Lifeblood

by Penny Rudolph

  The woman’s face lost its harried look and gained one of the nicest smiles Rachel had ever seen. “I didn’t know that kind of service existed any more. I will certainly let the business office at Jefferson know what a good deal they have with you. Let’s give this Johnny Mack a try.”

  Rachel punched three numbers into her phone, explained the situation, and listened, nodding, then turned to the woman. “He can come by between two and four, If you leave me a key, you don’t have to be here. But if it is the fuel pump, you may have to rent a car for a day or two. Up to you.”

  The woman handed over the keys. “Let’s do it.” When Rachel finished the arrangements, she added, “Will you at least let me buy you lunch?” She held out her hand. “I’m sorry. How rude of me. I’m Emma Johnson.”

  “Rachel Chavez.” She took the hand, which was long-fingered and surprisingly strong.

  “Chavez.” The woman pronounced it the right way, with the accent on the first syllable. “Have you ever been to Pedro’s Cantina, over on one of those streets off Olvera?”

  “No.”

  “Well, one of the reasons I was especially upset about the car going out right now is that Pedro only has cabrito once a month and this is the day. I try never to miss it.”

  “Cabrito?”

  Emma Johnson looked at her quizzically. “You’re not familiar with Mexican food?”

  “Sort of. But I don’t know the language. Or at least not any more than the couple words you learn here and there on the streets.”

  “Cabrito is goat.”

  “Goat?”

  “If you don’t feel up to trying that, there are lots of other things on the menu. Real, genuine Mexican. Not this phony Cal-Mex or Tex-Mex nonsense. Even menudo, although I doubt you’d want to try that.”

  Rachel was nodding, liking the idea. “Okay. You’re on.”

  Emma started up the ramp, then turned back. “Damn. How stupid of me. We’ll have to get a cab.”

  “Not to worry, I can drive. Wait here.”

  Rachel went to the garage entrance and called to Irene, who was dealing tarot cards for a newcomer. Today’s hat bore butterflies. When Irene raised her head, Rachel jerked her thumb back toward the cubicle. “I’ll be back in an hour—two at most.”

  Irene waved. “I hope it is fun, dear girl, not work.”

  Rachel got her Civic, picked up Emma at the exit, and the woman expertly directed her to the restaurant without a single wrong turn.

  Pedro’s Cantina was exactly what its name implied—a Mexican diner with a small bar that served Dos Equis and Corona beer in bottles, another brand on tap, and a dozen kinds of tequila.

  The place was swarming with people, but as Rachel and Emma entered, an affable swarthy man caught sight of them and moved quickly through the throng wiping his hands on his apron. Pedro himself. He took Emma’s hand in both of his own. “Ah, Señora médica. Muy bien. Is good to see you again.”

  “Y tu, Pedro,” Emma said.

  “You are late. I worry.”

  “I had car trouble. You know I wouldn’t miss the cabrito.”

  “That is why I worry.” In spite of the crowd, there was an empty table, the only one set with white tablecloth, red napkin and a single setting of shining silverware. Pedro led them to it.

  “I see today you have the amiga,” he said, grabbing an empty chair from a neighboring table and holding it out for Rachel.

  “You must come here often,” Rachel said when Pedro had gone in search of another place setting.

  “We’re old friends. I worked for a time in Mexico. I knew some of his family.”

  “Where in Mexico?”

  “Chiapas. You’ve heard of it?”

  “I’ve heard of it, but not much more that. It’s way south, isn’t it? Down near Guatemala?”

  Emma nodded, an inscrutable look crossing her face.

  “What’s it like?” Rachel asked.

  “One of the poorest states in Mexico, or anywhere for that matter. If you haven’t seen it, you cannot imagine what that means—the insects are healthier than the people. The stench of human waste, the swollen bellies, and arms of children like this.” Emma held up a hand, thumb and forefinger forming a small ring. “It is one thing to see adults starving. It’s quite another to see children.”

  Rachel’s straight brows drew together and her eyes darkened as she contemplated a poverty that hellish. Had the boys she had tried to save come from somewhere like that?

  Pedro returned with tableware for Rachel and two tall glasses of ice water. The glasses were thick and heavy and rimmed with wide cobalt blue rings. “You wish the usual?” he said to Emma, who gave him a nod and a broad smile that showed the early lines of age. Her fair complexion looked recently scrubbed with soap and bereft of any sign of makeup.

  “And the señorita?” He made a small bow toward Rachel.

  “What do you recommend?” Rachel asked Emma.

  “You’re not a vegetarian or a fussy eater?”

  “Not at all. Well, maybe I’d draw the line at stewed eels or fried grasshoppers.”

  “I agree about the eels, but you should try the grasshoppers sometime,” Emma said. “You trust me to order for you?”

  Rachel nodded and Emma spoke rapid Spanish to Pedro, who then disappeared without writing anything down.

  “I just told him to bring two of everything I usually have, mainly lots of lettuce, tomato, and cabrito.”

  Rachel opened her napkin and laid it over her lap. “You were talking about Chiapas. What were you doing there?”

  “Working at a clinic.”

  “Doing what?” Rachel knew Emma worked at the hospital, but that could be many jobs.

  “Treating some very ugly diseases, among other things.”

  “You’re a doctor, then.”

  “Of course,” Emma said, then added thoughtfully, “I should talk about Mexico more often. It would help me keep stupid little things like cars and cell phones in perspective.”

  When Pedro brought their lunch, Rachel approached the cabrito suspiciously, then smiled when she tasted it. “I thought goat would be tough.”

  “After cooking slowly for two or three days, nothing is tough. Mexican cooks are magicians with food that shouldn’t be edible at all. But only on very rare occasions did we have cabrito or any kind of meat in Chiapas.”

  “But you worked there anyway. Treating diseases,” Rachel said.

  “Oh, I did a little surgery, mostly when someone got injured. And I delivered lots of babies. I preferred surgery.”

  “Why?”

  “You feel like you’re actually curing someone, accomplishing something. Somehow surgery seems more active than other medical specialties. Have you ever seen surgery done?”

  Rachel made a face. “Only with a veterinarian.”

  “Really? How so?”

  “I used to live on a farm. Mostly we grew vegetables, but my mother kept horses.”

  Emma studied her companion for a moment. “Would you like to watch sometime?”

  “A real operation? Good heavens. I’ve never imagined such a thing. You mean like in a sort of theater, behind glass, like on the TV shows?”

  “Oh no,” Emma said. “We’re not really a teaching hospital, although sometimes students come to watch. For us, it’s much more intimate. The rooms are small, and you’d have to stay quiet and out of the way. But it’s not unusual for non-medical people to be observers in operating rooms. Reporters, photographers, our own public relations people.”

  “You mean scrub and everything?”

  “Seriously clean and careful, yes.”

  Rachel shook her head. “I don’t think so, no. The surgery I saw was kind of gruesome. And the horse died.”

  Emma laughed. “Well the Jefferson O-R is a little different. There’s hardly any blood. Especially with laparoscopic surgery. That’s what I specialize in.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” Rachel said, “but I don’t know exactly what it is.”

>   “I make only a few incisions, one for my fingers, one for a special scope—a sort of camera. There’s much less risk to the patients, they recover more quickly, and scarring is minimal.”

  “What kind of surgery? It can’t be abdominal.”

  Emma nodded. “But it is. That’s what I do. Mostly kidneys.”

  “And you decided to become a surgeon because it was more active?”

  Emma seemed to think about that. “I guess I formed a lot of my opinions while I was in Mexico.”

  “How did you happen to work there?”

  “When I got my MD, I joined Doctors Without Borders. I wanted to work somewhere I could practice my Spanish. Delivering babies, patching people up, and treating nasty diseases in a place where there wasn’t much food and less money.”

  Rachel leaned forward, fascinated by this woman.

  “I wasn’t crazy about obstetrics,” Emma went on. “Not that I don’t like babies. But in Chiapas, hardly any of them lived very long. For that matter, no one did. I couldn’t help wondering how bad it would be for the poor little tykes and how wrong it seemed to bring them into such a world.”

  “Maybe it’s different there now.”

  Emma laughed. “You don’t know Chiapas. It will be much the same for a very long time. Everyone is young. Half the population is under twenty, only the hardiest, maybe ten percent, reach forty-five. And many babies don’t survive their first year. They’re soon gone, all elbows and knees and gaunt faces, they look like helpless baby birds.”

  “It sounds so sad.”

  “It is sad. Misery, ignorance, pestilence, and early death. A few lucky ones earn a pittance working in the amber mines or for one of the companies sinking little wells to find out how much oil is under Chiapas. I hear there’s quite a lot. Some of those lucky ones—mostly lucky because their family has died, so there’s no one they have to support—earn enough to stay healthy until they are maybe twenty. But once the women have three or four babies, and the men begin drinking tequila, it is too late.”

  “Why don’t people leave?” Rachel took a drink of water. The blue rim of the glass was very thick.

  “They don’t know anything else. Some try. But they must go on foot and Guatemala to the south and Oaxaca to the north are just about as poor as Chiapas.”

  “When were you there?”

  “Late eighties, early nineties. When I was young enough to believe I could make a difference.”

  “But you must have made a difference. How could you not?”

  “Not enough difference. I was there the New Year’s Eve when the Zapatistas took over. Everyone had such hope about that. I left that January. I was about your age then.”

  “Zapatistas?”

  Emma gave a quizzical smile. “How is it you know so little? Didn’t you say your name is Chavez?”

  “I guess my father had reasons for keeping me sanitized of anything Mexican.”

  Emma raised her eyebrows, but didn’t comment on that. Instead, she said, “We will keep the Zapatistas for another time. Enough about me. Tell me how on earth you came to own a parking garage.”

  “My grandfather left it to me.”

  “And you wanted to operate it?”

  Rachel hesitated, wondering how much to tell. She didn’t know this woman very well. Emma seemed so direct and honest. But then Emma’s life was probably an open book. “Oh, I wanted to do something new and different,” Rachel said, and sketched the barest outline of what had brought her to Los Angeles, leaving more than a few gaps. Then she changed the subject.

  “Do you like working at Jefferson?”

  Emma gave her a broad smile. “Very much. I get to do what I do best.”

  “Surgery?”

  “Mostly, yes. With some of the best people in the field and an administration that is totally supportive. I simply can’t imagine working anywhere else.”

  Rachel eyed the woman across the table. “It’s really a good hospital?”

  “The best. Why do you ask? Have you had a problem there?”

  “I guess you could call it a problem. A few days ago, I found a couple of boys, Mexican kids, I think, locked in a van in my garage. Unconscious.”

  Emma frowned and pursed her lips. “Dear God, how awful.”

  “Sure was,” Rachel said. “I rushed them to the hospital. Turned out one was dead, but they said the other was just very dehydrated. They were admitting him when I left.”

  “That’s sad about the one. But it was hardly the hospital’s fault.”

  “Oh, that isn’t what bothered me. It’s that the next day I went back to the hospital to see how the boy who survived was doing.”

  “How nice of you.”

  “Well, the people on the desk didn’t think I was very nice. In fact they had a security guy escort me out, like a barroom bouncer.”

  Emma drew her head back. “Good heavens. Why would they do that?”

  “Because I made a bit of a ruckus.”

  “About what?”

  “Because they claimed there was no record of the boy. So either they lied when they told me they were admitting him, or they lied when they said he wasn’t there.”

  Emma had shifted her gaze to a little wooden carving that stood in a niche in the wall across the room. She looked back at Rachel. “Actually, there are many possible explanations. I seriously doubt they were lying.”

  Rachel looked down at her plate, then up at Emma. “You may be right. I’ve been given an assortment of explanations, from the kid maybe dying before he was admitted, to a parent picking him up. But what parent would leave a kid locked in a car to die, then pick him up before he could be admitted to the hospital?”

  “I don’t know.” Emma cleared her throat. “It is odd. I’m sorry it happened. Hospitals do screw up. We like to think they don’t, but they do. And Jefferson is awfully big. Seven hundred beds. It’s hard to keep track of everything.”

  “You mean patients get lost?”

  “No, not patients. But records, maybe.” Emma picked up her purse from where she had placed it under the table. “Are you ready to go?”

  As they left the cantina, Emma handed something to Pedro. It certainly covered the cost of their meal and a tip. It was a hundred-dollar bill.

  Chapter Eleven

  The phone was ringing when Rachel got back to the garage. She had to run to the cubicle and hunt for the receiver under a mass of papers. When she finally pushed the talk button she was frustrated and breathless. “Yes?”

  “It’s me, doll.” Hank.

  They had a date for dinner. Rachel was going to cook it herself. Her interest in cooking had been gaining ground lately and she was planning on picking up some fresh fish that afternoon. The two of them needed to get back on track as a couple.

  Hank’s voice sounded a little strained. She had apologized, but men can be weird about things like marriage. They always think you’re just waiting for any chance to walk down that aisle and into washing diapers and baking chocolate chip cookies. Not that she had anything against babies and cookies. Did she?

  “I’m at LAX,” he said. “They’re sending me up to Sacramento for a couple weeks.”

  Rachel wasn’t sure what to make of his waiting until he was at the airport to tell her that. “Well, okay, thanks for letting me know.”

  “Sorry about the short notice. Hope you didn’t go to a lot of trouble for tonight.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Some kind of problem with the levees. A tiny little earthquake and they think it’s an emergency. Barely moved on the Richter…. They’re calling my flight. I’ll try to give you a call tonight.”

  Rachel slowly set the receiver down, thinking this might give her a little more time to figure out why the sudden approach of marriage had panicked her. All she seemed to be doing now was avoiding thinking about it.

  On the other hand, why was he so nonchalant about their plans for the evening, not bothering to call until he was practically on the plane? Hank spent
quite a bit of time in Sacramento. He knew people up there. Probably some were women. Did she care?

  Yes, she did. She cared a lot. Hank was the Love of her Life. Capitalized.

  Wasn’t he?

  999

  The helicopter hovered, then slowly, very slowly edged toward the rooftop. Inside the doorway at the top of the stairs Rachel waited for the whupp, whupp, whupp of the propeller to subside enough that the down-draft wouldn’t sweep her away.

  Clinging to the railing, she approached the cockpit. The box she handed the pilot was large but light. He exchanged it for a box that rattled and a yellow padded envelope, then silently waved his hand toward the top few floors of the hospital, which showed above the railing. Words would just be blown away by the chopper. He saluted and waited while Rachel dashed back to the doorway before easing the flying machine upward.

  The address on the envelope was the Jefferson pharmacy, the box was for the lab. Dan Morris was appearing almost daily to pick up or send off packages. Rachel could wait and give these new arrivals to him if he showed up this afternoon, or she could call the hospital for a pickup. Or she could just walk the parcels over herself. It was a nice sunny day, the packages weren’t heavy, and nothing much went on at the garage in the afternoon.

  No harm in polishing client relationships with a little personal attention. She’d make the delivery herself.

  She enjoyed the walk. There had been little time lately for jogging and it was good to stretch her legs. At the hospital, she chose a side entrance and soon regretted it. The entrances and exits on the various levels were confusing, while the maze of hallways inside seemed to lead every which way and then go on forever.

  The whole place seemed a bit like an airline terminal. The guy who had called her about renting the parking spaces had said there were what? Seven hundred beds. Probably an average of two to a room. So that would be three hundred fifty rooms, and obviously a whole lot of corridors. And Jefferson was old, with many annexes probably added over the years.

  But how on earth did the staff find their way around, much less the poor patients?

  Finally arriving in the main foyer, Rachel approached the only open reception window, hoping the face behind it wouldn’t belong to the woman who had called for a security guard to escort Rachel out of the hospital when she had inquired about the Mexican boys.