The Bum's Rush (18 page)

This query seemed to have the desired effect. Dr.
Jam mies immediately softened. "Well, Mr. Batista... at the moment--"
He started again. "As we speak--"

"You lost him, huh," I interrupted.

He showed me a palm. "Not lost, exactly." He
glanced from Parker to me and back. "Why don't you continue with your
duties, Parker," he said finally. "I'll--eh--have a few words with
Mr.--"

"Waterman," I prompted.

"Of course--yes, with Mr. Waterman."

Parker left slowly, sullenly, like an errant
schoolboy consigned to his room for the rest of the day. He gave me his
most terrifying stare as he boarded the elevator. I gave him a nice
little wave in return.

"Now. Mr. Waterman--I wouldn't have you getting the wrong impression."

"Oh?"

"This is a big hospital. Sometimes the lines of communication are not what they might be."

"You mean like when they cut the wrong leg off that guy a couple of months back?"

"Oh no." He checked the hall. "That was most
unfortunate. No, no. Nothing like that at all. I merely mean to suggest
that Mr. Batista is most likely just out for tests in some other
department, and somehow--you know, the lines of--"

"You don't know where he is, do you?"

"Well, perhaps not specifically, but "

"Then howzabout generally, or maybe cosmically?"

"Excuse me?"

I tried again. "Where's Ralph?"

He took a deep breath and held it. "I'm not sure,"
he said finally, exhaling. "We had some trouble the other day with a
bunch of hooligans showing up drunk to see Mr. Batista. We were forced
to remove them from the hospital. That's what Parker we're concerned
these" he searched for a word "people may have you know." He stopped.
"Security is looking for Mr. Batista right now. It's quite unlikely
that any of those same people could have gained entry. Our staff was
briefed. They all saw the security camera film. So you see, it's almost
surely a communications snafu. Mr. Batista will "

I let him off the hook. "Okay," I said. "I'll come
back later when this is all straightened out." He looked at me like I'd
just given him that sled he'd always wanted for Christmas. I turned on
my heel and started back toward the elevators. I stopped. His back was
to me.

"By the way," I said. He stopped and screwed his
neck my way. "What's the dirtiest, crappiest job in the hospital?" I
asked. He looked as blank as a melon. I tried again. "What's the job
with the biggest turnover? Where they constantly need new people?"

"Why, the laundry, I suppose. You know, with surgery and incontinence, all of that, it can be rather "

"Thanks," I said. "Where's the laundry?"

"In the basement. Basement two. All the way down."

I ambled back to the elevator. No basements listed.
The door began to close. I stuck my arm in, muscled open the doors, and
went looking for a nurses' station. Yes, as a matter of fact, there was a freight elevator. In
the back of the building. In the northwest corner. Over that way. Yes,
that was indeed how one got down to the laundry. Thanks a bunch. Adios.

The floor of the elevator car was rough scarred
wood like the bed of a boxcar. The walls were draped with heavy
olive-drab padding sheets hooked to brass eyelets. I pushed the button
marked B2. If the crew hadn't come in through any of the conventional
entrances and hadn't been spotted by anybody in all the time it took to
find Ralph and get him out of his room, then they must have had some
kind of inside help. If they knew anybody who worked in a hospital, in
all likelihood it wasn't a neurosurgeon. More likely it was somebody
whose parole officer had found them the job and dogged their ass into
showing up. The laundry was a good place to start.

I'd expected a great deal of sloshing and tumbling,
but instead the basement was strangely quiet. I followed the
black-and-white linoleum down a long hall lined with lockers and then
around the corner into a large central room. Huge silver commercial
washers and dryers, maybe twenty of each, lined two sides of the room,
their empty glass windows staring out like the portholes of some sunken
liner. A long white folding table ran the length of the center.

Surrounding the room were meshed-in storage areas
bursting with freshly washed linens piled floor to ceiling on gray
Erector set shelves. A small woman in a fresh white uniform walked out
of the nearest storage area. She stopped in her tracks. Her name tag
read Betty.

"Oh, you scared me," she said.

"Sorry," I offered. "Where is everybody?"

"A staff meeting, I think. I'm not sure. I don't work here." She wrinkled her nose and stepped around me.
"I'm helping out in obstetrics today. They told me that if the laundry
didn't answer the phone that they were probably all in a meeting and
I'd have to go down and get it myself." She patted a thick blue blanket
under her left arm. "Every Sunday, one to three. That's what they said."

"On a Sunday?"

"For the night and weekend people," she said as she
rustled around the comer. I listened until I heard the groan of the
elevator and then turned back to the room. Behind me, to the south, a
flight of concrete stairs followed a bright blue railing up to the exit
sign. Unless I was turned around, the door would lead out onto
Eighteenth Avenue, at the very back of the old wing.

I allowed myself a moment of pride. Not bad, I
thought. Considering how lubricated they all probably had to get before
attempting anything this audacious, the plan really wasn't half bad.
The Speaker keeping security occupied out front. The girls keeping
lookout and watching everybody's back. A staff meeting keeping the
laundry staff out of the way. For the boys, this was tantamount to
arranging peace in the Middle East. Not bad.

At the far end of the room, a ten-by-ten steel door
with a pull handle like an old-fashioned refrigerator occupied the
entire wall. It looked like a big walk-in freezer. For no better reason
than because I couldn't imagine why a laundry needed a freezer, I
headed that way. Grabbed the handle and pulled. The door began to open
but was suddenly jerked shut from the inside. I pulled again, harder
this time, and the door started to come open. I could hear shoes
sliding on the floor inside the door, fighting for traction. With a
final grunt, I gave it all I had and jerked it open. It banged hard
against the old steel radiator along the wall, sending a dull ring throughout the bowels of the building.

Ralph was still in bed. Sitting up. Oval eyed. A
bottle of Potters vodka clutched in his lap. Earlene and Mary peeked
out from over his shoulders. To my left, Billy Bob Fung was plastered
against the wall, shaking his hand. Out in the center of the room, two
masked figures in surgical gowns were rooting through a pair of huge
canvas laundry hampers.

"Holy shit," said Ralph.

I spoke to the nearest brain surgeon. The one with
the mismatched Nikes and the wet spot in the center of his mask where
he'd been drinking through it. "You want to explain this crock of shit
to me, George?" ii

"You're not gonna rat us out, are ya, Leo?" asked Ralph.

"George," I repeated.

He yanked down his surgical mask. "He's got no goddamned clothes. They burned his clothes. Said they were a health menace."

"A public health menace," Ralph corrected, after a quick pull on the bottle.

"Leo won't rat on us," Mary said without believing it.

George pointed to the piles of stained garments
Uttering the floor and covering his feet. "He can't wear any of this
shit. We won't get a block. This shit looks like somebody butchered an
elk on it."

He had a point. The garments on the floor looked
more like they belonged in a slaughterhouse than in a hospital. I
suspected they used this room to isolate surgical supplies from the
rest of the laundry.

"I don't believe you guys."

"We don't want to hear it," said Earlene.

"Yeah, stuff it," said Mary. 

"Don't you realize " I started.

Harold cut me off. "Oh yeah, Mr. High and Mighty gonna make a speech now," he slurred through his mask.

I opened my mouth to speak, thought better of it,
and closed it again. I checked my watch. Two thirty-three. Wouldn't be
that long. Meetings usually got out a bit early.

"I'm getting out of here," I said. "I don't give a
shit what you guys do. Just give me two minutes to get clear." I turned
and walked back through the door.

"He's got no goddamn clothes," George shouted at my
back. "We can't get him home with his ass hanging out. Goddamn it, Leo.
You gotta help us. Loan us your shirt."

"Oh no," I said. "I've got work to do and then a dinner date. You guys are on your own on this one."

"What are we gonna do?" Mary whined.

"Try the lockers," I suggested as I headed for the stairs.

"Are you listening to me, goddamn it?"

I rolled over and pulled the phone out from under the covers. "I'm listening," I said. Seven-fifteen a.m. Arrrrgh.

"Where the hell have you been, anyway? I called you all the way past midnight last night."

"Letha's cruising."

"Not the downtown bars, I trust."

"Alaska with her sister."

"How nice for you."

"I sure thought so, until just a few minutes ago."

"You get that goddamn bed back. You hear me? I
don't care how you do it. You find those maniacs and you return that
bed to Providence Hospital, or I swear to God it's going to appear on
your bill. You'll be working for me pro bono well into your dotage. Am
I making myself clear? You have any idea what a hospital bed costs?"

"I don't wanna know," I said.

"And speaking of your bill, what's going on with
that little matter I'm paying you for? Pleased as I am that your sex
life has taken an upturn, I thought maybe--"

"You're a bit cranky this morning," I ventured.

"Cranky? Me? Why would I be cranky? Just because I
had my dinner interrupted by an irate hospital administrator, who tells
me that someone who's there under my auspices --"

"Nice word, auspices."

"Shut up. Who's there under my auspices has broken out and taken a four-thousand-dollar hospital bed with him."

"Four-thousand?"

"On your bill."

"Jesus. I'll find them. Trust me. Consider it done."

"Trust you? I trusted you to find the Mendolson girl."

"We're making progress," I objected.

"Such as?"

"Such as she's not visiting anybody in northern Michigan."

"Your man is sure?"

"He's a good man. If he says she's not there, she's not there."

"Shit."

I'd tottered in about two-thirty this morning and
decided to check my E-mail before falling into bed. I had two messages.
The first was from Tim Miller. No go. The girl was not hiding out with
either her father or her brother. Ron was sure, which was good enough
for me. The second message read:

Date: Sun, 18 Feb 96 08:51:24 EST

From: "Kara L. Robinson"

Subject: Re: subscription

To: Leo Waterman

Hi,

To join DorothyL, follow the attached instructions EXACTLY!

1) send an email message to LISTSERV KENTVM.KENT.EDU

2) the text of that message should read ONLY:sub-scribe DorothyL

Leo Waterman

you will receive a message back from LISTSERV
asking you to confirm your subscription (this is to check your
address). To confirm, Replyto the message, with the only text being the
word ok (this will v be explained more clearly in the message from
LISTSERV)

Once your subscription has been added, you will
receive a copy of the user education/welcome memo. PLEASE read through
this memo carefully as it contains valuable information about DorothyL.
Also, please be aware that on DorothyL the ONLY email option is a daily
digest version. If you have any questions or problems, now or in the
future, please let me know.

Danger Mouse AKA Kara L. Robinson Co-Listowner: DorothyL

I followed the subscription directions, watched
slack jawed as the message went through, and then shuffled in to bed,
where I dreamed of lime green icebergs floating just above the surface
of bright blue waters until Jed roused me.

"Well, that about leaves our asses in the wind, now doesn't it?"

"Not quite," I said. "I'll hear from Paul today
about whether she's been using her credit cards or not. Maybe we'll get
something there."

"You think so?"

"No," I said. "But I've got another idea."

"What?"

I told him. When I finished, he said, "That's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. Investigation over. I'm calling the cops."

"Just give it till the end of the week," I pleaded. "If I don't find her by Friday--"

"You're out of your mind. It's from hanging out
with those lunatic friends of yours. You need to keep better company.
That's your problem, Leo. Are you nuts? You think I'm going to hold
back a police investigation for a week because you think this girl is
going to write in to some mystery fan Internet thing?"

"I can feel it in my bones. I just know it's gonna happen."

"If you'd spent more time pursuing the Mendolson
investigation instead of sticking your nose into this Lukkas Terry
thing, maybe we wouldn't be in this--"

"I'm telling you, Jed, this girl didn't have a hell
of a lot going on in her life. She's addicted to this thing. That's why
she took her computer with her. Desktop computers are not generally on
the list of stuff people take with them when they go into hiding. She's
hooked on it. Hell, I'm addicted to it. You gotta trust me on this,
Jed. All I've got to get her to do is send me a piece of E-mail and
I've got her."

"How's that?"

"I've got this piece of software that Carl gave me last summer called SuperFinder. It's like caller ID,
except it works for E-mail. It works its way back through the system
and finds the phone number that any message originated from."