The Mirror Man, стр. 66
She was silent, but his request didn’t seem to set off any noticeable alarms in her.
“No,” she said at last. “We need to do this now. Let me just go and get the injections. I’ll be right back.”
She left him alone in her office. He knew from experience that it would take her only a few minutes to return with the necessary supplies. Before panic could fully set in and paralyze him, Jeremiah did something he’d never done in his life. He stuck a finger in his throat, as far back as he could manage, until his eyes watered and he gagged and he finally vomited all over the carpet, narrowly missing his own feet.
“Oh, my God,” she muttered when she returned. She stopped in midstep and stared down at the mess on the floor, syringes in hand and a look of confusion and mild disgust in her eyes. “Are you ill, Jeremiah?”
“Maybe. With everything that’s happened, I think it might just be nerves,” he said. “God, I hope I don’t have something contagious.”
She looked at him coldly for a moment and then pursed her lips and shook her head.
“Perhaps it might be best if we waited, then. We’ll do this at our next session in a few days. Maybe you should go lie down while I find someone who can clean up this mess.”
He mopped at the sweat on his face and tried not to look as though he’d just dodged a bullet.
“Yeah, I think I will,” he said.
Chapter 32
Back in the apartment, Jeremiah paced the floors. He’d bought himself a few days, maybe, but he no longer had the luxury of meticulous plotting. He had to settle on a plan and make a move. It was time to act.
He’d pretty much decided on stabbing. It was quick, quiet and completely controllable. He’d seriously considered poisoning at first. A lot of murder mysteries he’d read used this as the least traceable method of killing someone, but he didn’t need to worry about that. If he did it right, there wouldn’t be any indication of a murder at all and there wouldn’t be anything to trace. The clone would be gone, and he would take its place. Besides, poison was too unpredictable, and it might take too long. The idea of shooting the clone appealed to him on some level, too. It was violent, explosive, and the idea of blowing the thing away like that gave him a surge of satisfaction. He liked to imagine Charles Scott’s reaction to that kind of violence against his creation. But gunshots would attract too much attention on his suburban street. Besides, Jeremiah had never used a gun in his life, never even held a gun, and how would he even get his hands on one? Stabbing was the way to go, he decided. A knife was a simple, instinctual weapon, and something about the proximity involved in stabbing was enticing to him. He liked the idea of using his own hands to do this. It seemed poetically appropriate.
His kitchen was equipped with all manner of knives to choose from. Evidently, he mused, no one had ever considered the possibility that the lab rat might think to arm himself. All he needed was a sure way out of here.
Brent was due for a viewing early that evening. Jeremiah was dreading what they’d have to watch. His heart sank at the thought of seeing Parker’s face, of watching the clone fumble to comfort him. He wasn’t sure he could have done a better job, but he wished more than anything else that he could have the chance to try. Parker certainly knew about his mother’s death by now. The news had been broken to him and the first sting of shock subsided enough for it to feel real to him. Jeremiah imagined he was out of school for a few days while arrangements for the funeral were being made and details were taken care of. His double would be busy with that. He’d have that needed distraction. But Parker would have nothing but long stretches of time to wallow and grapple with the untamed emotions of an adolescent boy. The idea of it broke his heart.
When Brent walked in before 5:00 p.m. he carried two white-handled shopping bags that he placed on the counter in the kitchen.
“Dinner,” he told Jeremiah. “I figured you haven’t been eating. I smuggled in Chinese, and plenty of it. Screw the goddamn diet.”
He emptied one bag of several steaming cartons, which, Jeremiah admitted, smelled good. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. From the other bag, Brent took a good-size bottle of whiskey.
“And dessert,” he said.
“I’ll have dessert first, in that case.”
Brent nodded and got two small glasses from a cupboard, filled them each halfway and handed one to Jeremiah, who downed it and held his glass out for a refill.
They ate in relative silence in the living room, in front of the empty viewing wall. Soon enough it switched on automatically, and Jeremiah saw an image of his own kitchen table where, ironically, his clone and his son were eating directly from white Chinese food cartons. For a while, there was no discussion between them, either.
“When do I go back to school?” Parker asked at last.
The clone looked up from his food in surprise. “The wake is Friday, day after tomorrow,” he said. “And then the funeral is Saturday. Maybe Monday if you want. You can take a few more days, though. I’ve spoken to the school. It won’t be a problem.”
Jeremiah winced. He understood at once his son’s desire to get back to a routine, to trick the mind into thinking everything was normal again. Parker didn’t understand that it wouldn’t work that way. How could he?
“No. I’d rather go