DeVille's Contract. Scott Zarcinas

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СКАЧАТЬ Maybe these walls were really two-way mirrors. They could see in, but he couldn’t see out. “This isn’t funny anymore!” he shouted, straining against the invisible strap. “Get me outta this goddamn chair!”

      No one came, as he had half expected. He didn’t even hear any scuffled footsteps.

      “That’s goddamn it!”

      He arched his back and thrashed his arms and legs, shaking his head from side to side and screaming, “Get me outta this goddamn chair!” After a minute or so (it could have been longer, five or ten minutes maybe, it was hard to tell, maybe even shorter) he gave up and sunk into the leather layback. Though he hated it, absolutely hated it, he would just have to wait until the prankster returned and let him loose.

      And wouldn’t he give the scumbag a piece of his mind when he did.

      Then, just as he felt his eyelids begin to sag, he heard scuffled footsteps approach and stop (from left or right, or up or down, he couldn’t tell). This time they didn’t fade away. This time he heard whispers. Like the scuffles, they were hard to locate; they were just everywhere. He couldn’t catch the whole of the conversation, but there was no doubt who they were talking about. He strained against the invisible strap and yelled, “Who the hell is there?”

      The whispering ceased. Then a booming voice almost shook him off his layback, reverberating from all corners of the room. “LOUIS DEVILLE!” He was too stunned to answer. Though loud, the voice wasn’t painful like the warbling had been, just something that seemed to emanate, the verbal equivalent of the light. “ARE YOU READY?”

      Ready for what? he thought. “It’s Lewey. Not Lewis,” he said, directing himself to the ceiling. Whoever was talking to him must be talking from somewhere up there. “And you’d better have a goddamn good excuse for tying me up like this. I know my rights. My lawyers will sling your sorry ass to court quicker than you can call your defense union.”

      He sank back waiting for the retort, but the voice remained silent for some time. For a horrid moment, he thought he’d been left alone again. Then it spoke.

      “LOUIS DEVILLE! ARE YOU READY?”

      “Stop calling me Lewis! It’s Lewey, goddamn it!”

      Another momentary pause, then, “ARE YOU READY?”

      Struggling to prop himself on his elbows, he said, “Ready for what you goddamn piece of shit?”

      “TO SIGN THE CONTRACT!”

      Louis kept scanning the room for originator of the voice, failing to see anything past the bright walls and ceiling that were continuing to radiate like some x-rayed slab of Glow In The Dark putty. He wasn’t surprised. His first hunch was becoming increasingly likely; he was in one of those two-way mirrored rooms watched by god knows how many medics and professors analyzing his every word and gesture. He had seen the TV shows. He knew what they were doing behind the screen. Still propped on his elbows, he said, “What contract? My health insurance is paid up. I don’t owe you a damn thing.”

      “YOU HAVE A CHOICE.”

      Two contracts? Now there was a goddamn novelty. “I’m not signing anything until I read them,” he said. Then, as an afterthought: “I want my lawyers to go through them, too.”

      He heard a whisper hushing around the room, above, below, forward, behind, left and right, everywhere in fact. It was difficult to tell whether there was more than one or whether the voice was just whispering to itself. Then: “NO LAWYERS.”

      “Goddamn it!” he shouted to the ceiling. “Just who the hell do you think you are? I’m entitled to legal representation.”

      Again, more whispering followed a studied pause. Then: “NO LAWYERS.”

      Louis took a moment to think. He was in a Mexican standoff. Except he wasn’t really, was he? They – whoever they were – had him by the short and curlies. They could see him, but he couldn’t see them. They came and went as they pleased, while he was restrained like a goddamned psychopath the medics were too afraid to untie for fear of letting loose the devil. He hated it, but he really had no choice apart from accepting their conditions and making some sort of compromise. Still, at least they were offering him a choice. It probably wouldn’t do any harm to have a look. Maybe he could stall for time while he tried to work out just what the hell was happening. He didn’t have to put pen to paper just yet.

      Louis said to the ceiling, “I’ll look at the contracts on one condition.”

      Whispers hushed around the room before it spoke again. “STATE YOUR TERMS.”

      Louis smiled. A minor victory, Louis my boy, but there’s a long way to go yet. “Remove these goddamn shackles,” he said.

      Instantly, the invisible restraint loosened around his waist. He sat up and dangled his legs over the edge. On the floor at the base of the layback were two contracts he hadn’t noticed before; one a wad of paper as thick as a telephone directory, the other a single folio scrolled and tied with a purple ribbon. He jumped down, surprised at the ease and litheness at which he landed on the floor, and picked them up. Now that he had the medics listening to him, it was time for the next item on the agenda.

      “How long do I keep these bandages on?” he asked, putting the contracts on the leather layback.

      The voice didn’t answer immediately. “YOU HAVE A CHOICE.”

      Louis glanced up at the ceiling, slightly bemused. “You’re the docs. Aren’t you supposed to tell me when they can come off?”

      The voice repeated itself.

      Louis shrugged. If that was the way it was, then he chose now. He grabbed a loose end of a bandage on his wrist and unwound it. There was another bandage underneath. He unwound that one too. There was another. And another. “What the hell’s going on?” he said, growling under his breath. Then to the ceiling: “Get these goddamn bandages off me!”

      “MAKE YOUR CHOICE,” the voice said. It wasn’t a threat, just a simple statement of fact.

      Louis glanced down at the leather layback and picked up the scroll with the purple ribbon. He was surprised to read that it wasn’t a contract at all. It was a goddamn party invitation. Louis DeVille is hereby invited to attend the Celebration of Life at the Mansion of Many Rooms. He reread it, thinking it some kind of childish joke. There was no name, no indication as to who had written it. Nor was it dated; and he had no idea where in hell he was supposed to find the address of the Mansion of Many Rooms. His signature wasn’t even required at the bottom. What kind of goddamn contract was this? Something his useless wife would have come up with. It was even hand written in amateurish scrawl. The whole thing was farcical, just like this entire goddamn state of affairs.

      When he glanced down at the thick wad of paper, it suddenly clicked what he was meant to do. Maybe that’s it. Maybe this whole thing is a test.

      He tossed the scroll over his shoulder and flicked through the other contract. Now this was more like it. Six hundred and sixty-six typed pages of detailed contractual obligations. Though, to his dismay, there were more clauses and sub-clauses than he had seen on any document, more than he reckoned he would find on the latest amendment to the constitution of the United Goddamn States of America. It would take him over a month to get through all the legalese mumbo jumbo.

      He СКАЧАТЬ