Mother's Milk

by Charles Atkins

  As Barrett drifted, trying to stay calm, waiting for Justine to return, she remembered those long-ago instructions, how to pull apart a dream and find its inner meanings. Over the years she’d practiced quite a bit, amazed at just how much could be discerned from the seemingly nonsensical and random. Now, she thought back through the dream and let her mind softly focus on what it found most interesting or important. Like, she was supposed to give a performance and now that she thought of it, the stage was a lot like the one at the high school for performing arts. And why was Jerod there … and that’s when it hit; it was Jerod and it wasn’t. Tears came to her eyes; she tried not to choke on the ventilator as she remembered her freshman year at Performing Arts. Accepted a year early, at thirteen, tall and gawky, she’d hide in the basement practice rooms, just her and a piano with a soundproof door against all the high energy and glamour of the other kids. Then, early in the year, a knock at the door, he’d not waited for her to answer just came in, tall and beautiful, an infectious smile, blue eyes, and an easy grace. He’d told her to keep playing – Mozart, not her favorite but the fussy turns and trills helped push her fingers to be fast and precise. ‘I’m Kyle,’ he’d said, but she’d already known he was Kyle Matthews, seventeen, a junior, a beautiful tenor voice, featured in the big musicals and in the jazz quartet. Her first crush … and her first heartache. He’d asked if she could play anything modern, and soon they were jamming, he scatting jazz riffs, she following along. She’d go to bed hugging her pillow, imagining it was him, wondering what it would be like to have her first kiss with him. Daily, she’d go down to the practice rooms and wonder if he’d show – more often than not he would. Now, as she lay in the ICU, hearing and feeling the push and pull of the ventilator, something throbbed deep inside – how long since she’d thought about Kyle. How they’d made plans to do street music during the summer, she’d bring a keyboard and he’d sing, they’d go into the subways, or just on the streets or even to Washington Square Park. But then summer came and he never called. Each day, she’d think maybe today, but it never came. Had he just been making fun of her? Finally she pulled together her courage, found his number and dialed. It was his mother. ‘No, Kyle can’t come to the phone.’ Barrett pressed, ‘Is he OK?’ Then an uncomfortable silence; his mother asked who she was. ‘A friend from school,’ Barrett said, and added, ‘We play music together.’ His mother told her that Kyle was in the hospital. ‘What’s wrong with him? Can I see him?’ she pleaded, and finally the woman told her – a hospital she’d never heard of on the Upper West Side. Without telling anyone, she went to visit. Kyle, as she’d later come to understand, had had a psychotic break and become delusional – the details she’d never know. But that day, seeing him in pajamas and a bathrobe in the middle of the day, surrounded by other patients, all the light and excitement gone from his eyes, she never forgot. He’d tried to act normal, ‘They told me I have schizophrenia,’ but he could barely form whole sentences – now of course she knew it was the meds. The ones that Jerod – whom she could barely see huddled back in the corner of her room – didn’t want to take, the ones he said made him feel dull and not real. It was a weird moment of clarity – Kyle Matthews, her first crush, and she’d cried for nights after. He never returned his senior year, and she never went back to visit. Jerod, with his warmth, humor, quirky free spirit … and craziness, reminded her so much of him.

  ‘It’s OK,’ her mother said, misinterpreting the tears that spilled from her eyes. ‘Justine said she’d be right back.’

  Slowly, the dream retreated and other thoughts intruded, the dinner with Chase. He’d drugged her, but what with? Hobbs’s phone call: someone had shot Janice Fleet – a robbery. Images from the last couple days, from finding the dead kids, to chasing Jerod on the roof. But the face that haunted her was Chase’s. She’d caught him in a big lie, he’d known the girl on the video, been her counselor for years. He had to be tied in with the dead kids and Hobbs thought it was Marky who had robbed and killed Janice, so she too was connected. Janice was Chase’s therapist; he said she’d saved his life. It was a circle … only someone wanted to break it apart, to destroy it.

  Justine returned with a balding man in a short white coat over green scrubs. He looked at Barrett.

  ‘Yup, she’s awake.’ He said, ‘Let’s get her off this thing. OK, Barrett, I need you to wink your right eye and then your left … good. Now squeeze my fingers … excellent. I’m going to disconnect the ventilator and I want you to try and breathe on your own with the tube still in your throat, OK? It’s going to feel funny, so just try and move some air through the tube. One, two, three.’

  Barrett felt the last mechanical breath go in, and then nothing, just that awful tube down her throat. She pushed her diaphragm in and out, feeling the air move out her lungs, through the tube and across her lips, which felt dry and cracked.

  ‘I want you to keep this up, for thirty seconds,’ the man said.

  Seconds ticked as she focused on her breath, and on trying not to gag.

  ‘OK, we’re good,’ he said, ‘out it comes.’ With a single practiced sweep he pulled the white-plastic tube out of her throat.

  She coughed and gasped. ‘What happened?’ she croaked.

  ‘Don’t try to speak,’ Justine said, ‘we’ll tell you what we know. Mr. Singh brought you here in an ambulance a little before nine. You’d stopped breathing and were going into cardiac arrest; the paramedics intubated you on the way in. He told us that the man you were with tried to take you away in a cab and that you didn’t want to go with him. Mr. Singh thought you’d been drugged, and yes, your toxicology came up positive for some kind of opiate. You’ve been poisoned. We sent for further testing to find out exactly what, whatever it was had to be strong.’ Justine’s voice cracked, and she turned her face away. ‘You nearly died, Barrett. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Singh …’

  ‘Who was it, Barrett?’ Hobbs asked.

  ‘Chase,’ she croaked, struggling to remember his last name. ‘He works for DFYS. He knew Janice Strand. He was Carly Sloan’s counselor.’

  ‘That’s Marky’s boyfriend,’ Jerod said, filling the last gap in Barrett’s circle. ‘I heard him talking on the phone to someone named Chase when he thought I was nodded out.’

  ‘Help me up,’ Barrett said, feeling aimlessly for the metal bars of her hospital bed. Her fingers felt clumsy and numb, but now at least she knew why, that on top of whatever drug Chase had used, the hospital had given her a paralytic agent to keep her calm on the ventilator. It’s wearing off, she reminded herself, feeling new fear. She looked at the IV bag hanging by the bed, and squinted. ‘Narcan,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ Justine replied, ‘it reversed the effects of whatever he gave you. Who is this Chase? Why would he do this?’

  Hobbs turned to Justine. ‘He was her date.’

  ‘Figures.’

  ‘Comedy,’ Barrett said, each word an effort through her sore throat and tender vocal cords, her mouth was bone dry. ‘Sanjee, did you see where he went?’

  ‘No, the street is one-way, he went east, but then I cannot say.’

  She struggled to put the information together; it was too much. Chase had tried to kill her, but the toxicology screen said it was an opiate. ‘I felt something like an insect bite. I need water.’

  ‘When?’ Hobbs asked, pouring her a glass of ice water from a pink plastic pitcher.

  She sipped the cool liquid, having to go slow, and feeling it burn as it hit the back of her bruised throat. ‘At the restaurant, everything started to go funny. But if he’d given me heroin … I’ve never had heroin, but still it would take a fair amount and a decent-sized needle.’

  ‘Plus, he’d have to cook it up,’ Jerod said, his arms wrapped around his sides, his teeth chattered. ‘You’d have seen that, and it wouldn’t have been like a bug bite. You need a vein; if you just stab it into muscle, it takes forever to work.’

  ‘Good,’ she said, feeling like a thick layer of cotton was clouding h
er brain. ‘So it wasn’t heroin. It was something stronger.’

  ‘Fentanyl,’ Justine offered, ‘or God forbid, Sufentanil.’

  ‘Translation, please?’ Hobbs asked.

  ‘Synthetic opiates,’ Justine said, motioning for Barrett to save her voice. ‘Fentanyl is strong; it’s used for severe pain and it can be given through the skin, but the most potent is Sufentanil; it’s mostly used by surgeons for almost immediate and complete pain control. But when we use it, the patient has to go on a ventilator because it’s so powerful it depresses the respiratory drive.’

  ‘Can it be given through the muscle?’ Barrett asked, having forgotten this archaic factoid from medical school.

  ‘We don’t,’ Justine said, ‘but it could. That might account for why it took a few minutes for you to pass out. It would be slower than a vein … and all it would take is a tiny amount.’

  ‘Like an insect bite,’ Barrett said. She pictured Chase. ‘He wanted me dead, not just to drug me … and Janice Fleet is dead.’ She looked at Hobbs. ‘He’s pulling up stakes, some kind of end-game, and it’s not going right. I don’t think he came to that restaurant intending to kill me. I forced his hand.’

  ‘And he just happened to have a loaded syringe of super dope …’ Hobbs added.

  ‘A contingency. He keeps lots of backups. Before I caught him in the lie about Carly Sloan, he kept trying to show how much we had in common. I think he wanted to … date me.’

  Ruth, who’d been staying in the back of the crowded ICU room, holding the baby, and keeping a watchful eye on Jerod, couldn’t contain herself. ‘Sweet Jesus, why is it that you can’t find a normal man, Barrett?’ She looked meaningfully at Hobbs. ‘Someone who doesn’t take you out for a lovely dinner and then try to kill you.’

  Barrett caught the connection between Hobbs and her mother. Has he said something to her? But that ship sailed, he’s seeing someone else. I am a turkey, one big fucking Thanksgiving turkey.

  ‘Justine,’ Hobbs said, ‘it looks like I’ve got my work cut out, I’m going after this Chase guy. If you could have them run whatever tests they need to confirm this Sufentanil, or whatever other drugs she might have been given. Tell the lab to keep chain of custody … in fact I’ll have someone from forensics do a confirmatory.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Barrett asked, finally getting the bed positioned so that she was sitting up.

  ‘There’s every chance that he thinks you’re dead, of course now he’s got the problem of Mr. Singh to worry about. So Mr. Chase’s Plan A has gone down the crapper. It’s time for him to get out of town, which is what I expect he’s doing this very minute.’

  A thought played at the back of Barrett’s mind, something so evil … ‘No! It wasn’t just that he wanted a date with me … I was supposed to be part of his alibi.’

  ‘I already figured that,’ Hobbs said, ‘the timing of Janice’s murder, your dinner … too convenient.’

  ‘That’s not all,’ she said, and looked at Jerod. ‘All those other kids … Marky. If the plan was to eliminate anyone who could tie him to the dope, the dead kids … Carly Sloan. He’s going to kill them all, if he hasn’t already.’

  ‘Bet he’ll do it with the house dope,’ Jerod said. ‘Every week Marky gives out enough to get everyone through the week. It’s different from what they sell. It’s kind of a ritual and everyone shoots up together.’

  ‘Where?’ Hobbs asked. ‘We’ve locked up the two apartments on 4th and C.’

  ‘There’s another place,’ Jerod said. ‘I don’t know the address, but I could show you.’

  ‘We need to hurry,’ Barrett said, inching her legs toward the bed’s edge. Before Justine could stop her she yanked the IV needle out of her vein, and bent her arm to stop the bleeding.

  ‘Are you out of your fucking mind?’ Hobbs swore.

  ‘Where are my clothes?’ she asked, not caring that her flimsy hospital gown was giving them a scenic view of her backside.

  ‘Get back in bed,’ Hobbs said.

  ‘Where are my clothes?’ she repeated, trying to appear steady on her feet, when it felt like her knees and ankles wanted to drop her to the floor.

  ‘The EMTs cut them off you,’ Justine said, ‘in case you forgot you just had a near-death experience.’

  ‘Got it!’ Barrett shouted back, her sudden anger surprising everyone. ‘I’m fine now, and I’ve got work to do … like finding the bastard who just tried to kill me and do it before he wipes out a group of kids.’

  ‘That’s it!’ Hobbs said. ‘I’m out of here. Jerod, come with me.’

  ‘Hobbs—’ Barrett tripped on the ventilator cord, nearly fell, and managed to hang on by grabbing the side of the machine.

  ‘Look, Barrett, stop this. I’ll check in with you later …’ He looked at Jerod. ‘Come on, you have to show me where they are.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Jerod said to Barrett, ‘you got to take care of yourself, Dr. Conyors. You got a baby. You can’t do shit like this if you got a kid. Don’t be a shit mother.’

  And he was out of the room, following Hobbs back toward the nursing station and the exit.

  Barrett looked around at her mother, Max, Sanjee, and her sister. ‘I should go with them,’ she said, but felt powerless, weak and stung by Jerod’s parting words.

  ‘Dear,’ her mother said, gently pushing Barrett back toward the bed, ‘I think that Ed put it best, “You’re out of your fucking mind.” Now back to bed. I hate to say this, sweetie, and you know I love you more than you’ll ever know, but there is something wrong with you. You’re not a cop, and even if you were, just look at you … You have to sit this one out, Detective Hobbs will do the right thing … so let it go.’

  Looking a bit embarrassed, Sanjee said his goodbyes, ‘I hope to see you back soon,’ and left the three Conyors women and Max.

  A half-hour and then forty-five minutes passed with little conversation. Ruth unstrapped Max from the baby sling and put him on the bed beside Barrett; he was fast asleep, occasionally making a little chirping noise, or moving a chubby arm as though swatting at something in his dream. Barrett sat up, wondering where Hobbs and Jerod were, if they’d gotten to the kids in time; it was agony. There really is something wrong with you. She ran a hand through Max’s silk-fine hair and tears flowed. She sank down into the bed, holding him close. He woke and turned his head into her chest, looking for her breast. ‘Mom,’ Barrett said, ‘do you have a bottle with you? I don’t want to nurse with God knows what still in my system.’

  ‘Hold on.’ Ruth fumbled through the diaper bag. ‘Here.’

  Cuddling Max, feeling his warmth against her body, his heartbeat fast and regular, his hair smelling of shampoo, she gave him his bottle, positioning it as if it were a breast. Outside her curtained room, she heard the dings and beeps of the intensive-care unit. She thought of Hobbs and of how much he cared for her, she looked at her mother, who in the midst of all this mayhem had managed to bring along needles and yarn and was working on a red-and-blue-striped baby beanie, having already completed the matching sweater.

  Justine came to the side of the bed. ‘He is so beautiful,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ Barrett said, ‘he’s a good boy.’

  ‘He is,’ Justine said, meeting her gaze. ‘And he needs his mother.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, holding him tight, feeling his lips suckle the bottle while his chubby fingers kneaded at her breast.

  Just past midnight, Justine’s pager went off. She picked up. ‘How many?’ she asked. ‘I’ll be right down.’

  ‘What is it?’ Barrett asked.

  ‘They’re bringing in a group of young adults from a shooting gallery. They’d all overdosed … they need all the cardiac code teams in the ER.’

  At which point the overhead pager system sounded. ‘Code red, emergency room areas B, C, and D … Code red, emergency room.’

  ‘Got to run, sweets,’ and leaning over she kissed Max on the top of his head and Barrett on her forehead.


  TWENTY-FOUR

  Feeling sick at heart and desperate, Chase ignored the stench of rotting alley garbage; he needed information and needed it fast. Dinner with Barrett had gone terribly wrong. She’d treated him like scum, her transparent word-games had revealed her true colors – a first-class bitch, no, not for him. He smiled in the dark. And if not for me, for no one. Too bad things hadn’t gone better; he had liked her and could have seen her as his partner and wife. Doctors Strand and Conyors, or maybe she would have taken his name, or they could have hyphenated. They looked so good together, and their children would have been gorgeous. Too bad, the bitch got what she deserved – a lethal dose. Pity that stupid Indian had got in the way. But she was gone, and New York was a big place, that restaurant host didn’t know his name, and probably was an illegal immigrant anyway who wouldn’t get involved. ‘It’s going to be OK,’ he told himself as he cowered in the shadows of an alley on the north side of 13th between C and D. He looked up to the top floor of the decrepit tenement in front of him. One by one these six- and seven-floor roach hotels had been eaten up by developers, harassing the rent-stabilized tenants, getting them to leave and then overhaul and hike up the rent. He desperately wanted to get inside and pictured the scene unfolding in Marky’s sixth-floor walk-up. While the date with Barrett had gone south, if this went well … ‘Almost home,’ he whispered. There’d be no one left to trace him back to the dope or the silly girls they’d auctioned off. He had a moment of near nostalgia; he thought of Janice. They’d had some fun, although lately not so much, and her constant reminders of how she’d helped him, how if it hadn’t been for her …

  Is it done? The uncertainty was killing him. He emerged from the alley, waited for a taxi to zip past, and darted across the street. Keeping his head down, he took the half flight to the double front doors and keyed in. Four years ago he’d helped Marky find this place. The other tenants – mostly illegal sublets and monolingual Latinos – kept to themselves. The flights of worn marble stairs were a bit of a pain, but it was cheap, and like all the locations he selected, it had roof access. Being here was risky, but he pushed that aside; too much had gone wrong. He needed to know that this final ploy had worked, that they were all dead.