The Cure

by Glenn Cooper

  “Think she will? Get well?”

  “The place we were at where Easy got shot—you know, near the hospital—there was this lady who said she had a cure for the disease. I was bringing her here, but we got attacked.”

  “Who attacked you?”

  “Some assholes in stupid green masks. One fat white dude and one skinny-ass black dude. They were waiting for us with machetes. They killed two of my crew. Rest ran away.”

  When he started blubbering again, the girl looked away in embarrassment, seemingly unsure how to react to this version of her tough-guy brother, her rock.

  “I’m all alone,” he sobbed. “Ain’t got none of my boys left.”

  “You ain’t alone, Tyrone,” she said. “You got me, and you got Mama and Grammy.”

  “Ain’t the same thing.”

  She asked him if he wanted something to eat.

  “Not the least bit hungry,” he said.

  “What happened to the lady?”

  “The lady with the cure? The cocksuckers with the machetes took her with them. I know where she’s at. Tomorrow I’m gonna bring her here right after I put some lead through the skulls of fat-boy and skinny-boy.”

  *

  Keisha took it upon herself to be Mandy’s tour guide.

  “Here’s where Boris sleeps. Here’s where Shaun sleeps. Here’s where I sleep. Where’s Mandy gonna sleep?” she asked Shaun.

  “I’ll sleep on the floor next to you,” he told the girl. “She can have my bed.”

  “I don’t want to take your bed,” Mandy said.

  Keisha told her it was a good idea because ladies needed their privacy and because she wanted to be in the same room as Shaun anyway.

  Mandy relented, but almost backed out of the deal when she had a look at Shaun’s filthy bedroom.

  Keisha bailed her out by exclaiming, “You can’t expect a nice lady to sleep in that bed. You got clean sheets?”

  “You got the last one for the couch,” Shaun said.

  “We’re gonna have to go over to my house. My mom’s got a whole drawer of clean sheets.”

  “Where’s your mother?” Mandy asked.

  “She got sick and run off.”

  After a quick dash across the way, Shaun and Keisha returned with sheets and pillows and a blanket. Boris was using the trickle of water in the shower to wash off splattered blood. They found Mandy on the floor of the living room, knees pulled to her chest, softly crying.

  “What’s the matter?” Keisha asked her.

  “I’m sad about my friend, Stanley.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He died protecting me.”

  “Then he’s probably in Heaven.”

  “I hope so. He was a lovely man.”

  She and Keisha made the bed while Shaun cleaned up his mess of dirty clothes and whatnot, throwing stuff willy-nilly into the closet.

  “How long have you lived here?” Mandy asked Shaun.

  “Like four years now.”

  “Did you move here with Boris?”

  “Nah, he was here first. He had a roommate, a real fuck-bag, excuse my language. Boris and I been friends for a long time, since elementary school. I was living with my moms but she died, you know.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, it sucked. She got the cancer. I couldn’t pay the rent on her place and I had to move out. Boris wanted to live with me instead, so he booted the fuck-bag and I been here since.”

  “You seem like good friends.”

  “Yeah, we tight. We like the same stuff.”

  “Do you work? I should say, did you work. I’m not sure if anyone’s working these days.”

  “We did this and that.”

  Keisha smiled wickedly. “My mama said that BoShaun were drug dealers.”

  Shaun smiled. “We sell a little weed now and then.”

  “BoShaun?” Mandy asked.

  Shaun said, “Some folks call us that since we always together.”

  Mandy told him she thought that was sweet.

  “I don’t mind it,” Shaun said, “but it drives Boris nuts.”

  Boris came in with fresh clothes and wet hair.

  “What drives me nuts?”

  “BoShaun,” Shaun said.

  Boris was piqued. “Why’d you have to tell her that?”

  “We were just talking, is all.”

  “People make it out like we’re the same person,” Boris said, “but we’re not. We got differences.”

  “Like what?” Keisha asked.

  Boris had to think about it. “He likes chocolate milk and I don’t. He puts mayonnaise on French fries and I think that’s totally ridiculous. He thinks the Incredible Hulk would kick Iron Man’s ass and that’s even more stupid.”

  “We got a lot of superhero arguments,” Shaun said.

  “Well, I think both of you are the real superheroes,” Mandy said. “You saved me.”

  Shaun started to get emotional, but Boris told him, “C’mon, man, fuck off.”

  “I never hurt no one before and I damn well never killed no one,” Shaun said.

  Mandy saw Boris clearing his throat, himself.

  “It’s kill or be killed, man,” Boris said, sounding as macho as he could. “No police to call. Just us.” He quickly changed the subject. “Were you living up there in that building?”

  Mandy nodded. “With my neighbor, Stanley, for the last few days. I was there, waiting for a colleague—a friend of mine—to arrive from Boston.”

  “What goes on in there?” Boris asked.

  “Medical research. My friend and I are working on a cure for the virus.”

  “No shit,” Shaun said.

  “It’s important we meet up. He should have arrived by now so I’m worried. If he comes, he won’t know where I am. I need to get back.”

  “No way you can stay there,” Shaun said. “The front door’s all busted. All sorts of freaks are gonna be comin’ in. K9 could come back for revenge and shit.”

  “He got away,” Boris said.

  “Who’s K9?” Mandy asked.

  “He’s the NK big dog, the shot caller,” Shaun said. “He’s a major gangsta.”

  “Sorry, what are the NKs?”

  “Naptown Killerz,” Boris said. “We got a lot of gangs around here.”

  “If I can’t stay there, I’ve got to at least leave a message at the lab for my friend. I should go tonight.”

  “No fucking way,” Boris said. “No one should be out at night. You got your brain-wipes, you got your gangstas, you got your ordinary crazies. We’ll take you in the morning. Best offer.”

  “Yeah, my man’s right,” Shaun said.

  Mandy plunked down on the clean bedclothes. “I wish I had a friend as close as the two of you.”

  “Why don’t you?” Keisha asked, jumping on the bed too.

  “I don’t know. I was always so busy at work, and all the free time I had, I spent with my husband.”

  “Where’s he at?” the girl asked.

  “He died too. Just a few days ago. He got sick and he had an accident.”

  “Do you want a hug?” Keisha asked.

  “I would love one.”

  37

  Kyra’s wound repair went about as well as Jamie could have hoped. The surgical kit had everything he needed, including vials of lidocaine for local anesthesia. The piece of glass was embedded about a half-inch into her biceps, close to a pair of arteries and veins, but when he removed it, there was no fresh bleeding.

  Linda was over his shoulder, holding the light.

  “I don’t think there’s vascular damage,” he said. “I’m not sure I could have done much if there was. This is already at the limits of my surgical abilities.”

  “Don’t tell that to Edison,” she said. “You’re doing his daughter’s brain next.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  He irrigated the wound with sterile saline and sutured it closed, while Linda did dual duty, shining the light and ho
lding Kyra steady. Emma was in a nearby chair, nervously watching her friend’s ordeal.

  “You sew a lot better than me,” Linda said.

  “Then you must really suck at it.”

  Edison was in the hall waiting on Jamie.

  “You ready?” he said.

  “It went well.”

  “My girl better go well too.”

  Jamie knew the man had no appreciation of the challenges that lay ahead, but he said, “I want you to understand that Brittany’s problem is way more serious than Kyra’s. The procedure I’m going to attempt is performed by neurosurgeons in hospitals with the aid of sophisticated brain-imaging studies. We have none of these.”

  “I’m not interested in excuses.”

  Half the girl’s head was shaved. Jamie asked Gretchen whether she could tolerate the sight of blood. When she said she believed she could, he signed her on as his assistant. Both of them put on surgical masks. He was as nervous as he’d been the first day he was a fresh-out-of-medical-school intern, thrown into the front line of an inner-city emergency room. But back then, he had all sorts of backup. The only thing that gave him any cold comfort was the knowledge that nineteenth-century surgeons occasionally had successful outcomes with twist-drill craniotomies for subdural hematomas.

  Before sterilizing her scalp, Jamie palpated for the superficial temporal artery and marked it with a pen. He hoped the girl had standard anatomy. If so, he knew the location of the deeper middle temporal artery that he wanted to avoid at all costs. He used a marking pen to make an X to mark his spot, just above and a little to the front of her ear. As he prepped the surgical field with Betadine antiseptic and sterile drapes, Gretchen told him that it wasn’t just his life that was on the line. She believed that Edison would kill her too if the girl perished.

  “Thanks for that,” Jamie said. “I need more pressure—” He was going to add, like a hole in my head, but decided to stop talking.

  Edison and his son came in and took up positions against the wall, scowls on their faces, arms folded against chests, pistols at hips. Jamie had all his materials organized on a small bedside table. He had emptied a small bag of saline, attached it to a length of sterile tubing, and had it at the ready, laid out on a sterile cloth. He got a purchase on this improbable surgical instrument, a household Ryobi cordless drill, and used forceps to fish the drill bit from the pan in which it had been boiled. Once he had seated it and ratcheted tight, he pulled the trigger gently first, then all the way, getting a feel for the variable speeds.

  “Okay, Gretchen,” he said, “I don’t think she’s going to feel it, but be ready to hold her down tightly if she moves. Don’t let your hands get anywhere near the sterile drapes.”

  “Wait a minute, Doc,” Edison said. “I want to say a prayer first.”

  “Go ahead,” Jamie said. “Make it a good one.”

  Edison dropped his head and said, “Dear Lord, protect this little girl, Brittany Edison, and see her through her time of need. She’s a good girl with her whole life ahead of her and she don’t deserve to die. Steady the hands of this doctor and help him help my baby. Amen.”

  Joe chimed in with an amen and Gretchen mumbled one too.

  With that, Jamie placed the tip of the drill bit on the X and pulled the trigger.

  It was the thinnest part of the skull and she was young, so he felt the drill give way almost immediately as it bored through bone. He released the trigger and steadied himself. Brittany didn’t move a muscle. He told Gretchen she could ease up her pressure on the girl’s shoulders.

  The next trigger pull would seal the girl’s fate and maybe his too.

  He gave it a slight squeeze and when it was turning at maybe a quarter speed he pushed gently, trying to feel for the pop of steel through the dura, the fibrous sheath that lined the brain.

  It was almost imperceptible, but he felt it and immediately relaxed his trigger finger. Brown liquid began welling around the drill bit and when he pulled it out of the bore hole, there was a mini-gusher that sprayed his mask.

  Jamie realized he’d been holding his breath. When he let it out it sounded like a gust of wind.

  “What’s happening?” Edison shouted.

  “Quiet please. This isn’t bad.”

  “Is that blood?” Joe said.

  “It’s old blood from the bleeding over her brain. It’s not fresh which is good, very good.”

  He put the drill aside and put on surgical gloves to pick up the sterile tubing connected to the empty bag. He pushed the free end through the drill hole until brownish blood began to flow through it and began collecting in the bag. He pushed and pulled at the tubing by increments until the flow of blood into the bag slowed to a trickle.

  Pressing on the tube as it crossed her chin, he told Gretchen to substitute her finger for his while he sutured the tube to her scalp. When he was satisfied it was secure, he covered the area with gauze and bandaged her head.

  He peeled his gloves off and sat down hard on a chair. He’d been fighting fatigue with pulses of adrenaline, but the battle was over, and fatigue had won. He was lightheaded; his muscles were rubbery.

  Edison rushed to the bed. “How come she’s still not moving or talking?”

  “This was a large hematoma,” Jamie said. “I think this was successful, but we won’t know for a while.”

  “How long?”

  “It’s going to be measured in hours, or even days, not minutes. But I’ve got to warn you, she had a lot of pressure on her brain. I can’t rule out lasting damage. We’re just going to have to wait and see.”

  *

  Edison calmed down enough to show a modicum of hospitality. After ordering Gretchen’s two kitchen helpers, Mary Lou and Ruth, to prepare a late-night supper, he entertained Jamie, Linda, and their two girls at the dining room table. Jamie would have preferred to sleep, but he was hungry and curious. The two helper-ladies who made appearances from the kitchen looked even more worn out than Jamie’s lot. More than that, they looked petrified, and Mary Lou, persistently grieving, kept rubbing away tears, occasionally letting out a shuddering sob. At one point, Edison angrily ordered her back into the kitchen, muttering that he was tired of her crap. And all the while, Joe Edison gave off unhealthy vibes, what with the way he smugly leaned back in his chair and leered at Emma and Kyra as they reached for food as soon as bowls were placed on the table.

  “They got appetites.” He smirked.

  Edison sat rigidly at the head of the table, playing the patriarch, presiding over the Lord’s prayer, despite Emma and Kyra getting a jump on the food.

  “You got anything to drink around here?” Linda asked.

  “We’re well provisioned,” Edison said. “What’s your poison?”

  “Vodka if you have it, but I’ll drink anything.”

  “Joe, get the lady a bottle.”

  The steak was delicious and when Jamie politely commented on it, Edison said, “Best steak in Pennsylvania. Come from my cattle.”

  “You raise them here?” Jamie asked.

  “I got another farm nearby.”

  “Well, you’ve got a nice property. Must be a good business.”

  “We do okay.”

  The girls started picking up the slabs of meat with their hands and chewing on them. Linda got up to cut the meat for them.

  “We’re gonna be counting steak knives at the end of the meal,” Joe said.

  Linda gave him a dirty look. “Don’t forget the one that’s going to be in your ribs.”

  “Whoa!” Joe said, laughing. “You’re quite the hellcat.”

  Once again, Jamie sought to play peacekeeper, moving the conversation onto neutral ground. “Edison is quite the famous name.”

  Edison talked through a mouthful of meat. “We’re not from the light-bulb Edisons. We’re from the cow-manure Edisons.”

  “Did any of your family get sick?” Jamie asked.

  “My wife Delia’s upstairs with it, and my two teenage boys. My oldest son, Brian
, got it too, but he’s gone.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Edison sent Joe upstairs to get Gretchen down to see if Brittany had woken up. The woman was dragging; it looked like she could barely keep awake.

  “How is she?” Edison asked.

  “She’s quiet.”

  “Is the blood still draining into the bag?” Jamie asked.

  “I think so.”

  “I’ll come up in a little while,” Jamie said.

  “Gretchen here’s been teaching Delia and my boys to talk again. Tell them how they’re doing?”

  Gretchen answered dutifully, mechanically. “They’re coming along.”

  “What can they say now?” Edison asked.

  “The boys can count to ten.”

  “That’s useful. What about my wife?”

  “I taught her to say, praise Jesus and point to Heaven.”

  “That’s useful too. She understand who Jesus is?”

  “I don’t think she does, Blair.”

  Gretchen excused herself and Edison inquired if Jamie was schooling his daughter.

  By way of demonstration, Jamie pointed to her and asked her name.

  “My name is Emma.”

  “Who is your best friend?”

  She leaned over to kiss her and said, “Kyra.”

  “Who do you love?”

  “I love Daddy. I love Kyra.”

  “Are you happy?”

  She frowned. “No.”

  “Are you sad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Rommy died.”

  “Who’s Rommy,” Joe asked.

  Jamie told him. Joe wanted to know what happened to him.

  Linda was on her second tumbler of vodka. “I shot him,” she said, without further explanation.

  Edison chuckled. “You shot the girl’s dog. Well, I expect there’s a story there. Tell me what you do for a living, Miss Mouth.”

  “I’m a police detective.”

  “No shit!” Edison exclaimed. “Joe, we got the police here and we didn’t have a goddamned clue.”

  “You’re not gonna arrest us, are you?” Joe said.

  “You’re out of my jurisdiction,” she deadpanned. Then she said, “So, listen, what’s going on here?”

  “How do you mean?” Edison asked.