Chapter 27

              

 

                No sweet and sour smell greeted Maxwell when he climbed down the stairs from the roof into the loft. And except for the flicking blue glow from the black and white TV set, no light illuminated the loft's interior.

                It took a moment for Maxwell to locate Jack, who sat like a cat in one of the worn whicker chairs, his head against one elevated side, his legs sprawled over the arm. The blue flicking light from the TV made his face look dead.

                "Jack?" Maxwell whispered. "Jack, wake up."

                Jack's eyes popped open, struggled to focused for a moment in the dim light, then grew wider as a sheepish grin spread across his face.

                "Well, well, he mumbled. "Romeo's home."

                Maxwell fell exhausted into the other chair, the whicker crackling beneath him like a freshly lighted fire.

                "I met the Boss," he said.

                "What?"

                "Patty and I went up to his mountain mansion to have a talk with him."

                Jack sat up. "How did you know where to go?"

                "Patty knew."

                "And?"

                "It seems I knew the Boss from when we were kids," Maxwell said. "Het got me into trouble. I got him out of trouble. We were sort of -- friends."

                "Did he say anything about me?"

                "No," Maxwell said, "though I think he alluded to you. He said he wants me to stop interfering with his business dealings."

                "Oh that's bad," Jack moaned.

                "You don't know the half of it," Maxwell said. "Red Bone thinks Puck is freaking out, losing control of himself."

                "What do we do?"

                "Lay low, try to stay out of his way," Maxwell said.

                "That's pretty hard when we have to go out to work every day."

                "I think we're safe if we keep to here and there," Maxwell said. "But we have to stop going to places where the Boss' boys can take cheap shots at us."

                "For how long?"

                "Until things calm down."

                "Does that mean you're giving up the dancer?"

                Maxwell nodded slowly.

                "I remember you promising to give her up before," Jack pointed out.

                "This time I mean it," Maxwell assured him.

                ***********

                "I need for you to go out tonight," Jack told Maxwell the next day during the lunch time rush.

                "What for?"

                "Because I'm bringing someone over to the loft."

                "It wouldn't be wise to bring a stranger home right now," Maxwell pointed out.

                "She's not a stranger, and this wouldn't be the first time I brought her home."

                "You're not talking about that underage girl?"

                "Look, just stay out of it, all right!"

                "What are you going to tell her brothers when they get an inking as to what's going on?"

                "I'll worry about them," Jack said, hovering over the deep frier, the French fries sputtering as they cooked.

                "I'll have to worry about it if they come looking for you," Maxwell said, scrapping a hamburger up off the grill, dumping onto a waiting bun. "They might have a mind to break my legs as well as yours."

                "That won't happen."

                "You can be so sure?"

                "Just give me a couple of hours," Jack pleaded. "It's not like I'm asking for the whole night."

                Maxwell flipped another burger. "I have to work on Charlie," he mumbled. "I'll stay down in the car port."

                "Thanks."

                "Don't thank me. I'm not sure I'm doing you any favors."

                ***********

                Maxwell brought in Suzanne's meal, searching the shelves of the stock room for which hole she had selected for the night, finding her in the furthest corner from the door. She was folded between the boxes of plastic spoons, her hair -- which scrubbed clean with Tide -- as disheveled as straw, and her face beneath it, like that of a caged animal's. She had ceased speaking to Maxwell except in grunts, repeating only one name: Nathaniel's.

                "I brought you food," Maxwell told her.

                She grunted.

                "You have to eat," he said, thrusting the platter towards her, drawing another grunt. "I'm not trying to hurt you."

                She glared up baring her teeth.

                "Damn it, Suzy," Maxwell said, sliding the platter of food down on the vacant shelf just above her head. "What am I supposed to do, let out walk back out to the street?"

                "Nathaniel," she said.

                "He will only use you."

                "I want Nathaniel!"

                "Look, Suzy, give me a couple of more days to find something. If I can't find help for you in that time, you can leave. All right?"

                Suzanne started away. She seemed disgusted with him.

                ***********

                Maxwell picked up the ratchet from his tool box and faced the dark gap of metal and grease where his engine lay hidden by the shadow of the hood. Twenty years earlier, his uncle had taken him through each and every aspect of that rumbling mystery, the elder man pointing out air filter, carburetor, generator, distributor cap, the way teachers at school had pointed out countries on a globe, the whole process at the time frustrating the young Maxwell who wanted to feel the wind blowing as they tested the car's power.

                "When do we get to driver?" Maxwell had asked.

                "Soon," Charlie said. "But you've got to learn this first. You have to be able to take care of a car before you can enjoy it."

                Maxwell imagined an Army drill instructor saying as much to Charlie about his M-16 rifle, telling the gunho recruit to take it apart and put it together again, before learning to shoot.

                Yet over the years after Charlie's lesson on cars, Maxwell came to realize, this was the essential aspect, that driving a car or shooting a gun were merely extensions of preparation, the result of anticipation. It was a part of the process most people missed, mistaking their vehicles as simply a mode of transportation when each had a significance in the process of living, each vehicle in its way was a life process itself. By getting into the guts of the car, Maxwell learned about the inevitable deterioration of parts, the salve of lubrication, the futile balance between running a vehicle too much or not at all.

                One by one, Maxwell removed the spark plugs, checking ach for burn marks and for oil. He set them aside, then unclipped the wires to the distributor cap, examining the brakes for wear, his fingers moving along the smooth rubber skin feeling for what he could not see. He checked the belts, loosening each, then tightening them again. He plugged in his timing light, gapped and replaced the spark plugs, strung out a new set of wires, and then attached the wires again. Then he started the engine.

                It still ran rough, coughing at intervals, hinting that the timing was still not right. Maxwell grabbed up the timing light again and peered into the engine, pointing the device towards the spinning wheel deep inside the dark engine chamber. Then, he stopped the engine again, made the adjustment, then climbed back behind the wheel to gauge the success of this adjustment. The rumbling had ceased. The engine had returned to harmony with the universe.

                The whole process of checking out the car took hours, adjusting this, pouring in fluids, pumping in air, cleaning this or that. He even dabbed paint over particularly balding patches of primer where rust threatened, before he turned his attention towards the car's interior.

                Patty, of course, had left her mark: strands of hair caught in the passenger seat's head rest, the scent of perfume caught in the fabric of the seat, and the ashtray overloaded with the remains of her half-smoked cigarette butts. He ran the vacuum through the front and back, emptied the ash tray, then washed the windows and dash board. When finished, he sagged, his back aching as much from this as from a full day at the Greasy Spoon. Yet despite the fact that his arms and face showed smudges of oil, he felt deeply cleansed, as if he had tuned himself up, not just his car.

                He leaned against the garage door frame -- wondering whether he had killed enough time for him to be able to go back up to the loft -- when he noticed the flash of red and blue lights from the street beyond the gate.

                "That's odd," he thought, uncertain as to whether the lights belonged to the fire department or the police, though either was reason for alarm.

                Maxwell eased out of the gate, locking it careful behind him as he made his way along the side street to the corner of Main Street -- the sharp lights of the emergency vehicles slashing the sides of the buildings as he advanced.

                To his growing alarm, he found three police cars perched at the curb, the faces of the officers inside each pointing towards the furniture store, or more precisely, towards Maxwell's front door. Maxwell kept himself to the shadow and squinted to make out Wilson's face in one of the cars. He retreated quickly to car port gate, spun open the lock again, and after fumbling to relock the gate, rushed up the fire escape stairs to the roof.

                Silence greeted him as he eased through the roof door into the loft.

                No, not complete silence. Some small detail disturbed the quiet space and, at first, Maxwell could not make out what this was. Then gradually, he heard the sound of metal springs coiling and uncoiling in a rhythm of compression and decompression, accompanied by a more human cycle of moaning.

                "JACK!" Maxwell yelled as he leaped down the remaining stairs. "You son of a bitch. Get your ass out here right now!"

                Both the sounds of metal and moaning ceased.

                A dim light went on in Jack room -- the night light Jack kept near the head of his bed -- now seemingly unusually bright against the backdrop of near utter darkness, peering at Maxwell through the angle of open doors. A shadow passed the light, then another. Bare feet sounded on the floor and the naked Jack appeared.

                "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Maxwell asked him sharply.

                Jack stopped, but the darkness kept Maxwell from reading the man's expression.

                "You were supposed to wait outside," Jack said indignantly.

                "I didn't know this is what you intended to do up here or I would have come up sooner," Maxwell said. "Did you know the police are waiting outside?"

                "The cops? What for?"

                "I haven't a clue. It probably has more to do with my visit tot he boss than with you," Maxwell said. "But I think it would be wise if you slipped out the back with your girlfriend. The police apparently don't know we have a back way out."

                Jack's dark form vanished. A brighter light flicked on in his room. A moment later, he appeared with his girlfriend behind him. She was dressed in a short skirt and a tight blouse, and indeed, looked more like twenty than she did her proper age, her gaze glinting a little as she passed Maxwell.

                "Don't come back for a while," Maxwell said. "When you do, don't bring the girl. Even the police are here on something else, they might find your relationship worth looking into."

                Jack nodded slowly, pushing the girl ahead of him towards the roof stairs.

                "And Jack?" Maxwell called, drawing Jack to a stop before he vanished, too.

                "You're going to have to answer to her brothers when they find out."

                "I know," Jack mumbled. "I'll worry about that when it happens."

                Then, he was gone, leaving Maxwell to the loft's dim interior, the brighter light in Jack's room casting a single wedge of light into the larger space where Maxwell stood.

                Jack's departure reminded Maxwell of his own misadventures with Suzanne years earlier when Creeley had set down ground rules against his bringing in overnight guests. He remembered struggling to keep the bed springs quiet while in the other room, Creeley snored, and how one day the old man woke, giving Maxwell the choice between Suzanne or him -- with Maxwell choosing the woman only to crawl back a few years later when the girl chose New York over him.

                It was the order of Creeley's world Maxwell missed most, that daily and weekly routine that made life predictable, with rarely an element out of place, with nearly no random detail left to go wrong. Now without the old man here, everything seemed chaotic, the previous order unraveling before him.

                The jangle of the door bell jerked Maxwell out of his thoughts.

                It rang again, more insistently, with someone's heavy finger refusing to release the button. Maxwell moved across the room, wishing Creeley had installed some kind of intercom so that he could ask who was at the door -- even though he already knew.

                "All right, I'm coming!" Maxwell shouted as he descended the front stairs.

                "Open up, Zarra!" Wilson's voice shouted, bell-ringing replaced by pounding on the door.

                "What do you want?" Maxwell asked, attaching the chain Jack had neglected, before easing open the door.

                "You know what we want," Wilson said, his pudgy face pressing in as if intended to squeeze through, his small close-together eyes like pistol barrels aimed at Maxwell's face.

                "Do you have a warrant?"

                The cop's gaze grew even harder. "Do you think we should go get one?"

                "I'm not letting you unless you do."

                "That sounds awful suspicious to me," the cop said, glancing over his shoulder towards cops Maxwell could not see. Suddenly, the nose of the cop's pistol poked through the opening. "Back away from the door."

                Maxwell stagged back against the stairwell wall as two sets of boots struck the door, ripping the chain off. Wilson charged in first, pressing his cold pistol against Maxwell's cheek.

                "We're going to have a look upstairs," the cop said. "If you try any of your fancy dancing with me, we'll be scraping your brains off the walls. You get me?"

                Maxwell swallowed slowly, then nodded.

                "Good," Wilson said, then motioned Maxwell towards the stairs, plodding up behind him, the pistol pressed between Maxwell's shoulder blades. Booming booted footsteps thundered around them as Wilson's uniformed companions followed. Once in the loft, the officers fanned out, each moving into a separate room, knocking utilizers off the walls in the kitchen and pictures off the walls of the main loft room. One officer found Jack's room and began to kick at the mess he found on the floor, slick covers of Jack's girly magazines flashing like flames as they reflected the dim light. Each officer reappeared, giving their report with a stiff shake of their heads.

                "Maybe the mission has her," one of the cops said.

                "No," Wilson said. "I talked to the priest. He didn't want anything to do with her."

                "There are other shelters."

                "The others don't have her, otherwise they would have called me. No, this creep has her stashed somewhere What's up there?" Wilson asked Maxwell, gesturing towards the roof door with his pistol.

                "Some dead plants," Maxwell said.

                "Any way out?"

                "A fire escape down to the carport," Maxwell said, seeing no reason to lie, since one of the officers was already plodding up the steps to investigate.

                Wilson glared at Maxwell. "Where is she, boy," he said, the fat man's nostrils flaring.

                "I don't know what you're talking about," Maxwell said, planting his feet.

                The fat cop's pistol rose, but never landed, Maxwell's right hand striking the cop's wrist so that the fingers sprang open. The pistol clattered across the floor.

                "You son of a..." Wilson yelped.

                One of the other cops charged from the darkness to assist the fat cop. Maxwell waited, bending down at the last moment so that the man rolled over his shoulder, landing behind him with a thump. The third cop -- a step or two behind the second, sprang at Maxwell, and seemed shocked when Maxwell stepped aside, grabbing at the man's arm as he passed, propelling him straight into the wall so that he, too, fell.

                "Stop it!" the fourth cop shouted, pistol aimed at Maxwell's face -- but too far away for a reasonable chance at disarming him.

                Maxwell sagged.

                The other cops struggled up, each of them groaning. Wilson rose last and complained most: "I told you he was dangerous," the fat cop said. "He's some kind of Chuck Norris or something."

                "Chuck Norris or not, what do we do with him?" the cop with the gun asked. "He doesn't seem to be in the mood to talk."

                "He'll talk," Wilson said, glaring at Maxwell. "We'll take him down to the river and beat it out of him there."

                "I don't think that's a good idea," one of the cops, rubbing his shoulder from where he hit the wall.

                "Don't tell me you're scared of him," Wilson snapped, mockingly.

                "I just don't think he's going to give you what you want, no matter what we do to him."

                "If we beat him enough he will."

                "Or kill him?"

                "It that's what it takes."

                "Nobody said anything about killing," the cop with the gun said, looking very alarmed.

                "Well, I'm saying it now," Wilson barked.

                "Then you can count me out," the cop with the gun said.

                "Me, too," said one of the others, while the third cop nodded, and continued to rub his shoulder.

                "Some pals you turned out to be!" Wilson snapped.

                "Pals to a point," the cop with the gun said. "Getting your girlfriend back is one thing; killing a white man in this town is asking for trouble. You want to go that road, leave us out of it. We have families to think about."

                Wilson glared at them and then at Maxwell, his face half-hidden in the darkness, yet no darkness could disguise his fury.

                "All right," he said to Maxwell. "You'll get away with it this time. But this isn't the end of it. I'll be back. I'll find you somewhere when you don't know I'm coming, and then we'll see how much your Chuck Norris tricks can protect you."

                ***********

                Jack had the store open when Maxwell got there, issuing plates of home fries and eggs like a mess sergeant -- his army of black and Latino workers shuffling into their seats in an unusual silence. Each seemed to take their cue from Jack, who ceased to joke or asked about their day the way he often did. Jack cringed when he spotted Maxwell through the window, and began whimpering the moment Maxwell came through the door.

                "Don't yell at me, all right?" Jack said. "I'm sorry I put you in that position. I won't bring her up there ever again."

                "Where did you sleep?" Maxwell asked, as he eased through the crowded sea of tables to the counter, making his way behind it to get his own coffee.

                "Here," Jack said.

                "Which explains why things are up and running already," Maxwell said, sipping the hot liquid slowly. "Did she stay here with you?"

                "No, the girl went home."

                "I see," Maxwell said, leaning back against the counter, staring at the crowd without seeing them.

                "No, you don't see," Jack said. "We're in love."

                "I'm surprised a girl that young knows what love is, or for that matter, you do," Maxwell said. "I'm a little hazy of love myself and compared to her, I'm an old man."

                "I don't really want to go into this right now," Jack said.

                "Is she pregnant?"

                Jack's hands froze, egged dripping off the end of the spatula. He didn't look at Maxwell or at the egg, but let out a long sigh, loud enough to answer Maxwell's question.

                "So what are you doing about it?" Maxwell asked.

                "We'll work it out," Jack said finally recovering himself enough to get the egg to a plate.

                "No clinic is going to give a 13-year old an abortion without consent from her parents," Maxwell said. "And you certainly can't pass for her father, even though you might be old enough."

                "Stop it!" Jack said. "I told you I was sorry. I'm not going to gravel, too. It's my problem. I'll take care of it. Besides, you have problems of your own to take care of."

                "What is that supposed to mean?"

                "I mean if you hadn't kidnapped that girl you wouldn't have Wilson searching for you."

                "He was here?"

                "Knocked on the door first thing this morning. He might have kicked the door down if the gate hadn't been locked. He kept yelling that if we didn't give up the woman he would have the FBI in here next."

                "That's a bluff," Maxwell said. "He can't afford to call in anyone who might discover his own filthy habits."

                "That was him outside the loft last night," Jack pointed out.

                "In an unofficial capacity," Maxwell said. "The other cops with him were doing him a favor."

                "Well, I have a strong feeling he'll be back with or without the feds, and he won't let me turn him away at the door. You've got to get her out of here right now before we both wind up in jail or worse."

                ***********

                White-uniformed hospital staff members stared at Maxwell as he turned off the car before the Emergency Room doors. The guard stirred from the warm zone between the sets of double doors, shaking his head as he came out to meet Maxwell.

                "You've got to move the car," he said.

                "Where?"

                "Over the parking lot," the guard said.

                "They charge three dollars," Maxwell complained. "I'm not paying three bucks just to drop somebody off here."

                Maxwell pointed to Suzanne, who sat in the passenger side of Maxwell's car, staring blankly out the front window as if Maxwell, the guard or the hospital existed.

                The guard squinted, trying to make her out through the dark glass. "What's wrong with her?" he asked.

                "She's sick."

                "She doesn't look sick."

                "Are you a doctor or guard?"

                The guard straightened, his right eyebrow twitching as a look of anger flashed in his eyes. "Fine," he snapped. "Drop her off. Then come right out and move the car or I'll have it towed."

                "All right, but you watch her while I go park," Maxwell said, then retreated to the car, yanked open the door. Suzanne did not look or move. "Come on out, Suzie," Kenny urged, remembering the chore it had taken getting her into the car in the first place.

                "No," she said.

                "Look, Mister," the guard said, glancing up the circular drive at the two cars now waiting behind Maxwell's to drop off people as well. "Get her out or get going."

                "Suzanne," Maxwell said with more urgency in his voice. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to leave you here. I just want someone to look you over to make sure you're all right."

                Maxwell could hear the hitch in his own voice, as if the lie caught in his throat as he spoke. Suzanne looking up at him, her eyes stained with mistrust. Yet she had the same dim innocence that had allowed people like Nathaniel to use her, as if she didn't quite know what people were telling the truth.

                "Not hurt?" she asked.

                "Not that either," Maxwell assured her, wondering if they still injected mad people with Thorazine the way they had with his mother. Or had they found some kinder way to make such people submit to their will? Would they slap a straight jacket on her, then throw her into a padded cell?

                One of the other cars beeped. The guard glared at Maxwell, then glared back at the other car to cease that noise.

                Suzanne lifted one food out, followed by the other, and slowly righted herself outside the car. Her whole body trembled from the effort. She looked even more an invalid than the several people seated in wheel chairs just inside the hospital's door, a frail as a flower, Maxwell thought, or one of those glass-blown figurines.

                "Wait here," Maxwell told her, then with a doubtful glance at the guard and an angry glare at the car behind his, he leaped back into Charlie and gunned the car down the ramp in the general direction of the visitor's parking lot -- consenting reluctantly to pay the three dollar fee.

                By the time he got back he found Suzanne wandering up the sidewalk away from the emergency room doors, her eyes glinting with the lights of distant Main Street. She could have been sleep walking, although when Maxwell grabbed her arm and brought her to a halt, those sleepy eyes registered annoyance.

                "That's the wrong way," Maxwell told her.

                "Don't like it inside," she said, resisting his attempts to turn her around.

                Yes, he thought, she had come here before, after her attempted plunge over the falls -- which meant they would have some sort of file on her already, saving Maxwell some explanation.

                "Come on, Suzy," he said, trying to turn her again.

                "No," she said. "They mean people. Worse than shelter."

                "You think I'm mean, too," Maxwell said. "But I'm only trying to help you. I'm sure these people are the same way. I promise I won't let anybody hurt you."

                Perhaps some note in his voice convinced her, a tone of honesty even her current dim-witted condition sensed. She ceased resisting and allowed him to direct her towards the door. Or perhaps some deep part of herself sought to teach him a lesson about such places, and allowed him to enter the place, to confront the sudden, unmistakable stench of death and dying, to hear the moaning and groaning of people without hope, as if they had crossed through the gates of hell rather than into a place of Christian mercy. He steered her toward the waiting room, glancing around at the parade of the pathetic, the broken bones merely the external evidence for saddened, broken spirits.

                He was appalled.

                To the right of the doors and, lined up in row after row of pink chairs, the side show of freaks continued: white, black, Latino and others moaning and groaning, some showing visible wounds such as knife cuts or frost bites, while others seemed internally injured, glaring at Maxwell and Suzanne with furious gazes suited to the 1970s killer, Son of Sam.

                "Sign in, then sit down," the guard barked at Maxwell from the door, motioning him towards the counter to the left where a small sign said "reception."

                Maxwell maneuvered Suzane towards it, not trusting to leave her alone among the freaks. A white uniformed receptionist sat behind a sliding glass window, busily tapping into a computer terminal. She did not look up.

                "Name?" she asked.

                Maxwell gave her Suzanne's name.

                "What's her ailment?" the woman asked, glancing up only after Maxwell hesitated for too long. "What is wrong with her?"

                "Well, she's sort of in a haze all the time," Maxwell said.

                The woman glanced at Suzanne, tongue clicking like a teacher dissatisfied with a test answer, her gaze taking in Suzanne for a moment before she typed something onto the screen.

                "Has she been here before?" the woman continued.

                "Yes."

                "When?"

                "As far as I can determined a few weeks ago," Maxwell said.

                The woman tapped again and then waited, as the screen changed several times. The woman before it sighed heavily and with great significance.

                "Our records show she has been here several times since 1982," she said. "And more than once she failed to pay her bill. I'm afraid we won't be able to help her this time unless she pays for the visit."

                "But this is a charity hospital..."

                "Young man, keep your voice down," the woman said, glancing passed him towards the guard at the door. "We have rules here. One of them requires payment for service. No payment, no service."

                "That's cruel," Maxwell said.

                "That's the way it works. If you don't like it, you can take her across town to the Jewish hospital. But I can tell you right now, they won't take her either without money or insurance."

                "So what is she supposed to do?"

                "If she is so helpless, she should apply for welfare," the woman said. "Then she'd have Medicaid, and that would cover some of the cost."

                Maxwell stared at the woman for a long time. He could not believe what he was hearing. "And what if I were to pay for the visit?"

                "I thought you said she didn't have any money?"

                "She doesn't, but I do," Maxwell said. "Will somebody see her if I pay?"

                For the first time, the woman seemed put off her robotic responses. She glanced at Maxwell uncertain as to how to answer him. "I'll have to ask my superior," she said, then snatched up the telephone, punched in a sequence of numbers and spoke rapidly into the mouth piece in a hushed voice when someone on the far end answered.

                Behind the woman other people in white rushed through inner chambers on their own routines, pushing wheelchairs, stainless steel supply carts, carrying clipboards, IV bags or stacks of linens. Each person seemed full of purpose, yet with the same mindlessness Maxwell might have expected from ants -- while in the waiting room, the ailing and the old suffered, patiently putting up with the bureaucracies for fear of being denied treatment.

                The woman put down the phone.

                "My supervisor said we can treat your friend only if you agree to pay for her last visit as well," she said.

                "How much would that be?" Maxwell asked, envisioning his savings for Nashville swallowed by medical bills.

                The woman's fingers clicked over the keyboard. "Eighty dollars," she said. "And eighty dollars for this visit. That doesn't include prescriptions or consultations."

                "Do you take a check?"

                The woman nodded, but looked suspicious. "Make it out to the hospital," she said.

                Maxwell scribbled $160 on the appropriate line, then pushed the check across the counter.

                A few more clicks and the woman printed out a receipt and a detailed history of Suzanne's visits.

                "Take this and go to the waiting room," the woman said. "Someone will call for her."

                ***********

                Maxwell gagged.

                Suzanne handled the waiting room better than Maxwell could, immune to the stench of the others around them -- that same scent Maxwell had scrubbed off of her at the Greasy Spoon seemed central to their lives, that essential cosmetic that defined their lives on the street. None seemed to have used soap, except for some of the younger women, who stood out in the crowd of gray, decked out in bright colors from a night on the town gone sour. Their perfume overwhelmed Maxwell nearly as much as the street stench did, as if each woman needed to compensate. A handful of working poor also had their contingent here, cleaner than the street urchins, but bearing the same immeasurably sad expressions, broadcasting the misery of their lives. While some people moaned, most struggled to contain their grief and pain, as if fearing to show too much emotion or reveal too much weakness -- their street instincts still taunt with the idea that they would become even greater victims if they showed too much.

                Maxwell's interest in them waned, just as it might have it he had stared at a blank wall too long. None gave back anything of interest. Few looked at him at all. Maxwell turned his attention to Suzanne's admission history, the paper the woman at the desk had thrust into his hands, complete with dates, numbers and one or two words describing the reason for her coming.

                1982, depression, $80, paid.

                1983, attempted suicide, $80, paid.

                1985, psychotic episode, $80, referral to Greystone, paid.

                1986, dehydration, Depression, $80, paid.

                1987, attempted suicide, $80, unpaid.

                Maxwell tried to fit what he had learned about her into the chronology, but found he didn't know enough to fit all the pieces together. He had been out of her life for too long to have most of it make sense. When exactly had she broken her ankle? That medical record was not listed here. When had she freaked out and invited the boys to witness her New York sex show? She certainly hadn't come here for her blood test to get married or to have her pregnancy check. It annoyed him to have only a partial picture of her life here, to have some rich doctor judge her treatment on such limited information -- on only the down moments of her life. These people would certainly fail to understand that she had highlights, too, grand moments that defined her as well as this record did.

                Then, someone called her name.

                Suzanne didn't stir, Maxwell did.

                "Over here," he said, indicating to the orderly where Suzanne sat. "You're next," he told Suzanne, nudging her.

                "No," she said.

                "Are you coming or not?" the orderly asked.

                "In a minute," Maxwell said.

                "Well, hurry it up. We got a long line of people to take care of and I don't intend to be here until tomorrow morning."

                "Suzy, please," Maxwell urged. "Don't fight this. I just want someone to look you over to make sure you're all right."

                Suzanne's head turned, her face a testimony in blankness and distrust: her broken lips pulled tight to the point of bleeding. "I don't like it here," she said.

                "I don't either," Maxwell assured her, "but we have to do it."

                Perhaps he had reached her, perhaps she simply gave up. She rose like a robot, following when the orderly motioned, Maxwell following her.

                The room, when they reached it, was as small as a broom closet, everything in it from computer to clipboard bolted in place against theft.

                "The doctor will be here in a moment," the orderly said.

                "Maybe you should sit," Maxwell told Suzanne, once the orderly had gone.

                There was one chair, and one table. The room had no clock so Maxwell had no way of gauging how long it took the doctor to arrive, but time seemed to drag on, until Maxwell could wait no more.

                "Just stay here," Maxwell told Suzanne as he slipped back into the hall. To either side, he saw rooms, exactly duplicating the one he had just left, each with a suffering soul waiting for a doctor to arrive. Each added to the mounting feeling of despair, as if these rooms served as boxes in which to store unwanted laundry. The faces stared out at him, as if thinking he was the doctor, showing their disappointment when he continued on. Finally, he reached the front where the same cold woman sat at the same window.

                "What's wrong?" she asked sharply.

                "We've been waiting a long time for a doctor," Maxwell said.

                "Young man, we have a lot of patients to see."

                "I know. I've seen them. All of them seem to be waiting for doctors, too. And most of them seem to be in pain."

                "We'll get to them. We don't have enough doctors here to provide immediate care for everyone."

                "At $80 a head, you ought to be able to find an army of doctors."

                "Go back to your room before I call security," the woman snapped.

                Maxwell sighed. He could envision the headlines: MAN REMOVED FOR CAUSING A DISTURBANCE AT HOSPITAL.

                "All right," he mumbled and retraced his steps back to the box-like room in which he had left Suzanne -- only she wasn't in it.

                He called her name, catching a glimpse of a closing door farther down the hall. He ran to it, yanked it open, but found himself confronted by a set of descending stairs and the whisper of what he believed Suzanne's footsteps echoing down them.

                Maxwell plunged down after her, taking two and three steps at a time, running straight into another orderly who was on the rise -- a tray of test tubes flying up between them to land in a rage of breaking glass and clanging metal.

                "What the....!" the orderly yelled, but Maxwell had plunged passed him, continuing his rush down the stairs, coming finally to several doors, one of these just closing as he reached it.

                Through it, Maxwell found himself standing in the middle of underground parking garage, with two men in white standing outside it smoking cigarettes.

                "A woman just came out here," Maxwell said. "Did you see her."

                "We didn't see no woman," one of the men said.

                "She must have gone out the front."

                "Damn," Maxwell growled, reversed himself, plunged back through the door to take one of the others, this leading to another hall, as empty as the stairwell. He ran down it anyway, finding one more door which led outside to the visitor's parking lot. It was largely empty except for his and a handful of other cars.

                No Suzanne.

                Yet as he turned to go back inside, the door closed, and he heard the click of the lock. He pulled on it, banged on it, shouted for someone to open it, but nobody did.

                ***********

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