No wasting time. All business. Jack liked that.
The Center wasn't at all what he'd expected. The halls were bright, painted cheery shades of yellow and orange.
'You're a pediatrician?' he said as they walked along.
She nodded. 'Subspecialty in infectious diseases.'
'My sister's a pediatrician.'
'Really? Where's she practice?'
Jack mentally kicked himself. Why the hell had he said that? He never thought about his sister the doctor. Or his brother the judge. Must be those calls from Dad.
'I'm really not sure,' he said. 'We don't keep in touch.'
Dr. Clayton gave him a strange look.
Yeah, he thought. Sounds pretty lame, I know, but my sister's far better off not being linked to me.
As they passed open doorways he peeked through and saw rooms filled with toddlers laughing and playing and running around. They didn't look sick.
'That's the day-care area,' Dr. Clayton said. 'Where HIV-positive kids can play with other HIV-positive kids, and no one has to worry about passing on the infection.'
A little boy ran out of one of the rooms and skidded to a stop before them.
'Dr. Alith!' he cried. 'Look at my hair! I got a buth cut!'
'Very nice, Hector. But you know you're supposed to stay in the playroom.'
Hector was all of four years old and maybe thirty pounds. His ultra short light brown hair was about the same shade as his skin. He looked pale under his pigment, but his grin was a winner.
'Feel my head!' he said. 'It'th a buth cut.'
A heavyset woman in a flowered smock appeared at the door of the playroom, filling it. 'C'mon back, Hector,' she said. 'It's you're turn at the light box.'
'No. I want Dr. Alith to feel my buth cut!'
The woman said, 'He just got that haircut and he's been driving us all nuts about it.'
Dr. Clayton smiled and brushed her hand over Hector's stubbled head. 'Okay, Hector, I'll check out your buzz cut, but then—'
Her smile faded and she pressed her hand to his forehead. 'I think you feel a little warm.'
'He's been running around like a little madman—'Feel my buzz cut! Feel my buzz cut!' I'm sure he's just overheated.'
'Could be, Gladys, but bring him by. my office before he goes home, okay?'
Hector jumped in front of Jack and angled the top of his head toward him. 'Feel my buth cut, mithter!'
Jack hesitated. Hector was a cute little guy, but he was a cute little guy with HIV.
'C'mon, mithter!'
Jack gave the bristly top of Hector's head a quick rub. He didn't like himself for how quickly he pulled his hand away.
'Ithn't it mad?' Hector said.
'The maddest,' Jack told him.
Gladys scooted Hector back to his playroom and they moved on to the next area, which wasn't so pleasant. Jack peeked through a window in a door and saw a room full of kids hooked up to IV's.
'This is the clinic area. Kids come in here for outpatient therapy—we infuse them, monitor their progress, then send them home.'
And then they came to a huge plate-glass window that stretched from waist level to the ceiling.
'We board the homeless or abandoned infants in there,' Alicia said. 'We have volunteers to hold them and comfort them. The crack babies need a
Jack spotted Gia cradling a baby in her arms on the far side of the glass, but he didn't pause. He didn't want her to see him.
'You do a lot here,' he said as they moved on.
'Yeah, we've had to become a clinic, a nursery, a day-care center, and a foster home.'
'And all because of a single virus.'
'But we have to deal with more than the virus,' Alicia said. 'So many of these kids aren't born merely HTV positive—as if 'merely' can somehow be used with HIV—but addicted to crack or heroin as well. They hit the world screaming like any other baby at the insult of being ejected from that warm cozy womb, but then they keep on screaming as the agonies of cold-turkey withdrawal set in.'
'A double whammy,' Jack said. Poor kids.
'Yes. Some parents leave their kinds an inheritance, some leave hidden scars; these kids were left a virtual death sentence.'
Jack sensed something very personal in that last sentence but couldn't latch onto what it might have been.
'Perhaps 'death sentence' is overstating it. We can do a lot for these kids now. The survival rate is way up, but still… once they get through withdrawal, they still have the aftereffects of addiction. Crack and heroin burn out parts of the nervous system. I won't bore you with a lecture about dopamine receptors, but the result is fried circuits in the pleasure centers. Which leaves our little crack babies edgy and irritable, unable to take solace in the simple things that comfort normal infants. So they cry. Endlessly. Until the strung-out junkie mothers who made them this way beat them to shut them up.'
Jack realized she probably gave this spiel to all the visitors, but he wished she'd stop. He was getting the urge to go hurt somebody.
'The lucky ones'—she cleared her throat harshly—'try to imagine a lucky HIV-positive crack baby—wind up here.'
She stopped before a windowless door.
'Here's the storeroom where the toys were kept.'
She showed him the room, empty but for some Scotch tape and wrapping paper.
'The toys will be wrapped in this paper?' he said, memorizing the pattern.
'Most, but not all.'
He pulled open the door to the alley, and checked the alley itself. Easy to see how it had been done. The outer door frame and the surface around the latch were deeply gouged and warped. Looked like the work of a long pry bar in the hands of someone with the finesse of an orangutan.
He saw Dr. Clayton shiver in the cold wash from the open door. She rubbed the sleeves of her white coat. She was very thin—no insulation.
'How are you going to handle this?' she said as Jack closed the door.
Jack said, 'Not here. Can we talk in your office?'
'Follow me.'
On the way to her office, Dr. Clayton stopped at the front door and peered out at the street. He saw her stiffen, as if she'd seen something that frightened her.
Sam Baker had been sitting here in the car, taking his turn on surveillance for a good hour now, testing his memory, and checking out his hair in the rearview mirror.
And he hated looking in that mirror. People would think he was some sort of fag or something, primping and prissing. But damn, his once thick-and-wavy sandy hair was getting thinner and grayer every goddam day. He was only forty-six and he could see his scalp. If this kept up, he'd be bald before he hit fifty.
Baker glanced up and saw someone staring his way through the front door of the AIDS center. He looked closer and resisted the impulse to duck down when he saw that it was the Clayton broad. Not to worry. She could see the car, but not who was in it.
At least this confirmed that she was still there.
Not that he gave a rat's ass where this crazy broad went. But the towel head who was paying him did, and that was what counted. He—
The cell phone rang. Baker grabbed it and hit the send button.
