by Greg Rucka
“I’ll consider it,” I said. “Can I see Alison?”
“She’ll meet you in the waiting room,” Dr. Romero said, and reached for the phone. She was already arguing with someone on the line by the time I shut the door.
Katie wandered over after I’d been back in the waiting room for a few minutes, sitting down beside me on the couch. Without warning, she wrapped her arms around my middle and gave me a hug, saying, “Hello. I missed you.”
I patted her back.
“ ’Cus, ’Cus are you all—all right? You look sad, he looks sad.”
“I’m fine, Katie.”
She mumbled something into her chest, then slipped her hand in mine and sat quietly, her legs swinging just above the floor.
Twenty minutes later, Alison came through the admitting door in a wheelchair pushed by Lynn Delfleur. She saw me and smiled thinly, brushing brown hair out of her eyes, turning her head to Delfleur and murmuring something I couldn’t catch. The nurse laughed. Sitting in the wheelchair she looked pale and tired, and still beautiful. I let go of Katie’s hand and stood up. They came over to me and Delfleur said, “Take her home and treat her well.”
“I always do.”
“You want me to take you downstairs?” she asked Alison.
Alison shook her head.
“Leave the wheelchair at reception,” Delfleur said.
I got behind the chair and took hold of the handles. Katie stood to the side, watching, still quiet, and I said, “It was nice meeting you, Katie.”
“Nice to meet you, too, are you his girlfriend?”
Alison nodded.
“He’s nice.”
“Yes, he is,” Alison said. Her voice was constricted and low.
We went to the elevator, and Katie watched us go. After the doors closed I leaned over and kissed the top of Alison’s head. She said, “You don’t waste any time.”
“Well, you know me, I see a pretty girl and go to pieces.”
“Can’t let you out of my sight,” she said.
The elevator stopped and I pushed her down the hall, passing a very young-looking Latina and a nurse as they entered one of the examination rooms. The girl looked at us with hollow eyes.
“How you doing?” I asked.
“I feel sick,” Alison said. “I want to go home.”
At reception another nurse took the wheelchair while I helped Alison up, and we worked out a way to walk, her on my left side, head on my shoulder, my left arm tightly around her waist. “Slowly,” Alison cautioned me.
The security guard, a big black man in a clean white uniform, got to his feet and asked, “You want an escort?” His name tag identified him as “Sheldon Bullier.”
“Absolutely,” I said.
He picked up the phone and punched two numbers, then said, “Escort out at ground reception.”
Less than a minute later the same thin man who had held the door for us on our way in entered the room. He introduced himself as Nate and said he’d lead, and we headed out the door.
The crowd was no bigger than before, but it certainly seemed more hostile, even at their legislated distance. Crowell and the Cadillac were gone. The moment we exited there was a response, people yelling and wailing. The roaming photographer snapped another shot of us as a chorus of “Mommy, mommy, you’ve murdered me” started. The protesters had the singsong down well, almost sounding like children. But not quite.
Seven men and women fell to their knees on the sidewalk across the street and began praying loudly for the soul of our baby, blocking a young, well-dressed couple, trying to reach us with pamphlets. The man who had harried us on the way in urged Jesus to strike us dead where we stood. We headed down the sidewalk to where I had parked. A voice shouted, “You’ve let her kill your son. He was your son!”
Under his breath, Nate said, “Freedom of speech.”
Alison’s hands dug into me, and I felt her tremble and try to pull me closer, and I squeezed her back, gently. We had cleared the safe perimeter, and were maybe another twenty feet from where I had parked her car.
Nate said, “Look out.”
Four men and women were rushing toward us. All carried paper shopping bags, and as they reached into them I instinctively shifted my weight, pivoting left, and lifted Alison to put our backs to the clinic. Nate stopped one woman but the other three pushed right past him and came at us, yelling. A bushily bearded man reached into his bag, screaming, “Look what you’ve done!” but before he could withdraw his hand I’d turned again, loosening my grip on Alison so as to not pull her with me, and putting my shoulder into the man’s chest. While I was at it I straight-armed the man beside him. They both reeled backward off the sidewalk, cursing. The bushy beard shouted, “He tried to kill me.”
I felt Alison let go of me and turned to see the small black-haired woman who had slipped past screeching, “Murderer, murderer, murderer, murderer, murderer, murderer!” in Alison’s face. She had dropped her bag and was shoving something into Alison’s hands, and Alison was trying to push her away. Alison’s hands were red and wet.
I grabbed the thumb of the woman’s left hand in my right, pulling back and twisting hard, sweeping the back of her left knee with my right foot. She shrieked and went down on her rear; the mutilated doll she’d been pressing on Alison fell onto the sidewalk beside her. Red paint spilled out of the doll’s cracked head, pooling beside the woman.
Alison was sagging against the wall. Tears streaked salt tracks on her cheeks, and I caught her, pulled her against me, and made it to her Honda. Without letting her go I unlocked the passenger door, opened it, and slid her inside. Then I slammed the door shut, locking it, making a quick scan. The protesters had lurched forward, their shouts shrill and coarse. Nate and I caught eyes and he thumbs-upped and I nodded, and he turned to begin forcing his way back to the clinic.
The black-haired woman still sat on the sidewalk, clutching her thumb, bushy beard trying to help her up. They both watched me, and I stared back hard, and they looked away. I got into the car, started the engine, and pulled out, seeing more people shouting at us in the rearview mirror.
Alison made no sound, her chin pressed to her chest, hair hiding her face, her hands palm-up in her lap, smeared with wet red paint. The front of her shirt had been spattered, too. After a moment she tried to wipe her hands off on her shirt, but then she gave up and sat motionless and silent.
We had been together for just under seven months. Seeing her sitting beside me on the passenger seat, bent and in retreat, burned me. This wasn’t her, and I hated it and knew that she did, too.
At a light on Broadway I reached out, touching her shoulder. She shook her head and said, “Don’t.” The word rode on a single sob, and I withdrew my hand. We made it to her place on Eighty-fourth and I double-parked on the street. With her out of the car, I took the keys from her pocket and unlocked the town house’s front door. She allowed me to guide her to the bathroom, then knelt at the toilet and vomited. I held her hair away from her face until she waved me away, then went to park the car.
When I returned, the bathroom door was shut and the shower was running. I went into the kitchen and hunted about for the teakettle. I wasn’t overly familiar with the town house. Alison had been occupying it full-time only for the last six weeks, since starting work in the city, and although I’d visited it frequently, I hadn’t done any significant exploring. The town house had been purchased by her parents and Alison had the run of it while she lived in Manhattan, on the sole condition that her mother could visit, unannounced, whenever she chose to. I liked her mother a lot. She had chosen to visit a few times and once caught us making love in the kitchen, which was no more embarrassing than being arrested streaking around the mayor’s mansion, but no less than, well, than being walked in on by the mother of the woman you are making love with. Linda Wallace had taken it well, certainly better than I had. Currently, Linda was vacationing in France, bicycling around Provence. She would be calling soon, probably; the aborti
on was not a secret between her and her daughter.
I found the kettle in the cupboard over the oven, and a tin of Earl Grey hidden behind some macaroni in the pantry. I started the water heating and reread my instructions on how to care for Alison. Sleep seemed high on the list right now, and not a lot of movement. When I heard the shower stop I went back to the bedroom to turn down the covers and draw the blinds, then headed to the bathroom.
She called my name as I got there and I said, “I’m right here.”
“Can you get my robe, please?”
I got her robe from her bedroom and came back, and Alison opened the door to the bathroom and took it from me without letting me see her. Then she opened the door wide and, clad in her robe, said, “I want to lie down.”
“Sure,” I said, and put an arm around her, guiding her to her room. There, she disrobed and got slowly under the covers, immediately closing her eyes. I pulled the blankets up around her and she shivered, sinking into the pillow. I kissed her cheek and said, “I’ll check on you in a bit. Otherwise, I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”
She mumbled a response as I rose and made certain she was tucked in. At the door I added, “I’m sorry, Alison.”
Her eyes opened, and she turned her head to look at me. But her gaze went through me and she stayed silent, and all I got was a small nod before she closed her eyes again.
I shut the door quietly, then went to the sitting room and turned down the air conditioner. In the bathroom I found some cleaning supplies under the sink and cleaned up the red paint smeared on the porcelain and tile. Finished, I found my way back to the kitchen, poured a mug of tea, and drank it sitting at the kitchen table. The air conditioner cycled, peacefully sucking me dry, the refrigerator humming with it. No noise other than appliances, no movement other than air and me, and I watched the steam curling out of my mug. The mug was black with a Star Trek insignia on it. Alison’s late father had bought it, 1 had been informed.
I could cover Romero and her daughter. With additional help, with Rubin and Natalie, and, say, Dale, I could do it. I could possibly even keep them alive, but there are no guarantees in this business. Dale was at least as well trained as I; we had done the Army course together. Natalie had been trained by her father, and was probably better than I at this sort of work. Rubin had learned at my knee. He wasn’t professional, but he was amateur in the way that Olympic athletes are amateurs, and we had been close friends forever. Rubin’s learning was through osmosis, I supposed, and he had absorbed a lot.
Including me, that’d give us a four-person, twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week rotation. Two people to stay with Romero at the clinic when she worked; two people at her home while she slept; leave one person to stay with Katie during the day. Alternate that, have the remaining person cover Romero’s clinic ingress and egress, and the protection would be fine, giving that person room to investigate and perform the advance work, what little would be needed.
I could do that, and thinking about it, I realized I wanted to do it. If nothing else, I wanted to give back a little of what I’d had to take this morning.
After draining the cup I called Rubin. He took a few rings to answer, and I pictured him in our apartment, dropping his pad and pencils, swearing as he picked up the phone in his room. When he picked up I asked if he was busy.
“Nothing I can’t put down; the art’s on spec, anyway. How’s Alison?”
“She’s sleeping. I need you to call Natalie and Dale and have them meet me here, and I need you to bring me my gun. Can you do that?”
“I know Natalie’s free, we were going to have dinner tonight. Dale’s in your book?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, I’ll be right over.”
“Don’t ring the bell. I’ll be watching for you.”
I cut the connection and pulled the sheet from the clinic across the counter, thinking. I wasn’t committed yet; dialing the number on the page would change that. “Women’s LifeCare, may I help you?”
“My name is Kodiak. I’d like to speak with Dr. Romero.”
“Hold, please.” Classical music for forty seconds, then a click and, “I’ll transfer you.”
“Mr. Kodiak? Dr. Romero. Is Alison all right?”
“She’s asleep. I think she’s fine. Have you contacted Sentinel Guards yet?”
“Not yet.”
“I’ll take the job,” I said.
I heard her light a cigarette before she said, “When can you start?”
“Tonight. We’ll pick you up when you leave work and go from there. I’ll need to hold a meeting at your place, and two of my people will stay behind and spend the night there. I’d do it but I don’t want to leave Alison alone for too long.”
“Commendable.”
“Starting tonight you’ve got your twenty-four/seven.”
“Who are these other people?”
“Colleagues. I can vouch for them.”
“I’ll have a check ready for you.”
I told her what else I required and she asked a couple of questions and agreed to my terms, and I said I’d see her at six and bring a contract with me. She said thank you, and we got off the phone. As I hung up, I thought I heard Alison murmuring and went to look in on her. She was sleeping, her mouth slightly open, her head tilted and resting on her hair. I watched her from the doorway for a long time.
We didn’t notice her when she came in. Late twenties, maybe, a little plain, looking like every other expectant mother who had entered the clinic in the last week of work. Sitting in the second-floor waiting room, her purse in her lap, her belly showing second trimester, she struck me as odd only because she was Caucasian and alone. Most of the white patients at the clinic came with someone else, a friend or lover to hold their hand. She had been nervous, but I had yet to see a patient who wasn’t. Mostly, I put that down to the noise of the SOS protesters outside. So I didn’t stop when she came in, but continued back to my office.
Romero had, not unreasonably, explained that she would not allow a guard on her when she was with a patient, and I didn’t argue the point. Excuse me, ma’am, just put your legs in the stirrups and don’t mind him, he’s my bodyguard.
Not good for business, if nothing else.
So, while Romero did her job, I did mine. I had taken over an empty office on the second floor as our on-site command post and, while Natalie patrolled the second floor and Dale watched the first, I did as much advance work as possible over the phone. Truth to tell, there wasn’t a whole lot of advance work to be done. Romero’s schedule was simple. We had all our alternate routes memorized, our formations down, our communication clear. The only other thing for me to do was try to determine the source of the threats, and I could do only so much of that at the clinic. Mostly phone calls, either to Detective Lozano or Special Agent Fowler. My attempts to set up an interview with Jonathan Crowell at SOS had all failed. I got the feeling Crowell didn’t want to talk to me.
So I called Rubin at Romero’s apartment to check on Katie.
“How’s it going?” I asked him.
“Fine,” Rubin told me. “I’m bored senseless and Katie’s having the time of her life. She’s stolen my sketch pad and is working in charcoals now.”
“Any problems?”
“Well, she’s got charcoal dust all over herself, but I’ve managed to keep it off the furniture.”
“You’re a funny guy,” I said. I could hear music in the background, and Katie was saying something.
“No, no problems,” Rubin said. “No phone calls, no letters, and no protesters. I just finished checking the mail. It’s clean. I really don’t think they have her home address yet, Atticus.”
“It’s only a matter of time. Enough of her life is public record and it’s there for them to find. All it takes is one SOS member who also works for the IRS or a bank. Let me know if you see anything suspicious.”
“Of course,” he said, sounding hurt. “Katie wants to speak to you.”
“Put her on.”
I listened as the phone changed hands, then Katie said, “Hello, who is this?”
“It’s Atticus, Katie,” I said, thinking it was a hell of a thing to ask after she had told Rubin she wanted to talk to me. “How you doing?”
“Oh, it’s ’Cus, hello. When are you coming home?”
“Not for a while yet. Your mom hasn’t finished work.”
“Where’s my mommy, can I talk to my mommy?” Katie asked.
“I’ll see if she can call you later.”
“Okay, she’s working. We can’t talk to her, but we can. Ask her, please, so I can talk to her.”
“I will, I promise.”
“Okay. David says hi, he says hi, and we’ll see you, okay? I’ll see you, okay?” she said, and then the phone was back to Rubin before I could answer.
“You’ll be coming in at the same time?” he asked. “Yeah. We’ll radio our ETA once we’re moving. You’re not going too stir-crazy?”
He chuckled. “Hell, no. We’ve done finger-painting and Sweatin’ to the Oldies and she’s on charcoal now, like I said. After that, we’re going to watch some episodes of The Incredible Hulk. Romero got them for her on videotape. As far as I can figure, she can’t really discern a difference between Bill Bixby and David Banner, but she sees the difference between Banner and the Hulk. It’s sort of cool. Bixby’s this consummate nice guy, but if you get him mad he becomes the incredible protector. Super strong, but only doing harm to evildoers.”
“There’s something to that.”
“Would that we all could turn green and frighten our problems away.”
“Don’t get too many ideas. See you later,” I said.
“Cool. Don’t get shot,” Rubin said.