The Furies (6 page)

Without letting go of Ariel's lip, Gabe stuck his other hand into his pocket. When he pulled it out, there was a tooth in his palm, but it looked oddly small. It was just the top half of a molar, with none of the roots at the bottom. “It came out because it's a baby tooth. Take a good look at the gap in her mouth.”

John bent over the table and peered into the space between Ariel's teeth. He saw a gleam of white emerging from the pink gum. A new molar was growing into the gap. “That's the adult tooth? The permanent one?”

“Yeah, and it's coming in about ten years too late. Except for the wisdom teeth in the back of the mouth, all the permanent teeth are supposed to appear by the time you're thirteen.”

John shrugged. He couldn't see what the big deal was. “Okay, she has dental problems. What's your point?”

“Do you know how many people I examined when I worked in the emergency room at Temple? Dozens every day, hundreds every week. And I never saw anything like this.”

“You never saw scars or funny teeth?”

Gabe gave him an exasperated look. “It's more than that. The weirdest thing of all is that she's still alive. She should've died, John. You just can't survive after losing that much blood. The cells die, the organs fail, the whole body shuts down. But it didn't happen with her. You see what I'm saying?”

He was getting agitated. His voice rose in pitch and volume as he spoke, and beads of sweat trickled down his forehead. John wondered if Gabe was starting to feel the withdrawal pains already. His sunken eyes veered from left to right, as if searching for his next fix.

John placed his hand on Gabe's back, trying to nudge him away from Ariel. “All right, settle down. Maybe you should take a break.”

“What? You think I'm imagining things?” He picked up Ariel's notebook again and waved it in the air, as if threatening to hit him with it. “I know what I'm talking about! I'm a doctor, remember?”

John took a deep breath. He hated this. He hated the fact that his oldest friend was a junkie. “I know, you're a doctor. Listen, you want me to get you something to eat? I can—”

“I'll tell you what you can do. You can pay me now. I've been working on your weird-ass redhead for four hours, and that means you owe me four hundred dollars.”

“Okay, no problem. I'll go home and get it.”

“You don't have the money, do you?” Gabe held the notebook above the operating table, still brandishing it like a stick. “I can tell. You're gonna stiff me. You think you can—”

He was interrupted by a sudden movement, a hand darting up from the operating table. Ariel grasped the brown-leather notebook and pulled it out of Gabe's hands. She held it against her chest and narrowed her eyes. “That's mine.”

Startled, Gabe backed away from the table. “Fuck! What's going on? I gave her a sedative!”

“I'm a light sleeper.” She stared at the junkie, her brow creased. “And you were very loud.”

Gabe took another step backward. His hands were shaking. He was clearly afraid of her.

After a couple of seconds she turned to John. Her face softened and the creases vanished. “Thank you. For believing me. I see we're not in a hospital.”

He smiled. “You're better off here. The health care system sucks.”

She smiled too, then tried to sit up. Scowling in pain, she propped herself on her elbows. Then she turned back to Gabriel and pointed at her legs. “They're both broken?”

Gabriel nodded but kept his distance. “Yeah, compound fractures.”

“Could you get me a piece of paper, please? And a pen?”

It was an odd request. Confused, Gabriel glanced at John, who gave him a “Why not?” look. So the junkie went in search of some writing materials.

He came back half a minute later and handed Ariel a Post-it note and a pencil. She held the notebook in her other hand and flipped through its pages till she found the one she wanted. After scrutinizing the strange symbols on the page, she wrote a couple of words on the Post-it note. Then she studied the page again and wrote a few more words. John watched her, fascinated. She was translating the symbols.

When she was done, she gave him the Post-it note. Written on it were five items:

Periwinkle, 10 grams

Cat's Claw (Uña de Gato), 5 grams

Horsetail, 10 grams

Milk Thistle, 15 grams

Purple Coneflower, 10 grams

“What's this?” John asked her.

“It's your shopping list. Some of the herbs may be hard to find. Where are we exactly?”

“In Philly. Kensington.”

“That's good. There should be health-food stores in the city. If you can't find the herbs there, go to the
botánicas
in the Latino neighborhoods.”

Gabe let out a snort. “Herbal medicine? That's what you're looking for?” He shook his head. “It's good for treating a cold. Not so good for bullet wounds.”

Ariel ignored him. She kept her eyes on John. “Will you do this for me?”

She needed his help. Again. And he had every right to say no. But as he gazed into those green eyes, he knew he couldn't refuse her. He was hooked. Bad.

John folded the note and stuffed it into his pocket. “I'll come back as soon as I can.”

 

 

The shopping took longer than he expected. It was still early in the morning, and most of the health-food stores weren't open yet. He had better luck at the
botánicas
, most of which were run by elderly Mexican women. The shops were tiny and dimly lit, but on their dusty shelves were dozens of sacks containing crushed leaves and roots and powders. By 10:00
A.M.
he had collected all the items on Ariel's list and headed back to Kensington.

John planned to stop at his apartment on Somerset Street to pick up some cash for Gabriel, but when he was two blocks away he saw a crowd outside his row house. Wary, he pulled over to the curb. There were lots of gangbangers in the crowd, from the crews that ran the corners on Somerset Street and Fairhill Square and Lehigh Avenue. That was a bit strange—the drug crews were usually fast asleep at this time of day. Then John saw something even stranger: a pile of familiar-looking furniture on the sidewalk.
His
furniture. The gangbangers had broken into his apartment, removed his couch and chairs and television and bookcase, and tossed them all outside.

His first instinct was to rush over there and kick some ass. Why were they messing with his stuff? What the hell were they thinking? But instead he stayed in his Kia, furious and fearful, and tried to figure out what was going on. Although the antigang project no longer existed—St. Anne's Church had cut its funding after Father Murphy died—John had continued doing outreach work on an informal basis. Over the past few years he'd made a deal with the local drug crews: they let him talk to the younger kids in the neighborhood, but not the older ones. He could reach out to the preteens, urging them to stay away from the crews, but he couldn't say a word to the teenagers who were already working the corners. This was the compromise they'd reached after the disaster three years ago. But now it looked like someone had broken the truce.

John slumped lower in the driver's seat and peered through the windshield. Some of the gangbangers were stomping on his furniture, breaking the chair legs and ripping the couch cushions. Others picked through his books and DVDs, taking whatever they wanted. Several drunks and junkies wandered at the edge of the crowd, curious and amused, but a few of the older folks on Somerset Street shook their heads in disgust. The old-timers in the neighborhood hated the gangs, and sometimes they were brave enough to make their feelings known. One elderly man in the crowd seemed particularly incensed. He shouted something in Spanish at the gangbangers, then spat on the ground. After a few seconds John recognized the man—it was Victor Garcia, a silver-haired retiree who'd been a friend of Father Murphy. His face was pink with anger.

Victor turned away from the crowd and headed east on Somerset. As luck would have it, the old man was going to walk right past the Kia. As he drew close, John rolled down the car's window. “Hey, Victor,” he called. “What's all the fuss about?”

The old man's eyes widened. He looked around nervously, then approached the car. “You better get out of here, John,” he whispered. “They're looking for you.”

“Who's looking? Which crew?”

“All of them. Every punk on the street is trying to find you. What the hell did you do?”

John held out his hands, palms up. “Nothing. I was in New York yesterday.”

“Well, you must've pissed off somebody. You should go back to New York. For your own safety.” He glanced at the crowd down the street, then slapped the Kia's door. “Get going, boy. Head for the interstate.”

Victor walked away quickly, looking over his shoulder. John stepped on the gas and made a left on Hope Street, but he didn't drive toward I-95. Instead, he returned to Gabe's house, taking a roundabout route that avoided Somerset.

He parked his car by the chain-link fence again and called for Gabe. As he stood in front of the gate, waiting for his friend, he pondered Victor's question, “What the hell did you do?” The only thing he'd done was run into Ariel. And maybe that was it. Maybe the gangs in Philly were coming after him because of what had happened in New York.

He had to yell for two whole minutes before Gabe came out of the house. As soon as he emerged, it was clear why it had taken him so long. His mouth hung open and his eyes were glassy. He wore only his boxer shorts now, and on his left arm was the reddish imprint of the belt he'd tied around his bicep not so long ago. Without a word, he opened the gate and led John into the house. This time, though, they didn't go to the operating room in the basement. Gabe stumbled into a dark, stuffy room on the ground floor and sprawled on a filthy brown sofa. Scattered on the floor were the works he'd just used to shoot up: the belt, the syringe, the spoon, the cigarette lighter.

John frowned. He'd seen this kind of thing a million times before, but he still couldn't understand it. He had to remind himself that this skeletal junkie on the sofa was his old friend Gabriel, the smartest kid in the class, the boy who used to love to play with firecrackers. John waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark, and then he stepped toward the couch. The smell was horrible.

“How's your patient?” John asked. He had to breathe through his mouth. “When was the last time you checked on her?”

Gabe was silent and motionless. Then he nodded drowsily. He moved as if he were underwater. “She's fine. Don't worry.”

“Great. Glad you're on the case.” John turned away and faced the wall. He couldn't bear to look at the guy.

The room went silent again. Then Gabe slowly extended his arm and held out his hand. “You got it?”

“Got what?”

“The money. My money.” His eyes darted. He seemed to be shaking off his stupor. “You owe me. Remember? Four hundred dollars.”

“I couldn't get into my house. Some assholes from the corner crews were there, waiting for me.”

This got Gabe's attention. He sat up on the sofa. “What did they want?”

“No idea. I didn't stick around to talk.”

“Why not?”

“They were already trashing my apartment.”

“That's weird, don't you think? The bad boys showing up at your place all of a sudden?” He craned his neck, trying to look John in the eye. It was amazing how quickly he'd sobered up. “You think it has something to do with the girl?”

Gabe was good at guessing things. He had a talent for ferreting out secrets. It was a useful skill for a junkie to have. Desperate people needed all the help they could get.

John shook his head. “I don't see the connection,” he lied.

“Well, I do.” Gabe scratched his bare chest and leaned back on the sofa cushions. “The girl has enemies, right? After you left New York they could've figured out who you are. Maybe they saw your car's license plate and ran the number. It's easy to do if you have the connections. And once they found out your name and address, they made a call to the drug bosses in Kensington, offering them big money to grab someone named John Rogers. And the girl too, of course.” He grinned. “That would explain it, wouldn't it?”

It certainly would, but John wasn't going to agree with him. This was a dangerous subject. “Look, I'll get your money. You know I always pay my bills. In the meantime, I'm going downstairs to see how she's doing.”

“Sure, go ahead.” Gabe kept grinning. “Take your time.”

John didn't like the look on his face. There was a threat behind it. He could feel Gabe's eyes on his back as he went down the steps to the basement. The guy was his oldest friend, but first and foremost he was a junkie. And now he had a chance to make some serious money, maybe enough to buy a month's supply of heroin. If the payoff was big enough, Gabe would betray him in a second.

Ariel was awake when John marched into the operating room. She seemed happy to see him. “Did you find the herbs? I was worried you might—”

“Shh.” He raised his index finger to his lips. “We gotta go. I'll carry you back to the car.”

“Why?” she whispered. “What happened?”

“Gabe's gonna turn us in. He's probably on the phone right now.”

John slipped one arm under Ariel's back and the other under her splinted legs. She winced as he picked her up, but didn't make a sound. Holding her as gently as he could, John headed up the stairs. She held her notebook against her chest, just like she did last night.

Gabe wasn't on the sofa anymore. He'd probably gone to another room to make the phone call. John burst out the front door with Ariel and ran to his car. As he dashed through the gate he looked down Hancock Street, expecting to see all of Kensington's gangbangers swarming toward them. But the street was empty.