Elephant Man - Christine Sparks [38]
Treves walked down the corridor toward the stairwell and started down the steps, barely seeing where he was going until his eye focused sharply on the next landing below him and disclosed the unwelcome presence of Bytes. At the same moment Bytes spotted him and halted on the landing, yelling upwards like a fox that has sighted the prey.
“I want my man back,” he bawled.
Treves hastened down the stairs. The last thing he wanted was Carr-Gomm to hear this unsavory creature and emerge from his office. He met Bytes halfway down and was immediately enveloped in a cloud of gin fumes.
“Just a moment,” he snapped. “How did you get in here?”
Bytes glowered, refusing to be diverted. “Never mind that. I want my man.”
“He’s still very sick. Please come downstairs with me. I’ll explain the situation.” He attempted to take Bytes by the arm and edge him back down the stairs. He made it as far as the first landing before Bytes wriggled free and bawled into Treves’ face.
“Don’t … Don’t muck about with me! You’ve had plenty of time to fix him up, and he’s leaving with me, now. Do you understand me? Now, Mr. Treves. We had a bargain!”
“You misunderstood,” said Treves flatly. “This man suffered a severe fall, if you take my meaning.” He stared back at Bytes, feeling the hopelessness of trying to frighten a man made belligerent by drink and desperation. Some distant part of his mind prayed that no one in the hospital would hear Bytes yelling about their bargain. “He’s my patient now and I must do what …”
“Pull the other one, why don’t you! We made a deal!”
“I know what you’ve done to him and he’s never going back to that.”
“He’s a freak! That’s how they live. We’re partners, he and I, business partners. You’re willfully depriving me of my livelihood!” The legal-sounding phrases came out with a dreadful practiced ease. Treves wondered how many police interventions Bytes had fought off in the past.
“All you do is profit from another man’s misery!” he said.
Bytes thrust his face closer. A terrible knowingness shadowed his eyes. Treves had to fight to prevent himself from flinching.
“You think you’re better than me?” Bytes whispered at him. “You wanted to show the freak to all your doctor chums and make a name for yourself. You, my friend. So I gave him to you. On trust, in the name of science! And now I want him back.”
“You don’t own this man!” Treves said, tight lipped with fury.
“I want him back!”
“So you can beat him? So you can starve him? A dog in the street would fare better with you!” Treves had forgotten about caution and was now bawling back.
“I’ve got my rights, damn you, and I’m going to the authorities!”
“Well, go to the authorities …” said a bored, silky voice from above them.
Both men wheeled to see the elegant figure of Carr-Gomm regarding them from the top step. When he was quite sure he had struck both of them dumb with amazement he continued. “By all means do so. In fact, I’ll fetch them myself. I’m quite sure they’d be very interested in your story, as well as ours.”
Livid, knowing himself defeated, Bytes glared at Treves, then at Carr-Gomm, then at Treves again.
“Now I think we really do understand one another,” said Treves.
Bytes almost choked on his own venom. “Right … right …” he seemed incapable of saying anything else but these words in threatening tones. Slowly he backed down the stairs, his eyes flickering back and forth between Carr-Gomm and Treves. It would have been hard to say which of them he loathed the most at that moment. When he reached the landing a change came over him. His hatred seemed to drop from him like a cloak he had shrugged off. His aspect became casual, that of a man who has decided to cut his losses and search out the next good thing. The look he gave them before he vanished down the stairs was almost cheeky.
Treves and Carr-Gomm were left to stare at each other, both feeling they had been led into territory they had not meant to travel. It was Carr-Gomm who spoke first.