Authors: Linda Lee Peterson
Edited to Death (36 page)
He smiled and gestured at the tissue-wrapped azalea. “Thank Josh for the plant for
me,” he said.
“Thank him yourself,” I retorted. “Looks to me like you’ll be back to work very soon.”
The nursing station was deserted when I came out. I leaned on the counter and waited,
and in a few minutes the African American rock ‘n’ roller came out of a room with
a tray of medications. She put the tray on a cart behind the counter and smiled at
me. “I hear your friend’s a lot better,” she said.
“He is,” I replied. “Can I ask you some questions about medications?”
She looked doubtful. “Well, unless you’re a family member, I can’t really talk to
you about Joe’s meds.”
“I know,” I said. “I just meant AIDS drugs in general. It seems pretty confusing.”
“It is confusing,” she said. “That’s because we’re kind of making it up as we go along.”
“Okay, can you tell me the basics?” I asked.
She sighed. “Just the basics? Well, here’s how it works. There’s a whole group of
drugs that we use to treat people before they get sick, or before they’re very sick—AZT
and drugs like that. Plus, there are the relatively new protease inhibitors; maybe
you’ve heard about those?” I nodded. She continued. “They’re all used as part of what
we call combination therapies or cocktails—you combine different drugs in hopes that
you’ll make the viral load count go down.”
“Viral load?”
She nodded. “That’s the measure that tells us how much of the virus you’ve got making
trouble in your body.”
“And how about T-cells?”
“That’s a whole different count. We’re looking to keep that number up, because the
T-cells indicate how much fight you’ve got left in the body.”
“And then once somebody gets sick?”
She sighed. “Well, there’s a whole other family of drugs—some conventional antibiotics
for infections, and an aerosol drug called pentamidine we use to ward off a special
kind of pneumonia.”
“I’m not asking you about Joe, specifically,” I said. “But how about somebody like
him? Is it too late for all the combination therapies?”
“People in Joe’s situation are in a tough spot. Once you start getting really sick
really often, you get into a cycle that’s hard to reverse. And, of course, some of
these drugs have pretty crummy side effects, so if you’re already weakened, they can
be tough to take.”
“So,” I said, growing increasingly conscious of the cylinder in my purse, “is there
some new special thing that you can give to perk up somebody really sick, so they’ll
get strong enough to benefit from the combination therapies?”
She gave a short, humorless laugh. “You mean something that’s the equivalent of jacking
a car up and running new tires underneath?”
I smiled, “Yeah, kinda like that.”
She shook her head. “Not that I know of. But you have to remember that AIDS drug research
is going on in so many places, so many trials, that it’s hard for us folks in the
trenches just to keep up.”
“Ever heard of something called BZT?” I asked.
She shook her head again. “New to me, but like I said, there’s something different
every day.”
I thanked her and headed for the elevator. All the way down to the ground floor, walking
to the garage, my head felt absolutely fugal—different voices asking related and unrelated
questions, overlapping, tumbling over each other faster than I could consider an answer.
What was going on? Was this some illegal drug? Were there pot-handle pharmacies all
over the city dispensing this stuff? If the stuff was in the pot handles, it was clearly
coming in from Asia, if Jorge’s analysis of the shipping codes were accurate. And
why the secrecy? If the drug worked, why wasn’t some American pharmaceutical house
cranking it out, pushing it through trials? And somebody, somebody, had to be making
money on all this—and had it been Quentin? Was he dealing in AIDS drugs, and that’s
where his unexplained cash flow came from? I shuddered at such an ugly thought. Quentin
had been no saint, that was clear, but the idea of my friend—okay, my lover—trafficking
in human misery was a little more than I wanted to contemplate.
And was Bender really the guy who grabbed Josh yesterday? He didn’t seem very scary,
but then… somebody had murdered Quentin. The question was, who? And would they commit
murder again?
By the time I’d edged my car out of the Alta Bates parking lot, I was working up a
good head of anger. I was going to call John Moon, spill every single thing I knew
or thought, and find the bastard who had scared my kid. And cook a good dinner. And
tell Michael the thousand and one reasons I’d never, ever, ever stray again.
Though it was only a little after six, it was already dark on the streets. As I carried
on the eternal internal rush hour debate—surface streets versus freeway home—I dug
in the bottom of my purse for Inspector Moon’s card, with his home phone number scribbled
on the back. “I need to get my cell phone back from Josh,” I said to myself.
“I could be calling John, getting things sorted out, getting lectured on off-limits
detecting, all while I’m sitting in traffic.”
Only the radio answered back, squawking traffic reports that told me what I already
knew. Late rush hour, early winter darkness, an incoming fog bank and who knows what
else were combining to create gridlock on Ashby, the main thoroughfare to anywhere
from Alta Bates. I inched down Ashby towards the freeway and then slipped onto the
frontage road, a little-used two-laner that edged the Bay. Even with the windows rolled
up, the faint salty, sour smells of low tide drifted inside the car. Through the darkness,
I could see the silhouettes of the driftwood sculptures that punctuated the coastline.
Grotesque, oversized, exuberantly creative, cobbled together from trash and driftwood
by renegade uncredited artists, they stood like winter sentries to the dark and murky
bay.
The frontage road was clear, and I headed south, looking with satisfaction at the
headlight-to-taillight jam on the freeway on my left. A shadow slinked across the
road ahead of me, some furtive creature trying out for roadkill, and I tapped the
brake to slow down.
And nothing happened.
No slowing, no change at all. I squeezed the brakes again. Nothing. Pushed the brake
pedal flat to the floor. Nothing.
“Stay calm, Maggie,” I said, “you’re a professional driver,” remembering the all-too-short
Road Atlanta course Quentin had put me through on my first assignment for
Small Town
.
I lifted my foot off the brake and pumped gently again. Nothing. The road was taking
a gentle dip, and the station wagon picked up speed down the hill and then, mercifully,
slowed a little on the uphill.
“Okay, Maggie,” I chatted comfortingly to myself. “Remember, that’s why they call
those gizmos ‘emergency’ brakes.” I steered the car over to the side of the road and
pulled up on the emergency brake.
Nothing. The brake came up loosely in my hand, making a soft, sickening, not-engaging-anything
ratcheting noise. I steered the car back into the middle of the road and began praying
very earnestly for a lovely, sustained uphill. Instead, the road dipped down, and
just ahead of me was the intersection where the main drag of Emeryville poured across
the frontage road. The frontage road, of course, had a stop sign. The intersection
approached, and I began honking, honking, honking, hoping I’d scare off anyone who
was in the intersection. “Oh my God,” I said, and on four wheels, a prayer, and a
string of swear words, I sailed through the intersection safely, with the frantic
honks of enraged drivers following me. Ahead, the frontage road took another dip.
I knew I had less than half a mile to the next intersection, and with that, I steered
the car into the soft, muddy shoulder and turned the ignition off. The car shuddered,
lurched, and came to a stop directly in front of a Don Quixote–like driftwood sculpture.
“I really, really need my cell phone,” I said again, just to hear the sound of my
voice. The cold, black waters of the bay lapped outside. Okay, flares were clearly
in order. I took a deep breath, unlatched the seat belt, opened the door, and stepped
straight down into a foot of mud. A deep voice said, “Car trouble?”
Through the dim, foggy air, I saw someone approaching me. “Need some help?”
Great, I thought, serial killer offs dumb station wagon–driving mom.
“Oh, I’m okay,” I began to babble, peering at the figure. And then he came closer,
and I saw it was someone I knew.
John Orlando extended his hand to me. “Come step out of that muck, Mrs. Fiori.”
I grabbed his hand and hoisted myself out of the mud, back onto the frontage road.
I realized I was shaking, and began to babble, “I can’t believe you’re here. I mean,
that someone I know is here—or that anyone is here.” I had to shout over the roar
of the distant freeway.
“What happened?” he said, gently guiding me away from the car. I could see a blue
van parked a few hundred yards away.
“I don’t know. My brakes stopped working, and then I couldn’t get the emergency brake
to engage, so I just kind of used the mud to stop the car.”
I stopped dead in my tracks. “What are you doing here?” I asked suspiciously.
“You must be freezing,” he said, ignoring my question. “Come get in my car. I’ve got
an old sweater in the backseat and a cell phone; we can call Triple A.”
“Oh, thank you,” I said, wondering how wise it was to get into his car. But I was
shivering, and he had hold of my arm. It seemed churlish not to accept the help.
“Are you always a Good Samaritan,” I asked as we picked our way to his van. “Or did
you know it was me? I mean, someone you knew.”
Orlando didn’t answer. We’d arrived at his van, and he wrenched the side panel open.
“Hop in,” he said. “The sweater’s in the back.”
“My shoes are all muddy,” I protested. “I’ll wreck your car.”
He put his hands on both sides of my waist and unceremoniously half-lifted me up.
“Get in,” he said roughly. And I did, landing on the seat with a thump. The door swung
shut, clicked locked, and I found myself side by side with Glen Fox. He didn’t greet
me, however. He was bound, hand and foot, and had a gag in his mouth. I regarded him
with more curiosity than fear. And then the confusion fell from me like a warm cloak,
and I began to shiver for real.
I heard Orlando climb into the front seat and snap his seat belt into place. Oh, great,
I thought. Got to keep those good safety practices in mind, even when you’re in the
middle of kidnapping innocent people. I looked around. I couldn’t actually see the
front seat because there was a scratched metal divider between the front seat and
the back. Suddenly, it clanged open, and I saw two things—the muzzle of a gun and
Orlando’s eyes.
“Okay, Miss Nosy,” he said, “here we are together. Now, we’re going to go for a little
ride. You’re going to sit very still and make not one single sound or—”
“Or what?” I said. “You’re going to shoot me? You’re supposed to be an artist.” I
felt a thump at ankle level. Glen had edged his bound feet in my direction and was
giving me a premonitory kick.
“Yes, shooting you seems like a fine idea,” said Orlando. And with that, he slammed
the divider shut, turned over the engine, and we took off.
I looked at Glen miserably. “I feel really bad about suspecting you,” I said.
He blinked rapidly, and I saw tears well in his eyes. “Don’t start,” I said. “I know
I’m married to an emotional Italian, but I don’t do well with guys who cry.”
I looked around the back seat. Why had Orlando left me unbound? Well, for openers,
there didn’t appear to be much damage I could do. The window and door handles were
missing on the inside, and the windows were tinted so that no one could see in. I
scrambled over Glen to get to the window side. Maybe if I pressed my face against
the window, some passerby would spot me. I tried it, but for all I could see there
were no passersby. We lurched and bumped along a road that was absolutely deserted.
Between the darkness of night and Orlando’s lightless travel, it was hard to make
anything out, but it looked as if he had managed to find the only absolutely non-trafficked
road in the entire Bay Area. Since we were clearly off the frontage road, I assumed
he’d taken one of the fire access trails leading down to the water.
I turned my attention to my fellow prisoner. His hands and feet were actually shackled,
and short of finding a key, I couldn’t imagine getting him loose. Glen watched me
rattle the chain links and shook his head. The gag, though, might be an entirely different
matter. I knelt on the seat and reached in back of him. Taking the gag off completely
seemed as if it might provoke our charmless warden to retaliation. But if I simply
loosened it, it could be slipped back into place. I got a few fingers between the
back of Glen’s head and the terrycloth gag and edged it down just over his mouth.
“Probably not a good idea, Maggie,” he whispered.
“I’ll put it back in a minute,” I said. “What in the hell is going on?”
Glen grimaced. “Long story. But don’t apologize for suspecting me.” He licked his
lips. “I did it.”
