Frowning, Andrews skimmed the article. Before Ferenzi had been kicked out of the agency, he had developed a bad reputation for jumping the gun. “Abu, huh? I suppose if she shows up dead, I’ll know who to talk to?”
“I didn’t say anything about killing her.”
“I think you’re reaching, Ferenzi. People die from heart attacks every day, and they often die when exercising. It stresses the heart.” He put the paper down on the desk. “What are you going to do?”
“Find this Abu girl and watch her until she makes a move. Then we’ll take her and find out what she knows.”
Andrews shook his head. “You’re not in Russia, Ferenzi. You can’t just grab some girl off the street and torture her.”
For a moment Ferenzi just stared, his eyes cold. “Right,” he finally said, “and what I want you to do is stay out of the way. I’ll tell you if I need anything.”
Ferenzi stalked out of the room and slammed the door behind him.
“Suit yourself.” Andrews stood and stretched. He stared at the article. Viruses, if that was what this was, were the height of coincidence. He remembered in the forties and early fifties, how polio would suddenly appear in a community and devastate it. Bang, kids were dead.
Pity this poor Abu woman. She’d wish she were dead before she was.
Five
The “family-size suite” had two beds and a sofa that was partitioned off from the rest of the room by a half wall. The wallpaper looked to be a painted-on imitation of grass mat and was peeling up in one corner. The furniture was dark and heavy with wicker-like insets. It was run-down South Pacific just north of uptown Atlanta.
On the walls hung pastel paintings of seascapes. Harry glanced at them and grimaced. They were the kind that were made up of tiny splotches of color, and he could never imagine anyone making that many dots. Was it done by machine?
He hobbled over to the second bed and with a barely stifled groan lowered himself down on the mattress. Behind him, Ree surveyed the beds, retreated, and dropped her pink bag on the sofa. She came back into the room as far as the partition.
“Thought you wanted two rooms?” he said.
She had chosen the motel and gone in to pay for the room while he sat slumped against the steering wheel wishing he could suspend breathing for a week or two.
Now she looked like she regretted her choice.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” she finally said and came a little farther into the room. “And look, I am sorry about what happened to you.”
Harry pulled the bottle of “threes” the doctor had given him from his coat pocket and fought with it until he had it open. He took two without water. Then, with another groan, he pulled himself up, resting his back on the wall. Ree stood right in front of the partitioned wall, half in—half out. She still looked ready to bolt. The saucy dancer act had disappeared. Still, in the tunic and tights, she looked attractive.
Harry didn’t care. “So why won’t you go to the police?”
She backed up a little farther from the bed and glanced around the room, looking anywhere but at Harry.
“You said you’d tell me.”
Her jaw clenched tight.
“Are you wanted for something? Did you get caught selling drugs somewhere?”
“No.”
“Doesn’t make sense. If you aren’t wanted, then why do you care if I call the police? We’re talking about people that act like they’d kill you.”
“They won’t if they can’t find me.” She glared at him.
Harry leaned forward and inserted a pillow behind his back. This was getting nowhere. He stared at one of the paintings. Damn dots. “I guess you don’t mind throwing away whatever it is you’ve got here.”
“No-o,” she said, her voice starting loud and, midsyllable, growing softer.
Interested by her reaction, Harry studied her carefully. She was hiding something. “What else can you do? It’s either go to the police or disappear.”
“Don’t know,” she said.
“Then tell me what you’re afraid of. I might could help. I’ll try.”
Her hands clenched and unclenched repeatedly. At last, she sat on the first bed. “I’ve been using a fake ID.”
Harry blinked. “Just tell the police your real name.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“There are people looking for me. I don’t want them to know where I am.”
“And it’s so important you’d throw away what you’ve got? Or risk being killed by those goons?”
She bit on her fingers and then started trying to twist the hair above her ear. Her hair was too short.
“Who is looking for you?” he asked. “Do you think they’d try to hurt you?”
Both hands fell to her lap. She stared at them. “No, they won’t hurt me.”
“Then why not let them find you?”
“’Cause it would bring back my past, and I don’t want that. Please, just believe me. You can’t understand.” Her hands started working again. “Leave me alone.”
“What is it, Ree?”
She went back to trying to twist her hair; then her glance shifted from him for a second. Harry recognized the look. He’d been a reporter too long not to. She was about to lie or tell only part of the truth. She wanted to shut him up but did not want to lose him. For some reason, she needed him. For what, he wasn’t sure.
“See,” she said in a penitent-sounding monotone, her head dutifully lowered, “for years, I did a lot of things that I don’t feel good about. I’m trying to change that. I’m going to school, Georgia State. I’m going to get a degree. In another couple of months, I was going to quit dancing. I had enough money. I keep my two lives separate. I don’t want them combined.
“They can’t be,” she added emphatically. Then she paused, tried to twist at her hair, and peered at Harry.
Harry studied her. He would have thought working in the bar would have improved her ability to lie. Maybe it had. “What could you have done that was so bad that you’d risk getting killed?”
She glared at him again. “I used a lot of drugs.”
“Millions of people have used drugs. Half the politicians in Congress have admitted to it, so did a couple presidents. What else?”
Her glare hardened to clenched anger. “I did more than just use drugs.”
“Dealing?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
She bolted up and stood over him. “I sold myself. Whatever! Is that what you wanted to know, dammit? Do you feel better now? Or do you want to know how much it cost and what I did?”
Harry looked down. Her anger still sounded hollow, as if she really didn’t care about what she said but thought he would. “Did you get busted?” he said, ignoring her outburst.
“No, never.”
“But the drugs and all that are over, right? You haven’t been doing that lately.”
“Just dancing: no men, no drugs, nothing. And I don’t want any either. Understand?” She snarled the last word at him.
“Yeah.” He did believe what she said about it being over. That sounded real and jived with what he’d seen. He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Then all this is to keep people from finding you?”
“I want my past gone,” she said and looked away.
He gave her a hard look. There was something else. “What is your real name?”
“Kara-Lee Andrews. Ree.”
“What does your fake ID say?”
“Lee Abu.”
“That’s what the club thinks your name is?”
“Yes.”
“But don’t they have to turn in social security and all that kind of thing?”
“No, dancer’s work on contract. They aren’t paid by the club. You do have to have a police ID, though
.”
He hadn’t known that. “And you’ve got one under Abu?”
She took a moment before answering. “Yes.”
“Then what are you worried about. If the police took it once, they’ll take it again.”
She frowned, looking not quite ready to believe but not convinced that he wasn’t right. “But that was just for a job. It wasn’t anything serious. The other girls said not to worry about it.”
“The police would have done a computer search for criminal charges. The ID must have been OK.”
“It was supposed to be,” she said and appeared to relax.
“Look, Ree. I’ve got a friend in the Dekalb police. He could help us find out who these thugs are. Why don’t I call him in the morning?”
She pursed her lips and then started trying to twist the hair above her ear again. The blower for the heater came on with a soft roar. Outside, a bus went down Peachtree Street. The paintings rattled against the walls. Ree stood up and started to pace. Harry kept his silence.
“You won’t tell him about me? About my real name?” she finally asked.
“No.” He slid down the pillow. The threes were starting to take effect. He felt far away from the pain. It was a pleasant relief.
“OK. In the morning.” She stood, walked past the partition, and grabbing her pink bag from the sofa, went into the bathroom. The conversation was apparently over. In a moment, he heard the sound of running water, the shower. He slipped down the rest of the way until he was prone and closed his eyes. Another bus went by, and he felt the vibration through the mattress. The motel advertised hourly rates and waterbeds. He wondered who had slept here last and if they had slept. Had Kara-Lee worked in a place like this? It was hard to imagine her on a street corner. She was a difficult person to understand. She didn’t seem able to tell the truth.
There was a story here.
Rendon yawned and picked up the phone. The night had been long. He hadn’t returned to his apartment until midnight. Now it was six.
“Did you talk to Bill Stern with the Atlanta paper?”
Rendon pulled the receiver back from his ear. Cougher’s voice was loud. “Yeah, he called me, but I didn’t give him any information,” Rendon said.
“Did you tell him anything about the CDC being baffled by a mystery disease?”
“Huh? No, of course not.” Rendon shook his head, the sleep rapidly receding.
“Well, that’s what it says here in the morning paper.”
“No, I told him I was baffled that the newspaper was taking such interest in this. Turken told me the state health department wanted to downplay the whole thing. So, I did.”
“Yeah, the state did say that, and now they’re mad as hell at you for talking to this guy.”
“What was I supposed to do? He got me on the phone.”
“Next time, refer him to me. There’s a whole set of procedures, and we have a department that makes sure it goes out right. Besides, he can misquote me as easy as you, but I’ve been around awhile. Nobody’ll get too upset with me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“There’s more news. We found a live case.”
Rendon bolted up in his bed. “Great. Where? Have you talked to him?”
“No. He’s still all hooked up in the ICU. Maybe he’ll be lucid tomorrow. Maybe never, according to the cardiologist. The guy is in bad shape. And you know that first case you had?”
“Yeah?” Rendon felt his heart beating faster.
“Not the same thing.”
“Oh.” The rapid pounding of his heart slowed. “What was it then?”
“Turns out it was bacterial, error at the lab. The stripper is the index case now. That means that all the cases died in a period of thirty-six hours. As far as we know, there’ve been no cases before or after that period.”
“Strange.” Rendon sat back against the headboard and closed his eyes. Progress was being made, but was it quick enough to prevent more deaths? This last piece of information—the thirty-six hour time span—might indicate a single point of contact, maybe one that could be found. That provided an opportunity. He cocked his shoulder to hold the phone and then rubbed his eyes. “That does bring the death count down. Any luck with the virology lab? I assume we’re still looking for a virus.”
“Well, no unusual bacteria have been cultured, and the cases haven’t followed the typical course of any of the bacterial diseases. A virus would seem likely, but, no, the lab has not identified one yet. What have you got scheduled for today?”
“Going to talk to a girlfriend of the dead lawyer. See if she knows anything.”
Cougher’s voice relaxed, loosing the tension that had been in it. “Do that and then get down to the health department. I need some help on the phones. The docs and ERs are loaded with flu calls. You tell ’em you’re looking for cases with a runny nose and chest pain, they just laugh. One of ’em at Grady told me they get about a dozen guys in each night with chest pain, and they’re almost always cocaine. He wanted to know if we wanted the last thousand records. Funny man. Between the crack and the flu, our case description is pretty worthless. It’s too damn sensitive, picks up too many people. We’ll have to rework the description to make it more specific.”
Rendon sighed. It seemed overwhelming. How could they do anything to prevent further deaths if they couldn’t even find a case that lived long enough to study? Dead bodies did not create antibodies. Without antibodies there was no screening test. Maybe no one else would die, and it would remain a medical mystery. “Rendon’s Embarrassment,” they’d call it. Or rather, Rendon’s first and last stand, he thought. “I’ll be down,” he said. “I’m meeting the woman at seven thirty.”
Cougher hung up, and Rendon allowed himself to lounge in bed for another half hour before heading for the showers and then dressing. He felt depressed, anxious. They were getting somewhere, but not fast, and at any time there could be another outbreak.
The drive was short. He was at the Denny’s on Moreland by seven fifteen. He wore a blue blazer that the woman would use to recognize him.
Fifteen minutes later, a young, blond woman dressed in a gray flannel skirt and jacket came into the restaurant. Her white blouse was swollen by breasts quite large for her small stature. The first two buttons were left unfastened. She had dark eyes that looked furtively around the restaurant as if expecting trouble.
Her cheeks were red with over applied rouge; the rest of her face, excessively white. After standing in the entrance for several minutes, she finally came over to Rendon and introduced herself.
“Are you Dr. Rendon?” Her voice was as small as she was. Her eyes continued to dart around the restaurant.
He stood and proffered his hand. “Yes, Thomas Rendon. And you’re Jennie?”
She nodded. Her hand was cold.
“Thanks for coming in to talk to me,” he said. “I know it must be hard after just losing your friend, Mr. Woolbanks. But we think there might be something we could do to keep other people from dying of the same thing. I just need to ask a few questions if that’s all right.”
She nodded again and darted a glance around the restaurant before sitting down. “I don’t know if I can help you. Ted and I stopped seeing each other about a month ago.”
“I see. Well, let’s give it a try. Did Ted go out of the country lately, say within the last couple of months?”
“No. Not that I know of at least.”
“Do you know if he started eating anywhere different?”
“No, he always went to the same places. Always. He was like that. Did the same thing every day, exactly at the same time, too.”
Rendon stroked his jaw. They had samples from those same restaurants, and there were no other cases associated with the restaurants Woolbanks had frequented. At least, no reported cases. “Did he have any other friends that you knew?”
“He used to spend a lot of time with some of the other partners at the firm playing golf and then…”
“Yes, and…?”
“Oh, nothing. I guess he had other friends, but I didn’t know them.”
Nothing Rendon said would get more out of the woman. In fact, she seemed to become frightened the more he tried to find out what she had left out of her answer. Finally, he gave up, returned to the standard questions, and wrote down unremarkable answers. The interview took a half hour. He made a note to ask someone else about Woolbanks’s friends. He finished his cup of coffee and paid the bill after she left.
It was a short drive to the health department. Disdaining the interstate, he took Monroe to Piedmont and that into town. He parked in the decks behind the building and entered through the back. The wind was cold; the sky, a deep winter blue. When he reached the door to the meeting room where they had spread out their papers, he found a tall, thick-shouldered man waiting for him.
“You Dr. Rendon?”
Rendon nodded.
“I’m Joseph Ferenzi.” He pulled out a card and handed it to Rendon. Printed in embossed letters, it gave his name and title: International Security Consultant.
Rendon put it in his coat pocket. “What can I do for you?” he said. Though Rendon was tall, he still had to look up to Ferenzi. He found the man’s set jaw and glaring demeanor bordering on threatening.
“Are you running this investigation?” Ferenzi said.
Remembering Cougher’s suggestion about talking to the media, Rendon paused a moment before answering. “I’m working with a team from the state and the CDC.”
“Have you found the Abu girl yet?”
“No.”
“Any leads?”
“Uh, just what is your interest?”
In Death's Shadow Page 5