Patou watched him with her green eyes. Completely inscrutable.
“I’m not sure I follow.”
Then there was a flicker of something. Ford could see it in the tilt of her head, the way she was holding herself. She was afraid, backed into a corner. Not that she was at fault. She had taken action to contain the outbreak. She had done the right thing. But now she was faced with the possibility that he had been right all along. Something big was happening in Los Angeles, something that had nothing to do with the Willowbrook or its staff. Ford felt a steadying contraction of anger.
“Well, Dr. Patou, unless you are suggesting that sloppy technique in the Willowbrook has created a bug which, in the past two weeks, has traveled all over the city—despite your actions here—and is now infecting other people, I can’t see how your position is tenable.”
Patou shot him a withering glance.
“Dr. Ford, I really don’t think this is a time for cheap point-scoring. It really doesn’t matter who is right or wrong. The important thing is to deal with the situation.”
Ford stood up.
“Well, actually, Dr. Patou, it does matter. I have been suspended on the assumption that I am in some way guilty for what is happening here. So it matters a great deal.”
Patou rose from her chair.
“Dr. Ford, you have been suspended pending an investigation into your supervision of Officer Denny’s admission into the critical room of the Emergency Department.”
This was too much.
“That’s just bullshit, and you know it. I’ve been suspended as part of a PR exercise, because the health authorities don’t want the public to know what’s going on in this city.”
He had raised his voice. The anger with which he had expressed himself seemed to hang in the air for a moment. Both Lee and Patou were staring at him as if they expected him to start breaking up the furniture. Patou moved to the door.
“Well, I suggest you take that up with the county health department,” she said, and she walked out of the room.
6
Ford left the hospital in the late afternoon, having watched Sunny’s transfer to an isolation room. She was now on vancomycin. It was a last-ditch attempt to clear her system of the botulinum. There was a considerable risk of increased toxin release due to cell destruction, but Lee was gambling on the CDC antitoxin countering the effect of any poison buildup. Because of the cardiac fibrillation episode, she was now under close surveillance at all times, and while this was reassuring as far as it went, Ford remained deeply apprehensive. Even if she did pull through, there was a chance that the drug itself would cause lasting damage.
Ford felt like an empty shell, a husk. Drifting forward with the freeway traffic, he stared blankly at a bank of dark thunderheads building up over the San Pedro Channel.
Out of nowhere a red Nissan pulled across in front of him. He had to brake hard and swerve.
“Jesus Christ!”
He shouted at the driver, an obese Hispanic woman, through his open window.
“Watch where you’re driving, you maniac!”
She didn’t even look at him. She was wearing earphones, her head bobbing to some gangsta rap junk or other. Defiantly Ford flipped on the radio and pumped up the volume on a Haydn string quartet. See how she liked that. Nobody around him seemed to mind. They were all roaring ahead, eyes front, all going to hell anyway.
Then Ford realized how hungry he was. He hadn’t eaten all day, and it was now after five. He would have to stop somewhere on Pico to pick up groceries because there was absolutely nothing in the house apart from frozen pizza. The thought of having to shop and then wait another hour before he finally put something in his belly was intolerable. He started to drift over to the right-hand lane, looking out for restaurant signs.
He came off the 105 at the next exit, missed a turning, and found himself on Crenshaw going in the wrong direction. He pulled into a Sizzler and parked.
The Sizzler was almost empty. Just a few truck drivers being served by bored-looking waitresses. Ford installed himself in a booth, ordered a cheeseburger and fries and sat staring out at the deepening gloom. He wondered how soon it would be before the press got wind of the other outbreaks. It would probably be on the news that night. He smiled with grim satisfaction. They were going to find it harder to point the finger now. Like Patou, they were going to have to cast the net wider, find other reasons for what was going on.
And what was going on? He couldn’t help feeling that the outbreaks were linked. It seemed impossible that a variety of very different pathogens were developing multiresistance spontaneously. There had to be something, some kind of transfer of a particular trick between the different species. It had already happened in Japan with Shigella. Then it came to him that he should call Novak immediately, tell him all about it, see what he had to say. He reached into his pocket for some nickels, but then the thought that he was going to be seeing him anyway made him change his mind. He was too tired. They could talk about it when they met at his condo….
“Hey there!”
It was his waitress. She was smiling down at him, waiting to place his meal on the table. He had fallen asleep again.
“Oh!” This was becoming embarrassing. “Yeah. Thank you! Thank you.”
“Looks like you could use a vacation,” she said.
He ate hungrily, wondering, as he finished the fries and the bread and the coleslaw, what Novak was going to make of the news. Thinking about him, he recalled the first time they had spoken on the phone, recalled Novak saying that he needed to talk with some people before … how had he put it? Before he got into it any further. Got into what? And who were these people? Outside there was a flash of lightning in the dark, charged air. Ford finished his watery soda. Novak was probably just referring to some group of academics.
Then he remembered Wingate.
It had been such a traumatic day he had completely forgotten the scrap of paper Gloria had given him. He reached into his pocket now and looked at Gloria’s girlish, round handwriting.
He called from his mobile phone in the Buick. Wingate picked up immediately.
“Dr. Wingate? This is Dr. Marcus Ford. I understand you’ve been trying to reach me.”
“For three days, yes. Just one moment.” There was a muffled crunch and the sound of Wingate closing a door. “Yes, I’m glad you decided to call me.”
He sounded a little peeved.
“I’m sorry I took so long, I don’t know if you’ve been following the news on the Willowbrook, but—”
“Yes. Yes, I have. I was very sorry to hear about your daughter. You’ve been having a rough time down there. When’s the inquiry?”
“I still don’t know. I’m hoping they’ll drop the whole thing.”
“Ungrateful bastards.”
“Pardon me?”
“You spend your life stitching them up, making them well. Then you have an off day, and they want your house.”
Ford was surprised by the man’s tone. He had sounded more poised before, more in control. It occurred to Ford that maybe Wingate was facing litigation of his own, although it could hardly be serious. As he’d said in their last conversation, he had erred on the side of caution precisely in order to avoid liability.
“Do you have any news of … um…”
“The Turnbull boy? Yes, that’s why I was calling you, in fact. I wanted to let you know about the results my laboratory people got. You remember they were looking at the clostridium?”
“Sure.”
“Well, it turns out my worst fears were well founded. It’s incredible. Nothing seems to affect it. Nothing antibiotic, I mean. We, I mean, they took it through the whole range of antibiotics from aminoglycosides to tetracyclines. I went to the trouble and expense of producing a full report of the tests.”
He clearly had been threatened somehow. Otherwise why go to such lengths to validate his position?
“What did the Turnbulls say?” asked Ford, trying not to soun
d too disingenuous.
“I haven’t heard from them lately,” said Wingate. “There was a terse little letter after out last meeting. The mother realized she had nothing to threaten me with, of course, but that didn’t stop her making trouble. We’ve lost a string of our regular patients already. That’s how she gets her revenge.”
“Revenge for what?”
“She said I took ten years off her life. Said I was irresponsible. Apparently she’s been going around Beverly Hills saying that the only thing wrong with her son had been a sprained wrist and a throat infection. I actually produced the report in order to put the record straight. Even sent her a copy.” He gave a tight, angry laugh. “So far she hasn’t been in touch.”
“But this isn’t making sense,” said Ford. “What happened to the boy?”
Wingate paused. It was as if he was only now considering the matter.
“I’ve no idea. Dr. Ford, the Turnbulls are rich and powerful people. When they shut their doors to you, you are left firmly outside.”
Ford could imagine.
“But surely if he was infected with a multiresistant pathogen, he would have required further help, maybe even the amputation you recommended.”
“Are you saying I was wrong?” snapped Wingate.
“No, no. I’m just saying it’s intriguing.”
“Yes, well. Anyway, whatever happened to him, I wanted it to be clear that my judgment is not in question. I wanted to know if you would be interested in seeing the report.”
Ford realized now what his role was supposed to be in all this. He was on the point of referring Wingate to Patou, but then thought better of it. He would like to take a look at the report himself. Even if he could do little with it, Novak certainly could.
“Sure, I’d be very interested.”
A disdainful snort exploded into the phone.
“A sore throat, indeed. Elizabeth Turnbull is going to have to do a little better than that!”
That was it.
Ford felt the hair prick up on the back of his neck. It was all he could do not to hang up on Wingate in mid-flow.
When the phone was back in its cradle, he sat for a moment staring out through the windshield at the lowering clouds. Behind him the lights of the Sizzler came on, throwing bars of pale yellow across the asphalt. He picked up the phone and called the critical room at the Willowbrook.
“Trauma. Six-three-one-four.”
Ford frowned.
“Conrad, you still there?”
“Marcus! What are you…? I heard about Sunny. I spoke to Lee, and he—”
“Conrad, I want you to do something for me.”
“Sure … sure thing. Name it.”
“I want you to get all the records of the resistance cases, especially the ones who have died. Can you do that?”
“Well … I’ll have to go talk to Elaine Macaphery in records, but I can’t imagine it’ll be a problem. It’s all supposed to be on the database now, but you know how slow they are entering that stuff.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s computer generated or handwritten sheets. Just get me as much as you can. I’ll meet you in the staff parking lot in an hour.”
“So are you going to tell me what it’s all about?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you.”
“Okay. An hour might be a bit tight, though. Can you give me an hour and a half?”
“Just come as soon as you can.”
“Don’t come into the parking lot. There’s still a lot of press hanging round. Meet me on the corner of One hundred twentieth Street, okay?”
Ford sat for twenty minutes at the intersection, nervously watching people as they walked or drove past. It was safe enough inside the hospital grounds, or when you were moving, but just sitting there behind the wheel of a stationary car, that wasn’t recommended.
Finally Allen came strolling along the sidewalk. In his left hand he was carrying a battered briefcase and in his right a chunky-looking dossier. He climbed into the car, introducing a powerful smell of surgical soap. Ford felt safer having him next to him.
“So what’s it all about?” Allen said, once he was installed in the passenger seat.
“I think I know why all this is happening.”
“All what?”
“The outbreak, the superstaph, everything.”
Allen gave a nod.
“Okay. So…”
Ford put a hand on his friend’s arm. Using the Buick’s map-reading light, he went through the files one by one, skimming, stopping here and there to be sure, getting a bad feeling when he came to Sunny’s. It was as he had thought. He flipped off the light and leaned back in the seat.
Allen sat watching him. A car went past, lighting up his face.
“So are you going to tell me what this is—?”
Ford turned.
“Conrad. Remember the Shark? Do you remember his throat infection?”
Allen shrugged. Of course he remembered. He would never forget the sight of those wired teeth and the oozing pus.
“Streptococcus,” said Ford. “Remember Denny? I didn’t even know he had an infection. That was because he was more or less over it when he was admitted. But that’s what he had, strep throat. Do you remember Andre Nelson, the pneumonia case? Strep.”
He riffled through the pile of dossiers.
“In almost every case strep is involved. I talked to Dr. Wingate this afternoon. Remember his patient with a multiresistant Clostridium perfringens? The guy also had a streptococcus infection. And Conrad, just before Sunny came down with the resistant botulinum—”
“She asked you to give her some medicine, some antibiotics, for her sore throat. I remember.”
“Streptococcus equisimilis. It’s the strep, Conrad. I’m sure of it. Somehow or other—maybe years of being bombarded with antibiotics—this little streptococcus has developed resistance to everything we have. Some harmless little throat bug that tends to stick around, people have hit it with every kind of thing. Wrong treatment, wrong doses, year in, year out. And it’s learned to cope. We’ve taught it to cope. We’ve bred it to cope. And now it’s sharing. It’s sharing its know-how with every other microbe it meets.”
Allen was shaking his head.
“But if you’re right—”
“Of course it doesn’t matter that the strep is resistant. It’s just going to give you a sore throat. Your immune system can handle it. But conjugation, Conrad, that’s the problem. This bug is too damned sociable. It’s passing genetic material to other bacteria, to pathogens—Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium perfringens, Clostridium botulinum—bugs that can kill if the body doesn’t get help.”
Allen was speechless.
“It’s what happened with Shigella in Japan. It’s happening here now, but with strep. Anybody with a strep infection who picks up a serious bug is at risk, because the bug will pick up the resistance. They’re effectively out of the reach of modern medicine. If you even try and use antibiotics, you simply help the new resistant strains push out the old ones. You just speed up the process.”
Ford fell silent. He was scared. Everything that was happening, the deaths, the confusion, his own growing sense of helplessness, it was just the beginning. They were being fast-forwarded into a future that none of them had prepared for, that none of them were trained for. He blinked. He didn’t want to believe it. Maybe he was misinterpreting the data. Maybe Novak would set him straight. Maybe the correlation of strep and multiresistance was just a coincidence.
He prayed for Sunny’s sake, for everybody’s sake, that it was.
PART FOUR
ANTISENSE
1
CITY OF COMMERCE, EAST LOS ANGELES
“Look on the bright side, Duane. Prob’ly is a suicide, more ‘n likely. You know how McNally is.” Sergeant Duane Ruddock gave his partner a stony look and yanked open the door of their ‘91 Chevy Caprice. It was all very well for Deputy Sam Dorsey to look on the bright side. He hadn’t been on the job
since Christmas without a single day’s vacation. Dorsey hadn’t even been at the Homicide Bureau that long. Six months ago he’d still have been at Vice, trawling for hookers and perverts, and probably getting off on it. It wouldn’t worry him if some complicated case took them right through Thanksgiving and beyond. Working with the Bulldogs was still a novelty for him.
“Y’all got something planned for next week?” said Dorsey in a Texan drawl that seven years in LA had done nothing to weaken. “I mean, vacation-wise?”
Ruddock started the motor and cut a tight arc onto Rickenbacker Road, letting the tires squeak on the hot asphalt. The south end of Commerce was made up entirely of light industrial buildings surrounded by narrow grass shoulders and identical light industrial trees. The bureau had moved there in ‘93 after the earthquake wrecked the sheriff’s department building downtown.
“I’d planned on the Rockies, as a matter of fact,” said Ruddock. “Yellowstone Park or something. Anyplace, so long as there’s no people.”
“Hell, there’s people in Yellowstone, all right. Trailers an’ shit all over.” A procession of heavy trucks went thundering by on Eastern Avenue, obliging Dorsey to shout. “Can’t get out of your car half the time ‘case a grizzly takes a bite out of you. I reckon you’d do a whole lot better—”
“Let me guess: I’d do a whole lot better in Texas. Is that what you were going to say?”
“Hell, yes. There’s parts you can drive for a day and not see a living soul, if you’ve a mind to.”
Dorsey reached into his top pocket and pulled out a pair of blue mirror sunglasses. Ruddock wished he wouldn’t wear them on call-outs. With his neat blond hair, tight mouth, and arrowhead nose, he looked like a genuine surfer Nazi from hell. Just the sight of him could put some kinds of people on edge, and that could be very unhelpful in Homicide. Ruddock, forty-three, stocky, with a gray mustache and a perceptible spare tire round his middle, cut a more avuncular figure. It was easy to believe that all he wanted was to get the job done, that the last thing he was looking for was trouble. In his experience, people responded to that.
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