She glanced up and down her narrow, curving street before starting to the corner, and saw no one suspicious. But the people who were following her rarely appeared so close to her own building.
Her bag slapped against her side as she ran along the Commonwealth Avenue median after a streetcar, catching it and boarding and moving between two empty seats, choosing instead to stand. No one had followed her inside. The train started and she stood holding the overhead bar, rocking along, pretending not to be scanning the faces of the other riders, and resisting the sleeplike pull of mass transit funk.
The B line trolley below Kenmore Square, the one on which she was traveling, ran between the area's two largest universities. She was surrounded by students, all unfinished faces and soft hands, knapsacks slumped at their feet and modishly colored tablets tucked under their arms. The most fashionable kids wore hospital shirts or bruisecolored eye shadow, with plastic hospital bracelets dangling off their wrists.
"I'll" was in. "Unhealthy" was the rage. It was evidently a fashion statement about the diseased world they stood to inherit. Melanie had the look herself, in her build and the dark circles under her eyes, only she did not share the sentiment; she came by her disease-chic naturally. One healthy-looking man in the second car, older and well-dressed in a simple suit, stood out from the rest; his only concession was an inconspicuous pair of latex gloves, which, when riding on a public subway, was not a bad idea. The rest all looked like children to her twenty-four-year-old eyes, and she could feel her days of scamming student discounts coming to an end. Four years of being a dedicated dropout, of auditing her life, had earned her no credits, no degrees, no nothing. She was four years' poorer and on the brink of expulsion from the university of her own making.
At the Brighton Avenue intersection the doors folded open and she stepped down with the others, passing in front of the blunt nose of the train to the rail tracks on the other side. The change in acoustics from the trolley to the outside street amplified the ringing that was constant in her head: a flat, mantric tone sapping 60 percent of the hearing in her right ear. At certain times, such as right now, the blare rose so intensely in her head that nothing short of stopping and pressing a hand to her ear would ease it. Others from the streetcar moved around and away from her as she waited. She felt the rumbling of the tracks, but did not make sense of it in time.
She was struck from behind and thrown forward sprawling onto the cement apron. She had been tackled, knocked off the track median toward the street. As she tumbled, she saw a flurry of arms and knees, most of them her own.
Steel wheels screeched as a B trolley burst behind her. The harsh, sudden noise was deafening to her keening ears, and stunned, she jerked back onto her knees.
The well-dressed man from the second trolley car was behind her now, having rolled from the force of his impact half out onto Commonwealth Avenue. An automobile skidded to a stop, curtseying just inches from his tight shoulder.
Her handbag had slipped to her side. She groped for the snap and thrashed around inside for her mace, pulling it out and thumbing the trigger. A fine steroid mist escaped. It wasn't her Mace at all: It was her bronchodilator, and with a grunt she flung the inhaler aside.
Then she realized what had actually happened. The well-dressed man hadn't attacked her at all. He had shoved her out of the path of the inbound streetcar. He had saved her life. "Hey!" she yelled after him. But the stranger never looked back. She saw the soles of his shoes and his gloved hands pumping as he raced away, and by the time she got to her feet he was down a side street and gone.
Very quickly she had her bag back in hand. People were staring at her, and a college kid wearing a powder blue surgeon's cap stepped forward and handed Melanie back her inhaler, asking if she was all right. She snatched it out of his blue-bandaged hand and rushed blindly across the street while the traffic was still stopped.
She went a city block with tears stinging her eyes, apartment stoops and storefronts blurring past her. At the corner she ducked into the doorway of a dry cleaners and she faced her frail reflection in the steamed window as she tried to catch her breath. Cranberry, that was the color she had regrettably dyed her hair, short to her jaw on the sides and flat against her small head like sauce poured over an eggshell. She looked like a punked-out corpse.
No combination of clothing or patterns could improve upon her implike frame. She was a mess.
She glanced back up the avenue and no one seemed to be following or staring at her any longer. Her damaged lungs heaved and burned.
She took out her inhaler and took a deep, soothing hit, and felt her lungs begin to expand.
Just keep moving, she thought. As long as she kept moving forward, the worst they could do was force her sideways.
The appointment she was running late for was at the Allston-Brighton Parish Clinic, a busy, modern brick office building located across from a Middle Eastern restaurant, half a block down Harvard Avenue. Only a gynecology appointment could round out that most enjoyable morning.
Dr. Ursula Freeley's office was not listed in the lobby directory, nor was there a plaque on her second-floor door.
But like a horse returning to the corral, Melanie's reproductive organs knew the way.
The waiting room was always empty. The window was open and the receptionist, a different woman than last time, smiled up at her and spoke with a light southern accent. There was never a wait. Melanie was called immediately and shown into the examining room.
Light choral music playing inside did nothing for her, and she remained fraught with the chaos of the street. Water helped to calm her down.
As directed, she was drinking glassfuls from two plastic pitchers in order to fill her bladder and thereby raise her pelvic organs for an impending ultrasound. Melanie suffered from endometriosis, a condition whereby stubborn endometrial tissue clung to her insides rather than being voided by her damaged body each month.
It had been described to her as I rust" on her ovaries, and could lead to the development of painful cysts which, if untreated, could then lead to tumors. There was no cure, only a choice of two treatments.
The first was pregnancy. Melanie's laughing jag at Dr. Freeley's first suggestion of this three years before had prompted a memorable sneezing fit. The other was a laparotomy, a mildly invasive surgical procedure whereby a viewscope was inserted into the navel and a tool was inserted through the abdominal cavity to scrape the uterus clean.
Her ovaries were incorrigible and had already demanded the procedure four times. Her pale-as-dough bikini line-"bikini" used in the purest hypothetical sense here-was marked with four slashing pink incision scars facing her indented navel, like the constellation of whatever cursed sign she had been born under.
Would the fifth, which she dreaded, cross the first four, thereby completing a set?
She heard the doctor's footsteps out in the hall, the way a deadbolt must feel when it hears keys jingling. Dr. Freeley was businesslike and tall. She was humorless, but as with any good doctor, she had a quiet, confident air that allowed Melanie to tell her things she told no one else. She was also beautiful, with a cool, perfect elegance about her which struck Melanie as fundamentally unjust.
Gynecologists, of all women, should not be someone you might lose your date to at a party. "No examination," Melanie reminded her.
Dr. Freeley set down her chart and wheeled over the blue machine, agreeing with a nod. "Just pictures this time."
Melanie unbuckled her belt and slipped her jeans halfway down over the bony knobs of her waist. She removed her jersey and lay back, sliding her shirt up past her prominent ribs, revealing the scrawny torso of a teenage anorexic.
Dr. Freeley said, "How have you been feeling?"
"Never better," Melanie answered. "No weight gain, I see. Ninety-two pounds. You're eating?"
"Let's see. Cheeseburgers for dinner last night. Chicken wings for dessert. Pizza for breakfast, and I'm already hungry again. Am I on heroin?"
Dr. Freeley casually touched Melanie's waist with her latex hands, looking merely interested, not concerned. "Just an overactive metabolism," she decided.
Dr. Freeley slathered gel on Melanie's bare stomach and her abdomen bucked against the coolness. Melanie often wondered how much Dr. Freeley knew about her medical past, such as the damage to her lungs.
There was something in the way she treated Melanie, much like a child, and in the fact that she had never asked the origin of the other, numerous scars, proud and jagged and slashing Melanie's belly and chest like surgical graffiti, that had gradually raised Melanie's suspicions over time. "Arch your back more."
The ultrasound examination was mercifully brief. Later, after relieving the swollen balloon of her bladder in the connecting bathroom and toweling off the gaap, Melanie noticed dust in the small sink. She ran water which lifted and swirled the grime into dark streaks and whisked them away down the drain, leaving a gray ring. The soap dispenser, she noted, was full; new. That bathroom had not been used in days.
She returned to the greater examining room where Dr. Freeley waited, as always, to take her blood. Melanie's mind ran on as she watched Dr. Freeley work over her arm. Why the need for so much blood? How much did she need for testing? Melanie studied Dr. Freeley as Dr. Freeley studied her, until the room began to spin.
Melanie lost count around the sixth or seventh tube. "Just one more," said Dr. Freeley. "You haven't asked about the ultrasound."
"Right," Melanie nodded. Because she knew the answer already. "The ovarian adhesions are back again. I don't know why the hormone pills aren't working. We're going to have to schedule another procedure."
Melanie nodded, drifting. "Or else become pregnant. Don't leave out that option."
Dr. Freeley finished and bandaged her arm. "I take it you're between boyfriends?"
"That's a generous way of putting it. But who needs romance when you've got adventure?"
"What about work?"
"A part-time job. With full-time hours. I guess I'm between careers, too. Or between unemployments. Can I ask you a question about these hormone pills?"
Dr. Freeley was placing stickers on the thin tubes of blood.
"Yes?"
"Any side effects? Drowsiness, for example? I'm sleeping all the time."
"There shouldn't be."
"Or my inhaler? Confusion, maybe?
Paranoia?" The flicker of interest in Dr. Freeley's eyes made Melanie retreat. "Should I worry about operating any heavy equipment?"
Dr. Freeley said, "You seem concerned."
"Oh, no. I guess I'm just between lives." She held Melanie with a flat, probing gaze. "Sit tight," she said. "I'll get you some orange juice."
She carried off the tray of blood tubes. As soon as the door closed, Melanie grabbed the side of the bed and rolled off. Her shoes clapped against the floor, legs wobbling as she reached out for the examining room counter and pulled herself to it. She swiped the metal basin with her finger. Her fingertip turned gray with cotton-fine dust. An unused examining room sink. No name on the office door. The different receptionist every visit. The always empty waiting room.
Melanie turned and reached back for the bed, waveringly, hoisting herself back on top of it just as Dr. Freeley returned.
Melanie slurped the juice rudely. This was after sniffing it.
Dr. Freeley monitored her blood pressure until satisfied. "Two weeks, then," she said. "For another look. A full examination this time.
Then we'll decide."
"What if it's some virus?" Melanie said.
Dr. Freeley looked at her closely. "Some what?"
"A virus. Causing my ovarian rust."
"We know exactly what it is." There was nothing in Dr. Freeley's face, but instead of backing off again, this time Melanie pushed forward. "I was reading about this hospital in South Carolina," she said, "Some outbreak there that killed all the patients."
Dr. Freeley now seemed impatient. "As I understand it, those patients were diagnosed with WaterhouseFriderichsen syndrome. Classic acute meningococcal meningitis caused by a bacterium, not a virus.
Sudden fevers, neck stiffness, dizziness, a coma within hours, kidney hemorrhaging, and then death. Do you think you have that?"
"You know a lot about viruses."
"One has to these days." Dr. Freeley slowly folded her arms. "We're not heading toward another episode, are we?
You trying to check yourself into a clinic, claiming phantom symptoms of some exotic disease?"
These words shamed Melanie. She was much better than that now.
"Things are happening to me," she said quietly, all at once. "I can't explain them."
"What things?"
"People. Watching me. On my way to work. Different places."
"First of all," Dr. Freeley said. "Who?"
"I don't know. My mail too, I think. My phone. I was jumped on my way over here."
"You were what?"
"No, it was okay. One of the people following me around saved my life." Then Melanie thrust out her arms for her gynecologist to see.
"Pinpricks," she said. "Small ones, other than yours. None right now, but sometimes I find them-as though I've been jabbed, as though..."
The look on Dr. Freeley's face stopped Melanie. "I'm not just being paranoid about this," she insisted. "Honestly-it's not like my life is so empty that I have to make things up. I mean, my life is empty, but I would never. . ."
She trailed off. As she shook her head, chemically ruined hair shimmied around her ears. "And then, sometimes, after it happens-after I wake up-I feel as though I've been handled."
"Handled?"
"Tampered with. Examined."
Dr. Freeley watched her with a silent concern that became intimidating. Melanie was starting to feel the table beneath her, and was again aware of the music playing faintly. The blood loss; she couldn't believe what she had been saying. She recalled the gray dust in the sinks and realized she should shut up.
She had never told anyone about having survived Plainville, and by merely considering turning loose this great secret, Melanie realized how truly desperate she was for help-and she was scared.
She talked her way out of the office somehow, not able to think clearly again until she was on the street outside the clinic and trying to figure out which way to go. She eyed the patients coming and going from the lobby, scanning for familiar faces, but soon gave that up.
She watched the sky for falling pianos as she, picked her way along Harvard Avenue toward work. Ninety-eight percent of the time she was so careful. So why was it that these 2-percent screw-ups continued to define her life?
Blossom
Maryk awoke from his cascade slumber wearing yesterday's clothes. He felt depleted. The cascade was like the digestive torpor following an unimaginably heavy meal.
He sat up on his office couch with his head in his hands. Freeley entered behind a knock. She was used to his cascades. He had only to tell her the cause. "Pearse," he explained. "Most of the night."
"How bad is he?"
"Improved. But don't look so disappointed. He's dying all right."
Maryk rose and crossed to his desk chair. His office was a small room on the top floor of Special Pathogens Building Fifteen. His black bag rested on a windowsill and his tablet sat alone on big desk. There was no printer. Paper was unsanitary. It was a vector and if handled improperly could break the skin and even breach some gloves.
Freeley's auburn hair was tied back. She wore a beige blouse and cream pants and there was a quiet strength evident in her confident manner and relaxed hands as she stood between Maryk's desk and the door.
"You're here to update me on Lancet," he guessed.
She began. "First, I went through the possessions we kept from his condo and did trace pulls. Nothing there. I ran a laser over all contact surfaces, such as the knobs on the front door. The outside handle was covered with Lancet's prints, while the inside appeared to have been wiped clean. Faint prints remain
on the inside door face, however, and are Lancet's."
Maryk stopped her there. "What do you know about fingerprints?"
"From various texts. Lancet's fingertips had some very distinct whorls. It's simple enough if you've got an argon-ion laser."
"Of course," he said. Nothing Freeley did could surprise him. "So if an unknown got inside the condo, they were invited in."
"So it would appear. Still, there was no sign of any struggle, and Reilly and Boone did indicate some level of depression on Lancet's part."
"That's their opinion," Maryk said. "Go on."
"Bathroom floor mat. One partial sneaker impression, common tread, flat and narrow, unisex brand. Size nine for men, eleven for women.
Lancet was a nine, but this is a modem tread and doesn't match any vintage pairs in his closet. I followed up with a rather unscientific weight experiment, having different people step on the same mat and then measuring their impressions. Best estimate: one hundred ten to one hundred twenty pounds. I ran it a few times to be certain. Lancet weighed one-fifty-seven."
Maryk was feeling revived now. "What would a onehundred-and-fifteen-pound person be doing in Lancet's bathroom?"
"Running hot water. I found an unridged smudge consistent with a gloved palm on the faucet handle. We pulled the traps and treated them with a chemical and it came up as Lancet's blood. This means nothing-he could have cut himself shaving months ago."
Maryk said, "You treated the traps with a chemical?" Freeley shrugged.
"Information is the cheapest commodity. You can access everything you need to know about flying to Venus and back. It's having the resources that counts."
"I'm impressed," he said. "You're supposed to be. Finally, Lancet himself I believe I've found a pinprick in post. A tiny premortern breach along the base of the hairline, just back of the lateral surface of the neck, and well hidden. But, toxicologically, his system is clean."
"A needle stick."
Maryk's mind ran back to the footprint. "Medical personnel?"
"Impossible to tell. Consider the wrist lacerations. Two deep, neat incisions without any hesitation marks. Depressed or not, he was serious about destroying himself and causing some pain in the process.
Chuck Hogan Page 13