The woman’s husband had brought her in. He kept trying not to cry and squeezing her hand. She sagged against the plastic chair and gazed unseeing at the ceiling. A dark stain appeared at her crotch. Urine ran out of the bottom of her jeans and collected on the speckled tile floor. Tommy looked away.
“Tommy, Tommy Krazinsky?” the nurse at the head station called out.
Tommy bounded up. “Yeah? You got him?”
The nurse spoke into the phone, “Yes, he’s here. Do you wish to speak—” After a moment, she hung up the phone. “Ahh, I’m sorry. I was just given a message to make sure you were at this location. I don’t know who was asking.”
“Probably my boss? I left a message at work telling them Don was coming here. Have you heard anything about him?”
“Sorry, not yet. I’ll let you know.”
Tommy sat back down, confused. He wasn’t sure who would be looking for him. He kind of doubted his boss would try that hard to look for Don. He dug around in his overalls, pulled out a handful of business cards. He found the right one, dialed the number.
Two rings. A click. A voice. “This is Detective Johnson.”
Tommy said, “Uh, hi. This is Tommy Krazinksy. Me and my partner met you yesterday at City Hall, the Streets and Sans guys. Don’s at the CCG, but it’s . . . Something’s going on. See, he’s—” There was a high-pitched squeal and the phone went dead.
Tommy tried to call again, but his phone wasn’t working right.
Lee appeared and dropped into a seat across the aisle. “What the fuck is going on?”
Tommy jumped. He hadn’t seen Lee come in.
Tommy was angled so that he could keep an eye on the front door, and looked up every time he heard the automatic doors swish, thinking that maybe Don might have woken up and been turned loose. Instead, he watched as injured people came in, and were sent almost immediately to another hospital. He hadn’t seen the ambulance drivers either. They must have been busy shuttling people over to Northwestern.
Lee looked nervous. He was perfectly groomed, as always, snug in a tailored suit; the tie was color coordinated with his eyes. But something in his movements was off. Lee couldn’t make eye contact, and this was his strength. Lee could maintain an almost supernatural eye contact with people, making them feel at ease, or intimidating the hell out of them. It was his most formidable method of communication, and he was acting as if he could catch some sort of venereal disease if he looked at Tommy. “What the fuck happened to Don?” he finally asked.
Tommy spread his hands helplessly. “I don’t know. I went by his place because he didn’t show up for work. Found him unconsciousness on the floor. They brought him here.”
“You and Don are the two Streets and Sans guys that killed a rat in City Hall yesterday.”
Tommy nodded. “I guess so. Unless there was another rat.”
“Your partner told that story over a dozen times last night.”
Tommy nodded.
“He claimed otherwise, but honestly now, did that rat bite him?”
Tommy shook his head.
“It’s important. Did that rat draw blood in any way? The doctors need to know this.”
“No. I saw his hands afterward. No scratches.”
“His leg? Any bite anywhere?”
Tommy shook his head.
Lee’s eyes flicked to the raccoon scratches on Tommy’s hands. “You killed it with a baseball bat?”
“It’s down in the van. I didn’t break any rules that I know of.”
Lee finally looked him dead in the face, blinking furiously. “No. No, of course not. Do you want to see him?”
“Hell, yeah.”
“Let’s go then.” Lee got up and Tommy followed.
Four soldiers entered the emergency waiting room and carried the two catatonic patients into triage. Curtains were drawn.
Lee led the way into the emergency center, past three or four nurses gathered at the work station in the center of the room, cubicle rooms along the outer walls, doors nothing but shower curtains. He didn’t turn his back to Tommy. Nobody looked at them. Lee wound his way through the nearly empty emergency room to a restricted elevator. He punched in a code, and they waited for the doors to open.
“What’s wrong with him?” Tommy asked.
Lee was quiet for a moment. “They’re not sure. I was hoping you could shed some light on the situation.” They stepped into the elevator. Lee hit the fifth-floor button.
“Well, is he going to be okay?”
“They’re not sure. Nobody knows anything right now. Do you mind answering a few more questions from the doctors?”
“I’ll do whatever I can to help Don.”
“Good. That’s what I like to hear in an employee. Loyalty and enthusiasm.”
The doors opened on the fifth floor. The hallway was completely empty, and utterly enclosed in sheets of plastic, sealed shut with black Gorilla Tape. The ceiling and the floor were also covered. Each of the patients’ rooms had its own plastic tunnel through the doorway. The sheeting was thick and opaque, and filtered the light into a shifting, flickering haze. Air drafts caught the plastic, giving the whole hallway a shimmering, fluid light, almost as if it were underwater.
“Don’t worry about this,” Lee said, tapping on the plastic with his shoe. “This is something else, entirely. Got nothing to do with you. They’re painting or fumigating or some damn thing.” Lee pointed at the first room off to the right. “You can wait in there. Doctors’ll be along shortly.”
Tommy stepped through the doorway and didn’t see the men on either side of the door until it was too late. They took him down just inside the room, each grabbing an elbow, a shoulder, then sweeping his feet off the ground and slamming him to the floor. The breath exploded out of him and blackness swam in his eyes.
Something hot jabbed into his left butt cheek.
A moment later, wet concrete flowed through his veins, deadening any feeling; first his legs, then his back, his arms, and in three seconds he couldn’t hold his head up. The darkness overwhelmed his eyes and he drifted into oblivion.
CHAPTER 32
9:14 PM
August 12
Sam parked in front of a fire hydrant and left the flashers going. They got out, looked up at the hospital. Lot of bad memories in this place. Too many late nights, waiting for a gunshot victim to make it through surgery and survive long enough to give a statement or for a suspect to sleep off a bad trip so they could haul them to the station. Too many late nights interviewing weeping family members. Too many late nights full of bad coffee and surreptitious visits down to the car park for a quick gulp at the flask. This place was a goddamn black hole, sucking them in if they got too close. Sam popped another stick of nicotine gum, threw the wrapper in the gutter, and followed Ed inside.
He’d never seen the emergency room so empty. It wasn’t just lacking patients; the staff, the nurses, the doctors—all of them, except for a young white guy sitting behind the intake station—were gone. There were a few patients scattered around the room, either asleep or staring at the floor.
They got a better look at the young man in the intake station. He wore nurses’ scrubs, but Sam decided that he’d eat his own shoe if this guy was a nurse. Clean shaven, closely cropped hair. Cold look in his eyes. No, this guy was military, Sam was positive.
“Evening,” Ed said. He’d taken to simply leaving the star hanging outside his chest pocket. Made things easier. Sam had told him that Ed secretly just wanted to pretend he was a sheriff in the Old West.
“What can I do for you, officer?” the guy said.
“Looking for a witness. Heard the ambulance brought him in. Name’s Don Wycza.”