by JJ Pike
“She’s with me. She’s a friend. We’re going to leave now. Did you get your bag together, like I told you?”
“There’s nothing for me out there.” Charles slumped into an easy chair. “I’m going to stay here until they get this mess sorted out.”
Barb was inclined to agree. He had it all. She could heat up some food, get washed up, find clean clothes. “He has a point, Neal.”
“Quiet, Barb, please.” Neal sat next to his pouting friend. “I explained this, Charles. You have food and power, but the water is undrinkable.”
“I can drink beer.”
“Sure, but you can’t wash or flush the toilet.”
“I’ll just move from floor to floor. I’ll be fine.”
That had been Barb’s plan. Apart from the problem with the sewage, it sounded solid.
“Have you been listening to the radio, like I told you?”
“Yes.” Charles Sullivan III was a petulant child, ready and willing to be bossed about.
“And what have we learned?”
“Manhattan is collapsing.”
“And what does that mean? For us? For you?”
“It means this building could collapse into the hole.” He leaned forward in his chair, pointing downtown. “It’s getting bigger and bigger.”
“And so?” Neal placed one hand on Charles’ knee to center his attention. He was a good guy, Neal. “What happens if this building falls into the hole?”
“I fall in with it?”
The man had the IQ of a ten-year old, perhaps younger. He was an insanely rich child.
“We don’t want that, Charles. We want you safe.”
“Is Delia here?”
Neal shook his head. “Delia left three days ago, Charles. She’s probably in Florida by now. All three of your wives left when I asked them to. Now it’s your turn.”
Charles took Neal’s hand. “Will I stay with you?”
“You can stay with me, of course you can. Now…did you order the helicopter, like I asked?”
Charles nodded. “They said to meet them at the Downtown Heliport.”
“Not the one on East 34th Street?”
Barb inched towards the windows. Could they cut a path to the downtown helipad? They’d be running a perilous gamut between a hell-hole that swallowed buildings and a fire that raged out of control. “I don’t know that we can make it.”
Neal joined her at the window. Together they mapped out the routes downtown. “Without knowing the conditions on the ground, we have no way of knowing whether the cross streets are passable.”
“Can’t the helicopter land on top of this building?”
“That’s not allowed,” said Charles.
“He’s right. Since 9/11, helicopters aren’t permitted to land on residential buildings.”
“Not even in an emergency? Who’s going to stop us? Or report us?”
Neal returned to Charles’ side. “Let’s call Gerard together, shall we? Tell him the new plan?”
“It’s illegal,” said Charles. “Mr. Rond won’t like it. He tells me he’ll cut me off if I bring bad attention on us.”
“We’ve talked about this before, Charles. Mr. Rond doesn’t have the authority to cut you off. He’s just a nasty lawyer your family uses to frighten you.” Neal handed Charles a walkie-talkie. It was bright yellow. If Barb hadn’t known she was in the home of a billionaire, she would have mistaken it for a toy.
“Gerard?” Charles knew how to operate the walkie-talkie. “My friend Neal is going to talk to you. Over.”
Neal took the hand piece. “Gerard, we’re trapped in Avalond Towers. We can’t get down to the helipad. Manhattan’s streets are impassable. We need you to come to us.”
“Sir….”
Charles took the walkie-talkie back, screaming into the microphone. “Get up here, now. Do it. I told you to do it, so you have to do it.”
Neal patted his friend’s shoulder. “Take it easy, Chuck. Gerard’s our good friend. He will understand.”
“Tell him he has to come.” Charles kicked the table sending M&M’s from the centerpiece skittering onto the floor.
“Gerard, I’m sure we can come to some arrangement. Your year-end bonus, for example…” He raised his eyebrows at Charles. Who got to talk to a billionaire like they were a kid? “Yep, I see a smile on the boss’ face. Your year-end bonus, in full, when you deliver us to New Jersey.”
Barb’s stomach lurched. She couldn’t go with them to New Jersey. That would mean abandoning Alice and Bill and Pete. What kind of friend would she be if she abandoned them?
“I’m going to need your help getting Suze up here.” Neal wasn’t raising his eyebrows at her. He was serious.
She’d talked herself into the idea that she could make it back down those stairs, but up again? With a quadriplegic? “I’m not sure I can manage that.”
“Going to let yourself be outrun by a cripple?” Neal smiled. “If I can do it, you can, too.”
Charles stuck to Neal like a lost duckling who’d imprinted on the nearest human.
Barb lifted Charlotte from the stroller and wound the carrier straps around her butt.
“Can I pet the baby?” said Charles.
Barb held Charlotte out for him to see.
He drew back. “That’s wrong.”
Barb clutched Charlotte tight.
“It’s not right.”
She knew what he meant. She was Caribbean, Charlotte was Caucasian. The baby in her arms couldn’t be her biological child. She didn’t care. She was going to love her and care for her and make sure she had the best of everything.
“That’s not polite, Chucky.”
Charles was already headed down the stairs. “That lady shouldn’t have that baby.”
“Don’t mind him. He’ll come around. He always does.”
Barb was paralyzed with indecision. There was a way off the island, but she’d have to leave her friends behind. She had a child now, no matter what the billionaire had to say on the matter. She had to think of what was best for Charlotte.
Out there, in the dust and muck and destruction, there were dangerous people and even more dangerous toxins. No way on Earth she was going to take Charlotte out into that. So, why shouldn’t she leave in the chopper? Who was Alice when there was a Charlotte in the world? She’d only just met those people. She’d never spoken to Pete. They’d smiled at each other on the train on the way to work in the mornings and she’d petted his dog. She’d already saved Bill’s life once, was she supposed to save it again?
God was not shy about the answer. She was supposed to save as many people as she could. She’d given her word to Alice, she couldn’t go back on it.
Another idea presented itself. Whether it was the devil talking she couldn’t tell.
Neal had been a Marine. One of their mottoes was, “leave no one behind.” He’d said so himself. Also, he was a kind man who had Charles the billionaire wrapped around his little finger. Charles controlled their access to a real helicopter, dedicated to extracting them. Neal controlled Charles. She controlled her own fate and that of Charlotte’s.
Charlotte would be fine for a few hours, if she was left in her cot in her own apartment. She could leave KC as the guard dog while she raced downtown and collected her friends. She’d convince Neal to bring the chopper back for all of them. That way everyone would be saved.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Getting Midge out of the hospital against medical advice was far easier than Petra had anticipated. She signed in all the places they told her to sign, taking it on trust that what the lawyer said was true. She didn’t have time to read 300 pages of legal jargon. With a living agent capable of destroying concrete now inside the hospital, she wanted out.
The surgeon lectured them on what Midge’s care ought to have been, what benchmarks they would have been monitoring, how he couldn’t possibly hazard a guess as to her prognosis given what little time they’d had to observe her post-operatively, but the lawye
rs were right at his side, cutting his answers short.
All Petra truly grasped was that they’d extubated her and uncoupled her from her drips and meds. “I left the port in the back of her hand. Your ‘expert in field trauma’ will know what to do. Get her back on the morphine as soon as you can.”
“Why didn’t you leave her on the morphine drip?” Jim was belligerent, demanding. Petra had never seen that side of him.
The lawyer with the shiniest shoes and the skinniest tie stepped forward. “Morphine is a controlled substance. We can’t allow her to leave the hospital on a schedule II narcotic. The port had already been installed, so it could not be reused. There was no point taking that out.”
“Sharks, the lot of you.” Jim sneered so hard Petra was afraid his face might fall off.
“It’s not that we don’t want her to thrive,” said the lawyer, “but rather that we must assume your alleged expert might not know how to dose a child with morphine and while you signed the papers releasing us from all exposure, we cannot be too careful. This is a litigious society and we’re at the forefront of that unfortunate trend. They don’t call those kinds of opportunistic lawyers ‘ambulance chasers’ for nothing.”
The world was a mean, cold place. How could an institution dedicated to making people better possibly think they’d sue them just because they’d allowed her to leave their care with a morphine drip? It was bananaramadingdong. Now that she was on the edge of getting Midge back, she felt safer using some of her phrases.
The lawyer wasn’t done being a jumped-up windbag. “Let us be clear, should the brain swelling continue and her condition decline, we cannot be held responsible. If you take her home now there’s every probability she’ll develop a secondary infection. We have no way of testing whether her sight will return or whether there will be further complications. Should she die…”
Petra winced. They weren’t overstating the case, but it was devastating to hear it said out loud.
“Should she die, we will not be held liable.” He stacked the pages neatly and slid them into a folder. “Your sister is now released into your care, against hospital wishes.”
The surgeon stepped forward. “Remember to keep up with the anti-convulsants.”
Petra nodded. He was repeating what Betsy had said, which was weirdly comforting. She had a bag of medications in one hand. All she lacked was a sister.
When the gurney appeared, Petra took three steps back, only stopping when her butt hit the swinging doors. Though Midge was bandaged and helmeted, her eyes were swollen shut, her face distorted and blotched with blacks and blues. If they’d told her that Midge had done three rounds in a boxing ring with the heavyweight champion of the world, she would not have been surprised. She looked to Jim, but his face was slack and his eyes fixed on the tiny, bruised figure lying on the gurney.
Petra leaned forward and cupped her hand over Midge’s. It was cold and limp. If she hadn’t seen the inside of that ambulance or the suspicious bubbling hole where the acid had eaten through the floor in the lobby, she would have backed out of the deal and insisted that Midge stay put. That was no longer an option.
“Can you help us to the car?” She wasn’t sure who she was asking for help, but moving Midge was going to be an exercise in extreme caution.
The nurse directly behind the surgeon nodded. “Of course.”
The lawyer held up a hand. “Sorry. Hospital staff may assist you to the doors, but not beyond. Roll the gurney, by all means, but do not touch the patient. She’s no longer under our care.”
The nurse protested, but the lawyer was unmoved. “They’ve signed her out.” He looked down at the tab on his file. “Margaret Everlee is fragile. You lay your hands on her now and you’re inviting a law suit. I cannot sign off on anyone putting the hospital at risk.”
The nurse swore under his breath and joined Petra at Midge’s side. “I’ll help.” He looked pointedly at the lawyer. “As a private individual, I’ll help.”
“On your head be it,” said the lawyer. “What’s your name?”
“Nigel Marke, CRNA, DNP, APRN, NP-BC…” He paused, but he wasn’t done. “…RN-BC, NEA-BC, CNL.” He was defiant. Petra could tell he’d said something to force the lawyer to take notice, but all the stuck-up, shiny-shoed doofus did was write the nurse’s name, none of his credentials, on the front cover of Midge’s file.
“Be sure to clock out, Nigel,” said the lawyer. “I’ll check. Should you forget to clock out, you’ll be disciplined. We do not take these matters lightly.”
Nigel retrieved his phone, punched in a code, then nodded at the lawyer. “Satisfied?”
“Only trying to protect you from your own worst impulses,” said the lawyer.
“You’re a sad sack and a disgrace,” said Jim, pushing the swinging doors open and dragging Midge’s gurney towards the corridor.
The lawyer didn’t respond or react. Perhaps he was used to people hating him. What an awful life, to be on high alert and always sniffing out creeps and conmen and charlatans. Did people pick their professions because they were already predisposed to behave a certain way? Or did they get that way after doing a job for a while? She never wanted to be as blank and icy as the lawyer. Never. She wanted to heal the planet and make it habitable again for all the species of plants and animals that had gone on the endangered or extinct list. That was why she was studying Earth Sciences. It wasn’t too late. Her generation was going to step it up and make a difference. Mom always said it was down to the young people. “They’re the ones who are going to save us from ourselves. They’re where the planet goes when she runs out of hope.” Petra wanted to be the one people turned to.
Nigel pushed Midge’s gurney slowly through the hospital. “They’re not exaggerating,” he said. “This probably is the worst time to move her.”
Petra felt the familiar knot of panic in her stomach. She hated decisions almost as much as she hated being separated from Paul. This was the right move, though, she was certain of it. Almost. Ninety-eight and a half percent sure. It wasn’t just that Jim and Betsy believed the drug supply in the hospital was jeopardized. It was what she’d seen with her own two eyes.
“Did you see the patients that came in about half an hour ago?” Nigel might be able to tell her more about what was going on with the terrifying substance that gouged human flesh and puckered floors on contact.
“The burn victims? I heard about them. Terrible. They were moved here from St. Joseph’s in Manhattan. There’s a massive airlift effort going on. They’re trying to get critical patients out of every hospital in the city. It’s not looking good down there.” Nigel was one of the good guys. Petra liked his vibe. And he had all those initials after his name, which likely meant he had qualifications galore. “Your friend here tells me that his wife’s a nurse?”
Petra nodded. He didn’t seem bothered by the influx of burn victims. She hadn’t imagined it. They had terrible injuries and the ambulance they’d inspected had been doused in a potent acid that none of them could place. But if Nigel was chill, she should probably put it behind her and concentrate on getting her sister home safely.
“Does she have a sterile room ready for your sister? Supplies? Medications? A plan if she starts seizing?”
They didn’t have anything sterilized. They’d kept Sean in a “clean, dry” environment, as Betsy called it, with fresh bandages and clean sheets, but a leg injury—even one as serious as his—was nothing to a kid with her brain sticking out of the top of her head. They were going to have to bleach the entire guest room from floor to ceiling and back again. Her stomach was a fist now, ready to thump her insides until she folded. What could she say to Nigel to allay his fears? Or hers? She had no clue what the plan was.
“I’m going to give you my cell number. If you need another set of hands, call me.” Nigel was as friendly as the lawyer had been cold. “I have an MS in nursing. I specialize in neurology. I’m also qualified to stand in for the anesthetist. That’s why I was on your
sister’s case. The hospital is short-staffed at the moment. We’ve had a rush of cases coming in in the last few hours. The burn victims you mentioned. We don’t see that kind of action all that often. The surgeons were practically fighting to get a seat at the table. They’re going to be writing papers and attending conferences and talking about how they saved the day for decades.”
The nurse scribbled his number on the back of a scrap of paper. Petra took it, grateful that there might be someone they could call on if things went sideways. She hated to think of Jim and Betsy as “past it,” but they were. That was the bald truth. Jim was having trouble keeping up with the gurney and it wasn’t like they were going that fast. They were oldies. They might have a world of experience, but what if they forgot or got the shakes or zoned out or something?