Puchalsky’s expression and isn’t-it-obvious gesture suggested he was in no mood for a long-winded reply.
“His leg would be amputated and we would continue to remove infected parts of his body, until either the germ vanishes, or he dies.”
CHAPTER 24
To follow our government blindly is to walk blind with no cane just waiting to hit something.
—LANCASTER R. HILL, LECTURE AT PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, NOVEMBER 12, 1938
“Let me guess, you heard all that.”
Lou pointed at the discrete microphone attached to the tray of Humphrey Miller’s wheelchair. Humphrey, who had been making a delivery in the med room, motored over as soon as Puchalsky had left the isolation suite, and flashed what seemed to be a consoling look. His arms were somewhat more spastic than Lou remembered, as though Humphrey were reacting to Lou’s angst.
“Ivan sounded more cordial than expected,” Humphrey said. “Must like you.”
Lou chuckled.
“Happy to see you again, Humphrey. You don’t have to shorten your sentences for me unless you want to.”
“Saying everything more tiring. At least you bother listen what I say. It’s refreshing.”
“So long as you do it for you and not for me.”
“Believe me, much easier talk to you. Been follow situation with your friend.”
“And?”
“And everyone’s nervous.”
“Puchalsky said this was the second case Arbor has had of this germ.”
“That’s right. Older woman.”
“So he told me.”
“Rapidly flesh-eating. Pretty grim.”
Lou’s mouth became dry.
“From our experience with flesh-eating bacteria at my hospital in D.C.,” he managed, “the treatments aren’t great, but they eventually work.”
“Not with that lady.”
For a time, neither man spoke. Humphrey appeared to be mulling something over.
“Lou, I really do like you,” he said finally. “You’re not like others.”
“What others?”
“Other people. They don’t take me seriously. You’re different. Can tell. That’s why I want to show you something.”
“Sure,” Lou said. “But it’s going to have to wait until after I see Cap.”
“Understand. How about meet me in main lobby in hour.”
Lou checked his watch, a gift from Emily, and wondered how she was doing with her fund-raising effort. He would not have been surprised if a truckload of brownie mix was already en route to the house in Virginia where she lived with her mother and stepfather when she wasn’t in D.C. with him and Diversity, their cat.
“An hour,” he said, tapping Mickey for emphasis.
Humphrey’s smile was oddly enigmatic. He seemed extraordinarily pleased and excited about the prospect of showing Lou whatever it was.
“You’re going thank me, Dr. Welcome,” he said. “Guarantee it.”
* * *
THE ANTECHAMBER to Cap’s isolation room was not much bigger than a modest walk-in closet. A wall-mounted placard instructed Lou to don a surgical mask, hair cover, gloves, shoe covers, and a gown. He had followed a number of highly infectious patients at Eisenhower, so he knew the drill well. Arbor General had assigned Cap the strictest of isolation categories, requiring the most stringent precautions. Brightly colored warning signs on the doors and walls made certain Lou understood his visit could be dangerous and would be made at his own risk.
After checking himself one final time, he pulled on the door to Cap’s iso unit and felt the tug of resistance caused by the negative pressure environment. Powerful purifiers were drawing contaminated air through an elaborate filtration system. The room was hi-tech and short on warmth, with no furniture beyond a built-in nurse’s computer station with a tall stool, a pair of Danish-modern chairs, a TV, and the ubiquitous hospital tray table. Waste and used linens were stuffed inside specially labeled sacks and would be disposed of or laundered in a secure environment.
Separate. Isolated. Alone … Frightening.
Cap’s bed filled the center of the Spartan room—an island in a gray linoleum sea. Lou took in a sharp breath. He’d mentally prepared himself for this moment, but seeing his friend looking so beaten and tired hit him like a sucker punch. In spite of himself, he flashed back to the moment right before they started on the trail, when Cap had suggested they give running a rest for that day, and get their workout in the gym. Had Lou not persisted, the man would be back at Stick and Move, and Lou would probably still have his job with PWO. Cap could tell him not to blame himself all he wanted, but unless he could also change Lou’s twin live-in monsters, responsibility and guilt, it was going to be a wasted effort.
The head of the bed was slightly elevated. Eyes closed, body unmoving, Cap lay there, a magazine splayed open on his belly. Lou approached, pausing to watch the ragged rise and fall of his chest, each breath strained. One IV line in each arm was infusing fluid and piggy-backed smaller bags of medication. So far, it seemed clear that all the fluids and meds were no contest against the deadly germ savaging his leg. The leg itself, still suspended above the bed and braced inside a metal frame, was cocooned within layers of gauze, stained in the front with bloody drainage. Lou resisted the urge to unwrap the bandage and inspect the infected area, but what lay beneath the wrap wasn’t hard to imagine.
Placing a gloved hand on Cap’s muscled shoulder, Lou nudged him awake.
“Hey, sponsor-guy, it’s me.”
Cap’s eyes blinked open. He took a moment to get his bearings. Then his parched lips bowed in a thin smile.
“Can you come back in a bit?” he asked, his voice hoarse and dreamy. “I’m supposed to have a dance lesson in five minutes. Tango.”
Lou poured a cup of water from the plastic pitcher, stuck in a straw, bent the end, and helped Cap take a much-appreciated sip. He seemed to have lost ten pounds since the beginning of their ordeal.
“I spoke to your dance instructor and told her you’d reschedule,” Lou said. “She said you’re hot, so she’ll be back.”
“Good. You making meetings?”
“Don’t you even give me a chance to ask how you are?”
“The leg hurts and they can’t keep my temp down. There. Now, you getting to meetings? Don’t bother answering. I can see it in your face. Don’t trust your disease, Buck-o. Even though you think you’re an old-timer now. Don’t trust it a bit. While you’ve been growing, it’s been growing, too. I assume if you’re not going that there are problems. Work? Emily?”
Sponsors.
Like most of the other good ones, Cap had a sixth sense.
At that moment, his face scrunched up.
“Pain?” Lou ventured.
“A little spasm. Nothing I can’t handle. So, is it your job?”
“Let’s just say me and Filstrup have had a parting of the ways.”
“He is such a jerk. It’ll work out. You’re the best thing that ever happened to that place and those docs. I promise you that what goes around, comes around. Say a prayer for him to be absolved of being an asshole.”
“If I can pull it together, I will.”
“Do that, brother. You ain’t no good to me or anyone else all messed up again. So, Filstrup notwithstanding, thanks for coming back down.”
“Nonsense. We’re gonna get you through this.”
“Duly noted. So, have you met my new friend Dr. Ivan, the friendly undertaker?”
“I just talked to him. Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Ivan.”
“Ivan who?”
“Ivant to suck your blood.”
An appreciative snort was all Cap could manage.
“Nothing like a corny Welcome knock-knock joke to cheer me up. Especially compared to the stuff that Russian beanpole has been doing to me. Talk about humorless. He makes you look like Chris Rock.”
“Hey, watch whose humor you’re disparaging. So, here’
s a good one I just heard. This guy’s wife goes into labor big-time, and she’s a screamer. ‘Get me to the hospital! Get me to the hospital!’ So he bundles her into the backseat and races across town only to find there’s not one parking place in the hospital lot.”
“And his wife keeps screaming.”
“Exactly. Like a jet engine. So the guy is desperate. He looks to the heavens and calls out, ‘God, get me a spot and you have my word—no more drinking, no more gambling, no more smoking, no more flirting.’ At that moment, right ahead of him, a car pulls out and in he goes. ‘Never mind,’ he calls up. ‘I found one.’”
“Better. How much do you want me to pay you to stop cheering me up? Name your price. Speaking of not cheering me up, what did Ivan-the-terrible tell you?”
“He said he’s wicked smart and he’s going to cure you.”
“Don’t BS me. I trust you, doc. You’re family.”
“I’ll never lie to you,” Lou said. “Puchalsky says you have a very serious infection in your leg and they’re trying to figure out how best to treat it. This is a terrific hospital and these are very competent people. They’re going to do everything that needs to be done to get you back on your feet again.”
“Yeah, or foot. Think there’s much of a market for one-legged boxers?”
I’ll never lie to you.…
“Don’t say that. You’re not going to lose your leg.”
“You tell me that with truth in your eyes and I’ll buy it.”
“I’m telling you that.”
“Buddy, just remember two things,” Cap said, lifting the hand with the thin IV tube attached so he could hold up fingers for emphasis. “First, you promised never to lie to me.”
Cap maintained his hard stare, boring through the layers of Lou’s uncertainty and fear.
“What’s the second thing?” Lou managed, feeling his conviction dropping as if a sinkhole were opening up beneath him.
“The second thing,” Cap said, this time flashing him a forgiving grin, “is to remember that despite my performance on that trail in the mountains, I’m not stupid.”
CHAPTER 25
The Director shall oversee the Hundred, but shall not supersede any one of them.
—LANCASTER R. HILL, 100 Neighbors, SAWYER RIVER BOOKS, 1930, P. 102
By the time Cap’s nurse, a full-figured woman named Elisha bustled into the room and shooed Lou out, he was already five minutes late for his meeting with Humphrey. Cap dozed through some of their hour together, but in general, he forced himself to stay awake, asking about the kids he had been training at the gym, including Emily, his prize pupil, and also about some of their other mutual friends.
For the moment, Stick and Move was being covered gratis, but no one connected with the gritty inner-city joint had any money to spare. Thanks to Walter Filstrup, Lou’s calendar had lightened some, but he was determined to spend his newfound free time right there at Arbor General.
Mostly, though, the two of them skirted the money issues, both surrounding the business and also Cap’s mounting hospital bills. The overriding problem—the elephant in the tub—was Cap’s leg infection. Once that behemoth was sent back to the jungle, they could focus on redecorating the bathroom.
“He needs his rest,” Elisha said.
Given the sheen of perspiration coating Cap’s forehead and the clammy feel of his hand, Lou was not about to disagree.
“I’ll be back, pal,” he said.
The nurse placed a firm hand on his shoulder and turned him toward the door.
“He’ll be fine,” she insisted as if addressing a grade-schooler.
Lou wished he felt buoyed by her reassurance.
It took him a bit of time to discard his paper clothing, ride downstairs, and wend his way through the bustling corridors of the hospital. Humphrey was waiting to one side of the modestly busy lobby, but from what Lou could discern, he looked less cheerful than usual.
“I’m sorry for being late,” Lou said. “Cap isn’t in good shape.”
“That’s want discuss with you,” Humphrey replied, wheeling past the bank of elevators and the massive information desk to an unoccupied nook. As usual, Lou saw people stare at the man as they passed, then uncomfortably turn away.
“I’m not sure I understand what you mean,” Lou said. “What is there to discuss?”
Humphrey held Lou’s gaze as best he could. When he finally spoke, he abandoned his shorthand speech and did his best to carefully enunciate every word.
“I believe your friend is dying, Lou, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.… Except me.”
With those few words, it felt as if Humphrey had completely altered the dynamics of their connection. He was suddenly not the affable, upbeat, indomitable cripple, struggling along despite his limitations and the disregard of so many. He was no longer desperately grateful for Lou’s understanding and respect. He was, instead, a stern, deadly serious man.
“Go on,” Lou said, sensing he was as much annoyed as engaged by the change in his unusual new friend.
“Before we talk. Before I show you what I mean, there’s something you need to watch.”
Humphrey didn’t give Lou the chance to question the order. He depressed a large button on the right side of his tray, and a modest-sized computer screen rose smoothly in front of him, already booted up.
“Game versus Henri Delacourt,” he said.
Many might have had trouble discerning Humphrey’s thick speech, but the computer had none at all. In seconds a chessboard appeared on the screen. Lou could play a half-decent game, but over the last six months or so, Emily, a fierce game player at everything from jacks to Monopoly, had begun to win their encounters more often than not. He knew enough to see that the game on the screen was already in progress, but it wasn’t clear whether white or black was winning.
Henri, it’s Humphrey. Are you there?
The words he spoke printed out in a dialogue window below the board.
Right here, my friend.
How are things in Paris?
Rainy as usual. And there in Atlanta?
Hot. I believe you are in some trouble, good sir.
I believe you are right, Monsieur Miller. One more move, and if it is the right one, I am afraid you will have beaten me once again.
In that case, it is time for us to plan our next encounter. Ng1-f3 discovered check.
On the screen, the black knight moved from the first space in the G row to the third space in the F row.
There was a prolonged pause, and then the word RESIGN appeared on the screen, followed by a few words of gentlemanly congratulations, and the promise to schedule another match as soon as time allowed.
The chessboard was replaced by a screen saver showing an eagle in constant flight.
“Nice going,” Lou said, not bothering to ask the obvious question regarding the connection between Cap’s situation and Humphrey’s victorious online encounter. He did not have to wait long for at least a part of the answer.
“Henri Delacourt’s bio,” Humphrey said to the console.
In seconds, a handsome, aging face appeared, topped by a thicket of silver hair. Lou was only a few lines into the man’s résumé, when he understood at least some of the demonstration. Delacourt, a professor of physics, was an international chess grandmaster, and the champion of his country seven times.
“Quite a pedigree,” Lou said.
“Seldom lose to him, or any of ten grandmasters I play.”
“You must be very good.”
“Correction,” Humphrey said. “I must be very smart. Need you believe just how smart before we can move to purpose of this little trip.”
“Well, that was quite a demonstration. I am genuinely interested in what this is all about if that’s what you mean.”
A genius … Not just smart, a frigging genius.
Lou had no trouble seeing how difficult it must have been throughout Humphrey’s life, being thought of first and foremost as broken and una
ppealing, especially with an intellect as remarkable as his obviously was. How difficult and frustrating over the years for the pharmacy tech to be unable, for whatever reasons, even to approach his potential.
“Okay, then,” Humphrey said. “Let’s travel.”
“Where are we going?”
“Down,” was the terse reply.
He spun his chair around and motored to the elevators, with Lou hurrying to keep up. The car at the far end was labeled as FREIGHT ONLY. With practiced skill, Humphrey took a custom-made rod created out of metal and plastic, and hanging off his tray table. A key card was fixed to one end. Then, with difficulty, he drew the card along a slot on the wall, and the elevator door glided open.
The padded car had only two buttons: SB 1 and SB 2. Humphrey, clumsily turning the extension wand around, used a rubber tip to press the bottom button. Lou found himself wondering if the repeatedly vanquished chess masters had any idea of the nature of the man who was drubbing them again and again.
The elevator came to a stop, the doors slid open, and in moments Lou was following Humphrey along the poorly lit corridor of Subbasement Two. On either side were closed metal doors, labeled in black-painted block letters with the equipment and supplies stored within. In the dense quiet, the soft hum of Humphrey’s wheelchair was the only sound. Lou’s eyes had adjusted to the dim light when they turned a corner and came to a stop facing a metal door labeled simply STOCK OVERFLOW.
“What is this place?” Lou asked.
“Where we’re going to save Cap’s life.”
There was a note of excited pride in his voice as he inserted the key card straight into a slot above the handle of the door. Instantly, a lock clicked, the door swung open, and they entered an extremely chilly room—in the fifties Fahrenheit, Lou guessed.
“Impressive,” Lou said.
“Choose friends carefully,” Humphrey responded. “One is hospital engineer. I ask, he makes.”
“Why so cold?”
“Muscles less spastic.”
Grinning, Humphrey lifted an arm, and Lou saw somewhat of an improvement, although not a great one.
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