“You really think they’d try to hurt me if I didn’t cooperate with them?”
“No. No, they won’t try to hurt you, Uncle Jake. Not that that makes much of a difference when they do. They’ll smile and apologize as they run their tests. This man Huddy won’t try to hurt you. He just won’t care if he does.”
“Then I won’t do a damn thing for him and his friends. I won’t take their tests no matter what they do to me.”
“You’ll take the tests whether you like it or not, Uncle Jake, if they get their hands on you. You can’t talk to these people. You must get away from them. Leave. Run away.”
Jake could not have said at what point he became the child listening to the adult Amanda. “But you don’t understand, Mandy. Running away’s not as easy as just saying it.”
“Uncle Jake, even I can see you doing it, and I can’t even run. We’ll figure out a way to keep these people off your back. But you have to get out of there now, before they come back for you. I need time to think about what to do. You said they gave you some time to think over the exam?”
“Two days,” he told her.
“Then you’ll have a full day’s head start. I know,” she said, delight momentarily overcoming concern, “why don’t you come to Port Lavaca? You haven’t visited us in years and years. I’ve been trying all this time to get you to come. Now you have a good excuse.”
“Mandy, if you feel that strongly about it, then I’ll do it. I’m still not convinced you’re right about Mr. Huddy or his company, but if it’s going to worry you that much….”
“It would,” she assured him.
“… Then I’ll come visit. Mighty sneaky way to talk me into coming down, though.” He tried to turn the situation into a joke. “You ought to send Mr. Huddy a thank-you note for giving you the means for talking me into this.”
“I don’t think I ever want to meet your Mr. Huddy,” she replied humorlessly. “Get yourself together fast, Uncle Jake. I know you won’t need to bring much. Once you’re here we can figure something out to discourage Huddy from bothering you. He won’t try anything around a busy household. Mom and dad will be here to help, too.”
“I’ll leave first thing in the morning,” he promised her.
“Can’t you leave right now?”
“No, I can’t.” He slipped back down under the light covers. He was tired these days, so tired. He hadn’t always tired so quickly or easily, he remembered. Getting old was no fun. He didn’t feel old. He just didn’t work as well as he used to. “Not tonight, Mandy.”
“Please, Uncle Jake? Please?”
“Give your Uncle Jake a break, Mandy.” He was already half asleep. “You’ve already talked me into coming to see you. Isn’t that enough for one evening? You know that your poor old Uncle Jake gets worn out easy. I’ll run away a lot better if I do it on a good night’s sleep. Huddy gave me two days, remember. I have plenty of time.”
“Okay,” she said worriedly, “but don’t dally around in the morning.”
“Me, a dallier?” He smiled to the empty room. “I’ll leave here first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll be up with the sun like usual and I’ll leave. But a good night’s sleep is important.”
“Alright, Uncle Jake. I can’t make you leave now. But you make sure you get away before they come back to check on you.”
“Don’t worry.” Her thoughts were already fading. “I will. I will….”
There was only a dull, empty echo of vanished consciousness in Amanda’s mind, like the wind that sweeps under the door of a tightly closed closet. She knew he was asleep.
Pushing away from the window she turned the wheelchair and rolled over to the bed. Using the armrests for support she lifted her upper body onto the mattress, then picked up her legs and pushed them under the covers. She snuggled down into the warm bed.
Worried, she was so terribly worried for him. She’d read the histories of less than ethical medical experiments. That’s surely what this man Huddy wanted to do to her beloved Uncle Jake. Experiment on him. Benignly if possible and otherwise if not. He’d want to find out how Uncle Jake made dirt and bottle caps slipt.
She’d worry all night long, until she knew he was safely out of the little house in California. In a way it might all be for the best, though she couldn’t look at it as lightly as her Uncle did. It would be so good to see him again. He was such a warm, easygoing person, a second father really. They had something in common no other two people in the world could have, something only they could share.
No, she wouldn’t stand for anybody mistreating her Uncle Jake. Everything was going to be alright, though. All he had to do was slip away without being seen. He could make this visit a long one, maybe. She knew that her mom and dad loved Uncle Jake almost as much as she did. They’d be overjoyed to have him stay. There was plenty of room in the house. She wouldn’t worry about him because he wouldn’t be living alone. It wasn’t good for him to be by himself, the Huddys of the world notwithstanding.
Maybe her mom and dad could even persuade him to stay with them permanently, here in Port Lavaca. They’d tried to do that before. Maybe now he’d listen. His heart wasn’t getting any better. Yes, everything might turn out for the good.
She turned on the pillow, smiling to herself now. She felt much better knowing that he was coming to her. As she relaxed she thought about what she hadn’t told him.
It was something she’d come to worry about as a result of all her readings and researches. She’d never managed to learn what gave Uncle Jake the ability to make things slipt or what it might mean. Of course, no one else knew about such things either.
The worry was that although he’d only made little things slipt, like bottle caps and dirt, he might be able to make other things slipt if he was pushed hard. She didn’t worry about what might happen to Uncle Jake if those circumstances ever arose.
She worried about what Uncle Jake might do to someone else.
The ambulance moved silently through the near-deserted neighborhood. Most of the children were away at morning sessions. Those parents who held jobs had been working at them for hours. Only a few housewives remained to stare curiously at the dimly marked old ambulance as it squeaked to a halt next to the barrier at the far end of the road. It backed up carefully and turned around to point back toward the city.
One man, tall and clad all in white, waited patiently behind the wheel. Two others emerged from a side door and started up the narrow trail leading to the house at the end of the dirt path.
This was better than stealing around in the middle of the night, Huddy thought. Much better. Leave it to Ruth to think up a solution to an awkward problem. Her mind was as devious as her thighs.
“Remember, Drew,” he told his subordinate quietly, “I want as little noise and activity as possible. This man has a bad heart and he’s no good to us dead. That’s ostensibly why the ‘ambulance’ is taking him in.” He nodded toward the bigger man’s shirt pocket. “The dosage should be just right. I made sure the doctor measured it out carefully.”
Drew grinned, tapped the pocket where the loaded hypodermic waited. “Old man shouldn’t give us any trouble, sir.”
Huddy nodded, turning his attention back to the house they were approaching. He didn’t like Drew much. Drew was dumber than he looked: a crude, ignorant, brutish speciman. Unfortunately, the primitive qualities of such types were sometimes required.
“I’m still hoping none of this will be necessary and that he’ll agree to come with us voluntarily.” Huddy self-consciously straightened his white physician’s smock. “If not, I’ll engage him in conversation while you slip around behind him and put him out.”
“What about finding a vein that way, Mr. Huddy? Wearing this ice cream suit doesn’t make me a paramedic.”
“You forgot,” said Huddy irritably. “The hypo’s loaded with a general sedative. You don’t need to inject a vein. Just jab it into a muscular area.”
