As his head lolled toward the camera, I had a flicker of recognition that confirmed what I'd been worried about since the scene first caught my eye.
"Christ," I said, "it's already begun."
"What, Sam?" Confusion twisted Kate's features into a scowl. "
What's
begun?"
"War."
24.
"Get your things," I said. "We're going."
"Sam, what the hell are you talking about? Where, exactly, are we going?"
"There," I said, nodding toward the TV.
"Are you out of your
mind?
Set aside the fact that you just lost a lot of blood, and shouldn't be going
anywhere
but to bed – half the cops in the city are there!"
"Half the cops, sure, and every looky-loo in town. You really think they're gonna notice two more?"
I dragged my ass off of the couch and limped over to the TV set, clicking it off. My leg hurt like a motherfucker, and set my teeth on edge, but the bandages held. It'd get me where I needed to go.
"C'mon, Sam, you're in no shape–"
"This isn't a debate, Kate. We're going."
"But why?"
"Because we need answers, and there's someone there who just might be able to give them to us. Besides, it's not like we've got any other leads. It's this or nothing, Kate, and if we do nothing, it's just a matter of time before they catch up with us."
She nodded, and snatched her leather jacket up off of the floor. "You know you can't go out looking like that, right? I mean, you're gonna need some clothes."
She was right, of course. Thanks to the mess Kate made dressing my wound, my shirt was once more bloodied, and my pants I'd left in tatters on the floor. I hobbled toward the staircase in search of our unwitting host's bedroom. Kate ran to my side, a steadying hand on my elbow, but I shrugged her off. She retreated, just a step or two, and watched with trepidation as I gingerly scaled the stairs.
The bedroom wasn't any nicer than the living room, and a quarter the size – just enough room for the musty, unmade bed and a small dresser. A door on one wall opened to a small bath. I peeled my soiled shirt off and headed to the bathroom, splashing some water on my face and drinking from cupped hands, before returning to the bedroom in search of fresh clothes. In the middle drawer of the dresser I found a rumpled flannel shirt, and in the bottom drawer, a pair of baggy, paint-stained jeans. I dressed quickly, cinching the jeans tight with a belt left atop the dresser. I tucked the lone ceramic cat-shard into my shirt pocket, and then it was back down the stairs, toward Manhattan, and toward our fates.
I had to admit, she looked fantastic. The nausea that had plagued her in the early weeks of the trial had abated, and the color had returned to her cheeks. No longer just the pricks of red over a backdrop of gray that screamed "lunger" to anyone who saw them – they were now a warm golden hue that highlighted the dusting of freckles across her nose and reminded me why I'd fallen in love with her to begin with. And her appetite had improved as well; I watched with amazement as she plowed her way through a plate of ham and eggs, delivered to her bedside by one of the team of nurses that tended to the thirty-odd patients in the study. I had to hand it to Dumas – whatever they were giving her was working.
"Strep-toe-my-sin," she said when I had asked, enunciating each syllable as though she'd memorized them individually. "Not terribly catchy, is it? I mean, you think they'd call it Tubercu-Cure or some such, wouldn't you? But anyway, they seem to think it's working – they say another month of treatment, and I'll be cured, can you believe it? Cured!"
"That's fantastic, love," I said, but my thoughts were elsewhere, a fact that wasn't lost on Elizabeth.
"They did warn me, though, that there are side effects," she said.
"Yeah?" I said, barely hearing her.
"They say I may grow a trunk and hooves."
"Huh."
"Seriously, Sam, where are you today?"
"Nowhere – forget it."
"It's this new job of yours, isn't it?"
"What? No, of course not."
I was lying, of course. This past month, Dumas had run me ragged, calling at all hours of the night to tell me he had a package to deliver, a client to entertain, a customs agent who needed a little paying off. Between the insane hours and the knowledge of what I was doing, I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, and there was no doubt the job was taking its toll on my marriage, as well – I'd been nothing but short-tempered and distant for weeks.
"Sure," Elizabeth said. "Fine. When's the last time you had something to eat? I could talk to the nurse, have her grab a plate for you as well."
"I'm not hungry."
"You've been saying that for weeks. Have you seen a mirror recently? You're skin and bones, Sam. You need to start taking better care of yourself; after all, I've got to have a husband left to come home to, don't I?"
"Just leave it be, would you? I said I wasn't hungry."
Elizabeth fell silent for a moment, surprised by the sudden venom in my tone. Then she put a hand on my forearm and gave it a squeeze. "You know, I've got half a mind to give this Dumas a call and quit for you right now."
"You'll do no such thing," I said, anger once more creeping into my voice.
"I know we need the money, Sam, but honestly, no job is worth this. I never see you anymore, and when I do, we always bicker. I just want you to be happy is all. I just want to have my husband back."
"You want your
husband
back? Damn it, Liz, can't you see I'm doing this for you? For us?"
"But what's the point, if there's barely an us left to do it for?"
"You don't know what you're talking about," I said.
"Maybe not," she said, "but I do know you. And I know that whatever's going on, it's eating you alive. Don't try to argue – it's written all over your face. So push me away all you like. I'm your wife – it's my job to worry about you. And right now, it's your job I'm worried about."
"Look, I just got to stick with it a little while longer, OK? When you come home, I promise I'll quit, and then maybe we'll start over someplace new."
"I wish I understood the hold this job has over you," she said. I said nothing.
Just then, a nurse came trotting over from the nurses' station, her flats clattering against the institutional tile floor. "Mr Thornton?" she asked. "I'm so sorry to interrupt your visit, but there's a Mr Dumas on the phone for you. He says it's urgent."
Elizabeth shot me a look I chose to ignore. "You should let him wait," she said.
"Damn it, Liz, you know I can't."
"I don't know any such thing," she said. And then, with a sigh: "Fine. Go. But first, a kiss."
She leaned toward me, expectant. I pecked her absently on the forehead and made for the nurses' station.
"Hey!" Elizabeth called.
"Yeah?"
"I love you!"
"Yeah. Me too. Listen, Liz, I gotta go – I really shouldn't keep him waiting."
I turned and left, then, leaving nothing but silence behind.
The trip from the apartment to Grand Central took us damn near three hours. The ferry terminal was a mess – National Guardsmen in full camo manned security checkpoints, frisking every passenger before boarding, and slowing the line to a crawl. What's worse, the city'd suspended all subway service north of Thirtythird, which meant a nine-block hike against a bitter northern wind. By the time we arrived, my leg wound had begun to seep, and a cold, acrid sweat had broken out across my face and chest.
The scene itself was one of utter panic. Nothing I'd seen on TV had prepared me for its scope. The streets were flush with people – many fleeing, although most, like us, pushed ever closer to the terminal. News choppers thudded overhead, and over their incessant din I heard a woman shrieking for her child, while behind her, a street preacher atop a milk crate shouted that the end was near. Since we'd left the apartment, a portion of the terminal's roof had collapsed, sealing shut the southern entrance to the station. Rescue workers struggled to clear the debris and reach those still trapped inside, while just outside the perimeter, the city pressed close – watching, waiting. The sheer volume of people had halted traffic for blocks before we'd even reached the barricades, and dozens of car horns sounded again and again in a futile attempt to break the jam.
We shoved our way through the crowd, me in the lead, and Kate trailing behind, her left hand gripped tightly in my right. Though the fire had long been out, thick dark smoke still poured out of the ruined windows of the terminal and hung over the crowd like an impending storm. The afternoon light was reduced to a trickle, and the acrid smoke burned my eyes, my nose, my throat. With every face that passed, I felt a flutter of anticipation, and I scanned them all in turn – each time dreading that flicker of recognition that would mean that we'd been made. I kept telling myself that there was no way for Bishop to know where we'd gone, that he was probably half a city away, but it did nothing to stop my heart from thudding in my chest, nor to quell the anxious tremors in my hands.
A knee connected with my injured thigh, and I stumbled. Pain radiated outward from the wound in nauseating waves, and my vision went dim. Eventually, I got my feet back under me, and we continued through the crowd, but my leg was once more slick with blood, and my head grew foggier with each mutinous heartbeat.
The barriers were a surprise. One moment, the crowd seemed to go on forever, and the next, I was expelled into a sawhorse with enough force that I nearly toppled over it. Kate's hand slipped free of my sweatslick grasp, and I teetered for a moment, doubled over the grimy, yellow thing – my feet no longer touching street, my fingertips just inches from the pavement on the other side. A uniformed hand grabbed a fistful of my shirt, none too gently, and hoisted me upright.
"Easy, mac," said the cop. "Where the hell you think you're going?"
I confess that in my dazed and injured state, I didn't really have an adequate reply. Turns out, I didn't need one.
"My uncle, he's hurt. From the blast, I mean. He was walking past when it happened, and I think he mighta caught some shrapnel or whatever. It won't stop bleeding."
I stared at Kate for a moment like she had a second head. Then I broke into a smile when I realized what she was doing. Kate nudged me, her face set in a scowl. I followed suit, replacing my smile with a grimace of pain that wasn't just for show. The cop didn't see any of that, though – he was staring at my blood-soaked jeans.
"All right, come on," he said, yanking the barrier aside enough to admit both Kate and me.
Between the two of them, they managed to wrestle me to the medical tent, one under each arm, with my bum leg trailing out behind. For a while, I tried to hop along, but by then even my good leg was pretty shaky, and I think I was more hindrance than help. They dropped me onto a stretcher, soot-smudged and flecked with blood, and the cop disappeared into the fray to find a medic.
"That was some good thinking back there," I said, once the cop was out of earshot. I couldn't help but notice I was slurring my speech.
Kate replied, "Thanks."
I tried to swing my legs off of the stretcher, but I wasn't having much luck. "Help me get off of this thing, would you?"
"Sam, I'm not sure that's the best idea. I mean, your leg's in lousy shape – you might want to let them take a look at it."
"Jesus, Kate, listen to yourself! Do you even realize where we are? The last thing we need right now is attention! Now for God's sake, help me up!"
Just then, a woman emerged from the crowd, clad in dirty scrubs, a stethoscope draped around her neck. She carried with her a tray stacked with medical implements – gauze, needles, surgical thread, and the like. She couldn't have been more than thirty, and she was thin as a rail, her mouse-brown hair pulled into a no-nonsense bun above a face that looked as though it hadn't seen sunlight in weeks.
"I understand we've got a leg injury? A puncture of some kind?" said the doctor.
I tried to protest, but Kate cut me off. "That's right. He got it walking past. I tried to dress it myself, but it won't stop bleeding."
"Let's have a look, then, shall we?"
I watched as the doctor cut through my second pair of pants in a day, this time following upward along the inseam and peeling back the fabric like a denim banana. Her brow furrowed. "You got this here?"
"Yes," both Kate and I replied, doubtless a little more forcefully than was required.
"You're sure."
"Yes," I repeated, more casually this time. "I was in line for a pretzel when it happened. Next thing I knew, I was flat on my back, a hunk of metal sticking outta my thigh. I know I probably shoulda stuck around, but I was scared. I hobbled home, and my niece here patched me up, only it didn't take."
The doctor jabbed a needle into my thigh, and soon the wound went blissfully, disconcertingly numb. "No, I wouldn't expect it would have. Probably the worst thing you could have done was removed the shrapnel on your own – as it stands, you've lost a lot of blood. Speaking of, where is it?"
"Where is what?"
"The metal fragment," she said, her hands expertly drawing the nylon thread through the meat of my thigh and closing the wound tightly. "The police have requested that any shrapnel be saved and cataloged, so they can better reconstruct what happened."
Kate and I shared a glance. No doubt the doctor noticed. It was Kate that answered. "We, ah, left it at home."