As for Pancho: the cops finally show up. They speak to him for a while before cuffing his wrist to the bed rail.
* * *
Debbie Dodd slinks home feeling shit-tired, but at least she's bringing back something with her.
Anthony's presence hits as soon as she opens the door. Not just the lived-in odor of corn chips and his unwashed pits. Not the drone of the HD, or the white light it casts over the otherwise darkened front room, every fucking curtain pulled tight. More like the bubble of timelessness he lives in. The rest of the world might be punching clock, running their complicated routines, but hey, not her man.
He's lying on the couch naked. One leg drawn up and an arm draped across his forehead, watching the DVD on trick-roping she bought him two months back. His raised thigh has the name "Jolene" tattooed on the inner side. She can't help but notice his flaccid penis; a slumbering, useless snake. She'd swear the thing's growing smaller.
He offers a smile. "You've come back to your broke-down cowboy."
"How are you feeling?"
"Shitty. You?"
"Gotcha something." She shows him the swiped ampoule.
All at once his eyes go from glazed to Christmas morning, and she's some mommy-bird bringing food back to the nest. He rubs at the base of his neck, groans. "Can you do me, sweetheart? My hand's been shaking this whole night."
"It's morning."
"Okay, yeah."
One job to another. She drops the plastic vial on his pale belly. "You do it. You're a fucking professional by now."
And she's out of there, hurrying toward the bedroom. Watching Anthony shoot up is like watching a junkie. He makes noises when the stuff hits him. Hard to recognize the lean-muscled, rangy bastard she married a year ago, fucked her like he was breaking a horse.
She peels off her scrubs as she walks down the hallway. His pain's real, she knows that, because she's seen the x-rays of his fractured C6 and C7 vertebrae. Still, the man eats dope fast as she can steal it. And to hear him groan some days, you'd think he was being stretched on a rack.
In the shower, she soaps away the ER's antiseptic stink. Her thighs are still red from where Dr. Chattopadhyay clawed her. The little prick.
* * *
Sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped in a towel and smoking her pre-nap cigarette, she sees the mail piled on the nightstand.
How long has it been there? Couple days, she figures. Anthony won't even haul his lazy ass the ten feet to the mailbox, let alone read what's inside.
She riffs through a stack of bills. The next to last envelope's from the state Nursing Board, got the official seal on it and everything. Uh-oh. Her fingers tremble a little, ripping it open. Probably just some bullshit notice about a hike in licensing fees.
But it's not.
The trembling gets worse as she deciphers the legalese and formal wording.
Her stomach fills with fishhooks.
* * *
"You get any sleep? You got that raccoon thing going on, right here." Debbie Vargas traces a circle around her eye.
They're sitting in the break room, all three Debbies. Waiting for the evening shift to finish charting so they can clock in.
"A couple hours," Debbie Dodd says, lying.
"It's more crap with your husband, isn't it?"
"Nah."
Debbie Vargas nods like she's already made up her mind. "It's him." She has short brown hair and hooded eyes that make her look predatory. "It would've been nice, he told you about his condition while you were still dating. Wanted himself a live-in nurse, I guess."
"And a meal ticket," Debbie Costikyan adds.
Debbie D.'s spent the bulk of her sleepless day trying to figure who could've narked her out to the Board, and now these two are starting in.
She locks eyes with Debbie V. "At least he's not a second generation wetback. Or a dwarf. Or a goddamn gambling addict, I've got to work two shifts just to try and pay off—"
"Miguel is five-foot-seven," Debbie V. says, coloring. "How's that a dwarf?"
"Five-foot-six, and you're not bothering to deny he spends all your paycheck on internet poker, plus you're throwing those stupid money-making parties all the time, Pampered Chef and scented candles, like that's going to make a fucking dent."
"Whoa," Debbie Costikyan leans close. "What's with the venom? You got insomnia, okay, but don't go ripping on everybody else."
Debbie D. glares at her. Costikyan's wearing a T-shirt over her scrubs, technically a no-no. It reads: LIVE, LOVE, LAUGH. She's got a bumper sticker that says the same thing. Fucking hippy. "Where do you get off, calling me a meal ticket?"
"I'm making an observation—"
"Because your husband's a real prince, too, you know? How's that open marriage you got going?"
"What we do—"
"Don't tell me that was your idea."
Costikyan's mouth firms into a line. There's a bump on one corner of her lip, almost hidden under the pancake makeup. "You're just bitter."
"Uh-huh." Debbie D. points at her lip. "What's that? Cold sore?"
"None of your business."
"Daddy not being too careful about what he brings home?"
Costikyan rears up like she's going to slap her, but the break room door slams open and Dr. Chattopadhyay thrusts his sleek head through. "What's going on in here?"
Debbie D. rolls her eyes skyward, as do her fellow nurses. Chattopadhyay spends a moment scrutinizing each of them before retreating back through the doorframe, muttering something about professionalism.
Shift's starting.
Costikyan and Vargas file out, giving her roiling looks as they pass.
Which one of them did it?
* * *
It's a Saturday night, but business is shaping up like it's Monday. Around 1 a.m. both parties from a two-car accident stagger in, then a toddler having an asthma attack, then a forty year-old schizophrenic convinced she's about to give birth, despite being skinny as a rag.
Debbie D. wonders if this will be her last shift. The Board's suspended her license for suspected narcotics abuse, with "further disciplinary action pending investigation." She's supposed to tell Dr. Chattopadhyay. But he'll just pull her, sexual favors notwithstanding, and then what? No license means you don't work.
She glances sidelong at Debbie Vargas, haranguing one of the cleaning ladies about not disinfecting bay B fast enough. Yeah, it could've been her. Damn likely. Always trying to be the alpha female on shift, watching her close around the restricted meds, eyebrows raised, shaking her head over little mistakes. Got to be.
She thinks about the two-hundred pound couch turd waiting for her at home. What's she going to tell him?
* * *
A lull hits around a quarter to four, just some guy out in the waiting room worried about his blood pressure. Debbie Dodd heads for the alley, planning to chain-smoke the fuck out of an untouched pack of Kools. En route she passes the closed door to the break room. Voices from the other side. The up-and-down accent of Dr. Chattopadhyay, arguing, it sounds like, with Costikyan.
Are they talking about her?
She nudges the door a crack, peers in. She can see Costikyan with fat tears streaming down her cheeks. Dr. Chattopadhyay's hand is on her shoulder.
"What, are you spying on people now?"
Debbie D. turns to see Vargas standing there.
"I was just—"
Vargas snorts. For a moment, Debbie D. wants to confront her about the Board letter, force some kind of confession, but Vargas sidles past and pushes the break room door all the way open. The conversation inside dies.
"We're having a private talk," Dr. Chattopadhyay says, his skin looking more gray than brown. "Give us a moment, please."
Vargas walks in anyway, takes a mug from the cupboard and pours herself a shot of five-hour-old coffee. "Something I should know about, Chandrabhan?"
"No."
Costikyan paws the moisture from his eyes. "Why don't you tell them? Maybe they're affected, to
o."
"Tell us what?" says Debbie D., still in the doorway.
"The good doctor here—"
"Please." Chattopadhyay waves both hands. "Could you two leave us alone now?"
"—has h-herpes," Costikyan finishes.
The air conditioning seems to be humming directly in Debbie D.'s ears. She looks down at her feet and sees the floor do a lazy spin.
"What the fuck?" Vargas slams the mug down so hard a jet of coffee sprays over her sleeve. "You're infected? And you've been letting Costikyan suck your little cock? That's what that mark is, isn't it?"
Dr. Chattopadhyay lowers his head. "I have a problem …"
"You're goddamn right you've got a problem." Vargas yanks the half-full coffee pot out of the machine. "You've got a whole fuckload of problems now, Mr. Playboy."
She takes a step toward him, hefting the pot high. Black coffee sloshes out and spatters the floor.
"Don't you touch him," Costikyan says, stepping in front of her. But Vargas reaches over, smacks the pot down on Chattopadhyay's forehead. The glass cracks. Costikyan tries to shove her backward and Vargas swings the pot sideways, catching her face. The glass shatters. Costikyan drops, bleeding, and Vargas uses the opening to slam a knee into Dr. Chattopadhyay's groin. He doubles, one hand clutching his scalp while the other reaches for his crotch, trying to shield it. Vargas kicks his shin as he slumps against the wall and slides down.
All that bright blood does something to Debbie D.
She's seen blood before, pools of it, but now it's like a release and she propels herself into the room, toward Vargas.
"Turn around, bitch."
Vargas doesn't seem to hear her. She's too busy raining broken-pot blows on Chattopadhyay's head.
The remains of a cheesecake with several forks lies on the nearby counter. Debbie D. snatches one up. The tines aren't sharp enough to do much, but she stabs it into Vargas's shoulder anyway.
Vargas whirls. Debbie D. yells into her face: "I know you did it fucking told the Board about me trying to take away my fucking livelihood—"
The pot's just a handle now, but it's got a wedge of sharp glass along one side limned with blood. Vargas lashes out, cutting the fabric of Debbie D.'s scrubs, tracing a burning line across her abdomen. Debbie D. leaps backward to avoid being disemboweled. Her foot slips on a pool of coffee, and bam, she slams her ass against the floor.
Vargas lunges, not finished. But Dr. Chattopadhyay snakes out a hand and grabs her by the ankle. She pitches forward and lands with her stomach smothering the sharp edge.
She screams.
All four of them are down. On her back, Debbie D. pulls away the cloth to inspect her wound, and oh Christ, it's worse than it felt, a furrow running from her right hipbone all the way to her left breast. Blood seeping out.
She hears groans all around. The professional part of her mind is estimating the number of stitches it'll take to close her up. Going to need some Betadine, too.
She's a good nurse. That's the irony. Made some bad choices, married herself a bad man, but still, when all the hairy shit comes down she's got the concentration, the steady hands.
Can't lose that license.
She tries to calm herself, tell herself that people will be here soon to treat them, but shit—they're the ER staff. Who's left to do it?
†
About the Author
Garnett Elliott lives and works in Tucson, Arizona. He's had stories appear in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Needle: A Magazine of Noir, Reloaded (Both Barrels 2), Uncle B's Drive-In Fiction, Blood and Tacos, Battling Boxing Stories, and numerous online magazines and print anthologies. You can follow him on Twitter @TonyAmtrak.
Also by GARNETT ELLIOTT
from BEAT to a PULP books
Superpowers clash on the deadliest planet in the solar system …
Fog-shrouded Venus had refused to give up her mysteries, until the USSR sent their best and brightest on a top-secret scientific mission. Now the crew of the Krasnyy Sokol, led by gorgeous Cosmonaut Nadezhda Gura, must brave a hellish hothouse of jungle swampland crawling with monstrous life. It’s Russians and rayguns against a death planet—and that’s before the Americans show up.
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Available in print and for Kindle.
It's a dirty job …
Policing the timelines has always been dangerous, but the brave agents of Continuity Inc. have arguably the most important job in human history. Protecting human history.
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