I can't—"
"Tell him last night's poker game, damn it. He'll talk to me."
There was a click and some canned music began to play in his ear. He lit a cigarette. He was on his fourth drag when the canned music quit and the fat man's voice said, "Frank Mannlicher. Who's this?"
"No names. Is it all right to talk on this line?"
"Go ahead, talk."
"I'm the guy who hit your game last night."
Silence for four or five seconds. Then Mannlicher said, "Is that so?" in a flat, wary voice.
"Ski mask, Smith & Wesson .38, grenade in my jacket pocket. The take was better than two hundred thousand. I got your ring—platinum with a circle of diamonds."
Another pause, shorter this time. "So why call me today?"
"How'd you like to get it all back—the money and the ring?"
"How?"
"Go pick it up. I'll tell you where."
"Yeah? Why should you do me a favor?"
"I didn't know who you were last night. I wasn't told. If I had been, I wouldn't of gone through with it. I don't mess with people like you, people with your connections."
"Somebody hired you, that it?"
"That's it."
"Who?"
"D'Allesandro."
"What?"
"The Shooter. D'Allesandro."
". . . Bullshit."
"You don't have to believe me. But I'm telling you—he's the one. He didn't tell me who'd be at the game, and now he's trying to screw me on the money. He says there was less than a hundred and fifty thousand in the sack; I know better."
"So now you want to screw him."
"That's right. Besides, I don't like the idea of you pushing to find out who I am, maybe sending somebody to pay me a visit someday. I figure if I give you the Shooter, you'll lose interest in me."
More silence. "Why'd he do it?" Mannlicher said in a different voice—harder, with the edge of violence it had held last night. "Hit the game like that?"
"He needs some big money, fast. He's into some kind of scam back east; he wouldn't say what it is."
"Where's the money and the rest of the stuff?"
"At his cabin. We had a drop arranged in the woods; I put the sack there last night, he picked it up this morning when nobody was around. The money's in his desk—the big rolltop. Your ring, too. That's where it was an hour ago, anyhow, when I walked out."
Mannlicher said, "In his desk," as if he were biting the words off something bitter.
"Go out there, see for yourself."
"If you're telling this straight, you got nothing to worry about from, me. Maybe I'll fix you up with a reward or something. Where can I get in touch?"
"You can't," Deighan said. "I'm long gone as soon as I hang up this phone."
"I'll make it five thousand. Just tell me where you—"
Deighan broke the connection.
His cigarette had burned down to the filter; he dropped it on the floor, put his shoe on it before he left the booth. On his way out of the casino he paused long enough to push another quarter into the same slot machine he'd played before. More lemons and oranges. This time he didn't smile as he moved away.
5.
Narrow and twisty, hemmed in by trees, Old Lake Road branched off Highway 50 on the Nevada side and took two miles to get all the way to the lake. But it wasn't a dead end; another road picked it up at the lakefront and looped back out to the highway. There were several nice homes hidden away in the area—it was called Pine Acres—with plenty of space between them. The Shooter's cabin was a mile and a half from the highway, off an even narrower lane called Little Cove Road. The only other cabin within five hundred yards was a summer place that the owners had already closed up for the year.
Deighan drove past the intersection with Little Cove, went two-tenths of a mile, parked on the turnout at that point. There wasn't anybody else around when he got out, nothing to see except trees and little winks of blue that marked the nearness of the lake. If anybody came along, they wouldn't pay any attention to the car. For one thing, it was a '75 Ford Galaxy with nothing distinctive about it except the antenna for the GTE mobile phone. It was his—he'd driven it up from San Francisco—but the papers on it said it belonged to Bob Prince. For another thing, Old Lake Road was only a hundred yards or so from the water here, and there was a path through the trees to a strip of rocky beach. Local kids used it in the summer; he'd found that out from Bellah. Kids might have decided to stop here on a sunny autumn day as well. No reason for anybody to think otherwise.
He found the path, went along it a short way to where it crossed a little creek, dry now and so narrow it was nothing more than a natural drainage ditch. He followed the creek to the north, on a course he'd taken three days ago. It led him to a shelflike overhang topped by two chunks of granite outcrop that leaned against each other like a pair of old drunks. Below the shelf, the land fell away sharply to the Shooter's driveway some sixty yards distant. Off to the right, where the incline wasn't so steep and the trees grew in a pack, was the split-bole Douglas fir where he'd stood waiting last night. The trees were fewer and more widely spaced between here and the cabin, so that from behind the two outcrops you had a good look at the Shooter's property, Little Cove Road, the concrete pier, and the lake shimmering under the late-afternoon sun.
The Caddy Eldorado was still slotted inside the carport. It was the only car in sight. Deighan knelt behind where the outcrops came together to form a notch, rubbed tension out of his neck and shoulders while he waited.
He didn't have to wait long. Less than ten minutes had passed when the car appeared on Little Cove Road, slowed, turned down the Shooter's driveway. It wasn't Mannlicher's fancy limo; it was a two-year-old Chrysler—Brandt's, maybe. Brandt was driving it: Deighan had a clear view of him through the side window as the Chrysler pulled up and stopped near the cabin's front door. He could also see that the lone passenger was Mannlicher.
Brandt got out, opened the passenger door for the fat man, and the two of them went to the cabin. It took D'Allesandro ten seconds to answer Brandt's knock. There was some talk, not much; then Mannlicher and Brandt went in, and the door shut behind them.
All right, Deighan thought. He'd stacked the deck as well as he could; pretty soon he'd know how the hand—and the game—played out.
Nothing happened for maybe five minutes. Then he thought he heard some muffled sounds down there, loud voices that went on for a while, something that might have been a bang, but the distance was too great for him to be sure that he wasn't imagining them. Another four or five minutes went by. And then the door opened and Brandt came out alone, looked around, called something back inside that Deighan didn't understand. If there was an answer, it wasn't audible. Brandt shut the door, hurried down to the lake, went out onto the pier. The Chris-Craft was still tied up there. Brandt climbed on board, disappeared for thirty seconds or so, reappeared carrying a square of something gray and heavy. Tarpaulin, Deighan saw when Brandt came back up the driveway. Big piece of it—big enough for a shroud.
The Shooter's hand had been folded. That left three of them still in the game.
When Brandt had gone back inside with the tarp, Deighan stood and half ran along the creek and through the trees to where he'd left the Ford. Old Lake Road was deserted. He yanked open the passenger door, leaned in, caught up the mobile phone, and punched out the emergency number for the county sheriff's office. An efficient-sounding male voice answered.
"Something's going on on Little Cove Road," Deighan said, making himself sound excited. "That's in Pine Acres, you know? It's the cabin at the end, down on the lake. I heard shots—people shooting at each other down there. It sounds like a war."
"What's the address?"
"I don't know the address, it's the cabin right on the lake. People shooting at each other. You better get right out there."
"Your name, sir?"
"I don't want to get involved. Just hurry, will you?"
Deighan put the receiver down, shut the car door, ran back along the path and along the creek to the shelf. Mannlicher and Brandt were still inside the cabin. He went to one knee again behind the outcrops, drew the .38, held it on his thigh.
It was another two minutes before the door opened down there. Brandt came out, looked around as he had before, went back inside—and then he and Mannlicher both appeared, one at each end of a big, tarp-wrapped bundle. They started to carry it down the driveway toward the lake. Going to put it on the boat, Deighan thought, take it out now or later on, when it's dark. Lake Tahoe was sixteen hundred feet deep in the middle. The bundle wouldn't have been the first somebody'd dumped out there.
He let them get clear of the Chrysler, partway down the drive, before he poked the gun into the notch, sighted, and fired twice. The shots went where he'd intended them to, wide by ten feet and into the roadbed so they kicked up gravel. Mannlicher and Brandt froze for an instant, confused. Deighan fired a third round, putting the slug closer this time, and that one panicked them: they let go of the bundle and began scrambling.
There was no cover anywhere close by; they both ran for the Chrysler. Brandt had a gun in his hand when he reached it, and he dropped down behind the rear deck, trying to locate Deighan's position. Mannlicher kept on scrambling around to the passenger door, pulled it open, pushed himself across the seat inside.
Deighan blew out the Chrysler's near front tire. Sighted, and blew out the rear tire. Brandt threw an answering shot his way, but it wasn't even close. The Chrysler was tilting in Deighan's direction as the tires flattened. Mannlicher pushed himself out of the car, tried to make a run for the cabin door with his arms flailing, his fat jiggling. Deighan put a bullet into the wall beside the door. Mannlicher reversed himself, fell in his frantic haste, crawled back behind the Chrysler.
Reloading the .38, Deighan could hear the sound of cars coming up fast on Little Cove Road. No sirens, but revolving lights made faint blood-red flashes through the trees.
From behind the Chrysler Brandt fired again, wildly. Beyond him, on the driveway, one corner of the tarp-wrapped bundle had come loose and was flapping in the wind off the lake.
A county sheriff's cruiser, its roof light slashing the air, made the turn off Little Cove onto the driveway. Another one was right behind it. In his panic, Brandt straightened up when he saw them and fired once, blindly, at the first in line.
Deighan was on his feet by then, hurrying away from the outcrops, holstering his weapon. Behind him he heard brakes squeal, another shot, voices yelling, two more shots. All the sounds faded as he neared the turnout and the Ford. By the time he pulled out onto the deserted road, there was nothing to hear but the sound of his engine, the screeching of a jay somewhere nearby.
Brandt had thrown in his hand by now; so had Mannlicher.
This pot belonged to him.
6.
Fran was in the backyard, weeding her garden, when he got home late the following afternoon. He called to her from the doorway, and she glanced around and then got up, unsmiling, and came over to him. She was wearing jeans and one of his old shirts and a pair of gardening gloves, and her hair was tied in a long ponytail. Used to be a light, silky brown, her hair; now it was mostly gray. His fault. She was only forty-six. A woman of forty-six shouldn't be so gray.
She said, "So you're back." She didn't sound glad to see him, didn't kiss him or touch him at all. But her eyes were gentle on his face.
"I'm back."
"You all right? You look tired."
"Long drive. I'm fine; it was a good trip."
She didn't say anything. She didn't want to hear about it, not any of it. She just didn't want to know.
"How about you?" he asked. "Everything been okay?"
"Sheila's pregnant again."
"Christ. What's the matter with her? Why don't she get herself fixed? Or get Hank fixed?"
"She likes kids."
"I like kids too, but four's too many at her age. She's only twenty-seven."
"She wants eight."
"She's crazy," Deighan said. "What's she want to bring all those kids into a world like this for?"
There was an awkward moment. It was always awkward at first when he came back. Then Fran said, "You hungry?"
"You know me. I can always eat." Fact was, he was starved. He hadn't eaten much up in Nevada, never did when he was away. And he hadn't had anything today except an English muffin and some coffee for breakfast in Truckee.
"Come into the kitchen," Fran said. "I'll fix you something."
They went inside. He got a beer out of the refrigerator; she waited and then took out some covered dishes, some vegetables. He wanted to say something to her, talk a little, but he couldn't think of anything. His mind was blank at times like this. He carried his beer into the living room.
The goddamn trophy case was the first thing he saw. He hated that trophy case; but Fran wouldn't get rid of it, no matter what he said. For her it was like some kind of shrine to the dead past. All the mementoes of his years on the force—twenty-two years, from beat patrolman in North Beach all the way up to inspector on the narcotics squad. The certificate he'd won in marksmanship competition at the police academy, the two citations from the mayor for bravery, other crap like that. Bones, that's all they were to him. Pieces of a rotting skeleton. What was the sense in keeping them around, reminding both of them of what he'd been, what he'd lost.
His fault he'd lost it, sure. But it was their fault too, goddamn them. The laws, the lawyers, the judges, the system. No convictions on half of all the arrests he'd ever made—half! Turning the ones like Mannlicher and Brandt and D'Allesandro loose, putting them right back on the street, letting them make their deals and their hits, letting them screw up innocent lives. Sheila's kids, his grandkids—lives like that. How could they blame him for being bitter? How could they blame him for taking too many drinks now and then?
He sat down on the couch, drank some of his beer, lit a cigarette. Ah Christ, he thought, it's not them. You know it wasn't them. It was you, you dumb bastard. They warned you twice about drinking on duty. And you kept on doing it, you were hog-drunk the night you plowed the departmental sedan into that vanload of teenagers. What if one of those kids had died? You were lucky, by God. You got off easy.
Sure, he thought. Sure. But he'd been a good cop, damn it, a cop inside and out; it was all he knew how to be. What was he supposed to do after they threw him off the force? Live on his half pension? Get a job as a part-time security guard? Forty-four years old, no skills, no friends outside the department—what the hell was he supposed to do?
He'd invented Bob Prince, that was what he'd done. He'd gone into business for himself.
Fran didn't understand. "You'll get killed one of these days," she'd said in the beginning. "It's vigilante justice," she'd said. "You think you're Rambo, is that it?" she'd said. She just didn't understand. To him it was the same job he'd always done, the only one he was any good at, only now he made up some of the rules. He was no Rambo, one man up against thousands, a mindless killing machine; he hated that kind of phony flag-waving crap. It wasn't real. What he was doing, that was real. It meant something. But a hero? No. Hell, no. He was a sniper, that was all, picking off a weak or vulnerable enemy here and there, now and then. Snipers weren't heroes, for Christ's sake. Snipers were snipers, just like cops were cops.
He finished his beer and his cigarette, got up, went into Fran's sewing room. The five thousand he'd held out of the poker game take was in his pocket—money he felt he was entitled to because his expenses ran high sometimes, and they had to eat, they had to live. He put the roll into her sewing cabinet, where he always put whatever money he made as Bob Prince. She'd spend it when she had to, parcel it out, but she'd never mention it to him or anyone else. She'd told Sheila once that he had a sales job, he got paid in cash a lot, that was why he was away from home for such long periods of time.
When he walked back into the kitchen she was at the sink, peeling potatoes. He went over and touched her shoulder, kissed the top of her head. She didn't look at him; stood there stiffly until he moved away from her. But she'd be all right in a day or two. She'd be fine until the next time Bob Prince made the right kind of connection.
He wished it didn't have to be this way. He wished he could roll back the clock three years, do things differently, take the gray out of her hair and the pain out of her eyes. But he couldn't. It was just too late.
You had to play the cards you were dealt, no matter how lousy they were. The only thing that made it tolerable was that sometimes, on certain hands, you could find ways to stack the damned deck.
The central pharmacological ingredient in this story is completely factual, as is the once-upon-a-time use to which it is put here. When I first came across the information in a book on old-time druggists and their wares, I knew it would be perfect for a piece of fiction, but I couldn't seem to come up with the right format. I carried the notion around in the back of my mind for years, until I was asked to contribute to an anthology of medical horror stories, Diagnosis: Terminal, edited by F. Paul Wilson. Then the creative juices finally began to bubble. Of all the tales in these pages, the dark parable of the "Angel of Mercy" ranks at or very near the top of my personal favorites.
Angel of Mercy
Her name was Mercy.
Born with a second name, yes, like everyone else, but it had been so long since she'd used it she could scarce remember what it was. Scarce remember so many things about her youth, long faded now—except for Father, of course. It seemed, sometimes, that she had never had a youth at all. That she'd spent her whole life on the road, first with Caleb and then with Elias, jouncing from place to place in the big black traveling wagon, always moving, drifting, never settling anywhere. Birth to death, with her small deft hands working tirelessly and her eyes asquint in smoky lamplight and her head aswirl with medicines, mixtures, measurements, what was best for this ailment, what was the proper dosage for that one.
Miss Mercy. Father had been the first to call her that, in his little apothecary shop in . . . what was the name of the town where she'd been born? Lester? No, Dexter. Dexter, Pennsylvania. "A druggist is an angel of mercy," he said to her when she was ten or eleven. "Your name comes from my belief in that, child. Mercy. Miss Mercy. And wouldn't you like to be an angel of mercy one day, too?"
"Oh yes, Father, yes! Will you show me how?"
And he had shown her, with great patience, because he had no sons and because he bore no prejudice against his daughter or the daughter of any man. He had shown her carefully and well for five or six or seven years, until Mr. President Lincoln declared war against the Confederate States of America and Father went away to bring his mercy to sick and wounded Union soldiers on far-off battlefields. But there was no mercy for him. On one of those battlefields, a place called Antietam, he was himself mortally wounded by cannon fire.
As soon as she received word of his death, she knew what she must do. She had no siblings, and Mother had died years before; Father's legacy was all that was left. And it seemed as though the next thing she knew, she was sitting on the high seat of the big black traveling wagon, alone in the beginning, then with Caleb and then Elias to drive the team of horses, bringing her mercy to those in need. Death to birth, birth to death—it was her true calling. Father would have been proud. He would have understood and he would have been so proud.
Miss Mercy. If it had been necessary to paint a name on the side of the wagon, that was the name she would have chosen. Just that and nothing more. It was what Caleb had called her, too, from their very first meeting in . . . Saint Louis, hadn't it been? Young and strong and restless—there driving the wagon one day, gone the next and never seen again. And Miss Mercy was the only name Elias wrote on his pad of white paper when the need arose, the name he would have spoken aloud if he hadn't been born deaf and dumb. She had chanced upon him down South somewhere. Georgia, perhaps—he was an emancipated slave from the state of Georgia. Chanced upon him, befriended him, and they had been together ever since. Twenty years? Thirty? Dear Elias. She couldn't have traveled so long and so far, or done so much, if it were not for him.
In all the long years, how many miles had they traveled together? Countless number. North and east in the spring and summer, south and west in the fall and winter. Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Montana, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas . . . maybe all the states and territories there were. Civilization and wilderness frontier. Ranches, farms, settlements. Towns that had no druggist, towns that had druggists with short supplies or too little understanding of their craft. Cities, now and then, to replenish medicines that could not be gotten elsewhere. Saint Louis and . . . Chicago? Yes, Chicago. Oh, she could scarce remember them all.
And everywhere they went, the people came. The needy people with their aches and pains, ills and ailments, troubles and sorrows. First to marvel at her skill with mortar and pestle and her vast pharmacopoeial knowledge; at the cabinets and tight-fitted shelves Elias had built to hold the myriad glass bottles filled with liquids in all the colors of the rainbow, and below the shelves the rows upon rows of drawers containing ground and powdered drugs, herbs and barks, pastilles and pills. And then to buy what they needed: cough syrups, liniments, worm cures, liver medicines, stomach bitters, blood purifiers. And so much more: two-grain quinine tablets, Bateman's drops, castor oil, Epsom salts and Rochelle salts and Seidlitz powders, paregorics and rheumatism tonics, bottles of Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound and Ford's Laxative Compound and Dr. Williams's Pink Pills for Pale People. And, too, in private, with their hands and eyes nervous and their voices low, embarrassed, sometimes ashamed: potency elixirs and aphrodisiacs, emmenagogues and contraceptives, Apiol Compound for suppressed and painful menstruation, fluid extract of kava-kava or emulsion of copaiba for gonorrhea, blue ointment for crab lice.
Mostly they came during the daylight hours, but now and then someone would come rapping on the wagon's door after nightfall. And once in a long while, in the deep dark lonesome night—
"Oh, Miss Mercy, I need help. Can you find it in your heart to help me?"
"What is your trouble, my dear?"
"I've been a fool, such a fool. A man . . . I was too friendly with him and now I'm caught."
"You're certain you're with child?"
"Oh yes. There's no mistake."
"He won't marry you?"
"He can't. He's already married. Oh, I'm such a fool. Please, will you help me?"
"There, now, you mustn't cry. I'll help you."
"You'll give me something? Truly?"
"Truly."
"Apiol Compound? I've heard that it's rich enough in mucilage to bring on—"
"No, not that. Something more certain."
"Oh, Miss Mercy, you're true to your name. You're an angel of mercy."
And again, as always, she and Elias would be back on roads good and bad, empty and well traveled. Another town, another state—here, there, no pattern to their travels, going wherever the roads took them. Never lingering anywhere for more than a day or two, except when storm or flood or accident (and once, an Indian attack) stranded them. And as always the people would come, first to marvel and then to buy: morphine, digitalis, belladonna in carefully measured doses, Dover's powder, petroleum jelly, spirits of camphor and spirits of ammonia, bone liniment and witch hazel, citrate of magnesia, blackberry balsam, oil of sassafras, throat lozenges and eye demulcents, pile remedies and asthma cures, compounds for ailments of kidney and bladder and digestive tract.
And then again, in one of their stopping places, in the deep dark lonesome night—
"Miss Mercy, you don't know what your kindness means to me."
"I do know, child. I do."
"Such a burden, such an awful burden—"
"Yes, but yours will soon be lifted."
"Just one bottle of this liquid will see to that?"
"Just one. Then you'll have no more to fear."
"It smells so sweet. What does it contain?"
"Dried sclerotia of ergot, bark of slippery elm, apiol, and gum arabic?"
"Will it taste bad?"
"No, my dear. I've mixed it with syrup."
"And I'm to take the whole bottle at once?"
"Yes. But only at the time of month I tell you. And then you must immediately dispose of the bottle where no one can ever find it. Will you promise?"
"Yes, Miss Mercy. Oh yes."
"And you must tell no one I helped you. Not even your dearest friend. Will you promise?"
"I promise. I'll never tell a soul, not a living soul."
And again, as always, she and Elias would be away at the break of dawn, when dew lay soft on the grasses and mist coated the land. And sitting beside him on the high seat, remembering the poor girl who had come in the night, she would ask herself once more, as she had so many times, what Father would have said if he'd known of the mixture of ergot and slippery elm, apiol and gum arabic. Would he still think of her as an angel of mercy? Or would he hate her for betraying a sacred trust? And the answer would be as it always was: No, he could never hate her; she must have no real doubt of that. He would understand that her only aim was to bring peace to those poor foolish girls. Peace and succor in their time of need. He would understand.
And she would stop fretting then, reassured of Father's absent pride, and soon that day would end and a new one would be born. And there would be new roads, new settlements and towns, new needs to serve—so many needs to serve.
And one day she saw that it was fall again, the leaves turning crimson and gold—time to turn south and west. But first there was another town, a little town with a name like many others, in a state that might have been Kansas or perhaps Nebraska. And late that night, as Miss Mercy sat weary but strong at her mixing table, her hands busy with mortar and pestle while the lamplight flickered bright, a rapping came soft and urgent on the wagon's door.
Her name was Verity.
Names and faces meant little to Miss Mercy; there were too many to remember even for a minute. But this girl was different somehow. The name lingered, and so she knew would the face. Thin, not pretty, pale hair peeking out from under her bonnet—older than most of the ones who came alone in the night. Older, sadder, but no wiser.
Miss Mercy invited her in, invited her to sit. Verity perched primly on the stool, hands together in her lap, mouth tight-pinched at the corners. She showed no nervousness, no fear or embarrassment. Determined was the word that came to Miss Mercy's mind.
Without preamble Verity said, "I understand you're willing to help girls in trouble."
"What sort of trouble, my dear?"
"The sort that comes to foolish and unmarried girls."
"You're with child?"
Verity nodded. "I come from Riverbrook, Iowa. Do you recall the town, Miss Mercy?"
"Riverbrook? Iowa? There are so many places . . ."
"You were there four months ago. In June. The second week of June."
"The second week of June. Well. If you say I was, my dear, then of course I was."
"A girl named Grace came to see you then. Grace Potter. Do you remember her?"
"So many come to me," Miss Mercy said. "My memory isn't what it once was . . ."
"So many girls in trouble, you mean?"
"Sometimes. In the night, as you've come."
"And as Grace came."
"If you say so. As Grace came."
"You gave her something to abort her fetus. I'd like you to give me the same . . . medicine."
"If I do, will you promise to take it only at the time of month I tell you?"
"Yes."
"Will you promise to dispose of the bottle immediately after ingestion, where no one can ever find it?"
"Yes."
"And will you promise to tell no one that I helped you? Not even your dearest friend?"
"Yes."
"Then you shall have what you need."
Miss Mercy picked up her lamp, carried it to one of Elias's cabinets. When she handed the small brown unlabeled bottle to Verity, the girl removed its cork and sniffed the neck. Then Verity poured a drop onto her finger, touched her tongue to it.
"It tastes odd," she said.
"No odder than sweetened castor oil. I've mixed the compound with cherry syrup."
