Luckily, one thing I had was plenty of practice opening combination locks. I pressed my ear to the locker door and listened for the clicking tumblers—it wasn’t quite like a safe, and it took me a little longer than I’d have liked, but I got it open, and in a matter of minutes, I’d become a nurse. I took an empty bag out of the locker too—I’d need it, and it completed the picture.
I checked the mirror before I left, adjusting the silly white hat on top of rebellious dark auburn waves of hair and buttoning the slightly sleeves that fell just short of my wrists. Clothing can be a distraction from the person underneath, I reminded my reflection silently as her blue eyes looking back at me uncertainly. Make them see what you want them to see. And with that, I slipped back out the door just as the real nurse turned off the water.
But when I stepped back into the hallway, transformed, my blood ran cold. A doctor was walking straight up to me, obviously intending to talk to me. I swore under my breath;his had seemed like such a good plan, and it was going to fail before I’d even gotten started! I swallowed my terror and tossed a pleasantly expectant look onto my face when he got to me, lacing my fingers in front of me to keep him from noticing that they were shaking. Confidence, I thought, hearing Alger’s constant refrain in my mind. Believe you’re supposed to be there, and they will too.
And I guess it worked, because the doctor didn’t even pay any attention to me, shrugging off his coat as he walked past.
“Get that cleaned for me, will ya, doll?” he asked, not even breaking stride as he tossed the coat to me, and I caught it instinctively.
My first reaction was relief that he wasn’t going to talk to me. Then I was annoyed—nurses didn’t do laundry, did they? That wasn’t their job. I certainly didn’t do anyone’s laundry, either; that was one of the other things Alger always seemed to get done without my noticing. But then I forgot all about that, because I realized my good fortune. There was a stethoscope in the pocket.
I took it back. I thought. This was a good plan.
As soon as the doctor rounded the corner, I stuffed the coat into my bag and practically skipped over to the east wing where I would have to get the rotation schedule. This, I figured, was going to be a little tougher; no one was going to toss me the schedule, and I wasn’t likely to trip over it without asking. This time, I would have to make something up. I wasn’t much for lying to people, but if I found the right mark, I could usually pull off a simple enough trick. So, when I spotted an older, real nurse headed my way, I figured it was time to try my luck again. Confidence.
“Um, ma’am?” I said timidly as she approached. She turned to answer me, unsurprised by my sudden appearance in the hallway.
“What is it, hon?” I suppressed a smile, knowing I’d picked a good one, and fidgeted like the embarrassed new girl on the floor should.
“Well, um…I was wondering if you could tell me where the schedule is?” I asked, looking at her like she was the Oracle.
“Oh, sure, sweetie. It’s posted in the break room,” she laughed, pointing down the hall.
“Thanks!” I said earnestly, deciding it would work better if I didn’t cover my relief.
“First day, huh?” she asked me sympathetically.
I nodded as I hurried off, and no one even batted an eye when I walked in, scribbled down the chart on the board, and walked out again.
The blueprints were trickier. I hadn’t asked for them at City Hall once I’d gotten my hands on a map of the sewer lines—a story too boring for me to bother even telling you, since it was mostly just paperwork—because I’d figured someone would probably put two and two together after the job. It was a gamble, since I wasn’t sure why Alger wanted the blueprints, so I couldn’t be sure whether he needed them in particular, or just a detailed map of the hospital. But I’d decided that anything would be better than getting caught, and I’d just have to get the maps later.
And then, as always, later had become now.
Of course, I could just not get them, I thought, sitting in the stairwell and biting into an apple I’d taken out of some nurse’s lunch in the pantry. I could say there weren’t any blueprints. Or that the people at City Hall wouldn’t give them to me. Or I could tell part of the truth—I knew I shouldn’t ask for the sewer maps and the blueprints, so I couldn’t get them.
But then I imagined how that conversation would actually go. Alger wouldn’t believe me—those aquamarine eyes would see right through me. He might pretend he didn’t see the lie, or tell me he was disappointed, or walk me through a long series of questions about the details of where I’d gone wrong. There were a thousand things he might do, and as always, I couldn’t guess which one he’d end up choosing. But I was sure what he wouldn’t do: he wouldn’t give me a chance like this again. I’d be stuck with playing games and being the lookout and doing whatever part of the job no one thought was important enough to worry about ruining. And that wasn’t an option.
So, even if getting the maps was impossible, I decided, I’d figure out a way to do it. I stood up resolutely, finishing my pilfered lunch, and started down the stairs. I would just have to take drastic measures. Do something outrageous, like go to the information desk and tell them I was inspecting the building, and I was undercover as a nurse because I didn’t want them to know that I was investigating their fire safety conditions, and—
Wait a minute. Fire safety…
Halfway up the flight of stairs, I noticed something. On the back of the door to the next floor down was a piece of paper. When I got close enough to get a good look, my intuition was confirmed: it was a map of the east wing on that floor, with an emergency exit route on it.
I slapped my forehead. Why hadn’t I thought of this before? I didn’t need a map of the entire building; a map of each part of each floor would do just fine. But I’d have to take them all, make a copy of them, and get them back before anyone noticed. Impossible or not, I thought, taking the map off the wall and bounding up the next flight, it was showtime.
§
“Showtime, kid,” Shifty whispered when Wilbur’s footsteps had finally faded away down the hall.
A thrill of adrenaline rushed down my spine and tingled in my fingertips as I opened my eyes and slipped out from under the blanket, taking Shifty’s stethoscope. No wonder Wilbur had been suspicious—we were in an obscure corner of the building: dimly lit, obviously not well kept, with peeling paint and a massive iron door with no apparent handle or keyhole where the hallway dead-ended. This was definitely where they kept the good stuff. There was also a fire door to the outside, which meant that we were at the rendezvous point, so it was about time for—
—and right on time, the Ghost appeared on my other side. Had he really been with us the whole time? Well, that was his specialty, so I was less surprised than I might have been. But I did jump a little, I admit, when the twins burst in the fire door. Big Six pulled the fire alarm, and the Torpedo threw the smoke bombs—little crumpled metal balls. Well, that explained what Screwdriver had done with the tinfoil, probably the sugar, and the gunpowder.
Oh, you want to know how I got that stuff? Well, I bought it. Alger used to keep some money in a locked drawer I theoretically didn’t know about, so I took a few dollars on my way out, and I used them. Why steal what you can get fair and square?
Just as we’d planned, the alarm blared deafeningly, resonating throughout the building, and we all held our breath as smoke poured into the little hallway—and through the cracks in the iron doorway.
Well, assuming our escape is the sewer line, that explained the rest of the list….except the psych ward.
§
The psychiatric ward, I discovered, was on the top floor of the hospital. With six maps clutched in one hand, my heart racing from the tension more than the fatigue from dashing up each flight of steps and flitting down each hallway, I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I would have to find the patient records on this floor and hope to find a mimeograph machine where I could make cop
ies of all of it. And I was definitely on a tight schedule at this point, because the missing maps wouldn’t go unnoticed for long.
So I took a couple of deep breaths, composed myself, and walked into the hall. It was creepy as hell in there. I could hear screams and incoherent mumbling through most of the walls and the occasional thump. I also heard doctors asking what sounded like routine questions: How are you feeling today? What are they telling you now? Are you afraid? And weirder, more specific questions: Which government? And who is Dr. Carmine, exactly? But you can’t say where it is? What do you think will happen if you do? I couldn’t make heads or tails of it—but then, I didn’t need to. So I tried to focus on the task at hand and shut out the disturbing noise. There were very few people in this wing, so I certainly wouldn’t be able to disappear in a crowd if I got into a tight spot. I’d have to be very careful, very clever, and very quick.
As it turned out, I only made it work because air was also very lucky: I found an office not far away, with a little kitchenette in the corner. Confidence. I walked in and started making copies like I belonged there. Now, if you’ve never used one of these machines, you may not realize this, but it’s not exactly subtle when you’re making copies on one. If nothing else, the smell is so distinctive that you’d probably know someone was using it if you were anywhere on the floor. Plus, I had twenty-four different maps to copy, and these things don’t work at lightning speed. It was going to take a while, and I couldn’t really lock the door behind me; that would draw notice more quickly than the machine. The point is, while I was there, I had to know if someone was coming before they saw me, in case I needed to scram. So I positioned myself in front of the newly cleaned sink, where I could see reflections behind me, and I got started.
It was agonizingly slow. Each copy seemed to take an eternity. I glanced back and forth from the sink to the clock more than once a minute, counting the seconds as I traced each map by hand on the stencil. Ten down, fourteen to go. My hands ached; my heart pounded. Once or twice, someone walked past, but I resisted the urge to turn around, and they didn’t stop to see what I was doing. Fifteen down. I was wearing down, and I could be caught at any moment. It had been almost half an hour, and my luck was surely about to run out. Timing, timing, timing!
Sure enough, my time and luck ran out. As I finished the last copy and turned to put it on the stack, out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a reflection in the sink, and looked like someone walking straight for the room this time. Worse yet, it looked familiar. Oh, hell! It was my helpful nurse from the first floor.
I couldn’t run—there was nowhere to go, and I still didn’t have the records—so I panicked for a moment. What could I possibly tell her? Yeah, actually I’m so dumb that I was on the wrong floor altogether! How about that? I didn’t think so. She was nice, but I didn’t have any reason to think she was an idiot. I couldn’t run, and I couldn’t lie—I’d have to hide.
With the ink still wet on the last copy, I grabbed my precious papers and folded myself into the first safe space I could find: the cabinet below the sink. I pulled the door closed behind me, contorting into a tangled pretzel, just as her footsteps crossed the threshold.
I held my breath and listened as her canvas shoes squeaked around the floor. I thought I would pass out when she started opening cabinets—she even rustled through the one right above me—but then, over the burning mimeograph odor, I smelled the familiar, beloved scent of coffee. I heard clinking glasses, running water, and a whoosh as the stove came on. And then her footsteps trailed away.
I disentangled my limbs and cautiously crawled out of the cabinet—luckily filled with cleaning supplies, and not food—and I glanced at the percolator. She’d be gone for a few more minutes, but that wasn’t nearly enough time to find and copy the patient records. I’d have to do this another way.
Luckily, by now, I was getting used to that: I already had a plan. It wasn’t a great plan, since I didn’t really know what Alger was looking for, but I didn’t really have any other options. So I crept back into the office, picked the lock on the filing cabinet, and started leafing through the files. Alger’s list had called for the names of all the patients and their conditions, and unless I’d missed something, there were about twenty of them.
I flipped through them one more time to convince myself my plan would work, and then put them back in their place. Then as the percolator stopped hissing and burbling, I slipped out the door and hurried back into the stairwell, shoving the copies into my bag. In a rush, I started replacing the maps, tacking each back into place on the walls. Faster than I’d thought possible, it was done, and I was on my way out the door and back to the safety of home, my job complete and (more or less) flawlessly executed.
He had damn well better be impressed.
§
I was impressed at how fast the plan started to come together once the alarm went off. Two armed guards burst out from behind the iron door, thinking there was a real fire, and all hell broke loose. Big Six barreled into one on the guards, sending him flying, and the Torpedo knocked the gun out of the other’s hand, swinging his rifle like a bat. As four more came charging out to deal with the assault, the Ghost, Shifty, and I crept through the smoke and tumult into the room behind the iron door. I figured we’d have two or three minutes at the most to get what we came for and disappear.
Not much of the smoke made it past the heavy door, and inside the room, it was easy enough to tell that the place was basically a warehouse. Unlabeled crates were stacked from floor to ceiling, and there was a desk in the corner with a huge radio and some other equipment on it; I’m sure Screwdriver could have told you what it was. And at the back was a huge safe, where Shifty had told me they kept the guns—“they” being the government, of course.
If you’re thinking it’s a little strange that we would pull a job like this, well, I thought so too. Not for the first time, I wondered exactly what Alger had done in his previous life that would give him information like the fact that a mark was a German spy, or that St. Charles Hospital housed a secret military base. But like the rest of the Gang, I trusted him now—and anyway, I had no time to waste. I made straight for the safe.
Shifty had warned me that it would be especially tough to crack this one, and that was no joke. On the first try, it didn’t even budge. But the fight was starting to die down, and I didn’t know how quickly I could get the damn thing open. I tried again, starting to get worried. It never took me this long anymore. The lock held again, and I swore as I hit the safe in frustration, denting it a little.
“Christ, kid, that should’ve broken your hand,” Shifty muttered, watching my back with the Ghost as I worked. I ignored him and tried to concentrate.
The twins had finished with all the guards who’d shown up, and they came over to check on my progress. We were almost out of time. The alarm was still shrieking, and I couldn’t shut it out for long enough to focus on listening to the gears.
Then it hit me: I still had the stethoscope. I’d tried to use one before for safe-cracking like Screwdriver did, but it had been more of a distraction than an aid, since I could hear just fine on my own. This time, what I really needed was something to block out the noise. Sure enough, I put it on while the rest of the Gang was crowding around and looking nervously back towards the door, and everything came into focus. In seconds, the safe was open.
But our collective sigh of relief was short-lived—a second after I got it open, the alarm stopped, and tense silence replaced it. We were down to the wire now; people would be back in the building any second. So we gathered the massive pile of guns into narrow bundles, and Big Six lifted the manhole cover in the middle of the room. We crawled in, he closed it behind us, and we got out clean. (Well, as clean as you can be when you’re escaping through the sewer.) As we trudged through the dank tunnel, I started to wonder where we would take our hard-won wares, and who exactly wanted them. And what the psych records had to do with any of that. Because of the circumstance
s, Alger hadn’t really explained any of that.
But then again, he hadn’t explained much of anything—including the fact that he had never actually shown up.
§
“I was wondering when you’d show up,” Alger said when I got home from the hospital. “Did you find everything?”
I stopped in the doorway, bag in hand, and narrowed my eyes at him. Didn’t he know how hard I’d worked to pull off everything he’d sent me to do? Didn’t he realize how many times I’d nearly given up, how well I’d used the things he’d taught me—and how much I wanted him to notice?
And then I noticed that the rest of the Gang was in the room too. And they were doing a terrible job trying not to laugh…at me. I stared at them, baffled. Screwdriver wolf whistled at me. And then I figured out what was going on: I was still in the nurse’s uniform.
I clapped my hand to my mouth and blushed crimson, dropping my bag in the process. But the Doc, who was standing nearest to me, took my arm.
“I’d hire you,” he said conspiratorially, winking. That’s when I started to laugh with them.
Alger, of course, had no interest in the joke, but he let us have our fun while he walked over and took my bag, handing the coat and stethoscope over to Shifty and shaking his head at the maps.
“Not exactly what I had in mind, but it’ll do,” I heard him say to himself under the genial layer of conversation that had spread over the room. Then he turned to me. “And the psychiatric patients?”
Canon in Crimson Page 6