Bitter Pill Read online

  He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t find Kick. The Kick finds you.”

  How long had he been waiting to deliver that line?

  Jacob didn’t mention the stink of the gin mill on me, but he didn’t need to. I was well aware of the way a trip to see that smug dealer lingered in my hair and clothes and car well into the next day, plus my throat kept catching as if the stink of the bar had lodged behind my tonsils. I hung my winter coat inside the basement stairwell, not willing to contaminate our closet, then closed the door behind it. Maybe the brick foundation would help suck out some of the bar-stench.

  I paused to glare at the closed door.

  I was not interested in Seconal.

  Didn’t need it. Because I practiced good “sleep hygiene” these days—a joke of a term if ever I heard one—which meant no more coffee after three, no succumbing to random naps, and no lit screens in the bedroom. And if I were to wake up ridiculously early after four and a half hours’ sleep, well…no doubt I’d find plenty of work in my inbox to keep me busy until the rest of the world woke up.

  I hit the shower and turned up the water as high as I could stand it. Other people say they feel their muscles relax under a hot shower. I never did. Maybe mine didn’t have an unclenched setting.

  Falling asleep wasn’t normally my problem—staying asleep was—but the way my mind was racing, it was obvious tonight was going to be a smorgasbord of sleeplessness. I could’ve just rubbed one out in the shower stall. But I don’t get off anywhere near as hard or as well when I do it alone.

  Jacob was already in bed with the lights out when I joined him, steamy hot from the shower, totally naked, and hell-bent on distraction. I burrowed under the covers and fit myself against Jacob’s side, sliding a hand under the stretched-out tee he wears to bed. When I toyed with the treasure trail, he made an inquisitive, half-asleep sound. I raked his belly gently (and low) to let him know it could be more than just a passing grope, if he was up for it.

  He was.

  He shifted to slide an arm beneath my neck, and rolled himself on his side to face me. We kissed our minty, toothpaste-flavored nighttime kisses, him still groggy and me with something to prove, though exactly what that might be, I wasn’t really sure. Together, we eased his sweatpants down. Gravity pulled our dicks toward the mattress, but even semi-soft, the weight of him felt right in my hand. His touch was just as familiar on me.

  There’s a cheap runner we bought for the upstairs hall to buffer the echoey sound of our footsteps, a temporary thing we’d laid down to determine if it was worth covering up the wood just for the sake of a little noise control. Give it a month, he’d said. And if we don’t hate it, we’ll shop for something more permanent.

  That was a year ago. And our comings and goings had worn a distinct rut into the cheap acrylic fibers.

  That’s how it was, jerking each other off. We didn’t need to reinvent the wheel to get where we were going. I still got off on the way his breath hitched. On his facial hair ruffling my chin and the way his thighs trembled when he was on the brink of coming.

  He surprised me by ducking under the covers and sucking me off in my last few precious seconds—and holding down my hips to do it hard, way past my big finale, to the point of too much. But he only rode that squirmy, painful pleasure for a moment. Then he reared up beneath the tent of our sheets and comforter…and spilled on my belly.

  As I groped for a cum-rag in my nightstand—the thermal long-johns I always regretted not wearing to outdoor winter exorcisms would have to do—Jacob propped himself on his elbow and said, “I would’ve gotten over it, you know. Not that I’m complaining about the apology.”

  “Gotten over what?”

  “Sitting on the sidelines.”

  “I wasn’t sidelining you.”

  “I get it. Believe me, at my last job, there were so many times I wanted to tell Carolyn to sit it out—let me come at the subject with honey, not psychic vinegar. But the precinct wasn’t paying me to get people to open up. I was just supposed to trap them in a lie. Vic, people like you more than you realize. You have a certain something. Not everyone’s gonna respond to it…but a lot of people do.” By “a lot,” he meant the occasional mom-type hoping to fatten me up. Even so, I couldn’t entirely disagree. “You have your interrogation style, I have mine.”

  That’s for sure. I was like a housefly battering itself against a closed window, making random observations while I tried not to put my foot in my mouth. Unsuccessfully at that, if my talk with Erin was anything to go by. Jacob was more like a hornet, circling hypnotically until he could glide in for the sting.

  “I’m going to look harder at Bertelli,” he decided. And with that, he conked out so fast I half-expected to find a tranq dart protruding from his sleeping body.

  I pulled on a T-shirt and boxers and settled in against him, and proceeded to stare at the tin ceiling tiles long into the wee hours, waiting for sleep to come.

  CHAPTER TEN

  For as many years as I had been coming to The Clinic, and all the poking around I’d been doing lately, it surprised me to discover I’d never been inside the director’s office. First thing I noticed, it had windows. Reinforced glass block windows that you couldn’t really see through, but real windows nonetheless. By contrast, the exam rooms took the phrase “window dressing” to the extreme. There was trim, and there were curtains, but there was no window underneath…so the glass block in Bertelli’s office was a vast improvement. And I don’t think the view would’ve been anything too spectacular anyhow, just a bunch of high-fenced Lincolnwood backyards.

  Despite the fact that there was actual daylight present, I disliked the office right away. Not because it reminded me of getting called down to see the principal—which it kind of did—but because of all the clutter. Oh, it was arranged artfully enough and wasn’t even too dusty, but there was just too much stuff. Artsy-fartsy sculptures on the credenza. Piles of books everywhere. And on the walls, a mosaic of crap, all in frames. Photos and news clippings and, of course, the ubiquitous diplomas. Was I jealous of those? Not really. I just found it pretentious to see them so arrogantly displayed.

  Jacob settled into a chair, smooth as can be. “Thank you for taking the time from your busy schedule,” he said. Of course, what I heard was, “You couldn’t avoid us forever.” But that was probably just me.

  “Always happy to assist in any way I can,” Bertelli claimed.

  “Our first reports about Kick started coming in about a week ago. What can you tell me about your day last Monday?”

  “I’d have to check our schedule,” he said. Nothing about patient confidentiality, I noted, not like Dr. Gillmore would’ve said. Then again, he was probably just curating the information without announcing it to us first.

  “Not The Clinic,” Jacob clarified. “What can you tell me about your day?”

  “I’ll forward you my calendar,” he said. Maybe too eagerly.

  Jacob accepted the offer as if it were obviously his due. “That’s very helpful, but what can you tell me about, aside from your appointments? Anything that struck you as unusual.”

  There was a pregnant pause, and then Bertelli said, “I’m not sure what it is you’re hoping to find.” No, he wasn’t. Otherwise he would contrive to say something to extricate himself from it.

  “Just establishing a timeline on the staff,” Jacob said smoothly. “It’s procedure.”

  A lot of nothing was asked and answered. What a conversation—those two were out-smoothing each other so hard, it was a wonder they didn’t come out of it spit-polished and gleaming. Bertelli insisted he was deeply concerned and eager to be of assistance. Jacob reassured him all the questions were perfectly routine. But nobody was buying any of it.

  I had nothing to add to the questioning. But I did have the sneaking suspicion that our invitations to Bertelli’s office would be few and far between, so while Jacob politely grilled the guy, I pulled in white light and had a look around for anything a physical pai
r of eyes might miss. I must’ve been secretly hoping I’d find something lurking there among all the neatly arranged clutter. But, no. There was nothing but a bunch of stilted photos. Bertelli shaking hands with the mayor. Bertelli receiving some kind of award. Bertelli beaming as the ribbon was cut on an expansion of The Clinic. Everyone looked pretty pleased…everyone but the wrinkled up guy holding the scissors.

  Sweat prickled my armpits and the small of my back before I even registered what I was seeing.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  Bertelli rounded the desk and joined me at the wall that was an homage to himself. “That? My predecessor, Dr. Kamal.”

  “Friend of yours?”

  “There wasn’t really a lot of overlap between us. His background was in a more experimental area of pharmacology. Initially, this facility was set up to distribute antipsyactives on a case-by-case basis, and to provide the statistics needed for FDA approval. I was hired at the expansion, when we became a full-service psychic medical facility. Shortly after that, Dr. Kamal moved on to a new challenge.”

  “What ‘new challenge’ would that be?”

  Bertelli smiled at me like I was horribly thick. “We didn’t keep in touch.”

  He dismissed us—and Jacob allowed it, but only because Bertelli was giving us nothing more than fuck-all.

  As we headed back toward the break room, Jacob bent his head toward mine and murmured, “You went a little pale when you spotted Kamal. Recognizing him—isn’t that a good thing?”

  Maybe. If it were something useful I recalled, and not a one-way ticket to a panic attack. “Intellectually, I knew Kamal was at Camp Hell—but this is the first time I’ve found a face to put to the name…or maybe vice-versa. Either way, I just now realized exactly how well-acquainted we were…and let’s just say there were reasons I conveniently ‘forgot.’”

  A blur of experimentation tried to push to the surface and I shoved it back down.

  I paused and backed into the wall as an orderly wheeled by with a bunch of supplies. Once he was past, I said, “So, Kamal signed me in to Camp Hell. And then he was director here at The Clinic when Heliotrope’s doors closed two years later. And if we can believe Bertelli, at that time, this place was a glorified pill dispensary.” Back then, I hadn’t really given it much thought. I was so unaccustomed to having any amount of personal liberty—and so busy pretending to be cop material—I never realized The Clinic wasn’t particularly interested in my well-being. They were just making sure Auracel didn’t kill me.

  Once we were in the privacy of Jacob’s makeshift office, he took me by the upper arms and said, “Listen to me. You’re safe. I’ve got your back. And wherever Kamal ended up, he’s not here. Not now.”

  And the past is just the past. I took a few breaths to calm the impending freakout and told my memories I’d deal with them later. I didn’t think they’d actually listen, mind you. But I knew how the movie ended, and the tall, skinny kid with the bad attitude does make it through to the credits. Besides, wherever Kamal was these days, he’d gone so far underground, it wasn’t as if he’d pose any threat to me now.

  Jacob dug back into his files with renewed vigor, but since I’d be no help in that arena, I set off for the break room to see if the coffee looked fresh—though to be honest, even if it had burned down to a syrup, I’d probably choke down a cup. It was before my arbitrary and useless cutoff point, after all, so I’d better take advantage of it. The break room was empty except for Gina, whose cheaters hung on a string of alarmingly pink plastic beads today.

  “Is it true?” she asked dramatically. “Did you follow Reginald to the hospital?”

  “I did.” As I said so, I wondered exactly how much information I should give. I wasn’t bound by doctor/client privilege, after all. But I’d also need to be sure not to leak anything sensitive about the investigation…all while making sure my contacts didn’t get frustrated with me. But no pressure. “He woke up.”

  “Oh, thank God.” Gina collapsed into an uncomfortable plastic chair. “I was worried sick about him. He’s a real character, you know? Always joking around with the staff. He would make up songs about us and sing them. Right on the spot.”

  She was clearly hurting, so I said, “I can’t really speak for him medically. But he seemed lucid.”

  “Thank God,” she repeated. We sat together, gazing at the crumb-scattered table for a few seconds. And then Gina said, “Just when I thought the kinks with psychical meds were all worked out, something awful like this comes along. And now the clouds are gathering.”

  “Wait, what?”

  Gina gave a nervous titter. “Ignore me—you know how it is, the mouth engages before the brain’s in gear. Kick just has us all on edge.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It’s pretty morbid to think I was basically lingering around The Clinic waiting for someone to OD—but that’s what it amounted to. Thankfully, or not, no one did. I gathered Jacob from his mass of paperwork and the two of us headed home. The sun was still out, if only for another half-hour, so I drove. I was in the general vicinity of LaSalle when I realized that while The Clinic hadn’t seen any overdoses, that didn’t mean we were in the clear.

  When we visit the hospital, we get to use the staff parking—a perk of being a big shot federal agent. Also the reason we encountered Dr. Gillmore crouching behind the fender of a small silver Prius.

  “Someone dinged my car,” she said in disgust as we approached. There was a scuff of red paint on the back bumper. “If I call the cops, what would they do?”

  “Take a report,” I said. “Eventually. It’s more of an insurance matter.”

  “This is why we can’t have nice things. So, what can I do for you today?”

  “Actually, we came to check on Reginald.”

  “Reginald is out of my hands.” She must’ve seen the panic in my eyes, because she was quick to add, “We discharged him this morning. He went home.”

  Thank God.

  “Speaking generally,” I said, “why do you think it is that anyone would be eager to try another hit of Kick? I’ve experienced the sort of cramps you get from a psyactive, and they’re brutal.” I met Jacob’s eyes. He nodded, remembering his own ride on the horse pills to the land of painful hamstrings. “Add the killer headache and the potential for dropping dead…I just don’t get it.”

  Gillmore shook her head. “You’re the psychic, not me. Why would you want to mess with your talent? Is more always better?”

  “Not necessarily.” While it would certainly be convenient to have 20/20 vision all the time where ghosts were concerned, I couldn’t say I dug the sensation of my subtle bodies falling out. It was like putting on yesterday’s pants, heading outside, and only then realizing you had a pair of used underwear dragging along at the hem. “But judging by what Reginald told me, he wasn’t actually trying to increase his ability. It was more like an urge. You know—an itch you can’t help but scratch.”

  Jacob said, “Is there some kind of test that can be run to explain what’s going on? A scale of addictiveness?”

  Gillmore shook her head. “Empirically? No. It’s not like rating Scoville units, where they can pull the capsaicin out of a chili pepper and tell you how hot it is. Addiction is measured by the diagnosis of observed and self-reported behavioral symptoms.”

  Going by what Reginald told me, then…Kick was disturbingly addictive if he hated every minute he was on it and then immediately jonesed for more.

  Three more patients had come through the LaSalle ER, unconscious, with blood pressure through the roof, while Jacob and I were at The Clinic that day. “And tremors,” Gillmore added. “Every one of them had tremors.”

  “Like DTs?” I asked.

  “No. Alcohol withdrawal—that’s a shiver. What I saw in the ER today was more like…” she jerked her arm as if she’d just noticed a spider crawling across her hand. “More like a twitch.”

  “Maybe from the cramps,” I ventured.

  “Mayb
e? We need answers, Agent. I suggest you figure out what’s going on before anyone else dies.”

  Yeah. That was the idea. “What I really need is to get a handle on people after their first or second dose. Not when they’re at death’s door. Is there any way to divert people like that to the psychic clinic in Lincolnwood?”

  “It’s not that simple. There are systems in place. But I’ll try.”

  It was probably for the best that Gillmore was on her way home. That way she didn’t have to watch Jacob commandeer the personal info on the three ODs so we could retrace their steps and try to figure out where they’d scored. From the passenger seat of the Crown Vic, he fed all the info to the Surveillance Department to get the team working on their timelines. Hooray for smartphones. And Surveillance Departments.

  Meanwhile, I worked on getting us home. I was perfectly capable of driving at night…I just hated doing it. But I didn’t want to sit around doing nothing while Jacob ironed things out with HQ, so I sucked down white light and turned down a less trafficked side street. It wasn’t as brightly lit as the main drag, and it was peppered with stop signs, but I’d be less likely to be spooked by any repeaters.

  A double-parked car had me regretting my decision until I spotted a nearby alley. Residential alleyways in Chicago all look pretty much the same…unless they’re yours, in which case you tend to recognize the graffiti.

  Somehow, I’d ended up by my old apartment again. Unless there were multiple spots in the city where really poor spellers had tagged a sagging garage with the epithet “fuker.” Which might actually be the name of a metal band, if you threw in a random umlaut.