Chapter 10
The Price
The infirmary was a small white room on the ground floor, with a green cot, a sink, and a glass-fronted cabinet on the wall.
It had been a first-aid room once. There was still a faded red cross on the door, and a poster, curling at the corners, on how to tie a tourniquet. Somebody had cleaned it. Somebody had put a clean sheet on the cot and a steel tray beside it. The cabinet had been polished. In the light from the strip, its glass shone, and behind the glass, on the middle shelf, in a small plastic rack, stood eight small brown bottles and a row of foil packets, each one labeled in neat black type.
AMOXICILLIN. 500 MG. TWICE DAILY.
ADMINISTER WITH FOOD.
They stood in the doorway and looked at it.
They had carried Helen in, on a door, with Tom and Frank at either end. She lay on the cot with her eyes closed. She was not asleep. Her lips were gray and her breath came in short, shallow, bubbling gasps, each ending in a faint rattle, like a straw in the bottom of a cup. Nora knelt beside her with a basin and a wet cloth, wiping her face over and over, with small quick tender movements, and her own face was set like plaster.
"There's a lock," said Greg.
There was. It was a brass one, small and neat, and below it, in the frame of the cabinet, stood a small black button the size of a coin. It had been set into the wood, where a lock-plate would be. It was surrounded by a thin ring of red light.
"Can we break the glass?"
"Try it," said Frank.
Greg picked up a chair. It was a steel one with a plastic seat. He swung it, with both hands, against the front of the cabinet, and it rang on the glass and bounced back, and the glass did not so much as scratch. He swung it again. The chair bent. The third time, he let it fall, and stood with his chest heaving and his mouth open, and a long bright smear of sweat ran down from his hair.
"It's not glass," he said.
"No."
"It's, what is it?"
"Polycarbonate," said Tom. "It's what they put in the cells."
"For God's sake."
"The record," said White, "will show that Mr. Pruitt made an attempt."
They had not heard him come on. He was simply there, soft, dry, a little hoarse, from a small speaker in the corner of the ceiling. It was a quarter past six. They had all been listening for it. Daniel stood with his back to the door frame, with his hand pressed to his bound ribs, and thought that it was a dreadful sort of courtesy, the way he always waited until they'd done what they were going to do.
"The third game," said White. "The Price. I will explain."
"We know," said Frank.
"I doubt that you do."
"It's a trade."
"It is a trade," the voice agreed. "I am gratified. It is not a hard one. In that cabinet are eight days of an antibiotic that will, with very high probability, save Miss Marsh's life. She has a pneumonia, I think a severe one. She has perhaps twelve hours. Perhaps fewer. I regret that I cannot be more precise." A faint pause. "The cabinet will open when the button is pressed. It may be pressed by any person. There is a cost."
"What cost?" said Nora.
She had not turned round. She was on her knees by the cot, with her back to the room and the basin in her lap.
"It will cost eight hours of the clock," said White.
Nobody said anything.
There was a very long, flat silence, like the pause after a bell. Daniel looked at the speaker in the ceiling. Then, because he could not help it, he looked at the little screen, which had been brought along from the jury room on a cart, and now stood on the steel tray with its cord running to the wall. A small girl sat at a desk, in a lamp, with a notebook. The red numbers beside her said 19:52:10.
Nineteen hours, he thought. And fifty-two minutes.
Eight of them.
He did the sum in his head. He did it without wanting to. He took nineteen hours and fifty minutes and subtracted eight, and what was left was eleven hours and fifty. He added it to the time. It was six-twenty now. It came out at just past six in the morning. Dawn. The sun would be up. At six, by the new clock, it would be over.
I will stop being patient.
"Is it, is it a penalty?" said Greg. "What happens if it runs out? Before, you said, what does it mean?"
"It means what it has meant since the beginning."
"That's not an answer."
"No," said White. "It is not. I would like to give you one. I am afraid it would be a poor one. It would tell you what will happen to a child in a small room when I stop being patient, and then you would have a thing in your mind that you did not have before, and that you would not be able to put down." The voice was level. "I think Mr. Wells has already decided what to imagine. I would not take that from him."
"Eight hours," said Tom, hoarsely.
"Yes."
"For one old woman."
"For Miss Marsh. Or for no one. It is, I think, a clean choice." There was a small dry pause. "I will tell you what I find most interesting about it. It is that the person who must make it is not the person who will be harmed. And the person who will be harmed has no say."
Daniel closed his eyes.
"Don't," said a voice behind him.
It was Helen.
She had opened her eyes. They were large and bright and glassy with fever, and she had turned her head on the pillow, painfully, to look at him. Her lips moved. She was trying to sit up. Nora put a hand on her shoulder and she shook it off.
"Don't do it," said Helen. "Mr. Wells. I order you."
"You can't order me."
"I can. I'm a, I'm an officer of the court. I'm the oldest person in the room." She drew a breath. It rattled. "I won't have it. I'm sixty years old. I've had my turn, I've had a perfectly respectable career, and I won't have a child's eight hours spent on a, on a, on a woman with a cough."
"It isn't up to you."
"It is, it's my life!"
"It's my daughter," said Daniel.
She stopped.
"It's my daughter's time," he said. He said it very gently. "And I'm the only one who can decide."
"That's not fair."
"No."
"It's monstrous. I'm not worth it."
"That's not how it works," said Daniel. "That's, I think that's the whole thing. That's what he wants us to say."
They left him alone with her for ten minutes.
Nobody had suggested it. Frank had taken Greg by the arm and led him out. Tom had gone after. Nora had risen, slowly, and stood for a moment with the basin in her hands, looking at Helen's face, and then at his, with an expression he could not read. Then she had gone out too, and the door had slid to behind her, with its small mechanical sigh, and the room was suddenly very quiet and white and small.
He sat on the edge of the cot.
She lay with her eyes shut. Her hand lay on the sheet, small and thin and veined, and he put his own over it. It was hot. It was hot and dry and as light as paper.
"I said I'd tell you something," said Helen.
"You don't have to."
"I do. I'm, it's the one thing." She opened her eyes. "Listen. You'll want this. I'd tell you why. But I haven't the breath."
"Tell me anyway."
"I've been in a lot of courts." Each word was a small separate effort, set down with care, like a coin on a counter. "I know how the thing works. I know how it, how a man like that thinks. He's a procedure man. Do you hear it? For the record. The court sits. The foreman will read. He's built a, it's a replica, all of it. He's got the forms. He's got the rules on the wall. He loves it. He's in love with it, the way, the way some men are in love with a church." She coughed. "A man like that is very dangerous. And he's got a weakness."
"What weakness?"
"He believes in it."
She looked at him.
"A bully's only afraid of one thing," said Helen. "That the rules will apply to him. He builds a courtroom, and puts himself on the bench, and everyone else in the dock. And he never, it never occurs to him that the bench has a rule too." Her fingers closed on his. "There's a motion. It's the oldest in the book. It's the first thing they teach you. Your Honor, I move that you recuse yourself."
"Recuse."
"It means, step down. A judge who has an interest in the case can't sit. He's got a personal stake, a, he's a witness, he's a relative. He's involved. If he's asked, in open court, he has to rule on it. He can't carry on until he has." She gave a very small, dry, rattling smile. "I did it once. I did it to my own uncle. Oh, he was furious. But he did it. He had to. It was the only time in my career I ever saw a man vanish from a room by being politely asked."
"This isn't a court."
"He says it is."
"It's a game."
"Then he's made himself a judge, and he's built a bench, and he keeps saying the court." She shut her eyes. "I'd say that's a very large hostage to fortune."
"Helen."
"Remember it. That's all. If you're ever, if there comes a time when nothing else is, there's one sentence. You just say it. In a loud voice. In open court."
"I'll remember."
"Say it back."
"Your Honor, I move that you recuse yourself."
"That's it. That's lovely." She was smiling. Her eyes had slipped half closed. "You've a good voice for it. You've, you sound like a foreman."
He did not answer.
"I'm sorry," said Helen. "That was cruel."
"No."
"I only mean that you've, you speak well. People listen." She was drifting. Her words came further apart. "I'd like you to. When it's. When this is over. I'd like you to say the other thing. The thing in the tin. I think you've been, I think it's been a, a very long time to carry."
"I can't."
"You can. I did."
"What did you do?"
"I said it to a drink," said Helen Marsh, and for a moment the old, dry, ironical sparkle came into her face, like a lamp turned up. "It didn't help. But I said it."
He pressed the button at 6:41.
He did it simply. There was no preparation. He had known what he would do from the moment White said eight hours. He had only needed to sit with it, as one sits in a dentist's chair until the drill starts. He stood up from the cot. He crossed the little white room. He put his thumb on the black button in the cabinet frame, and the thin red ring round it glowed, brighter.
"Don't," said Frank, from the doorway.
He had come back. They all had. They stood in a half circle, in the white light, in the open door of the infirmary, and the faces of the four of them were as pale and fixed as masks. Nora was in front. She had both hands wrapped round the basin. Tom was behind her, large and gray. Greg had gone to the wall and put his forehead on it.
"Daniel," said Frank. "Think about it."
"I have."
"It's eight hours. It's, you've got about twenty left. We'll have eleven to find a way out. That's nothing."
"I know."
"We might not."
"I know that, too."
"A kid's, a kid's life, against, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But I like her. I do. I'd go in the Pen myself, for her. But it's a, you're making a trade that can't be undone." His voice was rough. "It's not an exchange. It's a loss."
"Is it?"
"What else is it?"
Daniel looked at the screen on the steel tray.
He had not looked at it for ten minutes. He did now, and he stopped breathing. The room was the same, the lamp, the filing cabinets, the desk. The red numbers glowed. But the girl in the blue-striped sweater had stood up from her chair. She was standing in front of the camera, close to it, so close that her face filled half the frame, and in her hands she held something up.
It was a yellow notebook. It had a cat on the cover.
She had opened it. She held it flat against her chest, with the pages toward the lens, and in the clear light of the lamp the writing on it was perfectly easy to read. It was in pencil, in big square capital letters, drawn with a ruler, as if for a poster. The lines were not quite straight.
DAD.
I HEARD HIM.
DON'T PAY FOR ME.
I'M OKAY.
I'M WINNING.
He read it twice.
He read it, and he felt the whole of his body go out like a wave. She had her chin up. She was looking into the lens, with her mouth pressed flat and her eyebrows pulled down. There was a smudge on her cheek. There was a small blue vein at her temple. She was twelve years old, and she was holding up a sign in a locked room, in front of a black eye in the wall, with her hands steady.
She knows what he's doing.
He's told her. He's described it to her, as it happens.
"Oh, God," said Nora, very softly, behind him.
"What's she saying?" said Greg.
"She says not to."
"That's, she's a, she doesn't know what."
"She knows," said Daniel.
He kept his eyes on the screen. The sign did not waver. The girl held it for a minute, for two minutes, and in all that time she did not once look away from the camera. Then she lowered it, slowly, and put it down on the desk, and looked straight at the lens for a moment longer, with an expression he had never seen on her face, and understood at once. It was the expression that she wore when she had made her move, and wanted him to know that she had meant it, and that he was not to say anything.
She's doing what I do, he thought.
She's trying not to let me be kind.
"I know," he said, quietly, to the screen. "I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, June."
He pressed the button.
It was a very quiet sound.
The red ring blinked off. There was a small click, from inside the cabinet, and the glass front swung open on a hinge. A cold little breath of air came out. At the same moment a soft tone sounded in the corner of the ceiling, such as an elevator makes when it arrives, and on the screen on the steel tray the red numbers faltered.
19:31:09.
17:00.
14:30.
They dropped like a stone. They did not roll, as seconds roll, but plunged, in great whole sweeps of figures, hours, then minutes, with a faint mechanical whirr. And then they stopped, as if they had hit something, and the display flickered once, and steadied, and burned there, steadily, bright and red and perfectly clear.
11:31:03.
11:31:02.
11:31:01.
In the little white room nobody breathed.
"Thank you," said White.
It was the voice he used for ordinary things. It was courteous and slightly dry. It might have been thanking a man for passing the salt. "The court notes the payment. I should like to say that I did not expect it quite so soon. I thought you would hold out till the half hour."
Daniel said nothing.
He had crossed the room. He was at the cabinet, with his hand on the cold edge, taking down the small brown bottle. His fingers were steady. He took it to the cot and put it into Nora's hands. She looked at it, and at him, and her eyes were enormous.
"Twice a day," she said, in a thin voice. "With food. I'll need, there's a, I'll start now."
"Good."
"Daniel."
"Start now."
She nodded. She turned, and crouched by Helen's side, and began, with trembling fingers, to peel the foil from a tablet. Helen stirred. She muttered something. Nora slipped an arm under her shoulders and held a cup to her lips.
"You didn't hesitate," said White.
It was gentle. It came softly, almost kindly, from the ceiling, and it was addressed to Daniel alone. Everyone else in the room might have been furniture.
"You hesitated for eleven seconds. I counted. I did not think I would be so surprised." A pause. "It is a very odd thing. A man can be rather mean, and rather weak, and tell lies for years. And then, suddenly, you give him a price, and he pays it without a word. I have found it is nearly always the lies that cost him the most."
"I don't know what you mean."
"No, I think you do." The voice was dry, and almost tender. "You traded something, once, in a room not far from here. It was a small amount. It was not even a day. I wonder if you've ever worked out how many hours it came to."
His mouth had gone dry.
"I don't want you to die, Mr. Wells," said White. "I want to be clear. I have never wanted that. I would not have built all this to kill one man. There are easier ways." A very long pause. "I want you to finish."
"Finish what?"
"The sentence," said White.
The speaker clicked, and was dead.
He stood in the middle of the infirmary, with the cabinet open, and the numbers red on the screen beside him, and all the faces turned to him, white and wide, and he understood it, finally, completely. They had been wrong. They had all been wrong. The Pen, the beam, the cages. They had thought those were the games. They had thought the person in the voice wanted to kill them, one at a time, in some elaborate order, as a boy pulls the legs off a fly.
He did not. He wanted something else.
He wants me to say it.
All of it. Aloud. In a room.
And he's going to take the whole building apart until I do.
Eleven hours and thirty minutes.
"What's he mean?" said Greg. "Finish what? What sentence? Is it a, is that a prison thing?"
"I don't know," said Daniel.
It was the third lie. It was the worst, and he did not feel it go. He only felt, with a kind of distant wonder, that it had begun at last to cost him what it ought. He stood still in the white light with his hand on the empty rack and the weight of a yellow form against his ribs.
Behind him, on the cot, an old woman drew a long breath. It caught. It rattled. And then, very slowly, as the first dose went down, it began to smooth.