from the top floor of the roundhouse.”
I looked over at Theresa, who was joking with a doctor on her way out of the ER.
“She’s a neighborhood girl,” Rodriguez said. “West Side. Takes care of people. They take care of her.”
“You like that?”
“Why not? What did she give you?” Rodriguez held out his hand. I shoved the bottle of pills into it.
“Cracked rib.”
“You drive your car here?” Rodriguez said.
“It’s in the lot. How’d it go at the grocery store?”
“Just getting started. They’re hauling the bodies over to the morgue. I gotta head back.”
“And I need to get some sleep.”
Rodriguez tossed the bottle back into my lap. I got up and started to look around for my coat. A few feet away, a young black kid was strapped to a gurney. They’d brought him in unconscious a half hour ago and left him in a far corner. Then they’d moved him a little closer and hooked him up to some machines. Now he was suddenly awake, ripping an IV out of his arm, thrashing against his restraints, and groaning. An intern tried to calm him. The kid lay back, head whipsawing back and forth, breath more of a wheeze, like his chest was full of dry feathers. There were fresh welts on his arms, and small blisters cooked on his face and neck.
The intern moved closer, picking up the IV stand and punching some numbers into a wall phone. Presumably, a call for help. The kid snapped forward again, body rigid, straining for upright. One of the thick blue straps snapped and the metal buckle cracked the gauge on a blood pressure cuff. The boy craned his mouth open. For a moment I thought he was choking. And maybe he was. Then he coughed, a thick, rich sound. Bright red blood splattered the intern’s scrubs. The boy took in a breath of air and slumped back to the gurney.
Theresa Jackson pushed back into the ER, flat eyes passing over the two of us as she pulled the green curtain across. The last thing I saw was a second intern tugging on some gloves and a mask, an older doctor slipping close to the gurney, and Ellen Brazile, glasses up on her forehead, staring intently at the patient’s chart.
“Fucking hate hospitals,” Rodriguez said.
“I think I need a second, Vince.”
“For what? Let’s get out of here.”
“A second.”
Rodriguez nodded toward the doors. “I’ll be up at reception. Five minutes, then I’m gone.”
“All right.”
Rodriguez left. I put on my coat and moved a little closer to the drawn curtain. Theresa stepped through. She wore a white mask and a paper smock sheathed in plastic. Her gloves were glistening with fresh blood.
“Where are you going?” she said.
“That guy okay?”
“Probably some sort of internal bleeding. Whatever it is, it ain’t good. And you need to stay away.”
Jackson slipped out of her smock and gloves, bundled them up, and dropped them into a hazardous-waste container. Then she pushed the mask up off her mouth. “You hearing me?”
“The woman in there. You know her?”
Theresa shook her head. “She’s with Dr. Peters. A colleague or something.”
“What’s she doing?”
“What’s she doing? Nothing. Just reading the chart and looking at the patient. Where did Rodriguez go? He needs to get you out of here.”
“Reason I ask is the woman is a friend of mine.”
“That woman?”
“Yes.”
“What’s her name?”
“Ellen Brazile.”
Jackson slipped the mask back down. “You stay here.”
Two minutes later Ellen Brazile came through the curtain and lifted her mask off her face. She wasn’t smiling either.
“What are you doing here?” Ellen said.
We were standing in a dark hallway, near a rack of vending machines from 1963. I looked through the clouded glass at a row of selections. At the very end was a Zagnut bar.
“I didn’t think they still made Zagnuts. You have any change?”
She wasn’t amused. I found a few quarters and got the Zagnut anyway.
“I got hurt on a job. Cracked a rib.” I lifted up my shirt and showed her the white bandage. Then I unwrapped the Zagnut and offered it to her.
“No thanks.”
I took a bite. “Smart move. Anyway, my ribs hurt. At least they did before I popped one of the pills they gave me. What’s your story?”
“I don’t have one, Mr. Kelly.” Already she was creating distance. She’d wanted to know why I was at Cook County. Now her curiosity was sated.
“You have a story, Doc. Everyone does.”
“I need to get back.”
“Let’s start with that.”
“With what?”
“Today, we investigated a possible pathogen release in the subway. Tonight, you’re in the Cook County ER, standing over a patient who’s spitting up blood.”
Brazile shot a look down the hall. A couple of nurses were chatting in a drab smear of light, maybe fifty feet away.
“Afraid they’re going to hear me?”
“You need to get yourself under control, Mr. Kelly.”
“What does that mean?”
“The pathogen release was a false alarm. My presence here is completely unrelated to anything that went on in the subway.”
“Spitting up blood, red blotches, open sores. You must have a dozen monsters in your lab that can do that. You’re telling me there’s no connection?”
“I’m here because a colleague asked me to take a look at a patient. There are other things we do at CDA besides hunt for bioweapons. Many other things.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Really?”
“You’re right. What the hell do I know?”
Her face cleared, and I realized, not for the first time, how incredibly attractive Ellen Brazile could be.
“I guess I’m sorry, too,” she said. “I overreacted.”
“Been a long day.”
“Yes.”
“What’s wrong with the kid? Nurse said it was internal bleeding.”
Brazile nodded. “It is, but not caused by any sort of physical injury. At least not anything we can see.”
“So?”
“Could be some sort of food poisoning. He lives in an area nearby that’s got a lot of toxins. Lead in the paint. Something in the water. Could be a lot of things.”
“You gonna run some tests?”
“I’ll take a look at his blood and see what’s what.”
Down the hallway, I caught a glimpse of Rodriguez ducking into a small room near an elevator.
“I gotta run,” I said and held out my hand. “Twice in one day. We have to stop meeting like this, Doctor.”
She glanced at the candy bar in my other fist. “Mind if I take you up on that bite?”
“This?” I held up the half-eaten Zagnut. “Listen, they don’t rotate the stock down here very much. If you
