They walked around to the main passenger terminal and took a taxi because Lena did not want them arriving in a limo. She assumed they would need two vehicles, because there was no way for the four of them to be comfortable in one standard cab. But the first taxi in line was a battered minivan, and the wizened driver grinned at their approach and declared, “Y’all best know it’s your lucky day, now.”
“I sure hope you’re right,” Lena said.
“Yes, ma’am, I just saved you folks either some sweat or some cash, one or t’other. Ain’t another cab in the rank that’ll take four passengers without y’all showing up wrinkled and hot.” He cackled as he gimped around to the back and opened the door and lifted in their carry-ons. Three of them carried overnight cases they had learned to keep by their desks. The driver grinned at Brett’s hands, empty of all save the well-thumbed analysis. “Got caught out, did you?”
“More than you’ll ever know,” Brett agreed.
The driver laughed. “Hop on in.”
The weather was Georgia springtime, humid and clear. Lena tasted a faint hint of salt through the driver’s open window and knew a sudden longing for home. Orlando was as far from the ocean as one could get on the Florida peninsula, but on days when the wind blew strong off the Atlantic, the air tasted just like this, a citified mixture overlaid by the sea.
The driver left highway 16 at the 167A exit and entered old-town Savannah. Then he turned south, away from the tourist district, and drove down Montgomery. Ten blocks later he took a side street to Martin Luther King, then turned right again and continued south. The area was not bad, mostly mid-level commercial structures. But the side streets held the sort of shadows that would grow increasingly unwelcome the closer they moved to sunset. When Lena met the driver’s gaze in the rearview mirror, he asked, “You sure you want to go there?”
“Yes.”
“They’s two clinics uptown, they got everything you need. They’s set up to help the tourists.”
“This one is fine.”
He shrugged and did not speak again. Seven blocks later he turned into a low-rent commercial mall holding a payday loans, a dentist advertising in Spanish, a bagel shop, a bar, and a consignment store. The urgent-care clinic occupied most of the second floor.
The elevator was scarred with graffiti and stank. They took the stairs. The upstairs walkway was open to the late afternoon. A half-dozen men lined the balcony, watching the traffic and talking softly. They went silent as Lena’s team passed and entered the clinic.
She gave her name to the attendant and joined the others at the back of the waiting area. Somewhere beyond the entrance to the examination rooms, a baby wailed. The patients and families were mostly dark, the features weathered by hard lives. Lena and her team could not have been more out of place with their business suits and their cases. They waited in silence for fifteen minutes, then a nurse opened the door and invited them back.
The examination chambers were curtained alcoves that faced a central hallway. Lena had seen similar systems in hospital emergency rooms. The nurse led them to a room at the end of the hall that was clearly shared by all the doctors. Four desks with computer terminals lined the walls. A young man with a clinician’s white coat and tired eyes sat at the room’s far end, eating from a plastic container of salad. He wore headphones and watched a reality show on his computer. He glanced over when they entered, then went back to his salad and the show. Clearly their business attire did not impress him.
Ten minutes passed. Lena stared at a calendar ad for a drug she’d never heard of and mentally prepped. Then the door opened, and a stocky man with a salt-and-pepper crew cut hurried in. He gave them a cursory inspection, then walked over and poked the other doctor in the shoulder. When the younger man slipped off his headphones, the newcomer said, “Give us a minute, will you?”
“No problem.”
“Ask the others to stay out.” He waited until the door closed, then said, “You have cards?”
Lena had one ready. Bernard Bishop was short and bullish and worn down. Bishop did not appear weary so much as defeated. As though he was propelled forward by a natural momentum, even when most of the man was long gone. His gaze was hollow, his voice toneless as he said, “What’s First American doing buying the debts of a bankrupt doctor?”
“We’re not here about your debts.”
“Whatever you want, you’ve come to the wrong place. My attorneys have laid it all out. I’ve walked away from the chapter eleven—”
“Dr. Bishop, we need to talk with you about your invention.”
He actually winced. Lena’s words carried the power to fold him up, like a boxer protecting a broken rib. “Not again.”
“Sir, can we please sit down?” When he looked ready to argue, she added, “You really want to hear what we have to say.”
“I can give you ten minutes. I only get half an hour for dinner and I haven’t eaten since this morning. Then I’m back on shift.”
They pulled swivel chairs from various desks and seated themselves. Bernard Bishop remained isolated by choice, backed away from the four of them. Lena waited until she had as tight a lock on his attention as he could manage, then replied, “Sir, we are here to buy eighty percent of your company.”