“Mouse knew.”
“Who?”
“Mouse. Strange creature. Person. When I went to Tito’s and found him gone, Mouse was there, cleaning out the place. He’s the one who said it might have something to do with Cancer Cell. He said the two men who came and took Tito away were taking him to the Core.” And Mouse had known her father was a cop. Mouse seemed to have known quite a lot. What did that mean about the little bastard?
“That would fit,” Cage said. “That’s where Cancer Cell is, right in the Core of the Tenderloin.”
“So they took him to the Core, experimented on him, gave him some god-awful disease, and he ended up dying a horrible death.”
“As opposed to the peaceful and painless death he would have experienced with the AIDS.”
Caroline glared at him. “That’s not the point,” she said.
“No, you’re right,” Cage admitted. “I’m sorry.” He glanced away for a moment, then back at her. “But we don’t know if that’s what happened. We don’t even know for sure that he was abducted by Cancer Cell. But even if we accept that as a given, what happened afterward…” He shook his head. “There’s just no way to know.”
“I want to find out,” Caroline insisted, adamant.
He tipped his head to one side and gave her a faint smile. He had deep hazel eyes that glittered with the lights from the street. “How do you plan to do that?”
“I don’t know.” No, she didn’t know yet, but an idea was beginning to form, vague at this point, but slowly coming into focus. She finished off her iced tea and leaned back in the chair, watching him. Yes, she had to admit to herself that she liked him, and was willing to forgive his insensitive remark about Tito. “You seem to know an awful lot about Cancer Cell,” she finally said. “Nobody else seems to know anything about them.”
Cage waved a hand in dismissal. “It’s mostly guesses,” he said. “I’ve been working here in this clinic, half a block from the Core, for two years. Street medicine. Cancer Cell seems to be their own kind of street medicine. You hear things, that’s all.”
“My father said someone else died from the same thing that killed Tito.”
“No, that’s not quite right. He may have. It’s just a guess.”
“Another one of your guesses,” she said, smiling.
“Yes. Another guess. I didn’t see this guy die. I just heard about it from someone else, and even that was secondhand. The symptoms were similar.”
“But the man who died was a part of Cancer Cell.”
“Probably. Yes.”
“So you’d like to know what happened to Tito, too.” Cage nodded. “Yes, I would.”
At that point, the girl who had brought them their drinks returned to the table and looked back and forth between them with a questioning expression.
“You want another?” Cage asked.
“Yes, if you have time.”
“Sure. They’ll buzz me if they really need me, and I don’t think our conversation is quite finished, is it?”
She smiled at him and shook her head. “No, it isn’t.” He turned to the girl and said, “Two more, the same. Thanks.”
The girl nodded and backed away.
They didn’t talk as they waited for their drinks. Caroline watched the sidewalk and the street below them, the steady, heavy traffic on both. She liked the feel of it all, the energy that rose from the streets and the people and seemed to flow into her, juicing her up a little. But she had to remind herself of something her father had once told her that the Tenderloin out on the streets was quite different from what went on inside the buildings and up on the rooftops, behind locked doors and windows, in the hidden mazes of basements and subterranean passages, in the vast warrens of apartments and skin parlors and drug dens and flesh arcades. The streets were relatively safe, along with the visible shops and cafés and clubs, but beneath it all, like the submerged portions of icebergs, was the real Tenderloin, and you never knew when some of that would break out into the open, out of control. A dangerous place if you didn’t know where you were or what you were doing.
The girl brought fresh iced tea and coffee and took away the old glasses. Caroline took a long drink, refreshed and cooled by it. She wiped the cold, condensed liquid on the outside of the glass and spread it across her forehead.
“I want you to put me in touch with Cancer Cell,” she said to Cage.
He didn’t react much, but she could tell it wasn’t at all what he had expected to hear from her. He sipped at his coffee, scratched at his ear; she could see that he wanted to smile, to dismiss what she had said as a joke, but he managed to keep the smile in check.
“Why?” he finally asked.
“I said. I want to find out what happened to Tito. I want to help you find out what happened to him and to this other guy. Find out if there is something to worry about.”
He sighed, turning his coffee cup in circles again. “First, I’m not sure I would be able to put you in touch with them. Second, even if I could, you couldn’t just straight out ask about Tito. You did that, you’d be lucky if they just cut everything off right there and told you to go away. You’d be lucky if they didn’t haul you into the Core and make you one of their experimental subjects.”
She smiled at him. “That’s exactly what I want them to do.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Cage said, exasperated.
She breathed in deeply, and her smile faded. “I have Gould’s Syndrome,” she told him.
He was clearly taken aback, though whether it was from her admission that she had Gould’s, or from the realization of what she was proposing, was unclear. He shifted in his chair, plainly uncomfortable, but he didn’t say anything for a long time. When he finally did speak, all he said was, “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” Then, getting right back to it, she said, “I want you to put me in touch with Cancer Cell, and then I’ll work out my own contract with them.”
Cage shook his head. “That’s crazy.”
“What’s crazy about it?” she asked him. Now that the idea was fully formed, now that she had given it substance by actually suggesting it aloud to him, it seemed perfectly reasonable to her. “I’ve got a condition that’s terminal just what they’d be looking for. I make them a deal. I’ll offer myself up for any experimental treatments they might have for Gould’s. Then I’ll be inside, and I’ll see what I can find out about what happened to Tito. I have nothing to lose.”
“I suspect you have a lot to lose,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“The Gould’s hasn’t gone active yet, has it? You don’t look like you’re suffering any of the effects from it.”
Caroline looked away from him, reminded of the incident at her apartment the night Tina had come over. “It’s just recently begun,” she said, still not looking at him. Suddenly her sureness deserted her, and the dread threatened to return. She turned back to him. “Most of the time I’m fine, but it has begun to go active, and I know what that means.”
“Then you know that you might have several good years ahead of you, several years where you are, in fact, fine most of the time, like now. That seems to me like a lot to lose.”
“I think I’m a better judge of that than you are.”
“Yes, I suppose you are.” Something seemed to have gone out of him, and he appeared suddenly very tired. “But I still think it’s a lousy idea.”
“Why?”
Cage held up his hands, shaking his head. “I don’t really know anything about Cancer Cell, I don’t have any idea what they would do to you. They give you some kind of experimental treatment, it could be extremely painful and debilitating. Maybe they’d just do some other kind of experimentation. Once you were in the Core, you wouldn’t have much choice. If you were in the terminal stages, if you were really sick, I’d say sure, go ahead. But you’re not sick.”
“But now’s the time to find out about Tito and this other guy,” she insisted. “Two or three
or four years from now, when I am really sick, it will either be too late, or it won’t matter.” She paused, tilting her head. “You do have a way to put me in touch with them, don’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“Will you do it?”
He leaned back, shaking his head and running his hand through his hair. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t like it.”
Caroline didn’t push it. She sensed that would be a mistake right now, that he’d dig in and flat-out refuse. Better to let him think about it for a while, get used to the idea. Let his worries about Cancer Cell and some disease breaking out of them nag at him.
His head jerked to the right, eyes widening, his attention caught by something in the street below. Caroline turned, scanned the street until she saw what it was. Half a block away, weaving back and forth in the street, was a pedalcart slowly moving toward them, bumping into parked vehicles and other traffic as it came. A woman was at the wheel, peddling weakly, slumped forward with beaded dreadlocks covering her face, barely in control of the cart. As it got closer it veered off the street through a gap between a minicab and a jit, then jounced up the curb and onto the sidewalk, scattering people before it crashed lightly against the clinic building, just a few feet away from the entrance and almost directly across from Mika’s. The woman remained in the cart, almost upright now but apparently dazed.
Cage leaped to his feet, grabbed the balcony rail, and leaned out over the street.
“Nikki!” he cried.
Caroline looked up into his face, saw stark terror. She turned back to the street.
“Nikki!” he cried out again.
The woman looked up and across the street, searching. “Cage?” Then her gaze seemed to find him and she nodded once. She staggered out of the pedalcart, took a couple of steps forward, and stepped into the gutter, almost losing her balance. She held up one bare arm. Even from across the street there were two visible red patches on her dark brown skin. “Cage, I’m in trouble.”
Then she sat down on the sidewalk, her feet still in the gutter, and dropped her head into her arms.
CHAPTER 16
Nikki.
Cage almost jumped to the street from the balcony, but held back. A broken ankle wouldn’t do anyone any good. Nikki. Jesus. With one last look at her, he turned, pushed off the rail, and ran inside.
He bumped into a table, rattling glasses, grabbed someone’s shoulder, barked out an apology, and bounced away narrowly avoiding the guy in the tuxedo, then shot toward the stairs. He took them two and three at a time, barely in control, and hit the ground floor running. There wasn’t a clear path and he crashed into a woman, almost fell, spun around while somehow staying on his feet, then squeezed between two people and he was free. He flew past Marko, who shouted something after him, and went through the front door.
Out on the sidewalk he crashed into more people, but shoved his way through. At the edge of the street he hesitated and took a good look at the traffic; he didn’t want to get himself killed. Breathing hard, he anxiously waited for a break. One lane at a time. An opening appeared and he took off, darting through the wake of a junker truck and just in front of a pair of scooters. Then there was a brief hesitation to let a public jit go by, and he was off again, shifting quickly left, hand on the roof of a delivery van, stutter-stepping behind another small truck, then between two parked cars and he was across, no more than twenty feet from Nikki.
She was still sitting on the curb, her feet planted solidly in the gutter, her head in her hands.
“Nikki,” he said, barely more than a whisper, and he hurried toward her.
She looked up at him with alarm and held out her hand, warding him off. “Don’t, Cage. For Christ’s sake, don’t get too close!”
He stopped, just a few feet away, then started forward again.
“Don’t touch me, Cage. I mean it.”
He stopped again, close enough now to reach out and take hold of her, but he refrained. Instead, he squatted, bringing his face level with hers. She didn’t look good. Her eyes were red, her nose was running, and her breathing seemed labored. Even her dreadlocks appeared unkempt and limp.
“How are you doing?” he asked, feeling kind of stupid.
But she managed a tired smile. “Shitty. I’m sick, Cage. I’m in deep shit. I thought I was getting better, I really did, but was I ever wrong.” Her smile faded and she slowly shook her head from side to side. “That fucking Stinger. I’d kill him if he wasn’t already dead.”
“Hang in there for a minute,” he told her. “I’ll get something set up for you in the clinic, and then we’ll get you inside.”
“You’d better get gloves and a mask on,” she said firmly, “or I won’t let you near me. You try to touch me with your bare hands, I’ll kick your bleedin’ balls in.”
Cage had to smile. “All right. I’ll be right back.”
He stood and looked around, and immediately realized he wasn’t going to have to ask people to stay back. They’d heard her yelling at him, and they were all giving her a wide berth, even as they stared.
Franzee met him at the clinic door as he came through. “What’s going on out there?”
“It’s Nikki. She’s in bad shape. What’s the status on the iso rooms?”
Franzee shook her head. “Both occupied.” Then, still shaking her head, “Don’t ask. You don’t want to know.”
“Exam rooms?”
“Three and Five are empty right now, I think. I’ll check for sure.”
Cage nodded. “All right. Keep one of them open.”
He jogged down the hall to the staff room, grabbed a cot, a couple of blankets, and a pillow, then hurried back into the front room with them. He set them in front of the counter.
“Five?”—he asked.
Franzee nodded. “It’s open.”
“Can you get that stuff set up in there? And I’ll bring her in.”
Franzee nodded again and dragged the cot down the hall. Cage put on a pair of gloves and pulled a medico-mask over his head, tugging it all the way down so it hung around his neck. He breathed deeply several times, trying to calm himself. Then he went out to get her.
Nikki hadn’t moved, and though a crowd had gathered around her, they still kept back. There was a lot of mumbling and muttering, jockeying to get a better view. He wanted to strangle them all.
As he got close to her, she glared at him and pointed. “Put the damn mask on,” she said.
“All right, all right.” He pulled the mask up over his mouth and nose, then knelt beside her. “Think you can walk?” he asked, knowing damn well what her answer would be.
“I’m not a cripple, for Christ’s sake. Of course I can walk.”
He took her arm with his gloved hands and helped her to her feet. She took a couple of steps, then stopped and doubled over, her free hand on her knees.
“Nikki?”
She shook her head, her eyes clamped shut. “It’s… it’s okay,” she got out, her voice croaking. Her hand was gripping his fingers so tightly his knuckles hurt. Then her grip eased, her eyes opened, she breathed in, and slowly straightened. “Okay,” she said.
They made their way the last few feet to the clinic entrance. Just as they approached, the door swung open, held wide by Franzee. Cage led Nikki through the doorway, the waiting room, then along the hall to Exam Five, which was the last room at the end of the corridor. There he guided her to the cot and had her sit on it. Then he pulled up a chair, sat in front of her, and gave her a thorough workup. Focused on the task, on the details.
Her temperature was high, well over a hundred and two. Lymph nodes in her neck and under her arms and down around her groin were all swollen. Blood pressure was okay, though, and her pulse was still strong. The red patch on her arm looked like a severe rash. There was another small patch on the back of her other arm, and a third on the side of her neck.
When he was done, he helped her get dressed. She seemed so tired and weak, and she said her muscles an
d joints ached.
“I’m really thirsty,” she said.
Cage filled a plastic cup with water and gave it to her. She drained it at once, and he gave her another, and finally a third.
“Have you taken anything for the fever?”
Nikki shook her head. “Not for a long time. I haven’t been thinking any too clearly.”
So he gave her some ibuprofen and a couple of acetaminophen, which she took with another cup of water. She dropped the cup onto the floor and slowly laid back and out on the cot, closing her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I shouldn’t have come here. You can’t do anything. I just panicked.”
“No,” Cage said. “You did right. I’ll figure out something for you.”
Nikki rolled her head from side to side. “There’s nothing. We both know that. I should just go home.”
“No,” he insisted. “Not nothing.”
She smiled, her eyes still closed. “What, then?”
“I don’t know yet. Something.”
Neither of them spoke for a while. Cage sat almost motionless and watched her, a terrible pain slowly eating at his gut. It was terror, he realized. He was terrified of losing her.
But her breathing had eased, and she seemed calmer. The tension had left her face.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. “I’m going to die.”
Cage shook his head. “We’re all going to die, Nikki.” Her eyes flashed and she glowered at him. “Don’t talk that kind of shit to me, Cage. I won’t have it.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. Then, “But you’re not going to die.”
“Stinger and that other guy died.”
“They didn’t have any medical care.”
Nikki gave a brief, harsh laugh. “And what the hell kind of medical care am I going to get? You guys are all good doctors, but this isn’t a hospital, it’s not even close.”
“I’ll get you into a hospital, Nikki.”
She shook her head. “Yeah? Which one?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll work out something.”
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