ambulance pulled into the ER bay. “The driver that caused the crash fell asleep at the wheel?” he asked.
Thane shrugged. “That’s what the cops said.”
Stanton focused on the flashing lights below.
EIGHT
IT WAS PAINFUL FOR HECTOR GUTIERREZ TO LIE TO HIS WIFE about the trouble he was in and even more painful to think that, if he got caught, their little boy probably wouldn’t even recognize him by the time his father got out of prison. Hector thanked God he’d already emptied the storage unit before the cops had raided it. But he was sure his house was next. His source at ICE who’d tipped him off (and been paid handsomely for doing so) said they’d been gathering evidence against him for months. If they found everything, Hector could face up to ten years.
Maria wasn’t working on Monday, so he couldn’t move the goods out of the house until the next day. Instead, he took Ernesto to Six Flags, where the two of them hurtled around on old roller coasters. It made Hector happy that his son had a blast, but he was convinced someone was following them, tracking them through the park. There were shadows in the funnel-cake lines and lingering faces at the arcade. He sweated anxiously all day, despite the fact that winter had finally come to L.A. By the time they got back home, he’d soaked through his shirt and socks.
That night, he cranked up the air-conditioning and watched an hour of sitcoms with Maria, desperately trying to figure out how to tell her what was going on. By two a.m., she’d already been asleep for hours, blissfully unaware, while Hector was still wide awake in front of the TV and covered in sweat. Not since his teenage love affair with cocaine had he felt so on edge. His ears stung with every noise: the hum of the cable box, the teeth- clenching sound Ernesto made when he slept, the cars out on 94th Street, each of which sounded like it was coming for him.
Past three, Hector climbed into bed. His mouth was dry, and he could barely keep his eyes open. But still he couldn’t sleep, and every turn of the clock was another reminder of how little night was left—he had a huge day of moving everything out of the house ahead of him. Finally he woke his wife in a last-ditch effort to tire himself out.
Even after the most electric sex they’d had in months, he couldn’t sleep. Hector lay naked next to Maria for almost two hours, soaking through the sheets, flesh and fabric glued together by sweat. He rapped his head against the mattress. Then he got up and surfed the Internet, where he found pills from Canada that promised sleep within ten minutes. But of course you had to call during regular business hours.
Soon came the chirping of birds, and behind the shades Hector saw the first rays of a new day. He lay awake for another hour. When he got up, he cut himself shaving. His hands were shaking from exhaustion. Fortunately, after downing oatmeal and coffee in the kitchen, he experienced a surge of energy. When he stepped outside to catch the bus, the breeze was a balm.
By seven a.m., he was at a garage near LAX, where he picked up the green Ford Explorer with fake plates he used when he needed to covertly transport antiquities. When he was sure Maria and Ernesto had left for work, he returned to the house to cart the rest of the items he had hidden in his home to the new facility he’d rented in West Hollywood that nobody knew about.
The sweating was bad again by the time he reached Our Lady of the Angels, where he had found Chel Manu. But he’d managed to hide his suffering and to convince her to take the codex. Either she’d find a way to pay, or she was the perfect solution to his problem. If he got pulled in, she was a far bigger fish for ICE. There was no one they’d rather make an example of than a curator. He’d get full immunity if he testified against her.
Following his visit to the church, Hector tried to focus on the traffic speeding by. The neon billboards on the 101 appeared dull to him, as if someone had bled the colors out. The regular noises of the car and its engine were hammers on his eardrums. He spent the rest of the day checking places he frequently did business with buyers and sellers. Paying bribes to motel clerks and body shop mechanics and strip club bouncers. Trying to get rid of any evidence ICE could use against him.
Halfway home that night, Hector panicked when he saw a black Lincoln in his rearview. By the time he got back to Inglewood and parked several blocks from the house, he’d gone back and forth a dozen times in his mind on whether the car had been following him.
Maria was watching him from the window when he walked up the driveway. She started yammering and wouldn’t let him get a word in. It’d been almost thirty-six hours since Hector had last slept, and she could see it in his eyes. She immediately gave him a glass of red wine, turned the stereo to classical music, and lit candles. Her mother was an insomniac, and she’d learned all the tricks.
Yet at two a.m., Hector lay awake next to her in their bed, reflecting on his life. Each hour became a referendum: At three, he judged himself a good father; at four, a bad husband.
Finally he nestled against Maria again, stroking her breasts. But when she put her hand between his legs, Hector couldn’t get an erection. Even when she straddled him, nothing happened. Every part of Hector’s body was betraying him, all the things he never thought to doubt. He apologized to Maria, then, with his hands shaking, his eyes blurry, and his breathing labored, he went out to the stoop and sat alone in the chilly night. When he saw the first planes swooping in from overhead, signaling another dawn without sleep, Hector felt something else he hadn’t in years: the urge to cry.
He heard a voice coming from somewhere behind him. Who the hell was in his house at five o’clock in the morning? Hector stormed back into the kitchen. It took him a second to process who in the hell the man standing there was.
It was
“What are you doing in my house?” Hector demanded. “
The birdman stood up, and before the man could respond, Hector threw a quick blow across his chin, knocking him onto the floor.
Maria ran into the room. “
When Hector pointed at the birdman to try to explain, nothing made sense. The crumpled person on the floor was Ernesto, looking back at him in shock.
“
Hector felt as if he might vomit. Long ago he’d sworn to Maria he’d never take his anger out on her or their son the way his father did on him. She started flailing at him. He wasn’t even thinking as he threw his wife to the floor.
The last time Maria Gutierrez saw her husband, he was running down the street toward the Ford Explorer.
NINE
EVERY CORNER OF THE PRESBYTERIAN ER WAS FILLED WITH TRAUMA patients. Stanton hurried through the aftermath of the highway accident. Bumping into techs. Knocking over crash carts. Frantically searching for the man who caused this. Car accidents were common in FFI case reports; in one German case, it was the first sign that the insomnia had become complete. From a witness’s perspective it appeared the driver had fallen asleep on the autobahn.
Stanton ripped back curtain after curtain in the overwhelmed ER, behind which he saw unsupervised surgical residents performing operations they had no business attempting and nurses making medical decisions alone because there weren’t enough doctors. The one thing he didn’t see was anyone who could tell him who caused the accident and whether the person had been brought here.
Stanton stopped and scanned the room. Two paramedics stood across the bay, conscripted into service because the hospital was so understaffed.
