“Cute. Very sensitive.”
“Thank you,” Charlie said. “Honestly, though, I couldn’t tell you if his brain’s Jell-O or what. It’s not in the file. They’ll have to do a neurological work-up and see what they’ve got to work with. I know the cops are anxious to talk to him.”
“The cab driver,” Emily asked, remembering the drag queen’s corpse passenger. “What was the deal with him?”
“They ghouls are still working up the COD. We won’t know what…”
She was staring at him.
Charlie smiled. “The medical examiner’s team.”
Emily laughed. “I should’ve caught that one. My dad always called ‘em ‘The Mad Doctors’. He sometimes had to run bodies up to the state ME’s office in Madison.” She shifted her gaze and grew quiet.
“You miss him.”
“So bad you wouldn’t believe it.” She set her face. “He was my hero. You get that?”
“I get that.” Charlie nodded. “Had one of those myself.”
Neither of them said anything. The sounds of the hospital flowed in: electronic beeps, a squeaking wheelchair, a page for a Doctor called Fowler.
Emily asked after a moment, “Had?”
“Dad’s gone,” Charlie said. “He was working construction—night foreman on a highway crew—and a big truck with a sleepy driver came along.” He shrugged. “I was about ten. Long time ago now.” He looked at the floor. A crack in the linoleum snaked out from under his shoe like a river seen from orbit.
A spike of melancholy flared in Emily’s mind like a single pixel in a field of TV snow. She tensed. It was Charlie’s feeling, and the first foreign emotion she’d felt since she arrived in New York. If that was as close as she was going to get to tuning in to someone else’s emotions it was okay. She could let it go. And if it meant that the white noise effect was wearing off, well, hell with it, she was still going on her damn date. She could eat a bullet later if she had to.
She gave him a soft chuck on the shoulder. “You want to get out of here?”
Charlie brightened. “Let’s roll.” He offered the crook of his arm and she made a show of threading the needle with her own. Emily had the urge to lean her head on his shoulder, but held off. This was not someone she intended to scare off. But maybe that wouldn’t happen with Charlie. There was something…not a feeling, really. A bond perhaps. It was beyond her empathic ability, bigger.
“You like sushi?” he asked as they moved through the lobby.
“I’m from Wisconsin.”
“What, they don’t do dead raw fish in dairy land?”
“I’m just not into dead—” Emily froze in her tracks. The blood drained from her cheeks.
“Hey,” Charlie said. “You okay?”
Emily’s head revolved like a security camera and stopped on the lobby doors. They slid open and a man walked into the hospital. He walked past them and stopped at the front desk. Emily turned to follow. Charlie touched her arm. “Emily? You—?” She silenced him with a sharp squeeze and stared at the man’s back.
He was a black hole in the white noise, an emotional void. It was more than just the impression of emotional absence. It was like he was pulling everything else in. He muttered a few words at the woman behind the desk. She punched in a few keystrokes on her computer. She looked up and gave him a room number. He nodded and walked toward the elevator.
Emily kept her eyes on his back as he waited, trying to understand him. She even stretched with her mind, tried to feel him, but got nothing. It wasn’t like he was blocking, it was just that there was nothing there. No feeling at all. Her curiosity darkened. This man wasn’t right. She knew it the same way she knew Charlie wouldn’t mind if she put her head on his shoulder. It was outside of her ability to read feelings. Something deeper, older. She shivered.
The man stiffened.
He turned and faced them with a flare of silver eyes. A small Band-Aid stood out at his hair line. Drummond Fine inhaled long and deep, tasting the fear on the air. There, that woman by the front door. It wept from her like sweat from a runner’s pores. Drum shuddered. Her signature was different than anything over which he’d ever run his psychic tongue. She was delicious. The elevator chimed open behind him. He threw Emily a wink and stepped into the car. The doors closed and swept him away.
~~~~~~~~
Chapter 8
DRUMMOND FINE STOOD over Michael McCafferty, a.k.a. Martie Jenny. Clear plastic tubing ran like frozen rivulets from Michael’s nose and the crook of his arm. Blue and red wires grew from his chest. A light five o’clock shadow called out his cheekbones and the line of his jaw. His eyelids were vein blue, ridged with pink where the lashes flared. His muscular shoulders rolled up and over and the bedclothes; a tattoo of a small cyan star winked from the left. Young Michael was quite the specimen of male beauty. Drum frowned. Ironic that the little fairy was compelled to hide it under a dress.
He leaned over and crooned, “Anybody home?”
The only answer from Michael was the whistle and pump of his oxygen supply and beep of his pulmonary monitor.
Drum walked to the end of the bed and grabbed the chart hanging there. He stuck out his lower lip and nodded. Myocardial infarction and arrest. Well, it looked like he had gotten to young Michael after all, just not under the controlled circumstances he was used to. Drum’s eyes sparkled through the spectrum as they twitched over the text. Possible brain damage due to lack of oxygen. Coma. Diagnosis of potential vegetative state pending full neurological work-up. Drum smiled and shook his head. “No,” he said. “You’re in there.”
He put the chart down, closed his eyes and flared his nostrils. Drum sucked at the air in the room. Disinfectant and the lingering smell of urine filled his head. He scowled and stretched out his hand. His palm hovered over Michael’s chest as he searched. Below the skin and muscle, past the skeleton and under twitching organs, Michael McCafferty was hiding in the dark. Drum paused, then exhaled long and satisfied. He ran his tongue over his lips. “Found you.”
“Found who?”
He spun around. An African American woman was standing in the door. She wore a blue silk pantsuit that was maybe a half-decade out of style; something about the collar. Drum always had trouble guessing the age of African Americans; something about the resilience of the skin. He was pretty sure she was a cop; something about the gun sticking out of her shoulder holster. Her eyebrows were only slightly less well-plucked than the unconscious drag queen in the bed. She arched them. “Who’d you find?”
Drum took a little too long to smile. “Oh, my patient.” He waved a hand over his shoulder at Michael. “I couldn’t find his room at first.”
“You’re his doctor, but you couldn’t find his room?”
“Not here.” Drum blinked. He’d been so distracted following Michael’s hidden emotional trail that he hadn’t felt her slink up to the door. “I, uh, I don’t mean he’s my patient here. I’m his psychiatrist.” He placed his hands out in front of him palm down and pumped twice. “Not here. In another building. My office. That’s why I couldn’t find his room here as easily.”
“As easily as what?”
Bitch. She knew she’d rattled him, and was playing with him like a cat with a cockroach. But she didn’t know why he was rattled. He had that much. Drum took a breath. “I’m sorry, firearms make me nervous.” He smiled. “I’m afraid you have me at a loss, Officer?” Drum felt her emotional needle swing from curiosity to a resigned exhaustion; something he’d felt from more than one cop in his day.
She walked all the way into the room and offered her hand. She had short nails, worker’s nails, but they were flourished with white French tips. “Detective Bilko.”
Drum gave her hand a seaweed grip. “Bilko? It’s a good thing you’re not a sergeant.”
“Gee, that’s a new one.”
Bitch. He took his hand back.
She pulled out a PDA and touched the screen with a stylus. “You’re our boy’s shrin
k? Doctor…,” she scrolled down the file, “Fine? Is that right? Drummond Fine?”
“How’d you know that?”
“Back trace on Mr. MacCafferty’s medical insurance turned you up.”
Drum looked at her computer. “You did that just now?”
“God, I wish. No, these things aren’t that good yet.” She turned the device on its side. “Heck, maybe it can do that. Dunno’. I’m just getting used to not using a pad and pen. My niece convinced me to try this thing and I’ll be damned if it isn’t just the handiest gadget. Can’t tell her that, though. She’s fifteen—all into everything modern and all—and I’ll never hear the end of it.”
Through all of this, Drum nodded and smiled. Detective Bilko might be all chummy conversation on the outside, but Drum could feel her insides as surely as he would if he had his hands around her heart. She was hunting him, trying to get him to let his guard down. Any second now, she would ask him something personal about his own work or family. When he was good and charmed she would toss a stick of dynamite into his pond and see what floated up. If he turned up nothing, she would wonder why he was so flustered when she first came in. She hadn’t bought that bit about the gun. He’d felt that too. Drum conjured a little fake guilt, a tiny crime to offer up when the time came.
“So,” she said. “You’re a psychiatrist. What do you use to take notes with? You still in the stoneage like my niece would say?”
“You got me.” Drum Chuckled. “I use a word processor to write, but I’m a regular Cro-Magnon man when it comes to therapy sessions.”
“Oh, that’s right!” She beamed and took a step closer. “You’re an author too.”
Drum forced a flush and looked down for a moment. “Yes, well, I’ve scribbled a couple of things, but I would really call myself an author.” He looked up and Bilko’s demeanor had morphed from bubble-gum to flint.
“And how did you know your patient was in the hospital so soon after he was admitted, Doctor Fine?”
“I got a call from the neurologist here,” he stammered. “At this hospital. He called me at home.” Nice try. “Wanted to know if I had Michael on any medications.” Care to try again, Officer Bitch-ko? He had to be careful, though. Give her something.
She made a quick scratch on her electronic notepad. Business as usual, but Drum could feel her ramping up for another hit. “Why are you here, though? That could have been handled over the phone.”
Drum didn’t answer.
“Doctor?”
Now he’d give this little wolf-bitch the scrap she was snarling after.
“Doctor Fine? What are you doing here?”
“I was curious to see how badly off he is.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because. Well, because,” he sighed, “He owes me some money. Not a great deal, but I wanted to make sure I got it.”
“He owes you money?”
“For his sessions.”
“What about the insurance coverage?”
“Oh, that covers some of it, but it’s not a very comprehensive plan. Only covers about thirty percent.” Drum allowed a smirk. “Michael doesn’t exactly hold down the type of job that comes with medical and dental.”
“And what kind of job’s that?”
“You don’t know?”
Bilko arched her brows again. “I would have asked Mr. McCafferty, but he’s napping.” She tapped the stylus against the PDA screen. “He’s listed an unemployed in the insurance company’s records.”
“Oh, he’s employed,” Drum said, trying not to laugh at Bitch-Ko’s dwindling patience. “He’s an entertainer.”
“Where?”
“A cabaret off Avenue D.”
“Cabaret?” she asked. “Oh, right, he’s a drag queen. Wasn’t sure if he was just a cross dresser, street walker, or what.” She noted it on her computer. Why this freaky skin-flint shrink had to make that little bit of info. so difficult was beyond her. “Drugs?”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you know if Mr. McCafferty has a drug habit?”
Drum drew up. “I wouldn’t tell you even if he did, Detective.”
Bilko dropped her shoulder pads. “You’re not going to pull a bunch of doctor patient confidentiality crap on me are you?”
Drum took a breath. “Detective, I am not required by the laws of the state of New York to divulge any information about my patient so long as he doesn’t pose an immediate threat to himself or anyone else.” He swept an arm over Michael like a spokesmodel showing off a new car. “Does Mr. McCafferty appear to pose an immediate threat to anyone or anything at the moment?”
The life-support machinery wheezed and beeped; Michael’s chest rose, paused, fell.
“Doctor Fine,” Bilko warned. “If you withhold information that’s pertinent to my solving this case you can be brought up on a number of charges, not the least of which includes obstruction of justice and conspiracy after the fact.” She stowed her computer. “Mr. McCafferty drove a cab in here last night with a dead cab driver riding shotgun. Right now he’s my only suspect, but he’s also in a place I can’t get.”
“And you expect me to just fill in the blanks in your investigation with information that is of the most intimate nature? You want me to just lay young Michael out bare? That’s not going to happen, Detective.”
Bilko opened her mouth to reply, but he cut her off.
“I will, however, tell you this much without getting into specifics: Michael’s no killer. He suffers from no psychological problem that would indicate he would ever be a danger to himself or anyone else. If anything, I think Michael was most likely the victim of someone else’s psychosis.” Drum bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. “I think that’s the person you should be worrying about.”
Drum caught an emotion flare from Bilko: she’d picked up on something he’d said. The smile behind Drum’s lips melted like a sugar cube.
“Like who, Dr. Fine?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Like who? Who should I be more worried about?” She took a step closer. “You have some idea? Someone you might know?”
~~~~~~~~
From the Journal of Drummond Fine, MD
Tuesday, June 26th, 9:57pm
What an evening has unfolded! M.M. found. Asleep. Young confused boy in the woods. I’ll get him alone soon enough and remove myself from risk, him from everything. Slight complication with a nosey-bitch police detective. African American, smart, but thrown off track for the most part. Tried to “sniff” me out, but I gave her enough truth to convince her of my guilt in little more than being an insensitive tight-wad. I need nothing more than 30 seconds access to MM. I think an air-induction into his IV line should do nicely. That will stop a heart already prone to misfire. No fuss, no muss as they say. A shame that such lovely potential as art will be wasted, but the fault was mine. Too close to home, Drum. Too close to home.
Even so, all that pales compared to the chance discovery of who must be my next client. A lovely young woman in the hospital lobby slid into my sensory range. I’ve never felt such purity of emotion, such intensity. It was as if she amplified all the light in the room a hundred times, like the emotion of all those in the vicinity fed into and through her. Our minds touched and she felt me, I’m sure of it!
Wait, could that be it? Could that young woman be another psychic empath? The existence of psychic phenomena in others is not new to me—even a few of my patients over the years have shown some ability—but to find another in the strata of my own prowess would be beyond rare. This bears further examination, care and patience.
I have to find her.
Experienced 173 distinct emotions from the cloud today. Anomalous sensation around strange female, mid-twenties, Caucasian. New potential client.
No dreams or discernable impressions.
No bowel movements.
Urinated 5 times.
Breakfast: NA.
Lunch: protein shake.
Dinner: protein sh
ake.
Water: 64 ounces.
--DF
~~~~~~~~
Chapter 9
EMILY STARED AT the tangle of noodles in a corner of her plate. They were transparent and slick. They reminded her of picture from an old veterinary text book she’d found in the library one rainy afternoon in Janesville: a dog’s heart bursting with worms. Heartworms start nearly microscopic and grow until they strangle the ventricles in a writhing net.
Charlie stirred a lump of wasabi into his sauce bowl with a chopstick. “You’re not eating?”
“I, uh.” She was helpless. She wanted to impress him. Just eat the foreign food and show the sophisticated New Yorker that she was more than just some rube from Wisconsin with nice legs. Charlie bumped the table with his arm and the pile of noodles quivered. As if born with chopsticks for fingers, he plucked a piece of yellow fin from the center plate, dipped and popped it in his mouth—Charlie Chopstick Hands. He looked from Emily’s face to the noodles on her plate and pointed with the sticks. “Bilharzia.”
She poked the noodles with her own chopsticks. They yielded and pulled at the tips of the sticks with elastic want. “What?”
“Reminds me of Bilharzia. It’s a kind of parasitic worm you get from bathing in dirty water.” Charlie scissored a single noodle from the pile and held it up to the light, examining. “Gets in through people’s feet mostly.”
Emily sat back. “Do tell.”
“Over the course of several years it’ll travel up your leg into your spinal cord, up the spinal column and eventually lay eggs in the brain.” He wiggled the noodle, the light played through it. “Driving the host slowly insane.”
“I was thinking heartworms,” Emily said.
“Really?”
“Who lies about a thing like heartworms?”
Charlie considered. “Sick dogs on the make?”
Emily curled her lip. “Care to take that one back, slick?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I would.”
She laughed. “Going to do something with that worm?”
Charlie began to swing the noodle back and forth. “Which worm? This one? You are getting very sleepy.”
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