The Devil in Silver (38 page)

“Language,” the new orderly said, but it came out weakly, like he was still practicing giving commands. Everyone ignored him.

“He’s popular,” Mr. Mack said to Wally. “That’s why they air his show three times a day.”

“When does this dude sleep?!” Wally pressed.

“The truth don’t need a rest,” Mr. Mack said.

Frank Waverly huffed again but Mr. Mack didn’t notice.

Steve Sands, as per usual, looked as though he’d just been thawed. Not soft enough to melt yet, but starting to bead.

“Welcome back to
News Roll
. And I’m Steve Sands. You might remember a month ago when I brought you the story of a mental patient
who had to be put down by New York City Police when he tried to harm another patient. There was some outcry about the case. Some felt the police went too far, but I wondered if people wanted the police to wait until the man hurt or killed some innocent person before they stopped him. But we won’t get back into that debate.”

The picture of Coffee from the news piece appeared over Steve Sands’s right shoulder. It hadn’t become any more pleasant since the last time Pepper had seen it. If anything, it looked worse because now, projected on that flat television screen, the image was about the size of a magazine page.

“Well, I’d also mentioned in that piece that this man, Kofi Acholi, was an illegal. He overstayed his time in this country by abusing our work-visa program. And today, we’ve found out that his body will be shipped back to his home country. The nation of Ooganda. Am I pronouncing that right, Beth? You-ganda? Thank you. He’ll be shipped back to Uganda where he’ll be buried, or whatever they do over there.”

Pepper remembered sitting in his room with Coffee, each man on his bed, lunch tray in his lap. He looked down at the tray in front of him now. He peeled the small orange they’d given him. He’d traded a few orange wedges for a can of Sprite. Such a stupid, insignificant way to remember a man. And yet as Pepper ate the orange, his face softened. He looked at his lap and, very quietly, he cried.

When he looked up to the screen, the picture behind Steve Sands had changed from Coffee’s face to a giant green dollar sign.

“But here’s my question,” Steve continued. “Who’s paying to send Mr. Acholi back? You know the answer. The same people who paid for Mr. Acholi’s stay in the hospital. Where he enjoyed the
finest
health care services in the world. For free. Well, it was free for him. But for you and me? We picked up the bill for this man to spend a year getting medical care in one of our nation’s hospitals. So what should we call this plane ride back home? The tip? This system carries some of us, but it’s on the backs of the rest of us. That’s the ugly truth. Well, we’ve been used for too long, my friends. We can’t afford it.
Every man for himself
. Make sure
your
butt is covered.”

Doris Roberts and Sandra Day O’Connor frowned at each other as
the show went to commercial. Doris Roberts said, “Well, I don’t like that.”

Mr. Mack sniffed at her. “I suppose you’d like it if we all go bankrupt taking care of deadbeats? Well, I’m about
through
with kicking back while our enemies prey on us.” Mr. Mack waved a finger at the ceiling. “Steve Sands is on my wavelength.”

Sandra Day O’Conner forced down a few bites of her tuna-fish sandwich, then she unwrapped her cookie. She bit into it and almost immediately spat it out. “That man makes more money in one year than you’ve made in your whole lifetime,” she said.

Mr. Mack nodded. “Yes. He’s very successful.”

Sandra Day O’Connor looked at Mr. Mack, bewildered, and he smiled back. Pepper couldn’t take the glee on Mr. Mack’s face. He shouted at the old man. “You know Steve Sands would deport
you
, too.”

Mr. Mack, three tables away, narrowed his eyes at Pepper. “I’m an American citizen.”

Pepper pointed at the television. “Not his America.”

Mr. Mack glowered. Next to him, Frank Waverly grinned.

Pepper stomped out of the lounge and to the nurses’ station, where Nurse Washburn sat alone,
logging
, now that Miss Chris had finished Glenn’s incident report. There were four stacks of paperwork on the desk. All of it had to do with Coffee or Glenn. Nurse Washburn had been told to hurry and get all this information into the computer. The faster they updated the records, the faster they could move on to the next step, the whole point of Equator Zero.

But none of that mattered to Pepper.

“I’m looking for Sue,” Pepper said. “I thought she’d be at lunch since we didn’t get breakfast.”

Nurse Washburn looked up from the computer and stood up. “Repeat yourself,” she commanded.

“Xiu.” He tried her Chinese name but did no better with the pronunciation than before. “The Chinese Lady.”

Nurse Washburn looked toward Northwest 1.

“Oh, her. Yes. They took her this morning. She’s gone.”

Did Nurse Washburn take a certain pleasure in telling Pepper the
news? Best to stop thinking about it before she had to admit the truth. Get back to the paperwork, converting paperwork into electronic files. Ignore the big man, who was leaning against the nurses’ station and moaning like an abandoned child

She’s gone
.

Pepper stumbled into the phone alcove and found it empty. He took out his wallet, tried to use his credit card to make a call, but when he punched in his card number, an automated voice told him the card had been declined. He’d forgotten it was maxed out.

Then the phone rang.

Pepper picked it up so enthusiastically it nearly fell. He bobbled it like a football, but the pass remained complete. He held the receiver to his ear. Who would be on the other side? Sue? Her sister? (Somehow?) Maybe his brother, Ralph? The moment felt primed for magic.

“Hello,” Pepper said hopefully.

“Hey, there.” A woman’s voice. Cheerful. Bouncy.

“This is Pepper.”

“This is Sammy,” the woman said. “You remember me?”

“Sammy?”

“I was in there, too. Been gone about a month, though it feels like a lifetime!” She laughed into the line.

Pepper’s hand felt cold. He felt like he was hearing from a ghost.

“Listen,” she said. “I’m trying to reach Sam, but every time I call, people just get quiet and—”

He hung up on her.

Sammy was alive.

As soon as Pepper set the phone down in the cradle, he wanted to pick it back up again. He wanted to explain to Sammy. That everyone knew Sam had killed herself because she thought the Devil had taken her friend. And now, to hear Sammy’s happy laughter on the line, to think Sam took her own life simply because her best friend had been a little preoccupied? It was too much. It was absurd. Pepper almost couldn’t register the enormity of such a cosmic joke.

But he couldn’t explain any of that to Sammy because Sammy wasn’t on the line. Only a dial tone. How many times would Sammy have to call before someone had the presence of mind to explain?
Pepper set the receiver back into the cradle. Remember Sue. It was too late to explain anything to Sammy. (And much too late for poor Sam.) But for Sue there was still time.

Pepper left the alcove and knew what he had to do. Regardless of pride. (And irony.) Nurse Washburn and Scotch Tape stood inside the nurses’ station now. After Nurse Washburn finished inputting a file, Scotch Tape took each one and tossed it into a blue plastic bag. There were two bags at his feet, already full. Paperwork that had been logged into the computer, and now would be sent out for shredding.

This sort of hurt Scotch Tape. Right in the wrists. Him and Miss Chris and all the staff who’d been working at New Hyde for a while. How many
years
had they committed to charting. Now it would all be turned into shavings. The same information saved with the press of a button. Progress, yes, but he wished it had come long before he’d developed some kind of early-onset arthritis.

Pepper shlumped up to the nurses’ station, giving Scotch Tape and Nurse Washburn a start. He leaned his elbows on the counter. He bowed his head before he met Scotch Tape’s gaze.

“Let me borrow a quarter?” Pepper said.

Panhandling is
hard work
.

Pepper sure found out.

Neither Scotch Tape nor Nurse Washburn was inclined to give him any coins. And Mr. Mack cackled when Pepper asked. Frank Waverly at least looked pained when he reached into his pockets and came out with nothing. Nothing from Heatmiser or Yuckmouth. Wally Gambino shouted, “Hells-fuckin’-no!” The Haint didn’t even seem to hear him, she shuffled past and didn’t look up from the floor. Redhead Kingpin and Still Waters weren’t up and about during midday. Doris Roberts told him she’d write him an IOU and give him something when her family came for visiting hours later in the week. And Sandra Day O’Connor scowled and told him to “get a job.” (“What job can I get inside a mental hospital?” he asked. Her response? “Get a job!”—only louder.)

He met Loochie as she was leaving the television lounge. She had
a white towel inelegantly draped over her head. The rest of her remained as polished as ever, baby-blue Nikes, clean jeans and a sporty little sweatshirt, but her head was hidden. It made her seem like a ghoul. He wouldn’t have recognized her if not for the sneakers. She almost walked right past him, lost in a daze. But he touched her arm.

“Loochie,” he said.

The shrouded figure stopped. It looked down at his hand, still touching her elbow. Pepper pulled his hand away. Then Loochie looked up at him. He could make out her eyes under the towel, but little else.

“How are you?” he asked quietly.

She stared at him.

“I’m sorry.…” He put his hand on the top of his head.

“My mother hasn’t seen it yet,” Loochie said.

Pepper couldn’t see her lips move when she said this. It was disconcerting. As if she hadn’t said it, only thought it, and he’d read her mind. “Did you tell her?” he asked.

“You think I should?”

“Call her,” Pepper said. “It’s going to be worse if she just shows up and sees you like … this.”

“It looks bad?” She patted the towel with one hand, as if she’d only just realized how absolutely bizarre she must look.

“You’ve looked better,” Pepper said. He didn’t mean that harshly, but that’s how Loochie took it.

“Well, your girlfriend is gone,” Loochie snapped back.

Pepper smiled. At least Loochie hadn’t lost her fighting spirit. He admired her very much for holding on to it. But there was still the important business at hand. The reason he’d been roaming the halls, accosting everyone.

Pepper said, “Can I borrow a quarter?”

Loochie’s surprised laugh made the sides of the towel shake. “You know who you sounded like just then?”

Then she lost her smile, as if she was embarrassed by it. “I don’t have a quarter,” she said. “Why don’t you ask
her
?”

Loochie pointed into the television lounge. Where Dorry sat alone. Not just by herself, but in an empty room.

Pepper looked at Dorry, then back at Loochie. But Loochie had already walked off.

Pepper walked into the lounge and looked up at the screen. The Weather Channel gave the five-day forecast.

Pepper approached Dorry.

“What you watching?” he asked.

She lifted the remote, turned the volume down. “I’ll give you a quarter,” Dorry said. “But you have to sit with me.”

Pepper rested one hand on the tabletop. He didn’t want to sit, but he did want that money.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Dorry said. She peered at the empty lounge. “Everyone has.”

Her white hair was brushed back, fully exposing her face. She looked thinner. Her eyes were red and dry. “Notice something different?” she asked.

“No more glasses,” Pepper said, still standing.

“Loochie broke them in our fight. Staff won’t replace them. That’s one of my punishments, I guess.”

Pepper pulled a chair back and sat down.

“I thought I could do it,” she said quietly. “I
really
did. I’m so tired, you see? I thought maybe we could work something out. Like a truce. I don’t know. I was kidding myself. Maybe I wanted you to stop him. But then I saw Coffee with those needles and …”

She stopped and looked out the lounge’s windows. She tapped the remote against her forehead a little too hard. Instinctively, Pepper reached out and pulled her hand down.

“I feel so bad about it, Pepper, you have to know I do. But I couldn’t see him hurt any more than I could see any one of you hurt.”

Pepper pulled his hand back. His mouth went dry. “But one of us did get hurt, Dorry.”

“I know!
I know
. You’re
all
like my children. Doesn’t matter how old or young. My sons and daughters. And I try to be good to
all
of you. Don’t you know that’s why I’m the first person who comes to the door? The first face a patient sees should be a friendly one. I show each of you around. Get you a little more food if you need it. Dorry does that. For everyone. Even him.”

Pepper strained forward in his seat. Suddenly he wanted to shake her.

“But why do you have to be that way? Can’t you just use a little common fucking sense! Take a look at that
thing
and figure out it doesn’t deserve to be treated like … one of us?”

Dorry slid the remote control toward him as if she was passing him a baton.

“Should I have done that when you came in?” she asked. “You weren’t one of us. You said it yourself.”

Pepper stood up and pushed his chair back so hard it fell over.

“All your best intentions,” he said. “And we’re still stuck in this hell. So what’s the point?”

Was he scolding Dorry, or himself?

Dorry gave Pepper a tight-lipped smile. “You help,” she said. “That’s the point.”

Pepper crowded over her. From a distance, it must’ve looked like he was about to crush the old woman. And he was. “You haven’t helped anyone. You’ve made every life you’ve touched—me, Loochie, Coffee—worse.”

Dorry’s eyes fluttered. He thought she might actually faint. But he couldn’t stop himself now. The anxiety he’d been feeling for Sue, the grief for Coffee, the pity for himself, it all became rage. He wanted to trample Dorry just then.