by Bobby Adair
“And?” Larry asked.
“Not everybody’s getting treated, not now, too many people are sick.” Jimmy enjoyed a smug moment. He’d called it just right. “There’s a drug shortage, just like I said there’d be. People are desperate, and they’re willing to pay. I told ‘em that I was an Ebola survivor and I’d sell them a pint of my blood.”
“What’d they say?”
“They asked questions about blood type, and stuff like that,” said Jimmy. “They wanted to know how I could guarantee the Ebola antibodies were in the blood. Right off, they didn’t believe it was my blood. They knew they were dealing in black market blood.”
Larry nodded. “Nobody’s honest anymore.”
“That’s the way the world works,” said Jimmy. “I just told ‘em, ‘buy it or don’t.’ It doesn’t matter to me. I got plenty of people that will, if they don’t. One guy said he knew of a way to do a test, and suggested that if I could test the blood and prove it’s safe, I could get a lot more money for it.”
“Why’d he tell you that?” Larry asked. “Did he want to pay more for the blood?”
“No,” answered Jimmy. “He said I should give him a free pint for the idea.”
“Fuck him,” said Larry.
Jimmy shrugged. “We’ll think about it.”
Larry looked back down the street at the group in front of Paul Cooper’s townhouse. “If you’ve got customers already lined up, we need to get some product to sell them. Your customers won’t be waiting around too long, if you know what I mean.”
Jimmy turned around in his seat. “As soon as that last news van leaves, I’ve got a way to get us into the house. I just don’t want to go up to the door if somebody is videoing us.”
“Go up to the front door?” Larry asked, shaking his head at the obvious stupidity of the idea. “Why would we do that?”
Jimmy leaned into the pickup’s backseat, grabbed a paper grocery bag, and set it in Larry’s lap.
Larry opened the bag and looked inside. “What the—” He grinned. “I know what you’re thinking. This will work.”
Chapter 76
The blinds on all the windows were closed, even those upstairs. Due to the neighborhood’s hilly terrain, every window in the townhouse was viewable from somewhere. Worse yet, what seemed like a good idea at purchase time, getting a townhouse at the end of the building at the edge of the complex, with more exterior windows and even views across a four-lane road to see the mountains, turned out to be a bad idea. Any car driving on the road passed—it turned out—within easy rock-throwing distance of Paul’s house. Most of the rocks hit the branches of the spruce trees or were deflected by the bushes. Many hit the brick wall with a thud inside that made Heidi jump. Enough found their mark that three of the eight windows that faced the road were cracked, and another was shattered, now boarded over from the inside. Paul didn’t dare go outside and climb a ladder on that side of the house.
Heidi complained that the place now felt like a cave. Paul felt guilt over it but couldn’t argue.
Neither he nor Heidi had been outside since his early ejection from the hospital’s isolation ward a week earlier—the hospital needed the space for the tsunami of new Ebola patients. Under a cloud of implicit threats from the Dallas police, the Douglas County Sheriff, the Colorado State Patrol, the FBI, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and other government officials (Paul couldn’t remember them all), he’d returned home through a gauntlet of media types lingering on the sidewalk in front of his townhouse and hiding in the bushes at the end of the alley beside his garage. One had even snuck inside while the garage door was coming down, and was incensed that Paul wouldn’t grant him an interview right. Paul had agreed, with a few nods and grunts. The gestures were a feint to buy time to get out of the car and get his hands on a heavy-bladed snow shovel. The interview ended when the reporter dodged Paul’s swing and ran out of the garage.
A week into his homebound exile, the photo of Paul’s angry face and the swinging snow shovel was on television again. The off-camera reporter was talking about Denver hitting a milestone of twelve thousand cases. The news never distinguished between confirmed and suspected cases anymore. Everybody who seemed like they might have it did. The reporter went on to talk about the three weeks since Paul Cooper called 9-1-1 to become the first case in a previously Ebola-free Denver, the implication being that Paul Cooper was the Typhoid Mary seed that grew into Denver’s epidemic.
“No! No, I’m not!” Paul yelled at the television. “It’s everywhere, dammit!”
Heidi came from the kitchen with two bowls of rice mixed with stir-fry vegetables and chicken. She handed a bowl to Paul and said, “You shouldn’t watch that.”
“This isn’t my fault,” Paul answered, as he grimaced at his bowl.
“You bought the rice,” Heidi told him.
Paul looked up from the bowl and saw Heidi trying to smile. He said, “I was talking about Ebola.”
“I know,” she said, smiling again. “But you did buy the rice.”
“I hate it already,” said Paul.
“Not as much as you’re going to,” said Heidi. “That’s the last of the chicken, and we don’t have any more fresh vegetables.”
Paul looked down at his bowl. He had no appetite.
“One of us should go to the store soon and get something else while there’s still something to get.” Heidi looked at the television. “I know I haven’t said this yet, but it looks like maybe you were right about all of this from the start. I’m sorry for not believing.”
Shaking his head, Paul said, “You don’t think this is all my fault, do you?”
“Of course not. You know it isn’t. You’re still wallowing, and you shouldn’t be. I know you accepted that Austin was dead, but with what Olivia told us, he might not be.”
Paul tried to smile.
“How many cities are reporting outbreaks?” Heidi asked.
“Just in the US?” Paul asked.
Heidi nodded.
“I don’t know. It’s literally in every major city. It’s in Fort Collins, Boulder, Colorado Springs. It’s up in Cheyenne and out in Steamboat Springs. It’s everywhere.”
“Exactly,” said Heidi.
Paul nodded.
Heidi pointed at the TV. “They’re blaming you to put a face on their audience’s fear. Because they think they can get better ratings out of it.”
“Everybody hates me, Heidi.”
Heidi failed at a smile. “It’ll pass. I got over it.” Then she did smile. She sat down and put her bowl on the coffee table. “If you keep being right about the epidemic, all of them will be dead soon, so who cares what they think?”
Paul laughed as he shook his head. “That’s so wrong.”
“I know,” Heidi agreed, as she laughed too, embarrassed that she’d made such a crass joke.
Paul took a few bites of his rice, sat his bowl on the coffee table, and rubbed his hands over his face. He felt the bristle of a beard coming in, just a week old.
“I could go to the store today,” said Heidi. “Stock up on whatever we can get.”
Paul shook his head emphatically.
Heidi nodded toward the TV. “When I was upstairs, there was a story about people panic-buying at the grocery stores.”
Paul absently said, “You can’t go.”
“One of us has to, Paul. And you can’t.”
“I have to.” Paul turned toward Heidi, certain and firm. “We’ve been through too much to get here.” He pointed at one of the shaded windows. “The thing out there we have to fear most is Ebola. Sending you out into that kind of risk isn’t something we can do. I’ll go. I have to go. As much as it’s going to suck, until this thing blows over, you’re going to be stuck here. I—” Paul smiled again, but it was just a mask for feelings of loss. He couldn’t buy into the hope that Austin was alive, just to reset the grieving process. “I can’t lose you, too.”
Heidi got up off the couch and came over to sit o
n the coffee table near Paul. She took his hand in hers and leaned over to kiss him. “There are too many of them out there.”
“Not that many, now,” Paul said. “I think maybe only three or four reporters out front, and—you know, some protestors.”
“Protestors?” Heidi laughed.
Paul laughed, too. “Yeah, I know. Protestors? I guess I’ve made it to the big time now.”
They both laughed some more.
When they got past the humor of the situation, Paul said, “I’ve got a plan to get myself out undetected.”
“Is that why you’re growing the beard? Why don’t you just wear a disposable facemask like everybody else? You have a case of them in the basement.”
“You’ll need those more than me.” Paul walked over to look at himself in the mirror above the fireplace. His hair was longish, thick, and brown with a bit of gray. He wore it the same way he’d worn it since forever ago. “If I use that beard trimmer under the bathroom sink—”
“If it even works anymore,” Heidi cut in.
“—to cut my hair off and put on some sunglasses, I don’t think I’ll be recognizable.”
Chapter 77
With a stubble of hair on his head and a goatee changing the look of his face, Paul quietly dismantled the shelves on the wall of the garage. On the other side of the shared wall lay his neighbor’s garage. Inside was a Toyota Camry in that weird metallic beige—so unnatural, but at the same time effective for suburban camouflage. Barb and Bill, their retired neighbors, lived only part-time in their primary residence. They spent several months of the year traveling in their RV. While they were gone, Barb left her house keys with Heidi, so that Heidi could keep an eye on the place. It was a matter of luck that Barb’s key ring also had a key to her car.
That one fact made Paul’s plan palatable to Heidi. As Paul explained, since Barb had placed the key to her car in Heidi’s hand, using Barb’s car wasn’t theft. Legally, Paul was in the clear. The same extended to the house. The only legally fuzzy part of Paul’s plan was the part about how he let himself into Barb and Bill’s garage.
Paul couldn’t leave through his front door and go into his neighbors’ adjoining townhouse. Any stragglers out front would see. The back way into both townhouses was through the garages. Paul couldn’t be seen leaving his own garage, either. That left Paul one choice.
With a utility knife in hand, Paul found a sheetrock seam which had to run over a stud. About one inch to the right of the seam, Paul cut a long vertical groove. Three more cuts created a rectangle, which Paul punched a few times, knocking a five-foot tall, thirteen-inch wide section of wall out. Paul saw no insulation in the adjoining wall, just the backside of the sheetrock nailed to Barb and Bob’s garage wall. A few minutes later, Paul passed through his new makeshift doorway and slid a key into the door of Barb’s Camry.
Chapter 78
Because of the layout of the buildings and the limited space along the curbs for legal parking in the Coopers’ townhouse complex, nobody standing in Paul Cooper’s front doorway, or looking out one of the front windows, could see a car parked in the street. Not from the first floor, anyway. That was a bit of luck that Jimmy hadn’t thought about as he climbed the stairs from the sidewalk up to the front porch.
Jimmy stretched his neck and jiggled at the knot of the uncomfortable tie that felt like it was choking him; it wasn’t. It was the shirt that was too tight. He checked the mask over his mouth and nose. Like everyone else, everywhere, he’d become so habituated to wearing his mask that he sometimes didn’t notice it on his face, and had to check to be sure it was still there.
Larry followed Jimmy up the stairs. When they got to the door, Jimmy needed to do the talking and Larry simply needed to wear the police costume, keep a serious face, and a silent mouth. That’s why Jimmy wore the suit. He needed to appear naturally in charge.
Jimmy rang the bell and stepped back so that he and Larry could stand shoulder to shoulder in clear view. If they looked like cops, no one would request their identification, let alone scrutinize them when showed. The only real concern was the cooler in Larry’s hand—not large, big enough for three or four six packs and some ice, but large enough to contain their supplies. Most importantly, it was big enough to contain what they hoped to leave with: all of Paul Cooper’s liquid gold blood.
Jimmy heard a sound inside the house and rang the doorbell again. A moment later, the door unlocked and opened a crack. Jimmy said, “Mrs. Cooper, I’m Detective Smith and this—” Jimmy panicked. He hadn’t planned an alias for Larry. Crap. Think. “—is Officer Friday.”
Heidi said nothing, but her face told Jimmy she was suspicious.
Jimmy smiled warmly, not thinking about the mask over his mouth and nose. “Sorry to bother you.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a sheath of papers he’d printed up the night before. “Is your husband, Paul Cooper, home?” Heidi’s eyes followed the papers in Jimmy’s hand. She looked a little bit frightened of them. That was good, exactly what Jimmy had hoped for.
Heidi said, “Paul went to the store.”
“The store?” Larry asked in a tone that advertised his disbelief.
“Yes,” Heidi said, offended. “He left just a little while ago.”
Jimmy looked over at Larry, who was looking back at him with a question on his face. Jimmy didn’t believe her, either. “How long ago?”
Tentatively, Heidi answered, “Um, maybe...? I’m not sure. A little bit. Can you come back?”
Jimmy didn’t want to have to come back. In fact, if Heidi was alone, things would go much better. He and Larry could grab her, tie her up—or whatever—and ambush Paul once he returned. Divide and conquer. Oh, yeah. Jimmy congratulated himself on that phrase. He’d picked it up one night watching the History Channel when his premium channels had been disconnected.
Jimmy tried his best to sound charming, non-threatening. “Mrs. Cooper, I know this is hard. It’s hard for everyone, you know. I’d rather be home right now with my wife and kids. You’d rather not have us here on the porch. We’re just doing our job.”
The charm seemed to be working. Heidi’s attitude softened a bit. “What exactly do you need?” Heidi looked down at the papers again, then suspiciously eyed the cooler.
Jimmy lifted the papers to emphasize their authority. “It’s a court order to draw a sample of Paul’s blood.” Jimmy pointed at the cooler. “It was the smallest one we had. For the sample, you know.”
Heidi looked at the cooler still. “It looks like you bought it at Walmart. Don’t they have a special cooler for that sort of thing?”
“Well, yes. No,” Jimmy corrected himself. “This is unusual for us.”
“And why send the police?” Heidi asked, her suspicion growing. “Why not send a medical...I don’t know, a nurse or something?”
Jimmy smiled again. “The nurses are all busy with, you know...at the hospitals. They sent me because I used to be an EMT before I became a cop.” That lie seemed to have worked, and Jimmy congratulated himself for it.
“May I see those papers?” Heidi asked, reaching out from behind the door.
Jimmy lowered the folded pages out of her reach. “These are for Paul Cooper, ma’am.”
Heidi left her hand extended. “I’m his wife.”
“Ma’am,” Jimmy started.
“Then you’ll have to come back next week. Paul had to travel to the hospital in Omaha. He won’t be back until Thursday.”
Larry’s temper flared. “Ma’am. You said he went to the grocery store.”
Heidi glared at Larry defiantly. “It’s not uncommon for women to lie to strangers about whether their husbands will be returning soon.”
Jimmy smiled and nodded, doing his best to look defeated. He handed the papers to Heidi. Heidi accepted them without a word and immediately unfolded them and started to read. Jimmy yawned, pretending boredom and looked around for any neighbors in the streets—none—any open windows, any open blinds, any peeping neighbor
eyes. None, none, none.
He gave Larry a nearly imperceptible nod and Larry understood.
Heidi flipped to the second page of the document, giving it her full attention. She said, “I don’t under—”
Jimmy rushed at the door with his shoulder, flinging it open and knocking Heidi back on the floor. Larry charged in behind and jumped on top of Heidi, who struggled and screamed. Jimmy quickly pushed the door shut.
Chapter 79
The Safeway by the house was closed. It had a sign on the door promising to reopen in a few days. The Sharpie scrawl on a pink neon-colored poster board taped inside the glass went on to explain the store’s woes over frightened employees after one got sick. Their stock of grocery items was low because delivery drivers were refusing to come to the store.
Paul peeked in through the windows. Shelves were mostly empty. Items were scattered. A few dented cans, mashed boxes, and torn packages lay on the floor.
He left and drove down the road to the King Sooper, where the story was much different. Paul had to wait in a line of cars on the street for a half hour before getting into the parking lot, all the while muttering to himself about the pussies at Safeway who were afraid to open their doors. At least the King Sooper managers had the good sense to keep the doors open and price gouge—he was just guessing on that point not having seen the prices yet.
Once parked, he waited in a line of widely spaced people, all suspicious, most with some kind of facial mask. All wore gloves: some latex, some rubber house cleaning gloves, some wore ski gloves—better than nothing. Not being concerned about Ebola, Paul hadn’t thought to wear gloves of his own. Now he realized that was a mistake. It made him stand out, made him look like a careless danger.
Few people conversed. The grocery store itself was admitting no customers. They had a system. Armed security guards—eight or nine—patrolled around the store entrance, keeping the crowd in order, enforcing the rules. At one door, customers lined up to use unwrapped crayons to write their orders on laminated sheets of white notebook paper. At the head of the line, they dropped their crayons and the plastic-coated paper into a tub of bleach water. Store workers wearing the requisite protective gear used tongs to take sanitized order sheets out of the tub, one worker and one sheet at a time. The worker would take a basket into the store and collect the items, while the customer went to the other entrance, paying upon delivery of the order. All transactions required a credit or debit card—enter your PIN on the keypad at your own risk. A box of bleach-wipes sat beside each keypad for customers to use in sterilizing the pad prior to touching. Cash wasn’t being accepted. Anybody with half a wit was afraid to touch a porous paper bill, home to who-knew-how-many viruses, collected from any number of grubby hands.