Outcome (6 page)

"I can't trust you," he said.

"You don't have a choice."

It was madness. Pure and simple madness. And if it had come from anyone else, he would have laughed in their face.

"If this is a trick, I'll crash the car," he said.

"No tricks," she said. "Grab your shoes."

He shrugged, stirring his hospital gown. "Took my clothes."

"You don't need clothes. You do need shoes." She made a face. "Be right back."

She left the door. Movement flickered behind the observation window. Ellie bent out of sight. She reemerged a minute later and returned to his room with a pair of laceless black shoes dangling from her hand.

"See if these fit," she said. "They just have to get you outside."

He frowned. "Where did you get these?"

"Does it matter?"

"Did you steal these from a dead man?"

"He's not dead." Ellie gestured at his feet. "Which means he could wake up any minute. You want to find your daughter? Sometimes you got to wear stolen shoes."

He sighed. Not because of the shoes, but at Ellie's display of toughness. She waved it around like a damn baseball bat. He knelt and slipped on the shoes. Without the laces, they weren't at all tight, but he could walk without getting too ducky.

"What's the plan?" he said.

She reached into her coat. "Walk out the front door."

"That's your big plan? Some training you got."

"You can stay here and cough to death if you prefer." She turned the knob and held the door open, waiting. A big part of Chip wanted to plop back down on the bed and tell her to go to hell, but a deeper part—the part of him that grabbed tight to the bad truths the rest of him rejected—that part made him step into the well-lit hall.

They took the elevator to the lobby. Chip had visions of angry questions from behind the counter, of Ellie engaging in a running gunfight followed by a car chase down Manhattan streets. He laughed lowly. A receptionist glanced up from the desk. Ellie was a pencil-pusher, not some lady Jason Bourne, a Jane Blonde. She walked swiftly across the linoleum, a cell phone held to her ear, repeating "uh huh" every couple seconds.

Past the front doors, a young soldier-looking kid opened his mouth as if to ask her a question, but Ellie strode on past. Chip followed a half step behind her, hands tucked behind his back to keep his gown closed and minimize the cold breeze blowing across his ass.

"Is that it?" he said.

"Quiet." Ellie led him across the street to a sedan. She clicked open the locks and tossed him the keys.

He snatched them mid-flight. "What's this?"

"Drive home," she said. "I've got to make some calls."

He got in behind the wheel, glancing at the unfamiliar arrangement of knobs and levers. "I don't even know where we are."

"Harlem. Drive." She punched numbers into her cell. "Stop if you see a car rental."

He turned the key. "What's wrong with this one?"

"It's bugged. By the people whose agent I just shot."

Chip stared across the car at her. She had the blank, impatient look of someone waiting on a ringing phone. He eased out into the road, gave a last look at the hospital, and headed to the expressway fringing the east rim of the island. Ellie swore and redialed. Chip merged into the flow of headlights. The car was your average-looking sedan, but the engine goosed with the slightest pressure on the gas. He drove two miles under the speed limit. Ellie made two more calls, neither of which were answered.

"What's up?" he said.

"Dereliction of duties," she said. "My fault. I told him to get out."

"Told who? The guy who was gonna tell you where Dee is?"

"Quit swerving," Ellie said through her teeth. "It doesn't matter. Let me try someone else."

Chip squinted at the white lines dividing lanes. Every glare of oncoming traffic threatened to overwhelm his sight. He felt fine, but the drugs must have dilated his eyes. He thought about asking Ellie if he could pull over and switch seats, but he had the instant vision of her temper flaring, of her yelling in his face, the lines at the corners of her mouth going as deep as cuts. Physically, he shrunk in his seat. Just like he'd done all those years ago.

He gazed across the car at her. "I got a problem with my eyes."

She adjusted the phone against her ear. "What's that?"

"They're boycotting bright light. Every time we pass a car the other way, I say a prayer to the saint of not dying in a fiery crash."

"I'm on the phone."

"I hope it's to the guy who does your will, that's all I'm saying."

She muttered something unkind. "Do you need me to drive?"

He shrugged. "I think it would be a lot safer."

Ellie swore again, clapping her cell closed and banging it against the glove box. "I'm not getting anyone. Sure. Pull over and we'll switch."

Chip nodded and exited at the next turnoff. He parked on the side of the street and they got out and changed seats.

"Remember your way around?" he said.

She yanked her door closed. "I come here several times a year."

"You do? I never seen you."

She gave him a look. "Would you have wanted to?"

Chip smiled crookedly. "Point."

Ellie flipped around and headed back to the highway. She set her cell in her lap, glancing down at its dark face every few seconds. She was willing it to ring, Chip knew. She had the focus of a border collie. Okay in situations like this, he'd admit, but not so okay when you lived with a person who honed in on every stray sock and dirty dish. It was a wonder they'd lasted as long as they did.

"Want to tell me what this is about?" he said.

She shifted her grip on the wheel. "A plague."

"Like
the
plague?"

"No," she said. "Worse."

He listened to the whoosh of their wheels. "Worse than the plague? What's worse than the plague?"

"That's just it. We don't know."

"Ebola?"

"It's not ebola."

"Smallpox?"

She grimaced, shaking her head. "This isn't twenty questions. We don't
know
, Chip."

He tucked his chin. "Then how do you know it's gonna be so bad?"

She rolled her lips, exposing her front teeth. He knew that look, too. It was the look she got when she was trying to outline a smart concept in dumb terms.

"The numbers," she said. "The infection rate is unheard of. It's like we've got no immunity at all. I haven't seen the RNA, but I'm guessing it's something completely new."

He pushed himself into the passenger door. "That would explain the mask and the gloves."

"For whatever good they'll do." She gestured at the glove box. "I've got more in there if you want some."

"Can't hurt." Feeling moderately foolish, he strapped a mask over his mouth and tugged a pair of tight, clingy gloves over his hands, flexing his fingers to smooth out the latex. "Are you guys working on a cure?"

Ellie checked over her shoulder, passed a dawdling Prius. "I'm sure. And I'm sure they've started about five years too late to make a difference."

The towers fronting the river grew taller. Chip pressed his face to the window and gazed at their glossy faces, imagining each lit window as a person, a family.

"What does it mean?" he said. "What do you think is going to happen?"

She exposed her upper teeth again. "I think some pockets of the world may come out intact. Places like Tibet. The Amazon. Siberia."

"I don't hear an 'America' in that list."

She snorted. "A month from now, there won't be an America left to worry about."

"So we're about to shake hands with the apocalypse. And you're the only one who knows about it."

"I'm the only one who's reading without bias."

He turned away from the highrises. "Bias?"

"Numbers can't speak for themselves. They can't tell you what they mean." Ellie switched lanes again, glaring death at an SUV as it wobbled across the white lines. "So you decide what they mean. There are people in government who've seen the same numbers I have. I'm sure some have reached the same conclusions. And then backed right off."

"Why would they back off? Isn't now the time to act?"

"In their own way, they're being very rational. If I'm right, the only solution—a worldwide, months-long quarantine—would mean a total collapse of its own. If being right means you're screwed, why not bet on being wrong?"

A prickle crawled across Chip's scalp. He wanted to chalk her predictions up to arrogance. Not that she was cocky—in fact, she could be almost disgustingly insecure—but she had a pride in her intellect, a surety that she was the smartest person in the room, that sometimes blinded her to the gaps in her thinking. God, fighting with her had been like trying to pull up a stump with his bare hands.

But he didn't think he was in the midst of wrestling a stump. Normally when she was so sure she was right, she was righteous, almost maliciously happy that the other party was so ignorant. This was the first time he could remember seeing her scared of her own convictions.

"I guess that answers all the questions but the big one," he said.

In the darkness of the car, she smiled thinly. "Why am I here?"

"I was thinking more why the
fuck
you're here."

"I would think the answer is self-evident."

"It's been—I don't even know how long it's been." He racked his memory. "Have we even spoken in the last three years? You left when, seven years ago? The world's all set to blow, and the first thing you do is fly to New York to grab
me
?"

Ellie went silent. Air rushed past the car. The lights of Brooklyn glimmered on the river.

"Well?" she said. "So what?"

He laughed. "So who says I even want to see you?"

"Do you want me to leave? I can drop you off and drive away."

It was Chip's turn to go quiet. Seeing her, arguing with her, it was bizarre, almost perverse. It had been six years, seven, some damn thing. Dee had grown so big. She'd gone through three different schools since Ellie had refused to be part of her life. Chip had more than a couple girlfriends over the same span, including one who'd lasted more than a year, a woman where he thought, hey, maybe this is my new thing. He and Ellie had now been apart for longer than they'd been together. More often than not, when he thought about her these days it was with a small blink of surprise, as if he were handling someone else's memories, the loves and worries of another life. When he did feel more, it was generally a deep and abiding anger shot through with embarrassment and regret.

But not always.

"We need to get Dee," he said. "Everything else we worry about later."

Ellie nodded, visibly relieved. Midtown's spires were replaced by downtown walkups.

"Tell me when you need directions," he said.

"I won't," she said.

"Why does that not surprise me."

She parked down the block and got a black satchel from the trunk. Cold air slipped beneath the flaps of his hospital gown. He thought about sending her up for his clothes and only then walking down the sidewalk to his apartment, but he knew she'd sneer. Well, whatever. The kind of people who'd be out at this time of night in this part of town often dressed far worse than his current state. He trotted along the sidewalk beside her, stolen shoes flapping from his heels.

He stopped at the door and reached for a pocket that wasn't there. "Shit. My keys."

"No worries." She pushed him out of the way and set to the locks with a bundle of spindly steel tools. She had the lock open before he knew the right way to reprimand her for this brazen criminality. He clomped up the stairs and she repeated the process on his own door.

"Glad I sprung for all these locks," he said.

She didn't look at him. "I'm sure it helps keep Dee safe."

Even so, he locked the doors behind him. As he dressed, he heard her fooling with her cell phone. Obsessed with the gadgets, that woman. He walked out, buttoning his top button.

"Okay," she said without looking up from her phone. "Let's go."

"What are you talking about?"

"We can't stay. We're going to a hotel."

"We can't just leave," he said. "What if Dee comes back?"

"Then she'll be intercepted by the federal agents who will be here within three hours."

"You don't know that. You don't get to come in here and tell me to leave my daughter behind."

"I do know that," she said, sharp as chipped porcelain. "I don't know where she's being held. My contact isn't answering and I don't have access to my usuals. We need to get somewhere safe so I can track down Dee."

His heart pounded. His patience curdled; he was having a hard time placing one thought after another. "So what if she does come back and gets picked up? How do we find her then?"

Ellie sighed through her teeth, reached into her bag, and retrieved a small black button. She held it up, pinched between two fingers. "I'll leave this inside the door. She comes home, we'll know about it."

"How long's the battery?"

"Long enough. Go pack. Enough for a few days."

Numbly, he rose, pulled his suitcase from the closet, and pulled together clean underwear, socks, his bathroom junk, his modified home first aid kit. Back in the living room, Ellie stood by the door twiddling with her cell.

"Well?" he said.

She glanced up from her phone, blinking, and nodded, as if the real world had just snapped back into place. She walked into the hall, hand drifting toward her waist. Chip considered locking the door—one of the locks could be set from the inside—but left it unlatched. All his stuff, his things, they didn't matter. Not if it meant Dee coming home and finding herself unable to get inside.

Ellie took the car to Penn Station, parked, and walked several blocks up 8th Ave to a hotel, where she booked a single room under a false name. On the whole, Chip had spent very little time in NYC hotels, but it looked exactly as he always imaged them: distinguished in an elderly way, but also dilapidated, with carpet worn shiny down the middle and patchy stains on the ceiling. The room was twelve floors up and looked down on 39th, which wasn't too busy at this time of night. Ellie got out her laptop and parked at the broad, scratch-scrabbled desk.