"It,s all happening faster with him," Grace said. "Much faster. But then he,s so damned young. Just a few years makes such a remarkable difference."
Stuart had broken out in a terrible rash from the antibiotics and then the rash had simply vanished. Not to worry, Grace said. The fever and delirium were frightening but there was no infection and the boy came out of it for hours every day, long enough to demand to see people, to threaten to break out of the window if he didn,t get his cell phone and computer, and to fight with his mother who wanted him to exonerate his stepfather completely. He claimed to be hearing voices, to know things about what was going on in buildings surrounding the hospital, to be agitated, eager to get out of bed, uncooperative. He was afraid of his stepfather, afraid of him hurting his mother. Invariably the staff sedated him.
"She,s an awful woman, this mother," Grace confided. "She,s jealous of her son. She blames him for the stepfather,s rages. She treats him like a pesky little brother who,s ruining her life with her new boyfriend. And the boy doesn,t get how childish she really is, and it makes me sick."
"I remember her," Reuben murmured.
But Grace was as adamant as everyone else that Reuben couldn,t see Stuart. No visitors were allowed just now. It was all they could do to hold off the sheriff and the police, and the attorney general,s office. So how could she make an exception for Reuben?
"They upset him with their questions," she said.
Reuben understood.
They came to Nideck Point four times during the week, pressing for information, as Reuben sat patiently on the couch by the big fireplace explaining again and again that he had seen nothing of "the beast" that attacked him. Over and over again, he led them to the hallway where the attack had taken place. He showed them the windows that had been bashed out. They seemed satisfied. Then they came back twenty-four hours later.
He hated it, struggling to sound sincere, helpless in the face of their curiosity, eager to please, when inwardly he was trembling. They were honest enough, but they were a nuisance.
The press was camped on the Santa Rosa hospital door. A fan club had sprung up among Stuart,s old high school friends, and they picketed daily demanding that the murderer be brought to justice. Two radical nuns joined the group. They told the world that the San Francisco Man Wolf cared more about cruelty to gay youth than the people of California.
In the early evenings, Reuben, in his hoodie and glasses, faithfully wandered the pavements outside the hospital, circling the block, listening, pondering, brooding. He could have sworn once that he saw Stuart at the window. Could Stuart hear him? He whispered that he was there, that he wasn,t leaving Stuart alone, that he was waiting.
"This kid is in no danger of death," Grace averred. "You can forget that. But I have to get to the root of these symptoms. I have to figure out what this syndrome signifies. And this is becoming a consuming passion."
Yeah, and a dangerous one too, thought Reuben, but he cared more than anything else that Stuart live, and he trusted Grace to care more about that than anything else.
Meantime there had been a falling-out between Grace and the mysterious Dr. Jaska, though Grace obviously didn,t want to tell Reuben why. Suffice it to say the doctor was making suggestions Grace didn,t like.
"Reuben, the guy believes in things, unusual things," Grace said. "It,s a veritable obsession. There are other red flags. If he contacts you, cut him off."
"Will do," said Reuben.
But Jaska was buzzing around Stuart and engaging his mother in long conversations as to the boy,s mysterious encounter with the Man Wolf, and Grace was leery of it. He was suggesting that mysterious hospital in Sausalito that had no documentation and was licensed only as a private rehabilitation center.
"He,s not getting anywhere for one good reason," said Grace. "That woman doesn,t give a damn."
Reuben was frantic with worry. He drove south and sought out Stuart,s mother at her sprawling modern redwood-and-glass palace east of Santa Rosa on Plum Ranch Road.
Yes, she remembered him from the hospital, he was the handsome one. Come on in. No, she wasn,t worried about Stuart. Seems like he had more doctors than she knew what to do with. Some weirdo from Russia, a Dr. Jaska, wanted to see him but Dr. Golding and Dr. Cutler