Criss Cross

by Jordan Castillo Price

  At least some part of me is.

  “Your blood work is another story.”

  I sat very still to keep myself from bashing my head into her desk.

  “We’re going to have to reconfigure your meds,” she said. “Your liver enzymes are high and your liver itself is slightly inflamed.”

  “Okay.” I had no idea what that meant, but I seriously doubted it was anything to mess around with.

  “No acetaminophen. If you need a pain reliever, take plain aspirin, and no more than the recommended dose. I see here that you don’t drink alcohol. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Don’t start.”

  I nodded.

  “And no Auracel.”

  I blinked. “Were you listening when I told you I was seeing heads in the bushes yesterday?” I asked her. I’d also gotten to my feet, somewhere in my panic of having my precious pills taken away. I towered over Chance, who simply looked up at me from the rolling stool at the small Formica desk.

  “Regardless of that, Auracel is not an option for you until your liver enzymes come down.”

  “And how am I supposed to get my liver enzymes down?” I asked her. Actually, I yelled it.

  “We’ll take some more blood today and try to determine if you’ve been exposed to hepatitis, or if this is your liver’s reaction to Auracel at such high doses.”

  “This is bullshit,” I said. I’d begun pacing in the narrow aisle between the exam table and a small metal sink on one side, Doctor Chance and my empty chair on the other. “I am a level five medium. You can’t just tell me to go cold turkey on the Auracel.”

  “Detective? Sit down.”

  I couldn’t. I was too pissed off. But I did stop pacing and instead planted my hands on my hips and glared at her.

  “I can prescribe a mild sedative in the short term, and remove you from active duty until we determine a course of treatment.”

  I glared at her some more.

  “But right now, all of the FDA-approved anti-psyactives are metabolized by the liver, and we can’t risk you taking them until we find out what’s going on.”

  “Even at lower doses?” I asked. And what I meant by that was, the actual dose I was supposed to have been taking all along -- one pill twice daily, not three and four at a time.

  “Detective,” she said, gesturing again toward the chair beside the small desk. I was exhausted, so I gave in and sat.

  “You need to be careful specifically because you are a level five medium. As such, you are not a candidate for an organ transplant.”

  I tried to imagine marching around with a dead guy’s liver inside of me and my brain nearly leaked out my ears. Dollars to donuts the sonofabitch who’d lost it would be dogging my steps trying to get it back until I was pushing up daisies.

  “I want to see Doctor Morganstern,” I said.

  “He’s arranging his return flight, but in the meantime, we’re both agreed on this course of action.”

  I glared at the paper-covered table. Chance kept talking. “And another thing.” She slipped a pamphlet into my hands. On the cover was a triangle with a rainbow inside and I nearly spewed the bagel the nurse had given me. Jesus Christ, how’d she know I was gay? It was the blowjob. They’d found traces of semen in my mouth. Oh God, I was so fired. And then I’d lose my health coverage, and then my liver would explode.

  “In addition to changing the meds, you’ll have to start watching your diet,” she said.

  I stared at her.

  “The USDA modified the food pyramid to reflect their most recent guidelines,” she said, as I scrambled to figure out what my diet had to do with being queer. Chance pointed at the pamphlet. “You’ll note there’s no donut group. And no coffee group either. Limit coffee to one cup a day. Two, at the most.”

  I looked back down at the pamphlet and read the title. My Pyramid Plan: a Guide to Healthy Eating.

  ***

  Once Doctor Chance and her clogs left, I sat in my backless gown for several minutes staring at the summer-green wall. No anti-psyactives. I could do it. I could. In fact, I was straight most of the week (in the drug sense, anyhow) because it made working easier. And my apartment was clear, as long as I didn’t go into the laundry room. And then my liver would stabilize, and everything would be just great.

  I ignored the way my hand was shaking when I called Jacob for a ride home.

  “Good timing,” he said. “We’re eating lunch about a mile away at Palatzo. Want me to pick anything up for you?”

  I thought of the not-gay brochure I’d stuffed into my back jeans pocket. “Chicken calzone. And a...salad.”

  “Sure. We’re on our way.”

  Apparently Jacob didn’t know me well enough to know I hadn’t had a salad in over a year.

  But I knew him well enough to figure out that he’d lunched well outside his precinct so he’d be nearby when I called for my ride. Palatzo was okay, but it wasn’t worth making a special trip for.

  The whole “we” business was a little unsettling, since it meant his partner, Carolyn Brinkman, was with him. Carolyn’s only a level two Psych, but she can smell a lie a mile away. At least she paid for her talent by having to be truthful herself, but that price wasn’t much consolation for me when I was freaking out about the prospect of life without Auracel. I wished I’d called a cab instead, but it was too late. Jacob had probably already paid for my salad.

  I dressed slowly and tried to compose myself. I’d just have to scour my old Camp Hell textbooks and figure out how to deal with unwanted spirit sightings on my own. The books were written before anti-psyactives even existed, so they had to have something I could use. And people ditched ghosts all the time, right? That’s what exorcisms were all about.

  Okay, maybe not all the time. But it was possible.

  I stopped by the receptionist’s desk on my way out. Most of it faces the hallway that leads to the exam rooms, but a little window gives access to the waiting room. I noticed the reinforced glass in the little window, like I always did. I wasn’t sure if it was to protect the Psychs from the public or the public from the Psychs.

  Nerdy Horn-Rimmed Glasses was typing as I tried to slip by, but he snapped-to when my hand touched the doorknob. I don’t know why I thought I could get past him anyway; he had to buzz me out.

  “Detective Bayne,” he said, and I made myself turn toward him. It wasn’t his fault I had to reschedule, but who else could I blame? “I have a prescription for you,” he said, and suddenly I liked him a whole lot better.

  I took the little white bag from him. It felt light. Dammit.

  “You’re scheduled for fasting blood work for the next five days. Would you like to keep your appointment at seven?”

  I ran my hand over my face. Being psychic was such a pain in the ass. “Make it eight,” I said. No reason for me to be up with the pigeons if I wasn’t on active duty.

  The guy clicked around on his computer. “Eight a.m. tomorrow,” he said, somehow managing to make it sound incredibly nerdy, and buzzed me out.

  I nearly tripped over Roger Burke as I flew out the door. “Oh,” I said, since I’d expected Jacob.

  “Victor!” He grabbed my hand and shook it vigorously in both of his. He was so happy to see me I almost regretted being off active duty. “How do you feel? Are you okay?”

  “Just, um...y’know. Hangin’ in there. They took me off active duty for now...tests.”

  “C’mon,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder in a straight-guy kind of way. At least, I think that was what it was. I wondered if the Auracel had killed my gaydar along with my liver. “I’ll drive you home.”

  “Um,” I said, feeling weird about refusing a ride from someone so eager to please. “That’s okay....”

  “I picked up some Starbucks on the way here.”

  Every cell in my body said, “woo-hah.” Chance had said I could have one a day, right? And if I had to limit myself to one, it might as well be Starbucks. I wondered how
rude it’d be to just take the coffee and decline the ride.

  “Well, I’ve got a friend coming to pick me up,” I said. “He’s on his way.”

  “Oh,” said Roger, still cheerful, far as I could tell. “Okay.” He walked side by side with me to the front door. “But you might as well take the coffee. If you want it, I mean. They’ll get cold if I try to drink ‘em both myself.”

  Yay. He offered. “Well, uh, sure. Since you went through the trouble and all. Can I give you anything for it?”

  “Nah, it’s my ‘get well’ present.” I pulled the door open for Roger as he said this, and he nearly walked smack into Jacob.

  Chapter Seven

  Roger did a little double-take when Jacob didn’t step back and apologize like a regular guy might. Jacob stood his ground instead and looked from Roger to me, and raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, hey,” I said. “This is Roger, my new partner. Roger, this is Jacob, my, uh....” God, could there be a worse word than “boyfriend?” It made us sound like Barbie and Ken. Or Ken and Ken. Or Ken and G.I. Joe. I told my mind to stop stalling and think of a way to say it. “My partner...at home.”

  There. I’d said it within the first week of knowing Roger. Now we wouldn’t have any awkward conversations looming over us. Or not as awkward as this one, anyway.

  Jacob’s lips curved into a smile and he held out his hand. “Good to meet you,” he said, a teasing lilt to his voice. I had no idea he’d be so tickled about being introduced as my boyfriend. Or whatever.

  “Right,” Roger said brightly -- my guess was that his brightness was covering some discomfort, but that was fine, as long as he wasn’t gonna be a dick about it. “Jacob Marks from the Twelfth Precinct. You and your work partner are a very well-known PsyCop unit.”

  Jacob inclined his head graciously. He could take a compliment like royalty. Then he turned to me. “Ready to go? I think Carolyn’s been eyeing your salad.”

  I didn’t particularly care about ditching Roger. I just wanted to get home. “Yeah, okay. Thanks for stopping by to check on me.”

  “Wait!” Roger dashed to his Crown Vic, a carbon copy of Jacob’s, except that it was midnight blue instead of black, and pulled out the Starbucks. “Don’t forget your coffee.”

  “Thanks,” I repeated, giving him a salute as I took it. Jacob smirked at me a little as he held the passenger door open for me yet again, but I ignored it.

  Carolyn was in the back seat when I climbed into the car. Her tweed suit fit her perfectly, and her blonde hair was swept back into a neat French twist. I couldn’t say if she was eyeing my salad, or not.

  “I’m not mad,” I told her, protecting my coffee as Jacob closed my door for me. We hadn’t really talked since a conversation she’d had with Sergeant Warwick had resulted in Lisa not only being suspended from duty, but locked up somewhere -- “unofficially,” of course. Not that Carolyn could’ve done anything different. She hadn’t been able to lie, and Warwick had figured out exactly how to read her silences. She'd been pretty quiet after that.

  I peeked over the headrest and she met my eyes. “I know,” she said. Good thing I’d actually meant it instead of just saying it to make her feel better. “I just didn’t like being the weak link.”

  Jacob climbed into the driver’s seat, shut his door, and pulled away from the curb. Roger was still parked, drinking his coffee, and he waved at us as we passed him.

  “So that’s the guy who’s wooing you with coffee,” Jacob remarked.

  I was about to snap back that I certainly wasn’t being wooed when I noticed he was grinning. I calmed down. “Yeah, that’s Roger.”

  Jacob glanced at Carolyn in the rearview. “You’ll have to talk to him and ask if he’s maneuvering to steal Vic away from me.”

  “That’s really ethical,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes and concentrated on my coffee. It was good, really good, a bitter, earthy taste that spread through my mouth despite the liberal helping of half & half Roger had added. If I could be bought with coffee, that’d be the right kind.

  “I think we should stop by Crash’s,” Carolyn said, and the smile on Jacob’s face died.

  “We need to talk about it first,” he said.

  “We are talking about it -- right now. Vic, I have a friend who’s an empathic healer. Maybe you’ll get better results from him than from Western, pharmaceutical-based medicine. I think you’re trying to treat the metaphysical with the physical.”

  And the physical wasn’t even available to me anymore. Not the physical Auracel, at least. I only had a few pills left and my prescription was history, so I’d have to give it up whether I agreed with Doctor Chance or not.

  “I dunno,” I said. Jacob didn’t seem too keen on the faith healer, and I trusted his judgment. “It’s kinda physical, too.” Jacob looked at me sharply, and I wondered how to avoid talking about what the Auracel was doing to my liver without actually lying, since Carolyn would know. “My meds aren’t working out.”

  “His techniques work on the physical, too. It’s just a different approach.”

  Typically I’d scoff at anyone calling themselves a healer. If they had real talent, they’d have been scooped up by the pharmaceutical companies, or the government, or some big TV star like Oprah. And if they didn’t have real talent, why would I get my hopes up?

  But Carolyn was real, and this guy was a friend of hers. And maybe if he could get my liver set right, Chance would let me have my Auracel again. “I guess,” I said.

  Jacob pulled onto the highway and said nothing, but the way he glared at the car in front of us, I thought laser beams were gonna shoot out of his eyes.

  I didn’t feel like getting into an argument in front of the Human Polygraph so I concentrated on my coffee. Still good. I sipped and sipped until it was gone, and then I mourned the fact that I had to wait until tomorrow to have any more.

  Jacob exited the highway in a neighborhood that had once been Mexican, had then been infiltrated by art school students, and now held an uneasy mixture of poor people and yuppies. We passed a crowded grocery store, a packed arcade, and a tire shop whose entire front was covered in shiny hubcaps.

  “There’s nowhere to park,” Jacob said, and I jumped at the sound of his voice.

  We were in front of a Laundromat marked “Lavanderia” when the traffic started to creep. The figure of a Hispanic man coalesced in front of the business, arms crossed over his chest in a defiant stance. He uncrossed his arms and reached toward the car, and I could see the outline of the bricks behind him through his body. Another Hispanic guy with a scraggly mustache appeared beside him, same posture. And another beside him, barely a teenager. And then a big, round Mexican woman with gigantic permed hair. All of their hands grasped at me like they were doing the wave.

  “Never anywhere to park,” Jacob muttered.

  Another group of reaching ghosts waited for us at the intersection. The only time I’d ever seen so many at once was at a blind turn where a whole van load of tourists had bought it. Jacob’s head snapped around as he looked at me, still glaring. “What?”

  “Nothing,” I said, and then wondered if Carolyn would be morally obliged to pipe in and say that I was lying. Although maybe I was so transparent she didn’t need to. “There’s a lot of activity around here,” I admitted.

  “You keep flinching,” Jacob said, turning a corner to begin the old no-parking-spot shuffle.

  I held myself very still as a guy with half a face ran toward the car, the wreck of his mouth open and his twisted hands extended. Not only had my reality become more Dawn of the Dead than I was accustomed to, but suddenly all the nasty spirits were totally focused on me.

  And what was with the grabbiness? I was used to ghosts complaining a lot and being insufferably redundant. But the whole touchy-feely thing was fucking creepy.

  I knuckled my eyes. “It’s kinda bad,” I said. I wondered how Carolyn’s talents responded to my excessive minimizing.

  Jacob rounded anothe
r corner with a big mob of ghosts clustered on it and pretty soon we neared the Lavanderia again. “I’ll drop you off,” he said, pulling over a block down from the Lavanderia crowd of specters. “Maybe Crash can help you.” The laugh lines at the corners of his eyes looked deep, as if the sleepless night he’d had with me was really catching up with him. “Just be careful.”

  Carolyn and I hopped out during a break in traffic and she steered me onto the sidewalk. Jacob drove away in search of a spot before I could ask him exactly why I needed to be careful. First Lisa, now him. Nonspecific warnings that told me absolutely nothing.

  The block we were on had a couple of decrepit storefronts interspersed between a row of sagging three-flats. Latin music floated out of one window mingling with rap from another. And the storefront we stood in front of had a cracked plate glass widow dominated by “Tarot - Palm Reader” in flashing blue and pink neon with a big blinking neon hand beneath it.