No Sleep Till Wonderland by Paul Tremblay

Author:Paul Tremblay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Published: 2021-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-One

The sun cuts through the window and blinds, leaving pieces of itself on the linoleum, the dead TV screen, and the breakfast tray littered with crushed-up balls of cellophane. I didn’t eat the scrambled eggs because they melted, filling my green plate with yellow water.

Detective Owolewa sits in a chair next to my bed. I catch him in midyawn and stretch. I’m rubbing off on him. He says, “Are you awake, Mr. Genevich?”

“Maybe. Are you?”

I’m awake enough to know I slept through Sunday. I sit upright with my legs stretched out on the bed. Swaddled in a johnny and tucked under a thin, noisy sheet as rough as shark skin, I’m in Mass General hospital. No private room for me.

He says, “You’re due to be discharged within the hour.”

“I thought I had this bed booked for the whole week.” Various aches and pains report from the different precincts of my body. My face is a mask, two sizes too big. I need a hat and a cigarette. “I know I look like I was entered in a demolition derby, but they tell me nothing is broken. Shows what they know.”

“Your toxicology screen came back clean, as well, which was a surprise.”

“Don’t be surprised. My body is a temple.”

Detective Owolewa wears a white buttoned shirt, sleeves rolled up. He has work to do. He says, “We have surveillance video of Eddie Ryan leaving you on the Zakim.”

I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. “I hope you got my good side.” He has a surveillance video, and all I have is the Andre the Giant of headaches.

“You appeared to be unconscious when you were falling out of the car to the road. Then, before the truck passed over you, you were twitching around like you were having a seizure. Do you remember any of that?”

“The truck I’ll remember most of all,” I say, then describe cataplexy and narcolepsy and the big bang theory. It’s all about mass, gravity, and black holes, and none of it seems to make an impression.

“We picked up Eddie only an hour after he left you. We found him passed out in the same stolen car, which he parked down by Carson Beach. He was initially nonresponsive, and he had methamphetamines in his possession.”

“He’s a reprobate, that one.”

“Did you know the car was stolen?” He’s reading off a pre-planned script of plays. His cool and collected is more like a simmer, though. He’s not pleased.

I say, “Yes and no. But mostly yes.” If I was interviewing me, I’d hate me too.

“Allow me to rephrase the question. How did you end up in the stolen car with a local meth dealer?”

“The short answer is that me as the late-night bridge delivery wasn’t voluntary. You’d think that’d be clear from the video.”

“Eddie forced you into the car as well as out of the car, then?”

“Beaten, carried, and dragged would be more accurate, but we can go with forced.”

“Did you two gentlemen have a dispute over the purchase or disbursement—past, present, or future—of amphetamines or any of its derivatives?”

I laugh.

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