Friday, July 12—07:42:22
It was Friday the twelfth, which meant it was Friday the thirteenth minus one day, and so bad things were pretty close to happening. How did I know that? Preemptive apophenia. I was feeling more human by the second.
07:42:34. First stop, the three-year-old Washington Charity Hospital Complex. Crowded. Smelly. Already shabby. Dangerous. Staffed exclusively with doctors and nurses here on temporary work permits. Most could get by in English or Spanish, but some could not. Some were exceptionally well trained; others held the equivalent of a Boy Scout first aid merit badge.
Around town, the place was known as the Abattoir. One story has it that a guy was getting brain surgery when a shift ended. Hospital admin refused to pay overtime. Doctors signed out, man had to finish the brain surgery on himself. Why do I know this is BS? Because there’s no way they’d try to pull off brain surgery in this place.
Which made it a pretty crappy place for Child’s Play to be bunking down with a head injury.
With Les leading the way, we slalomed through the crowded lobby, waited too long at the sorry bank of elevators, decided to take the filthy stairs, raced each other laughing up to the fourth floor—Jen easily won—and trekked down a vomit-brown corridor lined with gurneys holding soiled patients who moaned, screamed, retched, and begged for a swift death.
We had been told on the phone what to expect, but Les insisted we double-check for ourselves. He was convinced the nurse he spoke to hadn’t understood what he was asking, and he was certain that another was keeping us away because he came from a country where the cops’ main job was to extort money and kill people.
Sure enough, Child’s Play was still unconscious, with so many tubes and wires coming in and out of him that he looked like a miniature oil refinery. We talked to a nice Lebanese doctor who spoke English better than Hammerhead, whose ancestors had come from England 150 years ago. But to be fair, all Hammerhead had under his belt was the gutted US public school system, while the doctor had the unfair advantage of living in a war zone and refugee camps. The doctor promised to contact us the minute Child’s Play woke up.
As soon as we left the hospital, Les took off to bid farewell to one of our old folks he had dealt with. “Fabulous woman, incredible community builder,” he said. “Exiting tomorrow.”
Jen and I ambled back to the station, me talking and then shutting up whenever Jen said she needed to think. “Mind if I follow along?” I asked.
It was Eden, of course, and the Bible thing that had been pinging in and out of her brain for days.
Her mind was drifting back and forth. Then she focused again on the receipt tucked inside the Bible, the receipt for the phone. In her mind’s eye, I saw it in her hand. A tingle of energy flashed through her brain, and I felt her excitement as she turned it over and saw a series of words and numbers scribbled on the back. But they were blurry—in the memory, that is. There and not there at the same time. What words, what numbers? she thought. And what do they mean?
10:18:35. Jen was yawning. And yawning.
“What’s up, sleepyhead?” I said.
“Sleepyhead? Aren’t you the regular guy.”
“Good late night?”
“Amazing late night.” Jen sighed, then slapped the table. “So?” she said.
Clairvoyant that I am, I gave her a quick rundown on the research she had requested. Turned out that the articles on mental health issues among the Timeless were all anecdotal—stories of specialized clinics in California, Florida, and Connecticut, but nothing more. Any serious research had been suppressed by the drug companies under the Improving Pharmaceutical Research Act of 2030.
“Estimates are that fifteen to twenty Timeless popped themselves off in the US last year.”
Jen said, “That’s not so many.”
“Are you kidding? No one knows how many Timeless there are here, but I’d put my money on four to six hundred.”
“You have money now?”
“It’s an expression.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Anyhow, the program is still new, it’s staggeringly expensive, and only people getting old would be willing to experiment with this.”
“Still, twenty suicides aren’t many.”
“Boss, leave the math to me, will you? It’s three hundred and eighty-five times the national average.”
After that display of computational brilliance, it was a bit of this and that until Jen and Les were summoned to Captain Brooks’s office. At his door, an unfriendly plainclothes guy glanced at our badges before letting us in. Never seen anything like that before. I figured it was because the tattooed man in the gray suit had returned to our station.
I was hoping the captain would offer us a coffee because I liked the buzz. He didn’t even offer us a seat. We stood but didn’t exactly snap to attention. I mean we’re cops, not jarheads.
Gray Suit was once again in a gray suit, but this one had almost invisible ferns woven into it. With his first question, he quietly took charge. “Why are you two still standing?” He looked at the two extra chairs, which, as usual, were stacked with reports. “Captain,” he said, “think we can make these two a bit more comfortable?”
Brooks didn’t seem happy getting orders on his own turf, but he cleared off the papers and grunted that we should sit down. The martinis and hors d’oeuvres would be arriving any second.
Les recounted what Olive Ortega and Pancho Porter had said. He said that the victim and alleged dealer was still unconscious, a fact of which Gray Suit was obviously aware. Jen added her own recollections.
Gray Suit listened, never once interrupting. He wasn’t a fidgety listener. He never took his eyes off the person speaking, and only when Les or Jen ran out of things to say did he add another question or ask for a clarification.
He asked why Les had called Jen in. “I understand from your captain that it was her night off.”
“It was,” Les said. “But this was a family we’d dealt with several times before. Jen was good at talking them down. Anything could happen with those two, and I wanted her there.”
Gray Suit studied Les. He brushed the back of his fingers over the tattoos on his cheek, perhaps checking whether he’d done a decent job shaving that morning. It’s a strange thing talking to someone whose face is given over to geometric patterns—it’s damn hard to see beyond the tattoos, to look them in the eyes.
It also made him a formidable enemy, which I kind of figured was the whole point. As he watched Les, I felt adrenalin flooding from Jen’s adrenal medulla. Her heart rate increased and she fought to control her breathing. As if sensing this, Gray Suit turned his attention to her.
“Anything else to add?” he asked her.
She said no.
He observed her for an uncomfortably long 9.42 seconds. And then thanked the two of them for taking time to speak to him.
We left, passing by the man at the door.
Secret Service, I said to her.
As soon as we returned to our office, Les shut the door—something we rarely did—and turned to Jen.
“You better tell me what’s going on here,” Les said.
“I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“You’re kind of late for that. I just lied for you.”
“More trouble, then.”
“I swear, that guy outside was Secret Service.”
“I know,” Jen said.
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“The president and VP are both Timeless.”
“So?”
“Secret Service does the Executive branch,” Jen said. “The top woman and man are Timeless. Timeless don’t want everyone getting the treatment.”
“Seems a stretch.”
“Just maybe it’s true.”
“Anything just may be true.”
Jen walked to the window, and we stared out. The leaves on the beautiful sycamore tree were a dusty brown, curling up on themselves.
“Do you think,” she said, “it will ever rain again?”
“Cobalt, I’ve always trusted you. You’ve got to trust me.”
“I will. I promise.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“When?”
She turned back to the window.
“Tonight,” she said.
Code word for when P.D. and I are switched off.
Bad move, I said.
She didn’t even bother to reply.
An hour later, we were downstairs in an interview room with Olive Ortega. We had already wasted fourteen minutes with her husband. Pancho Porter had obviously seen his share of TV cop shows and refused to say anything without a lawyer present. Couldn’t say I blamed him, but damn him anyway. We stared at his trumpeter’s face while he stared at his fingernails. At one point, I suggested to Jen that we ask where he bought the cantaloupes.
Olive was a different kettle of orange-eyed fish. She was so pissed at her stupid husband for stupidly giving all their money to that stupid neighbor that I bet she’d have sworn Pancho had shot Lincoln if we had asked.
Les said, “What did Child’s Play promise to get you?”
“Have you ever heard such a stupid name? I mean … stupid.”
“No. So what was it?”
“Just what we said. The treatment.”
“The full treatment that the Timeless get? Or the treatment that people get when their parents exit?”
“What do you mean?”
Who’s stupid now? I said to Jen.
Les explained what he meant.
Olive seemed dumbfounded. “It never occurred to me to ask. He said he’d get us Eden and we said hell yes.”
“Eden,” Jen said, jumping in.
“You were very nice when you visited those times.”
“Thank you.”
“Things got better. Between Pancho and our boy. For a while.”
Jen smiled.
“The truth is, though, we don’t want to exit. Know what I mean?”
Jen nodded.
Apparently that wasn’t enough. Olive was waiting for her to speak.
Jen said, “I know it must be hard.”
Olive said, “No, it’s not hard. It’s stupid. Who says that humans should have, you know, those dates on groceries?”
Jen said, “Expiration dates.”
“Exactly. That’s stupid.”
“So Eden.”
“Exactly.”
“What’s Eden?”
“I just told you.”
Jen said, “Tell me again, will you please, just so I’m clear.”
Olive shook her head. Everyone was obviously so stupid nowadays.
“It’s what he called it. The treatment.”
“Have you heard others call it that?”
Olive said “Probably. Here and there, like.”
“Do you have a Bible?”
Olive looked offended. “Of course we have a Bible. Two. One Spanish and one in the original English. I go to the Assembly Hall each and every week.”
“Did Child’s Play give you a new Bible? Or look at yours?”
“Why would he do that? Officer, are you feeling okay? You’re sounding, I don’t know … ”
Les said, “Stupid?”
And Olive laughed.
13:31.08. Nice Lebanese doc phoned. Child’s Play was awake, but groggy.
Jen and I, Les and P.D. reached the Washington Charity Hospital Complex so quickly you’d think we had superpowers. Raced up to four.
But nice doctor unnicely turned his back when he saw us, like Les and Jen had some sort of disease he wasn’t fond of. What’s that about? I asked, and Jen shrugged.
There was a sign on the door: “Entry Prohibited.” We went into the room. Child’s Play was sitting up in bed, a whopping bandage around his head. Half the wires and tubes had been pulled out. One of his arms was cuffed to the bed.
Les said, “Seems she didn’t kill you.”
“Orange-eyed bitch.”
“Child’s Play,” Jen said, “we’ve always been good to you.”
“I got no beef with you.”
“So, we need your help. Just a word or two. Between us. It’s this Eden thing—”
But just as Jen said the word thing, a woman—white, late-twenties, chunked up like an MMA fighter, khaki fatigues, and with an Uzi dangling like a cocktail purse on a strap over her shoulder—pounded into the room, yelling, “Who the hell gave you permission to be here?”
Jen went for her badge. Woman went for her gun. Jen threw her hands in the air. “Whoa, there, we’re police. Who the hell are you?”
“That door has a sign. No one comes in without my say-so.”
“We’re not ‘no one.’”
Woman still hadn’t lowered her gun. “Let’s see some badges. Slowly,” she said.
Les and Jen produced their badges. Woman said, “Outside,” like she ran the show, which she apparently did.
Once back in the hallway, Les said we were the officers who had arrested the alleged perpetrators. The woman looked like she didn’t care. Jen said we were in charge of the assault investigation, and the woman said that wasn’t exactly true any longer.
Les asked if she was a cop.
Woman said, “Yes and no.”
“DC?”
“No.”
“FBI?”
“Before you lose your voice spouting initials, let’s just say that I’m a private contractor.”
“Working for …?”
“Who I work for.”
Jen said, “We need to talk to him. Child’s Play”
Now the woman looked bored and restless. She studied her fingers like she was contemplating a manicure, but I had the impression she was actually thinking about techniques for pulling out someone’s fingernails.
“It’s not going to happen in a million years.”
Not having that much time to wait, we turned away without a word. As we left the ward, Les muttered, “Fucking mercenaries. Makes you wonder what the hell’s going on.”