But the most interesting were the outbreaks. When cases of Ebola started popping up in the United States a few years back, some people said the government was telling news outlets not to report on them. China had done the same when SARS began, creating a media blackout that didn't stop until word got out through the Internet and text messages.
If all or even some of that was possible, what didn't we know about the Red Flu?
As I snapped out of my train of thought, I realized Miller and Diaz were having a hushed conversation. They either underestimated how well I could hear them, or more likely they didn't care all that much if I did. In my experience, some officers treat a man in custody like a dog being taken to the kennel- not much good worrying about what it hears, it probably doesn't understand anyway.
"It's looking like overtime," Diaz said.
"These aren't the old days when they handed it out like candy."
"Do you see all the calls coming in? The city's been worked up the last couple days, and it's only getting crazier. We might be pulling some long hours is all I'm saying."
"Are you complaining about it?"
"Nah. I mean not really. I'm supposed to take my kid to a game later is all."
"The Yanks? I hate to tell you, but they canceled the game about an hour ago."
"What? Why? The weather's fine." He motioned out the window to the clear sky above.
"Too many players out sick, I think. Flu's taken out almost half the team."
"The millionaires can't be bothered to play ball because they got the sniffles." Diaz scoffed. "I try to do one nice thing and look what happens."
The radio on their dashboard came to life. "Control to car Six-Eight, Six-Eight come in."
Diaz picked up the microphone. "Car Six-Eight, Miller and Diaz, go ahead."
"Please respond to Seventeen Second Ave for a Ten-Ten, fight in progress."
I leaned forward in my seat. "Hey, that's the Purple Palace," I said, and they both looked back at me. "What? They have ten cent wings."
Diaz returned to the microphone. "Control, uh, we have a Ten-Twenty-Three here heading back to the station, are there any other available units in the area?"
"Negative, Car Six-Eight, all other units are occupied. It's been a hell of a day and it doesn't look like it's stopping."
Diaz flashed an I-Told-You-So look at Miller, who shrugged it off. "Alright, what do we need to know?"
"Two males, early thirties, denied entrance into a nightclub. The situation escalated and became physical.
"It's a strip club," I clarified.
"Shut up," Miller said.
"Copy that, Control, we're en route."
"Received."
By the time we got to the Purple Palace I was somehow feeling even worse. My stomach was doing so many somersaults I couldn't even think of those ten cent wings without wanting to throw up in the back of the squad car. It might have even made me feel better, but I didn't think Miller and Diaz would appreciate it as much.
It didn't take long to find the fight the dispatcher was talking about. There was a crowd three deep on the sidewalk, from strippers in tiny thongs and bikinis, to people just passing by, to customers doing their best to look like people just passing by. At the center of the crowd, near the flashing purple neon door, some unseen person was giving the bouncers the fight of their lives. I couldn't get a look at his face, but I could see a few faces he'd done some damage to.
Officer Diaz called in their arrival as Miller parked, then they jumped out, bore down on the brawl and pushed their way through the crowd. It didn't take much effort- most of the spectators hightailed it the moment they saw a cop uniform, as anyone did in that neighborhood.
With the crowd thinned out, I got a good luck at the fighter who was making a mess of the Purple Palace's security. He was a big bastard, probably six-three, with layers of worn-out clothes. He had the homeless look that if you've seen once you've seen a million times- sun-dried hair, bronzed skin, though he obviously took better care of himself than most. He didn't look like a junkie or a drunk, just like someone who spent his days on the street, and his nights God-knows-where.
On the ground a few feet from him, another homeless man was being held to the ground by a second bouncer and two more guys, probably good Samaritans, though they struggled to keep him down. He had some harder miles on him than the first guy, but he also had a deranged look on his face that was all too familiar to me. He looked so much like Peter, the way he'd charged at me in that office, that a chill ran down my back. He gnashed his teeth at the men holding him down as they screamed at him to calm down. One of the men had a bloody hand where I assume the homeless guy's gnashing teeth found their mark.
I could barely hear what was going on through the car window, but I made out Officer Miller shouting at the crowd to back up. At the same time Diaz approached the fighter and told him to stop, but the man yelled back at him, saying something like, "Tell them to let him go!" while swinging wildly at anyone who got near him. Diaz reassured him that his friend would be safe, but the guy didn't believe him. He didn't make the mistake of trying to lash out at the officers, but he also didn't let the men get close to him, either. He didn't look deranged, though, not like his friend on the ground.
He looked scared.
My eyes started to feel puffy and heavy with fever, and my skin felt burning hot one second and ice cold the next. All of a sudden I wanted to drink something with ice in it more than I ever had in my life. Maybe it was because my throat felt like I'd swallowed a bag of rusty needles. As the two officers closed in on the fighter, my vision began to tunnel.
There was no ignoring it anymore, something was seriously wrong with me. This wasn't just simple blood loss like I kept telling myself- it was an infection. I took long, deep breaths and fought the urge to pass out. My face, my back and my chest instantly became covered in a film of cold sweat. Bile rose up in the back of my throat.
I don't know how, maybe sheer stubbornness, but I managed to keep from passing out. With slow breathing I brought the light back into my eyes and felt the nausea subside. My hands shook as I wiped the sweat from my forehead.
When I finally felt mostly back to normal, I looked out the rear passenger window to see what was going on with the fight. I was surprised to find the crowd was completely gone, including the two homeless guys and Miller and Diaz.
"How long was I out of it," I asked no one.
BANG. Something crashed into the other side of the car. I jumped, and nearly cracked myself in the face with my bound hands. It sounded like a psychotic animal, a ram or something, butting the cop car.
Even that would have been better than what it really was.
A man's face was smashed up against the rear window on the driver's side, staring at me with wild eyes that were the same red as Peter's, each one a violent hemorrhage. I met his stare uncomfortably, frozen in my seat out of pure fear, though if I even could move, I don't think I would have tried.
The way he looked at me was inhuman.
He leaned back and smashed his face into the glass. CRACK. His nose broke. CRACK. He smashed into it again, this time leaving behind a smear of blood. Still he didn't break eye contact as he did it again.
Behind him I became aware of Diaz trying to regain control of the crazed man. Most of the crowd had gotten into the street, including Miller who was busy trying to restrain the crazy guy's big friend. Diaz had a small cannister of pepper spray in his hand as he came up behind him. Diaz shouted something at him, and as the man turned to see, Diaz gave him a good shot of the stuff right in the face.
"Good shot," I shouted. I still wasn't a fan of the cops, but at that point I would cheer anyone who took that freak down. At least the cops weren't breaking their faces open trying to reach me.
The crazy man was stunned for two seconds at most, almost as if the chemical had no effect, or he was just too worked up to notice. He turned his attention on Diaz, stumbling toward the young cop, and for a second I saw the same fear that I'd felt seconds before take hold of him. He put his hand on his gun.
Before he could draw his weapon, the big guy broke loose from Miller, ran past Diaz and tackled his friend up against the car. The move surprised me, but as the two men wrestled up against the window, smearing the blood around, I realized something about the fight that I had missed, and probably everyone else had, too.
The big guy wasn't protecting his friend from the crowd- he was protecting them from him.
Officer Miller was on them in a second, prying the two men apart, but the big guy tossed him aside like he was a rag doll, something that was pretty impressive given Miller wasn't a small man himself. It was crazy to say it, but in doing so he saved Miller from getting hurt, because no sooner than the cop hit the street, the crazy man was biting his once friend on the forearm.
I watched teeth sink into flesh in front of me like it was happening in slow motion. I was only distantly aware of the big guy's screams as the skin tore open. A horrible deja vu filled me, mirroring what had happened to me a few hours earlier almost exactly, from the violence to the hemorrhaging eyes to the bite. It wasn't any better from this angle.
A gunshot rang out. The crazed man fell to his knees, his leg shot. He lunged again for his friend, but another shot came. It struck him in the chest. He still didn't go down. A third shot, this time to the head. He paused a moment, as if deciding whether or not to go down, then finally fell to the side. As he slid down the car door, I saw Diaz just past him, his gun raised, the barrel smoking from being discharged.
His face was pure terror.
CHAPTER FIVE
After cuffing the big guy with the same plastic ties that were digging into my wrists, Officer Miller sat him on the curb and got the first aid kit out of the trunk. He came back and began roughly wrapping the bleeding wound with what was left of the gauze as he started in with some typical cop questions.
"What's your name," he asked, squeezing the arm too hard. Diaz had spread a tarp over the dead body and was busying himself with crowd control.
"Jeremiah," the big guy said.
"Jeremiah what?"
"Church." He winced at Miller's grip on the wound.
"Hey, how about a little bedside manner," I shouted through the window.
"You shut your mouth," Miller replied. "Alright, Jeremiah Church, what was your friend on?"
Jeremiah stared at the shape under the tarp. "Nothing."
"Come on, no one takes that many bullets unless they're cranked up. What was it, Dust? Bennies? Liquid?"
"I told you, he wasn't on anything. He was just sick."
"If he was so sick, why were you going to a strip club?"
"We weren't. I was taking him to get help. He got worse on the way, and that's when he attacked the bouncer."
Miller clearly didn't believe the story. "We'll just have to wait and see if the tox report agrees with you. But if you and I are going to get along, you should rethink defending a junkie."
Jeremiah brushed off the comment, but I could tell it bothered him to have his dead friend's name dragged through the mud, even if he had been bitten so recently by the guy. Miller pushed the big guy into the backseat with me. He got into the front and turned his attention to the radio as Jeremiah sized me up, and me him.
"This is Car Six Eight. Control, come in," Miller said.
"Go ahead, Six Eight."
"We have one suspect dead, another apprehended but injured. We need an ambulance and a meat-wagon as soon as possible."
"The wagon I can do. Ambulances are all busy."
Miller paused. "All of them?"
"That would be a yes," Control said with a hint of a sigh. The tone didn't sound like police protocol. "It's been a hell of a day, like I said. The best I can do is send a van to your location so you can take them to New York Presbyterian."
"I'm, uh..." Miller glanced in the rear-view, looking very confused. "We have a guy here who's been bitten, he needs medical sooner rather than later."
"Sure, he needs help but I don't," I said.
There was a pause on the line. "Repeat that, did you say bitten?"
"Affirmative."
I raised my tied hands and said, "Hey, don't forget me." The big guy looked over at me. I turned to the side to show him my shoulder. He leaned back in his seat with even more disbelief on his face than before.
Miller said, "We have two individuals with bites. Why?"
"Orders came in a few minutes ago, anyone sick or bitten is to be taken to Yankee Stadium."
Miller pulled the mike from his mouth. The big guy and I exchanged looks. Then Miller said, "For what, a hot dog?"
"It's the Red Flu, they're setting up a treatment center at the stadium for extreme cases, and that includes bites. Apparently it's gotten pretty bad overseas. They're trying to nip it in the bud before we follow in their footsteps."