“How about your friend? Is she armed?”
Karen pictured Red Two’s gun. She wondered if she could figure out how to load it, aim it, and fire it. She did not even dare contemplate the killing part of the equation.
“No,” she lied.
The director paused. “I’m not supposed to say this,” she said. She lowered her voice almost to a whisper, leaning forward. “But I won’t allow another incident like the one last year.”
She raised her hand and placed a large semiautomatic pistol on the desk. It was black and heartless. Karen stared at it for a moment and then nodded. “That makes me feel substantially better,” she said with a small laugh.
The woman removed the pistol to her desk drawer. “I take combat classes at the gun range.”
“A wise hobby.”
“I’ve become an expert shot.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“When will you be bringing your friend in?”
“Soon,” Karen said. “Very soon.”
“Intake is round-the-clock. Any time is the right time. Two in the afternoon. Two in the morning. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“I will tell the staff to expect a new guest at potentially any time.”
“That would be most helpful.”
Karen gathered her things. She sensed the interview was at an end, but the director had one final question.
The director looked at her closely. “It is a friend we’re talking about, isn’t it?”
Red One had one more stop to make before going to her office for the remainder of the day. It was a place she’d been many times before but that, even with her medical training and experience, she found too sad for words.
One of the things she’d always noticed about the hospice center at the retirement home was that the lights in the entranceway were bright, harsh, fluorescent, and unforgiving, but as one worked his or her way deeper into the building, they softened, the shadows grew larger, and the white walls turned to shades of yellowish gray. The building itself seemed to reflect dying.
Bagpipes, she remembered from her last visit.
The hospice nurses were a little surprised to see Karen. They hadn’t called her. “Just checking on some old paperwork,” Karen said breezily as she swept past the desks where the nurses hung out when they took momentary breaks from the relentless dying that filled the rooms. She knew that explanation was more than enough to give her privacy.
She went into a small side room with a copying machine, a coffeemaker on a table, and three large black steel filing cabinets. It did not take her long to find the manila file that she needed.
She took this back to her desk and opened up the computer, adjusting it in front of her. For an instant, she was tempted by the stale package of cigarettes in the top drawer, waiting for her. She realized that she hadn’t had a smoke in days. Good for you, Mr. Big Bad Wolf, she thought. Maybe you’ve helped me finally kick the habit. So when you kill me you’ll be saving me from a really nasty end. Can’t thank you enough.
Cancer was what she was looking for in the file. Not exactly the disease. But it was what killed the person whose file she spread out on her desk.
Cynthia Harrison. A common enough name, Karen thought. That’s good. Thirty-eight years old. Young for breast cancer. That was sad. But just three years older than Red Two.
A husband. No children. Probably that’s how she found out the bad news: when she couldn’t conceive. They started to run some routine fertility tests and troubling indications showed up in the results. Then it would have been a rapid treadmill of doctors, treatments, and never-ending pain.
Cynthia was in hospice for just three weeks, following unsuccessful radiation that was followed by equally unsuccessful surgery. They sent her here because it’s the least expensive place to die. If she’d stayed in the hospital it would have cost thousands. And they knew she had just long enough for folks to make the right arrangements.
She checked the funeral home information and saw which of her colleagues had signed the death certificate. It was the surgeon. He probably wanted to sign and forget about his failure. She wrote all the necessary information down on a pad of paper, all Cynthia Harrison’s vital statistics: Date of birth. Place of birth. Last address. Profession. Next of kin. Social security number. Relevant medical history. Height. Weight. Eye color. Hair color. Karen parsed every detail she could from the extensive hospice file.
After she closed the paper file, she found all of Cynthia Harrison’s computer entries in the hospice archive. These she moved to the trash bin. Then she electronically emptied the trash. She knew that someone skilled would be able to find it all, if driven to do so. But she doubted anyone would be.
Then she walked down the hallway to one of the nursing stations. It was a simple matter of finding a red-colored Danger! Infectious Medical Waste plastic bag and a large sealed container where needles, used sample cups, and anything that might have picked up some powerful virus or deadly bacteria were tossed.
“Sorry, Cynthia,” she whispered. “I wish I’d known you.” Except now I do, Karen finished the thought. She rolled up the entire file tightly and snugged it into the plastic bag, sealing the top carefully before dropping it into the closed bin designed for the sole purpose of keeping everyone safe.
Red Two danced.
She waltzed with an invisible partner. She tangoed to sexy electric beats. She bowed across the room to empty space, as if following the stately steps of an elaborate Elizabethan galliard. When the music changed, she started to twitch and shake as if on a modern dance floor. Dancing with the Stars, she thought. No, Dancing with the Wolf. She mimicked ridiculous ’60s dances like the Frug and the Watusi that she remembered her parents demonstrating at silly moments. At one point, she even launched into the Macarena, gyrating her hips suggestively. Eventually, as exhaustion crept into her steps, she became balletic, moving her arms above her head slowly and spinning about. Swan Lake, she hoped. She had seen a performance as a teenager. Stirring. Beautiful. It was the sort of magical memory that an impressionable fifteen-year-old girl never forgets. Once she’d expected to take her daughter to see a similar show. No longer. In the small world of the basement, she lifted her arms above her head and tried to raise herself up on her toes, like the dancer playing a white swan would, but it was impossible.
Her music was contradictory. None of the songs that filled her head matched her movements. Rock and roll wasn’t like square dancing, even if that was what she did.
Red Three had left her an iPod with several playlists designated Waiting Music. She did not recognize all the performers-she had never heard of David Wax Museum or The Iguanas and had no idea who someone named Silina Musango was or who made up a group called The Gourds. But the music Red Three had selected for her was irrepressible, enthusiastic, uplifting, and she appreciated the joyous rhythms and the wild energy incorporated in every song.
Red Three was trying to help, Sarah realized. Damn thoughtful of her. She knew that after I killed myself, I’d be isolated and a little crazy.
Smart girl.
Red Three had created another playlist, but Sarah didn’t listen to this one, because she didn’t think the time was yet right. She knew it would have far different sounds and selections. This playlist was titled Killing Music.
When fatigue finally overcame her, Sarah pulled out her earphones and slumped to the cement floor of Red One’s basement. It was cool beneath her cheek. She knew she was making herself filthy. Dust and grime were everywhere, and she could feel sweat streaking her forehead and dripping from her chin, but she did not care. The air was hot and thick as a result of the furnace in the corner having kicked on to heat the house. There wasn’t a window, so she could not look outside. She knew only that she was hidden and that even if the Big Bad Wolf were parked outside watching the front door, he wouldn’t be able to see her. A part of her thought that if she shut off the single overhead bulb that filled the room with weak light, it might be the same black turbulence as the river waters that she’d faked diving into.