28

THAT NIGHT, PEPPER didn’t drag Sue to the far table. She moved to that spot and Pepper tugged her back. She didn’t like that.

“Tired of me already,” she said, trying to make it sound playful, which only made her sound more wounded instead.

Pepper pulled her to one of the tables closest to the television set. Heatmiser had to hump his chair two spaces to the left so they could get around him and sit. This made the kid grumble, but neither of them noticed. Redhead Kingpin and Still Waters took notice, and Sue felt a twitch of embarrassment. This time because she’d let this man influence her in a way the other two would never allow.

That small shame is what made Sue ignore Pepper once they sat down. A different table, but she still had her materials. She perused her newspapers with an intensity she hadn’t shown in days. Pepper remained fantastically unaware until he tried to take Sue’s hand. She pulled away. He tried a second time, thinking she was being playful, and got more of the same. He felt a tension growing between them.

Ask her something, Pepper. About herself. Her work.

He peered under her chair. “How come that file says ‘No Name’?” He pointed to the one under her desk.

Sue hadn’t heard him because she was busy scolding herself. It was stupid to get close with a man when she was about to be deported! It was childish to wish the two of them might run off somewhere. And to abandon her two friends now, just because this guy started sniffing around. She ought to gather her things and leave the table, hole up in her room until the folks from Immigration came. At least there’d be diginity in that.

Three times Pepper asked Sue about her “No Name” file until, finally, Redhead Kingpin yelled at him from the next table. “I’ll explain it if it’ll make you shut up.”

Embarrassed, Pepper stomped over to Redhead Kingpin, and stood over her with his arms crossed.

“Okay. Explain.”

To her credit, Redhead Kingpin didn’t return the wrath. Besides, she wanted to explain. Why work so hard on something and keep it to herself?

She had a manila accordion folder, just like Sue’s. Written in red marker the same two words: “No Name.” She stood and undid the cord that held the manila folder closed. She turned it upside down. Articles and magazine clippings fell across the tabletop. A downpour. Hundreds of clippings. They covered the table. They spilled off the side and fluttered to the floor. The sound was like the crackle of footsteps in fallen leaves.

As soon as she was done, Still Waters, at the next table, stood up. She had her own manila accordion folder. On the side, two words written with red crayon. “No Name.”

Still Waters came to the redhead’s table. She turned her folder over and let the clippings fall. Across the tabletop and onto the floor.

Last came Sue. Who didn’t care if Pepper understood but at that moment, she was standing with her friends. No matter how wild or theatrical this seemed, she was with them. Sue turned her manila folder upside down. The clippings fell on the table, cascaded to the floor. Hundreds of them, just like the others. When it was finished, Pepper couldn’t even see his feet.

All four of them were up to their ankles.

But in what?

“What you see here is the work that we’ve been doing here at Northwest for a total of eleven years.”

To Pepper’s great surprise, Still Waters was talking. She didn’t look at him, didn’t look up at all, but her voice resounded loudly. With confidence.

Pepper looked at the clippings. Some were yellow and brittle with age. Others showed fresh ink. Some pieces were long, accompanied by photos, but only a few. They were all, basically, death notices.

“These are just the fatalities we know about,” Still Waters said. She nudged her foot through the pile. “Clipped out of newspapers we could get our hands on.”

“Is Coffee’s article in there?” Pepper asked. “Dr. Anand showed it to me. Did you see it?”

“It’s there,” Redhead Kingpin said.

Pepper stepped backward gingerly, out of the pile of papers, as if he’d been standing on a corpse.

“Coffee’s got written,” Still Waters said. “But people like this, people like us, usually don’t even rate a paragraph. No money, sometimes no family, maybe not even a marked grave. No names.”

“You keep these to remember them,” Pepper said.

“You’ve got it,” the redhead said. She touched the top of Still Waters’ head. “Marjolein here, she’s got the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever known. She’s the one who started clipping. It hurt her to think of people just reading the paper, folding up these names, and throwing them away.”

“So these folders are like a kind of war memorial,” Pepper said.

Still Waters didn’t look up but she nodded. “I like that.”

Behind them Heatmiser said, “You guys are kind of making a mess, man.”

Sue and Pepper and Still Waters and the Redhead Kingpin turned to look at Heatmiser. Would the women eviscerate him?

Heatmiser scratched his head absently. “Staff’ll probably take all that from you if they see it like that.”

A fine point. The man had saved himself a disemboweling. The women scooped articles back into their manila folders by the handful. They didn’t bother to figure out which was whose. Pepper even got on one knee and passed clippings to Sue in great bunches, handfuls of epitaphs.

When they were almost done a terrific scream came down the hall. Terrific meaning intense. Terrific meaning awesome and astounding. Terrific meaning causing great fear.

A howl, coming from Northwest 3. It sounded so bad that Rachel and Marjolein dropped their folders on the table and booked it toward the ruckus. Pepper and Sue followed. Heatmiser didn’t run after them. For one perfect moment he was alone in the lounge.

He climbed onto his chair. After a moment’s hesitation he climbed onto the empty table. Then he sang, just loud enough for his fragile falsetto to fill the room. “You disappoint me, you people raking in on the world.” His voice was beautiful and tender. He took a breath, sang louder. “The devil’s script sells you the heart of a blackbird.” Standing on the table he threw his arms out and took a bow. With his eyes closed he really could hear thunderous applause. He smiled so brightly that he shined.

The others tracked the screams, which continued, and grew louder. The staff leapt from their station. Nurse Washburn fumbled, trying to unlock one of the drawers. She cursed herself for her clumsiness, which only slowed her down more. The two orderlies on duty moved much faster. One bounded over the top of the desk.

The doors on Northwest 2 and 3 opened with the same quickness. Patients streamed out, most groggy, some smiling, pleased by the disturbance; it was something new.

It was Loochie Gardner.

Getting her ass kicked.

By an old woman.

When Pepper and Sue finally reached Northwest 3, they had trouble seeing clearly. There were too many spectators in the way. Pepper had to go on his toes to see over everyone else. Sue was out of luck.

“What is it?” Sue shouted. “Who is it?!”

“It’s Dorry,” Pepper said. “She’s scalping Loochie.”

The two women, young and old, were wrestling on the floor. The patients had formed a circle around them like this was a school yard fight. Dorry was on top. Loochie struggled. Her blue knit cap had already been snatched off. Everyone could see the girl’s patchy scalp. Except it looked even worse now. More hair had been pulled out. The kid almost looked like a Hare Krishna, completely bald except for a little topknot. That last handful of hair was in Dorry’s clutches. And Dorry seemed determined to have it out, too.

“Get off me!” Loochie cried. She sounded scared. Pepper couldn’t blame her. The howls they’d heard had come from the kid.

“Get her off me!” Loochie begged. She grabbed at the last of her hair. There were small dots of blood on her scalp, where other strands had recently been yanked out.

The two orderlies cut through the crowd, but were clearly confused. They would’ve assumed they were coming to save Dorry from Loochie, but obviously that wasn’t the case. Even though the orderlies both saw what everyone else just saw—Dorry laying the smack-down on Loochie—they still grabbed Loochie. It was like their minds had delivered a verdict long before their eyes could judge the evidence. They pulled the girl’s hands away from her head, a man holding each of her wrists.

“What the fuck?!” Loochie yelled as the orderlies worked to restrain her. Even the other patients agreed.

“That’s not right!” shouted the Redhead Kingpin.

Wally Gambino raised one hand high and whipped his extended fingers to make a snapping sound. “That shit is cold, yo! Y’all are foul.”

Mr. Mack’s face had a pillow crease from where he’d been sleeping just moments before. He had his sport coat on, but had only managed to get one arm through its sleeve. He pointed at Dorry and Loochie. “I am so tired of these two. Throw ’em both in lockup! It’s folks like them who make life hard in here for the rest of us. They’re enemies of the state! That’s how I see it.”

Mr. Mack slapped to his right, reaching for Frank Waverly’s elbow. But Frank Waverly stepped away and Mr. Mack swatted the air. Mr. Mack looked up at his friend, but Frank Waverly didn’t return his gaze, and Mr. Mack sneered, “Well fuck you, too, then.”

In a moment the orderlies would realize their mistake. They’d grabbed the wrong woman. They were about to be given unambiguous proof.

Dorry leapt at Loochie, whose arms were still being held. She was defenseless. Dorry got hold of that last little knot of Loochie’s hair and she wrenched it so hard Pepper swore he heard the stuff tear out of Loochie’s head. It sounded like a siren wailing. Or maybe that was just the kid.

Loochie’s body bucked forward so hard that Dorry knocked backward. The old woman stumbled and bumped against a wall. The orderlies let go of Loochie and she scrambled away to the opposite wall. The kid’s scream cut off immediately and she just sat there, holding her now totally bald head. Loochie’s mouth hung open, a terrible gasp in her throat. And a moment later she did cry. It was horrible and high-pitched, like a newborn’s night cries. And every person in the hall who’d ever raised a child felt the same stab of horror and sympathy and overwhelming anxiety, and suddenly they were nearly crying, too.

The Haint slipped through the crowd. In her wrinkled purple pantsuit she got down beside Loochie and put her arms around the girl’s head. Pepper thought Loochie would pull away, but she didn’t. She rested her head against the older woman’s shoulder. Loochie wept.

The two orderlies finally hemmed Dorry up. Each grabbed an arm and lifted the old woman who hardly seemed to notice them. Dorry hadn’t been softened by Loochie’s cries. She growled at Loochie even now.

“You say it one more time. One more! And I’ll bite off your fucking tongue.”

Loochie gulped and gasped. She kept one hand on top of her tender head. She watched Dorry for a moment. She pulled her head away from the Haint’s shoulder. Despite the pain, there remained another quality to Loochie Gardner, probably the most essential. That kid was stubborn. She sniffed and swallowed, clearing her throat.

“Say it,” Dorry said, grinning with loathing. “Say it. Say it and see.”

Loochie pulled away from the Haint. She sat straight. Met Dorry’s gaze. Then, as calmly as she could, Loochie spoke the phrase she’d been repeating for six weeks now; while Pepper was off falling in love, Loochie had been tormenting Dorry with this chant—in the lounge, in the hall, when passing Dorry’s room—anywhere and everywhere for a month and a half.

“He’s my son,” Loochie chanted. “He’s my son!”

Dorry strained forward and the orderlies holding her buckled. They gasped as they tried to keep the old woman back. They feared Dorry, just a little bit, right then.

Dorry didn’t have any rage left. The orderlies held her arms up but the rest of her crumpled. “I told you I was sorry,” Dorry moaned. “I said it and I said it.”

“And Coffee’s still dead.” Loochie spoke so evenly it was eerie.

Then Nurse Washburn arrived.

She waded through the patients. She’d finally unlocked the drawer. She carried a needle, full of the great immobilizer. Hearing Coffee’s name made Pepper remember his roommate. Coffee’s last moment. Pepper looked up. Kofi’s blood up there, on the ceiling. The nurse injected Dorry, in front of everyone. Then one orderly escorted her back to her room.

After that, the nurse went to her knees and pulled bandages from a shirt pocket and administered to Loochie’s scalp.

And at this moment, Pepper realized he had his chance.

The nurses’ station sat empty; the staff were all occupied. The patients had yet to filter back toward their rooms. Pepper and Sue, at the rear of the crowd, were suddenly invisible.

But it wouldn’t last.

Sue stood on her toes, one hand against Pepper’s forearm for balance, taking in what she could. Pepper pulled away from her grip. He touched the small of her back. She looked at him. He nodded toward Northwest 2. She looked back at the nurses’ station, at the patients clustered in the hall. She understood. Pepper put his hand out and Sue took it.

He walked her to his place.