“Yes, sir?”
“Get me Captain Meznick at Midtown South, and make it snappy.”
He read the blood tests again, more slowly. “We're sure about this? There's no room for any mistake?” He was a small man with a high white pompadour and compressed, Hobbit-like features. His staff called him The Death Troll, but they respected him. He was fierce and quick-tempered and a formidable stickler for detail.
“No mistake, sir,” George told him. “Willy repeated his
tests twice, just to make sure. It's human blood, and there's no question that it isn't hers. Unless she stole it from a blood bank, or she's been keeping it refrigerated, there have to be at least two people out there who have lost a serious amount of blood. Almost certainly, a fatal amount.”
The intercom buzzed. “
Lieutenant Roberts on the phone, sir. Captain Meznick is away in Philadelphia, at a law-enforcement convention
.”
“Okay, that's okay.” Dr. Pellman picked up his phone. “Lieutenant Roberts? This is Harold Pellman, senior VP and medical director at the Sisters of Jerusalem. I won't beat around the bush: We have a young woman here who appears to have been drinking blood.”
Frank could only guess what Lieutenant Roberts' reaction was on the other end of the phone, but Dr. Pellman had to repeat himself twice. “Drinking
blood
, lieutenant. Human blood, and other people's blood, not her own. And unless they've been given an emergency transfusion, whoever she drank it from is probably dead.”
He spelled out Susan Fireman's address and personal details, and then he hung up the phone. “That's it, gentlemen. There's nothing else we can do.”
Frank stayed in his seat. “With all due respect, sir, I think I should try to talk to Ms. Fireman before the police get here. We really need to find out
why
she ingested all that blood, and who she got it from.”
“Bad idea,” said Dr. Pellman. “You're not a detective, Frank, and I don't want anybody on this hospital's medical staff laying themselves open to accusations of compromising a police investigation. You remember what happened with the Koslowski kid. Nightmare.”
“Yes, sir,” said Frank. “But Ms. Fireman is still our patient, isn't she, no matter what she's done? We're morally bound to pursue our diagnostic procedure until we find out what's wrong with her.”
“Frankâfor Christ's sake, we
know
what's wrong with
her. She's been binging on other people's circulatory systems, and it's almost a certainty that she's killed them in the process.”
“I realize that, sir. But for all we know, drinking human blood may be a key symptom of her condition. If we don't investigate itâwell, I personally think that we'd be failing in our duty as physicians.”
George said, very quietly, “I'm afraid I have to agree with that. Supposing her condition can be transmitted? If one of our staff catches it, or one of our other patients goes down with itâI mean, the legal consequences don't bear thinking about.”
“So that's it,” said Dr. Pellman. “We're damned if we do, and doubly damned if we don't.”
Frank said, “All I need to do is ask her some very straightforward questions. Like, whose blood did you drink? Where did you get it from, and how, and why did you drink it?”
“And what do you think the cops will ask her? Exactly the same things.”
“But once the police get here, she's far less likely to respond to any questions about her condition, in case she incriminates herselfâand if she gets herself a lawyer, forget it, we won't have a hope in hell of finding out what's wrong with her. She has a highly unusual combination of physical symptomsâher anemia, her sensitivity to lightâand she obviously has severe psychological problems, too.”
Dr. Pellman tossed down his pen. “Okay. But don't ask her anything other than medical questions; and if she refuses to answer, don't push her. And don't instigate any new diagnostic procedures until you've cleared them with me.”
They were just about to leave his office when Frank's beeper buzzed again.
“Okay if I use your phone, sir?” he asked Dr. Pellman. Dr. Pellman gave him a wave of his hand and Frank picked it up.
“Dean Garrett here, Frank, in the emergency room. We've just had a young man brought in here, vomiting blood. His
symptoms are very similar to that girl you brought in this morning.”
“I'll be right down.” Frank cradled the phone and then he looked at Dr. Pellman with a serious expression. “Sounds like we've got ourselves another one.”
Frank and George went down together to the ER. As they arrived, seven victims of a gang fight were being brought through the doors by paramedics, all shouting and swearing and covered in blood.
Dr. Garrett grabbed one of the gang members by the lapels of his sleeveless leather vest. “What's your name,
bobo?
” he demanded. Dean Garrett was thin and unshaven and he had a drooping moustache, like Wyatt Earp, but he was so wired and wild-eyed that the boy couldn't help stumbling to attention.
“Julius,” the boy blurted out. “What's it to you?” He had one eye closed by a big purple bruise and a deep diagonal cut across his lips.
“What gang do you belong to, Julius?”
“The Blue Moros.”
“The Blue Morons? That's appropriate. And those other
bobos?
Which gang do they belong to?”
“The X-Skulls.”
“Okay, Julius, my name is Doctor Dean and I belong to the Screaming Medics, and this emergency room is my turf from which you will not escape alive if you so much as break wind out of tune. Look at youâyou think this is tough, what you
gilapollas
have done to each other? Super-ficial scratches, that's all. I've been trained to take a man's entire insides out without him even knowing that I've done it, take them out in
handfuls
and heap them on the night-stand next to his bed, and if you don't behave yourself I promise I will do it to you.”
Julius opened his bruised and bloodied lips, but said nothing, and when Dean Garrett let go of his vest, he sullenly
beckoned the members of his own gang over to the far end of the emergency room, well away from their rivals.
“Kids,” said Dean. “That's all they are, kidsâand you have to treat them like kids.”
George said, “I don't know how you cope with it, Dean. Most of my patients are dear old ladies with purple hair, and
they
run me ragged.”
“It's simple,” said Dean. “You have to be ten times more scary than they are, that's all.”
“You are, believe me,” Frank told him. “What's a
gilapolla?
”
“A
gilapolla?
Roughly translated, a dickhead.”
Dean led them down to the last triage cubicle, farthest away from the doors. He dragged back the curtain and there lay a skinny young man of about nineteen or twenty, shaking and shivering, his T-shirt thick with glistening blood. The young man's hair was sticking up, and his eyes were flickering wildly from side to side. A big black emergency nurse was adjusting his saline drip, while a spotty blonde one was standing beside him with a stainless steel basin.
Almost as soon as they came into the cubicle, the young man sat up with a spastic jerk, and vomited blood into the basin. He retched, with strings of blood swinging from his chin, and then he dropped back onto the bed, still shivering.
The nurse was about to take the basin away, but Frank said, “Don't throw that away. Take that to Dr. Loman for analysis. We need a blood sample out of his veins, but we also need a sample of the blood that he's just vomited.”
“You think he might have been poisoned?” asked Dean.
“It's possible. But if he's anything like the young lady we're looking after upstairs, we need to check what type it is. The blood that
she
was vomiting wasn't her own.”
“You meanâJesus.”
“Frankly, Dean, I don't know what I mean.”
Frank approached the bed and leaned over it. The young man's eyes were wide open but his pupils were still darting around and he was muttering and twitching and occasionally he arched his back, as if he were being electrocuted.
“Listen to me, son,” said Frank, loudly. “Listen to meâdo you know where you are?”
The young man clutched at the sheets, obviously making an effort to control himself. “I'm ahâI'm
gah
â”
“Listen to me, try to concentrate. My name is Dr. Winter and you've been admitted to the Sisters of Jerusalem. Can you tell me your name?”
“I'm ahâI'm ahâ”
“Where was he picked up?” asked Frank.
“Port Authority. He was standing in line for a bus ticket when he collapsed.”
“Any ID?”
“Nothing. The paramedics said they couldn't find a wallet. Either he didn't have one, which seems unlikely, since he was waiting to buy a bus ticket; or else somebody lifted it while he was lying on the ground puking his guts up.”
“It's a happy world,” said Frank.
“Okay,” said Dean. “We'll run the usual tests and let you know the results
pronto
. But I just thought you ought to see him.”
“Sure.”
They heard shouting, and whooping, and clattering. The Blue Moros had started taunting the X-Skulls from opposite ends of the emergency room, and one of the X-Skulls had picked up a chair and was brandishing it in the air, as if he intended to throw it. Dean said, “Excuse me for a moment. I have some heads to crack.”
George checked his watch. “I have to go, too, Frank. Lunch with my tax lawyer.”
“Okay,” said Frank. “Let's talk later.”
Frank stayed beside the young man's bed for a little while longer. His face was even whiter than Susan Fireman's, and he seemed to be much more distressed. At least Susan Fireman had been reasonably coherent. It was difficult to tell if this young man even knew where he was, or what had happened to him.
“Iâcan't findâcan't findâ
gah
â” he gagged.
“You can't find what?” Frank asked him. “Your wallet? Is it your wallet you're worried about?”
“I can't findâwhere I have to
go
â”
“You were standing in line for a bus ticket. Do you know where you were intending to travel?”
“Got toâ
ucchh
â”
Frank took hold of his hand. “Listen, the best thing you can do is get some rest. We're running some lab tests, and once we've done that we'll have a clearer picture of what's wrong with you.”
“
Tatalâtatal nostru
â”
“What did you say?”
Frank looked up at the big black nurse, but all she could do was shrug. “Sounded like something to do with his nose,” she said. “Maybe he's having difficulty breathing.”
“
Tatal nostru
,” the young man repeated. His heart rate was jiggling excitedly up and down, while his blood pressure had started to sink like the
Titanic
. He spluttered, and then he coughed up more blood, and snatched at Frank's sleeve. “
Tatal nostru!
”
Frank turned to the nurse and said, “Epinephrine, and quick.” Then he turned back to the young man. “Listenâcan you hear me? Try not to get too stressed. Your whole system's had a serious shock, and you really need to stay calm.”
“
Tatal nostruâcarele este in ceruri
â” the young man panted.
“Don't try to talk,” Frank told him. “Breathe deeply and evenly, that's right, and relax.”
The young man stared at Frank wide-eyed. Bubbles of
blood were frothing at the corners of his mouth, and his chest was heaving up and down as if he had been running a marathon. “â
sfinteasca-se numele tauâvie imparatia tafaca-se voia ta
â”
“Please, don't try to talk,” Frank repeated. “You need to keep as quiet and as steady as you can.”
The nurse came back with a bottle of epinephrine and a hypodermic. Frank lifted up the young man's blood-crusted arm, wiped it with an antiseptic tissue, found a vein, and injected it.
“
Painea noastraâcea de toate dane-o astazi
â”
Frank waited. One minute passed, then two. At first he thought he might have made a mistake, and that the young man wasn't suffering from an anaphylactic seizure after all. But gradually the young man's heart began to beat more steadily, and his blood pressure began to climb, and he stopped panting for air.
All the same, his lips kept moving, as if he
had
to finish his recitation, no matter what.
“â
si nu ne duce pre noi in ispitaâci ne scapa de cel rau
â”
After a while, though, he stopped talking and his eyes closed. Frank peeled back his right eyelid with his thumb, and although his pupil was still darting wildly from side to side, he was clearly unconscious. Frank said to the nurse, “I need you to keep a real close watch on him, okay? It's possible that he may suffer another allergic episode when this wears off.”
Dean came back, looking harassed. “Sorry to leave you like that, Frank. How's he doing?”
“Anaphylaxis. He had a severe allergic reaction to something he's ingested or something he's touched.”
“He's okay now?”
“I gave him two milligrams of epinephrine.”
Dean bent over the young man, frowning. “These symptoms . . . I don't know. They don't seem relate to each other
in any logical way at all. There's something weird going on here.”
“You think? That isn't the half of it. He was talking in some foreign language.”
“Really? Which one?”
“Nothing that I've ever heard before. Middle-European maybe, but it wasn't Russian. I can recognize Russian, and it didn't have enough
zees
in it to be Polish.”