lung.
If she could just get up the nerve, how would she do it? This wasn't the first time she had actually considered the possibility of ending her own life, but it had been many years. Living as a pulmonary cripple simply would not compute. Nor would the debility of immunosuppressive therapy following a lung transplant. And worst of all would probably be waiting around, watching her lung allocation score rise and fall like the Dow Jones average.
It was hard to believe that a life with such promise had come to this.
The walls were closing in on her, and there seemed to be no way, no way at all, to stop them.
Pills, probably, she decided. It had to be pills. She remembered hearing someplace that the Hemlock Society recommended enough sedatives and painkillers to go into a coma, in conjunction with a plastic bag over the head just before consciousness vanished altogether. That didn't sound all that pleasant, or even all that possible. Perhaps it was worth going online. If one could learn to make a thermonuclear device there, one could certainly learn the most efficient, pain-free way to commit suicide.
Staring across at the Pan Am Games photo, and almost in spite of herself, Natalie began mentally ticking through how she would go about obtaining enough Oxycontin or Valium to induce coma. The phone on the end table beside her had rung several times before she became aware of it. Caller ID listed only the words 'New Jersey' and a number.
Probably a telemarketer, she thought, smiling tightly at the notion of something so trivial interrupting something so profound. Bemused at the irony, she answered the call.
'Hello?'
'This is June Harvey of Northeast Colonial Health calling for Miss Natalie Reyes.'
Northeast Colonial — her medical insurance carrier. What now?
'This is Natalie Reyes.'
'Miss Reyes, I've been assigned the claim for all charges connected with your recent operation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and your medevac flight back to the United States.'
'Yes?'
'First of all, I hope you are doing well.'
'Thank you for asking. I don't think I've ever had someone from my health insurance company actually inquire about my health. The truth is, I've had some recent setbacks.'
'I'm sorry to hear that. Well, I'm calling with the good news that Northeast Colonial has reviewed your case and has committed itself to reimbursing you in full for your flight back to Boston.'
Reimbursing. Until this moment, Natalie hadn't considered at all how her flight back had been paid for. Now, she realized, Doug Berenger had taken care of it. Not that he would have gone under financially without being reimbursed, but such a flight had to have been a good-sized nut. Typical of the man, he had never mentioned that he had paid for it out-of-pocket.
'Well, thank you,' she said. 'Thank you very much.'
'There's just one thing.'
'Yes?'
'Our records state that you had a lung removal performed at the Santa Teresa Hospital in Rio de Janeiro.'
'That's right.'
'Well, we have received no medical records from the hospital validating that fact, and in fact, although you are fully covered, no claim has been filed for your surgical procedure or hospitalization.'
'Well, I was unconscious for a while, but after I woke up I called home and got my insurance number and gave it to the people at the hospital. I don't remember a lot of things from that hospitalization, but I do remember very clearly doing that.'
'Well,' June Harvey said, 'perhaps you could write or call Santa Teresa Hospital. We need copies of your medical records, plus a claim. If you wish, I'll send you the appropriate forms.'
'Yes, yes. Do that, please.'
June Harvey wished her well with her setback, confirmed her mailing address, and then ended the conversation. Natalie remained in the recliner for a few more minutes, aware that, for whatever reason, the call had defused some of the urgency of her self-destructive impulses. There will still be time, she thought now, plenty of time.
She pushed herself up, boiled some water, and brewed a cup of Constant Comment tea, which she then took into the tiny study off her bedroom. Instead of doing a Google search for the Hemlock Society, she did one for Santa Teresa Hospital. There were 10,504 entries, the vast majority of them in Portuguese. The search engine found them all in 0.07 seconds.
Who would want to leave a world where this is possible? she asked herself. A backpack-sized mechanical lung might be just around the corner.
It took half an hour, but finally Natalie had an address for the hospital in the Botafogo section of Rio, and a phone number.
After considering, then rejecting, the notion of enlisting her mother's help in making the calls, Natalie looked up the country code for Brazil and the city code for Rio, and began dialing. Initially, her conversations were limited by lost connections while being transferred, as well as by her awkward Cape Verdean Portuguese. Little by little, though, her navigational skills improved. She made it to patient information, then to billing, to records, and even to security. An hour and fifteen minutes after she set the receiver down from her conversation with June Harvey, she finished an animated discussion with the director of the Santa Teresa record room, a woman named DaSoto, who actually spoke English — probably about as well as Natalie did Portuguese.
'I am sorry, Miss Reyes,' she said, 'but Santa Teresa is one of the fine hospital in all Brazil. Our electronic record system is be very good. You were not admit to our hospital on July eighteenth. You never did received an operation on in any of our operating rooms. And you were not certainly a patient in here for twelve days, or even one day. You ask if I am positive of which I say. I tell you that I would hang my career on it. No, I would hang my life.'
'Thank you, Senhora DaSoto,' Natalie said, aware of her heart beginning to beat heavily, but still unwilling to fully believe that the woman, however certain she was, hadn't overlooked something. 'I know it was a hard decision for you to talk with me about this without proof of who I am.'
'You are welcome.'
'I have one last request.'
'Yes?'
'Could you give me the number of the police station that would have been most likely involved with my shooting?'
CHAPTER 20
His life is manifold and motley and an epitome of the Hues of many.
Big Bend Diner. Sandy Macfarlane flicked off the red-and-green neon sign even though, technically, the place was still open for another ten minutes. What the heck, the Corlisses wouldn't mind. In six years of working for them she had hardly missed one day. She was a pretty woman with orange-red hair, and a sensual, desirable figure that she often boasted about by bemoaning the weight she had to lose.
'Closin' early, Sandy?' Kenny Hooper asked.
Hooper, a widower in his late sixties, still held down a regular job working for Tennessee Stone and Gravel. There was nothing for him to go home to except his old hound dog, so every evening after his shift was over he stopped by the Big Bend for a late dinner.
'Got some errands that need doin', Kenny,' Sandy said. 'Besides, there ain't no one comin' in between now
