Omar and Piper practically crashed into the admittance desk. “We need help!”
The nurse looked them over and didn’t see any bones sticking through skin. She pointed at the clipboard on the counter. “Sign in and have a seat.”
Piper leaned forward as far as she could. “You don’t understand!”
“Wait a second,” said the nurse. “I recognize you now. From the TV news.”
“I need cancer treatment!” said Piper.
“Sure you do,” said the nurse.
“I’m serious this time!”
“Just like last time?”
“I’m so sorry. I need help!”
The nurse yelled to get the attention of everyone in the room. “Look who just popped in to grace us with their presence: the scam artists from television. They’d like to get some medical care.”
A drone of murmurs rolled around the room. People began pointing. Mumbles rose to outraged voices. “Those are the assholes who stole all those donations!”
“We hate you!”
“You’re lower than worms!”
“Please die!
“One more thing,” yelled the nurse. “They also want to cut in front of you.”
To this audience, that played worse than the original scam.
“Son of a bitch!”
“I’ve been waiting since dawn!”
“My gout!”
A few began standing. Someone called the television station on from a cell.
Omar and Piper pleaded desperately with the nurse. “We’ll do anything! You have to help us!”
The nurse had already picked up her own phone. “I’m calling security. The TV said there are fraud warrants out on you.”
“Wait! Don’t! We’ll give you all the money!”
The nurse hung up. “Security is on the way.” Then she sniffed the air. “Jesus! What is that god-awful smell?” She leaned over the desk and looked down at the floor. “That’s disgusting!”
“I told you we were sick,” said Piper. “This guy made us drink some stuff . . .”
Three security guards ran down a disinfected hallway.
But other things first:
The couple felt a presence from behind. More and more patients surrounding them. “You’re the devil!”
“My grandmother gave you money!”
“What’s that smell?”
Someone shoved Omar into the desk, and another pushed Piper. The rest joined in. “Let me get my hands on them! . . .”
Security guards burst through double swinging doors on the side of the emergency room. They immediately spotted the couple but couldn’t reach them because of the growing mob.
“Kill them!”
“You suck elephant dicks!”
“What he just said!”
Omar noticed the guards working their way through. “We have to get out of here!” He grabbed Piper by the arm and charged into the crowd. People grabbed and ripped their clothes. They each lost sleeves but pushed on.
The mob wanted to stop the couple, but everyone was now skating around on diarrhea. Omar and Piper made it through the pack with shredded shirts. They dashed back out the emergency room doors and onto the sidewalk.
The crowd paused, looking at one another, thinking about losing their spots in the emergency room. Then: “Get ’em!”
The room emptied in a hurry. Patients made a hard left turn outside and ran up the street. The security guards stopped at the doors, because they weren’t paid much.
Omar and Piper only had a half block lead, but all the people chasing them were sick and injured.
A cameraman pointed through a windshield. “There they are! At the front of that crowd!” The Live Action Eyewitness Orlando 12 News mobile unit had arrived.
The TV van quickly passed the crowd and slowed so they could roll alongside the couple as they ran. The satellite dish on its roof began beaming the video feed back to the station. Regular programming was interrupted for breaking news, as it had been every time a live chase came through the greater Orlando area. Except this was the first one on foot.
Viewers at home began texting in votes to a poll that just went up on their screens. Others recognized the street on TV as the same one just outside where they were sitting. They angrily poured out of shops, restaurants and Transcendental Meditation classes, joining the pursuing mob. Still others lined the sidewalk ahead, spitting on the couple and splattering them with rotten food.
Two blocks north, a black Firebird sat on the side of the road. Serge lowered his binoculars. “Here they come now. The plan is unfolding beyond expectation.”
“That one guy just hocked a big snot-rocket right in her face.” Coleman chased pork rinds with Pabst Blue Ribbon. “This is better than pay-per-view.”
Serge raised the binoculars again. “I should be in charge of programming somewhere.”
Back up the street, a reporter with a microphone hung out the passenger window of the TV van. “Our live poll shows that ninety-six percent of viewers believe you should be tossed in a blast furnace. Your thoughts?”
More people streamed from sports bars and convenience stores until the mob was five times its original size.
The couple rapidly approached a busy intersection where heavy traffic blocked their escape. They made a left at the corner and hit the brakes. More TV viewers had emptied into the street and charged from that direction. The pair looked back at the gaining crowd, then up at the green light over the road. “Come on, turn red!”
It didn’t turn red. Lynch mobs converging from two pincer directions would be on them in seconds. They glanced at each other and nodded. The traffic wasn’t that bad. And a break between buses was coming up. They could easily get across if they timed it just right . . .
Serge handed the binoculars to Coleman. “They’re going for it, but it’ll be close. That second crowd will get there almost simultaneously.”
“I say they’ll make it.”
“Me, too.”
The TV van pulled up next to the anxious couple. A microphone out the window: “Are you going for it? It’s going to be close . . .”
Those at the front of the mob reached them and went to grab what was left of their shirts, but the couple was too fast. The break in traffic came and they bolted . . . In the clear!
Coleman pointed with a pork rind. “I don’t think they see that bus.”
“Which bus?” asked Serge.
“The big one with the ad on the side for the children’s hospital . . . Ooo! God!” Coleman covered his eyes.
Serge threw the Firebird in gear. “That’s ironic.”
Chapter Twenty-One
FORT LAUDERDALE
A blue glow filled an eighth-floor condo unit.
“I’ll take ‘Rectangular U.S. States’ for two hundred, Alex.”
Ronald Campanella turned the volume down with the remote control. “I don’t want to watch Jeopardy! anymore.”
“Come on, we always used to play,” said Brook. “You need to keep your mind occupied.”
“But what if the lawyers are wrong? What if I have to go to trial?”
“That’s nonsense,” said his daughter. “We just need to wait it out and let them fix the misunderstanding.”
“I can’t take this not-knowing business.” Ronald began breathing rapidly again.
Brook got up from the sofa. “You need a drink. I’ll get you one.”
“I don’t want a drink.”