Free Revolution No. 9 by Neil McMahon Page B

interval.
    The vodka arrived, handed silently through the doorway by Marguerite. The smell of marijuana smoke wafted in with her. The vodka was Stolichnaya. Apparently Freeboot wasn’t roughing it when it came to liquor.
    Monks didn’t bother to ask for cotton swabs. He wadded up a few tissues, soaked them with vodka, then sat on the bed again. Mandrake still seemed to be asleep, and didn’t stir when Monks pricked his finger with a lancet.
    Monks squeezed a drop of blood onto one of the strips and fed it into the meter. The LED readout showed 326 milligrams per deciliter—severe to dangerous. Normal was 80 to 120.
    Mandrake’s eyes fluttered as Monks eased him onto his back. Monks rubbed his shoulders and started talking, trying to soothe him.
    â€œWhat about fishing?” Monks said. “You ever go fishing? I bet there’s some monster trout up in these streams.”
    Mandrake’s eyes drifted shut. His diaper was wet again.Monks unfastened it, then peeled the wrapper off one of the pre-calibrated syringes and drew three units of the RU-100 into it.
    â€œMaybe that’s what we ought to do tomorrow,” he said, swabbing Mandrake’s abdomen with fresh vodka-soaked tissues. “We’ll dig up some big fat worms and catch a trout for your mom to cook. How’s that?”
    He pinched up a roll of unresisting flesh and made a quick stab with the needle, slowly depressing the plunger as he kept talking. The shot was subcutaneous, not penetrating into muscle, but still a sting. Mandrake did not react at all.
    Monks withdrew the needle and swabbed the spot again, then eased the diaper free. He tossed it in the bucket and got a couple of fresh ones.
    â€œI’m starting to take you seriously,” Freeboot said, watching him dry the little boy.
    â€œThat warms my heart,” Monks said curtly.
    This time Freeboot didn’t seem offended. He leaned back against a wall and took a flat round can from his pocket—Copenhagen chewing tobacco, Monks observed, the kind favored by cowboys. But instead of taking a chew, Freeboot dipped in the point of his knife, and brought it out mounded with white powder. He inhaled it with a quick, harsh snorting sound.
    He dipped the knife in again and offered it to Monks.
    â€œBiker crank,” Freeboot said. “Keep you going.”
    Monks shook his head.
    â€œYou a law-and-order guy?”
    â€œIf I was judgmental about what I saw in the ER, I’d have shot myself in the head a long time ago,” Monks said.
    Freeboot lifted the knife to his nose and inhaled again, then wiped the back of his hand under his nostrils and put the can away.
    â€œI’ve got a couple of questions,” he said.
    â€œI’m not much for polite conversation when I’m chained up.”
    Freeboot ignored this barb, too. “About what’s going on with the kid. I want you to help me believe you, man.”
    Monks reminded himself that stubbornness wasn’t going to do either Mandrake or him any good.
    â€œI’ll tell you what I can,” he said.
    â€œIt gets passed on by bad genes, right? The diabetes?”
    â€œMy understanding is that there’s some genetic predisposition, but it’s not cut and dried. Diabetic parents can have nondiabetic kids, and vice versa.”
    â€œBut it isn’t something you catch, like AIDS or hepatitis?”
    Monks noted that Freeboot had chosen as examples two diseases that were prevalent in prisons. Like his tattoos, it suggested a familiarity with that milieu.
    â€œNo,” Monks said, “it’s genetic, but so are thousands of other things that might or might not ever show up. Something triggers them, and there are probably thousands of triggers, too.”
    â€œSay, the parents don’t have it, but the kid does. Is there any way to tell if one of the parents passed it on?”
    Monks paused in his diapering and glanced at Freeboot, remembering what