9

Darryl’s door swung open and someone said, “May we come in?”

He looked up from where he was sitting on his bed to see fucking Drexler standing there in his fucking white suit. He wanted to charge the son of a bitch, knock him down, beat the living shit out of him.

But Darryl wasn’t feeling so hot, and Drexler had his cane, and Hank was standing behind him.

“You bastard,” Darryl said. “You sent me to that doctor and he told everyone. Ain’t that against the law?”

“It most certainly is. And if you can identify the member of his staff who abrogated your right to privacy, I believe you’ll have excellent grounds for legal action.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“I have no idea. And whatever happens won’t raise your standing with your fellow Kickers here, nor will it alter the course of your disease. But I may have an option for you in the latter regard.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I repeat my initial request: May we come in?”

Darryl waved them in. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

Drexler stepped inside, followed by Hank who closed the door behind them.

“Darryl,” Drexler said, “I believe your AIDS can be cured.”

“That’s what the medical grifters say, but you and I know it ain’t so.”

“I am not offering an alternative crackpot therapy. I believe I can offer the real thing.”

Darryl stared at him. “You can cure AIDS? Yeah? Fuck you.”

“I’m quite serious. But I don’t mean that I can do it personally. I’m referring to the Orsa.”

Darryl laughed—and had to admit it wasn’t a nice sound.

“You’re telling me that overgrown jelly bean in the basement can cure AIDS? You must take me for some sort of royal, world-class dumbass.”

“Well, not the Orsa itself, but . . . remember the dark streak you saw inside it? It is an ancient, special compound. That holds the cure.”

Darryl shifted his gaze from Drexler to Hank. “This true?”

Hank shrugged. “I know as much as you do. I just heard about this a few minutes ago.”

Back to Drexler. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch. Tradition has it—”

A phone started ringing. Drexler pulled his cell from his pocket and stared at it, frowning.

“Excuse me. I must take this.”

He stepped out into the hall and lowered his voice, but Darryl could still hear him.

“Finally, some good news . . . Waste no time. I want you to see him immediately. Yes, you personally . . . I don’t care about that. You go see him, take whoever you wish, do whatever necessary to learn what he knows, then end this . . . yes, that’s just what I mean. I want this over and done with today. Today, is that clear? . . . Good.”

Drexler returned, looking less distracted.

“Where was I? Oh, yes. Tradition has it that the compound within the Orsa holds the cure to all diseases.”

“Riiiiiight.”

Drexler’s turn to shrug. “I can but quote tradition: ‘A night spent upon the Orsa compound will heal all wounds, cure all ills.’ ”

Darryl snorted. “Yeah. Like they had AIDS back then.”

“ ‘All ills’ is fairly comprehensive, don’t you think?”

“Maybe. But ‘a night spent’? What’s that about?”

“You must spread the compound upon the surface of where you lie”—he pointed to Darryl’s bed—“and sleep upon it. Spread it on your sheet.”

“What? That’s crazy!”

“Hey, Darryl,” Hank said. “What’s the downside?”

“Sleeping on some kinda dirt? You do it!”

Hank’s expression was grim. “I’ve already done it—when I was down and out. And I’m not the one who’s going to be out on the street tomorrow.”

Yeah, well, there was that. One thing he didn’t get, though . . . He looked at Drexler. “Why are you doing this? You don’t care about me. You’re always trying to get me out of the room. Now you want to help? I don’t get it.”

“It is true I have tended to lose patience with you at times, but that doesn’t mean I dislike you or wish you ill. Did I not arrange medical care for you as soon as I saw those suspicious lesions on your skin? I know you are valuable to Mister Thompson, and when I heard that he was being forced to evict you, I felt I had to act.”

“He’s offering you a chance, Darryl. This whole Orsa thing is so weird, it just might work.”

Hank and Drexler stood before him, silent, waiting. City sounds drifted in from the street below as Darryl tried to make up his mind.

Seemed crazy, but what if it worked? How could he refuse? And even if it didn’t, he couldn’t see much downside except . . .

Except that Drexler was offering it. Darryl knew he didn’t give a shit about him. He remembered the look on his face yesterday morning when he’d seen those spots. His interest had seemed almost gleeful and . . . calculating.

Maybe it was nothing more than seeing Darryl as a guinea pig, a chance to try out the cure-all dust. If it worked, he’d have struck gold—a license to print money. And Darryl . . . Darryl would be cured.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it. Bring it on. Bring me this stuff and I’ll bed down with it.”

“It’s not quite so simple as that,” Drexler said. “There’s a condition . . .”