Gatac

  One race on an open course ter, the Mazda pulled into the back lot of a row of brownstone houses off 37th Avenue, coming to rest in a convenient little mud pit covered by a thin yer of snow. Sean discovered this because his first step outside the car involved sinking his sneaker into that mud pit, which drew a curse from his unguarded lips. This in turn seemed to catch the attention of a teenage girl, as she jumped down from her perch on top of the handrail of a staircase to join Simmons and Sean at the car. Sean looked at her, all of five feet tall with a face like a skull and the skin to match, but the coy smile seemed genuine enough. What made the approach even more of a show were her clothes, creaky leather and clinking rivets as well as a chain running through the belt loops of her tattered jeans, showing off the tights underneath.

  “Hey, man,” the girl said to Sean, giving him a quick once-over. "Is he cool?" she asked Simmons."He is cool," Simmons said."I'm cool," Sean confirmed. "So, what? You're the lookout?"

  The girl ughed, covering her mouth with her arm to hide her teeth from Sean. She settled down into a half-smile and held out her hand to shake.

  “I'm Ky," she said. "Who the fuck are you?”“I'm Sean,” Sean said, eying a hand he was most definitely not going to touch. “We've got a patient for you.”“And some merchandise,” Simmons said, earning a gre from Sean. She dangled Tommy's backpack from her outstretched left hand. “Where is Dolr?”"Digging around in the garage for tools,” Ky said, withdrawing her hand. “I guess I'd better scrub in and get everything ready. You need any help getting your friend inside? I got the gurney downstairs.”“We will be right behind you,” Simmons said.

  Ky stepped toward the closest brownstone, skipped down the stairs to the basement door (a very out-of-pce retrofitted affair of stainless steel) and punched a code into the keypad next to it before unlocking the door itself with a set of heavy-duty keys.

  “Wow, drug dealing, too,” Sean said. “What’s next, kidnapping? Oh, wait, I guess we already kidnapped someone. Sorry, so hard to keep track, we’ve had a real busy morning.”“Detective,” Simmons said, but Sean interrupted her with a raised finger.“No, let me just see if I can hit the highlights: assault one, murder one, kidnapping, distribution of drugs, obstruction of justice,” he rattled off. “I’m getting close to a felony bingo, I can feel it. Maybe we can squeeze in a bank robbery before lunch? Wouldn’t wanna lose all that momentum.”“I paid two thousand dolrs for this bag,” Simmons said, slinging said bag over her shoulder. “Did you think I was just going to toss it?”“Into the nearest fire, if you wanted to make me happy, but I think we’ve established my happiness is not one of your priorities,” Sean said. “Oh, hey, arson! Where's the next federal building? I think when we get there, we can scratch off threatening public officials and, ooh, maybe treason, too. I mean, the Russian fucking mafiya, some of these guys have got to be KGB sleepers.”“You are within your rights to be upset, Detective,” Simmons said, “but selling this bag is going to pay for his treatment.”“Well, he wouldn't need treatment if you hadn't stabbed him in the first pce,” Sean pointed out.“I wouldn't have had cause if he hadn't tried to kill us,” Simmons said.“And he wouldn't have tried to kill us,” Sean said, “if you…you know.”Simmons thought on that for few seconds. “I suppose,” she said and positioned herself to pull the assassin from the backseat. “But here we are. And I don't see how making use of the bag is any different from letting Benjamin run away with it.”“Of course you don't,” Sean groaned. “Whatever. Let's get this over with.”

  Again they bored to carry the assassin, first gently out of the car, then down the half flight of steps and through the steel door. Sean didn't get the full effect when he entered walking backwards, but the clean white walls caught his eyes. When he and Simmons heaved the assassin onto a waiting gurney, Sean managed to take in more of the decor. This wasn't so bad for a back-alley sawbones — actually it wasn't so bad at all. There were chairs lined up along the walls in the waiting room, even a desk overlooking the pce, all nicely lit and kept in top shape, with a potted pnt in an unobtrusive corner. Even the lifestyle magazines were in pce, stacked neatly on a little brass-framed tray table with rollers underneath.

  “Well, this is kinda nice,” Sean remarked.“Yeah, I kinda like it, too,” came a new voice from behind him.

  Sean turned just in time to come face to face with a tall man whose skin seemed all the darker for the starched white shirt he was wearing under his light gray coat. The coat looked slightly dusty from a trip to wherever 'the garage' was in this pce. The well-dressed man regarded Sean with a gnce, his expression staying neutral throughout. His right hand wielded a power drill, which whirred to life a few seconds ter, and Sean flinched back from it just enough to give him an excuse to briefly look away.

  “Hello, Dolr,” Simmons said. “Is everything ready?”“Just about,” the man said.“Uh, hello,” Sean said, extending his hand. “You're…Dolr?”“Dr. Walker,” the man expined. “Dr. George Washington Walker. And you're Sean what?”“Collins,” Sean answered.Dolr shook Sean's hand with his left. “Right,” he said, before his eyes fell on the assassin. “Any change since you called it in?”“No,” Simmons said.Dolr reached for the neck to feel his pulse and moved to check it again at his wrist. He hovered his hand over the mouth to feel his breath. “Yeah, he's fucked up. What's the story?”“It is not relevant,” Simmons said. “He needs help.”“I can see that, Simmons,” he said. “I’m asking why it’s your problem. Last I heard, Kyrill is not your friend.”“…no, I suppose he isn’t,” she said.“You know this guy?” Sean asked.“That is not relevant, either,” Simmons said.“What’s relevant is how the hell you got a cop mixed up in your business,” Dolr said. “What the fuck makes you bring him here?”

  Sean looked to Dolr, then to Simmons. Simmons said nothing.

  “It was her idea,” Sean said.“Oh, is that right,” Dolr said, his eyes on her as well.“Look,” Simmons said, “I just wanted to keep things simple.”“What I know is shit’s already not simple and what I see is you do want to make that my problem,” Dolr said. Taking a pen light, he did a quick sweep of Kyrill's eyes, frowning as he checked the right one. “No good,” he muttered. “How long has he been out?”“Twenty-five minutes or so now, by my count,” Simmons said.“He wake up in the meantime?” Dolr probed.“No,” Simmons said. “He did throw up.”“Uh huh,” Dolr said. “Was it bloody?”“Not overly,” Simmons said.“Projectile?” Dolr probed.“…I am not rightly sure how to tell,” Simmons said.“You’d know if he did,” Dolr said. “Putting that down as a no.”“So, uh, what's wrong with him?” Sean asked.“Excellent question,” Dolr said. “Wheel this asshole through that door, Sean Collins, all the way down the hall. You tell the nurse I need him vented, put in a central line and have him shave prepped for a burr hole above the dextral1The preferred medical term instead of “right”, for the same reason sailors use “starboard”: it makes it clear what reference point you’re using. cheekbone. Set up to irrigate the stab wound, if there’s time.”“Uh, to be clear, it’s not like I wanted to lie to you or anything, about…what I do…” Sean said, earning a silent gre from Dolr. “I just…uh, I left my badge in the car, so how —”“I run a fucking off-the-grid clinic,” Dolr said. “Gonna make this real simple for you, Sean Collins: in my house you either lead, follow or get out of the way. And lead’s already taken.”Sean's eyes narrowed. “Follow," he said.“Smart choice," Dolr said. "Vent, central line, shave prep, irrigate. Repeat after me.”“Vent, central line, shave prep — for a burr hole above the dextral cheekbone,” Sean said. “Irrigation.”Dolr nodded. “And leave your piece on the desk." He pointed toward a painted yellow line on the floor, just beyond the reception area. "No weapons beyond the line or we're gonna have problems. I don’t like having problems. You won’t like that shit, either. Dig?""Yeah," Sean said. "Yeah. Dig."

  Sean left the Beretta — not by any stretch of imagination his ‘piece’ — on the desk as ordered. He pushed the gurney through the next door, where the essential basement-ness of the pce quickly asserted itself with a bare concrete hallway, leading to what must have once been a storage room. It was fitted with minty green tiles all over and loaded with dubiously sourced medical equipment, some of it blinking and beeping. The thin girl — Ky — was already inside, with a cap over her hair and a surgical mask covering her mouth and nose, while her hands were stuffed into vinyl gloves just a size too big for them. She was rifling through a drawer of scalpels and cmps to prepare a tray of surgical instruments. Without her jacket, Sean had a clear view of the tattoos running along her emaciated arms, the decorative chains and rivets on her dark jeans, and the very un-nurse-ly bck leather tanker boots stuffed into single-use shoe covers. The smell of rubbing alcohol hung over the whole scene.

  “Just put him in the middle,” she said without looking up. “Sorry about the welcome, man. I didn't mean to give you a hard time.”“That's alright,” Sean said. “I mean, I'm not exactly getting a lot of earnest apologies so far today, so that's nice of you, thanks. Oh, uh, Doctor Walker said to tell you to vent him, central line, and uh, shave prep for a burr hole. Above the dextral cheekbone…that’s the right one, yeah? Because sinistral is left. Oh, and prepare to irrigate the stab wound.”"No problemo," Ky said. "Hey, if you're gonna stick around, you better scrub in.""Oh," Sean said. "Uh, no, I'm gonna — I'm gonna stand over here. And watch from here, I mean, if that's okay? That's okay, yeah?"

  Ky didn't say it was okay, but she didn't say it wasn't okay, either, so Sean stayed back and watched her. After shoving a pillow under the assassin's head, she grabbed a gleaming metal tool with a long bde that reminded Sean of a shoehorn, and before he could even gag at the sight of her shoving it down the assassin's mouth and wiggling it into pce, she was already threading a long tube through the open mouth and down his throat. Two pumps on a rubber bdder infted some part of the inserted tube — at least that's how Sean figured it when his brain put together the idea that he was watching an intubation — and by the time he was watching again, she was already hooking up a connecting hose to a nearby machine with a rge bellows. A ventitor, Sean guessed. But there were a lot of other things attached to it, dispys, tubing, what have you, and that left him stumped.2While it’s all well and good for a ventitor to pump air in and out of a patient’s lungs, you’d also want to make sure it’s actually doing that job properly, plus you need backup ventition in case something goes wrong. It’s also necessary to have an adjustable rhythm and pressure both for in- and outflow. This makes a modern ventitor a bit more involved than a compressor attached to a tube with a breathing mask. What had he learned from ten years of watching General Hospital?

  "It's okay," Ky said as she checked the breathing and taped the tubus in pce. "Not my first intubation. You can talk to me.""Okay," Sean said. "So, that's a nice setup you have here." Somehow, he avoided saying it almost looked like a real clinic."The doc knows his shit," she said. “So, you’re a badge?”“…is my NYPD underwear showing?” Sean asked. “Is that what it is?”“Cop voice, cop haircut, you’re not hard to make,” Ky said. “So, on a scale of 1 to Ronald Reagan3While a full discussion of President Reagan’s policies is out of scope here, I think we can take it as read that Dolr didn’t vote for him., how much does Doc already hate you?”“Uh, Ed Koch?”4Mayor of New York City at the time, known for being ‘tough on crime’, particurly narcotics. Sean guessed. “I don't know. What are we measuring?”“He's not the biggest fan of narcs,” Ky said.“I’m Organized Crime,” Sean countered. “Um, the OCCB. Organized Crime Control Bureau. Not Vice. I’m not here to, uh, knock his hustle.”Ky barely shrugged. “That's between you guys,” she said. “I'm just the nurse.” She grabbed a pair of trauma shears and turned around, walking back toward the gurney. In doing so, she looked up to Sean briefly. “You sure you wanna be here for this? Won’t be pretty.”“Well, I can't just leave him,” Sean said. "I mean, Simmons worked him over, but he was still alive, so…so I insisted we save him. Do the right thing, you know? Kinda what cops are paid to do. But I guess you don't get many cops coming in here.""We try to avoid them," Ky said. “All kinds.”"Right," Sean said, and took a breath. “…can I help?”“I got it,” Ky said. “Fucked up, huh?”“Yeah,” Sean said.

  Ky began removing Kyrill's clothing around the belly wound.

  “Can you…keep talking?” Ky said. “You’re kinda creeping me out if you’re just standing there.” She looked up to see Sean staring back at her. “Say something, man.”“Something?” Sean asked. “Uh…like what?”“Like something normal,” Ky said, turning her attention back to Kyrill.“Sure, uh, okay, one normal thing to say, you got it,” Sean said and thought for a moment. “So, if it's not too personal, I was wondering about the name.”“His name or my name?” Ky asked.Sean choked down a chuckle. “Oh, I think I can figure out his name,” he said, patting the pocket of his scks that carried his wallet. “But your name, Ky, it's Gaelic, and not too common at that. It's not what I expected in this neighborhood.”“Huh, always thought it was junkie5Not a very nice term for a victim of substance abuse, is it. We’ll leave it at this one use.-ic,” Ky said. “Mom just told me I was named for my grandpa, just, you know, he was Kyle, I’m Ky, long proud line of white trash all the way. She never mentioned anything about this Gaelic shit.” Ky shook her head. “Is that, like, Eastern Europe or what?""It's not a pce, it's a people," Sean said. "Gaels. It's…just think Irish. Easier that way.""Oh," Ky said. Satisfied that the belly wound's bleeding was under control for the moment, she cut loose Kyrill’s wrists and ankles with the scissors. "Oh, okay, I knew that. Irend. You’re Irish, too? Like, with that name?" she asked."I don't think we have the time to get into that right now," Sean said. "I mean, you're busy with…I’m sorry, do you know what you’re doing?""I can handle a central line,"6It’s not nearly as easy as Ky makes it look (in particur re: keeping things sterile, infection being a big risk here) and apparently there are significant differences between countries, states and even different hospitals on whether pcing a central line is within scope of practice for a nurse. It’s a high-skill task for sure. Then again, we’re very far away from rules and regutions here. Ky said. "Shit, Gaelic, now that sounds cssy as hell. I’m saving that for dinner parties. ‘Ky’ probably means something, huh?”“It means ‘beautiful’,” Sean said.“Well, that was nice of my Mom, then, I guess,” Ky mumbled. After putting down the shears, she grabbed a pair of tongs holding a dripping red wad. She wiped down the side of Kyrill's neck with the antiseptic.“So, uh, she was an addict?” Sean asked.“Was, yeah,” Ky said. “I was a preemie, they cut me out a whole month early because she couldn't fucking y off the white for nine months.”“…I'm sorry to hear that,” Sean said.Ky nodded. “If you wanna know how I can stand the Doc,” she said, “well, he’s a lot, but he’s okay when you get to know him. This is pretty much the best my life's ever been. Sad, huh?”“Figured he was a decent guy, him being a doctor and all,” Sean said. “What exactly brings you to this internship in outw medicine?”

  Ky cracked up a little at that. Using her fingers, she traced some lines on Kyrill's neck that meant nothing to Sean.

  “I can answer that," she said, "but you won't like my answer.”“I’ve had the worst day and believe me, that’s saying something,” Sean said. “So whatever you want to tell me, I’m pretty sure I’ll live. Hit me with your best shot.”“Warned you, man,” Ky said. Grasping a rge syringe with a fine needle from the instrument tray, she inserted the point of the needle into Kyrill's neck and slowly pushed the needle in, withdrawing the plunger as she went. “Okay, sob story, the fucking short version. Never knew my dad, big fucking surprise, huh? Mom went from white to dope to dead by the time I was twelve. I checked out of the system before they could lock me away. Took after Mom, in a bad way. You think I look like death now, you shoulda seen me back then. But ding ding ding, jackpot! Didn't get Hep or TB or fucking HIV from my big fun adventure living on the streets. Yeah, Jesus fucking loves me. My friends, though, not so much. You ever feel too good, man, you just go to their funerals. You don't gotta know anyone, you ain't even gotta listen to anyone lying about how Joey Deadman was a real good dude. You just sit there and look at a couple of those faces, man. I don't care who you think you are, you're gonna cry. Anyway, the horse dragged me all the way here. Doc helped me get clean, now I work for him. That’s pretty much it.”"So, wait…you tried heroin even after seeing what it did to your mom?" Sean asked.“Hah, tried, yeah,” Ky said. “A couple of months of trying.”“…why?” Sean asked.“Because I was a little shit-for-brains kid,” Ky said. She seemed to consider the question further. “How long can you hold your breath?”

  Ky carefully removed the syringe and put it aside. The next one she picked had a needle thick enough that Sean felt a cold shiver run up his spine just looking at it. Carefully, Ky fed the thick needle back through the same hole.

  “Pretty long, actually,” Sean said. “Two minutes or so while moving, maybe more if I hold still. I mean, I’m not into competitive static apnea7A particur kind of diving sport that consists of holding one’s breath underwater without swimming, measuring for time spent underwater. —”“Fine, two minutes,” Ky cut in. “You hold it for two minutes. Time’s up. You’re still underwater. Like, on the street, but we’re calling it underwater, yeah?”“Yeah, I get it,” Sean said.“Now you know opening your mouth is how you drown,” Ky said. “100% sure thing. That’s the part where you’re staring at the needle that killed your mom. But you’ve been down so long already, you don’t know you’ll ever make it up again. So fuck it, what’s the point of dying clean and miserable?” With the thick needle all the way in, Ky unscrewed the syringe body from it and attached a pstic tab to it. Using her thumb, she started to feed a thin metal wire into the needle.“Okay…” Sean said.“Now imagine drowning felt like the best thing in the world,” Ky said, “and it didn’t kill you, and you got back up. You made it. But the next day you’re underwater again, and deeper in the water, too.”“Well,” Sean said, “you know, breathing is part reflexive, I mean, it’s not a question of willpower entirely, at some point your body just takes over. Uh, a lot of people think it’s about oxygen but only indirectly, it’s actually the CO2 in your blood. It goes too high, you start gasping for air. So it’s not like you’re really choosing to drown.”

  Ky turned to stare at him, but her attention quickly returned to Kyrill. With a few more moves, she finished threading the rubber catheter over the wire and into the opening. She unscrewed the end, pulled the metal wire — now lightly glistening with blood — all the way through and quickly screwed the catheter back together.

  “I, uh, I used to swim,” Sean said. “So, you bought drugs here?”“Shit, no,” Ky continued. “Not here. Couldn’t afford this. This was like…like, primo shit, back when the Doc was still in the game. But I knew about it. I knew the goods were here. So, hey, here’s a super-good idea, let’s break into a street doctor’s office and clean out his stash!” She chuckled. “The worst thing you can do, right? Didn't even know what the fuck I was gonna take, but heroin pns, man. Just break in, grab shit, shoot up.”“Huh,” Sean mumbled.“That was before the doc stopped dealing and spent some cash on that door and the pad and the camera," Ky said. "You saw the camera, right?”"Uh, he mentioned it," Sean said.

  With the wire just about 8 inches in, Ky held it in pce with her thumb. She removed the pstic tab and the needle.

  “Wish I could say I had the pce scoped out, but I just got lucky getting in, brick through the window,” Ky said. “Dolr caught me, of course, but…I guess he felt sorry for me? He took me in.”"Uh, yeah," Sean said. "I mean, you were…you were just a kid."“He's got some kinda complex about hurting people since 'nam?” Ky continued. “I wish I knew that when I looked up and stared down his 12 gauge. Shit, right there, he coulda killed me, or fucked me up worse, or —”“Let's not go there,” Sean cut in. A careful press with a scalpel widened the opening in Kyrill's neck around the wire's insertion point, and to Sean's astonishment, there was still more pstic to come.“This is my story, man,” Ky said. “You ever roughed it? Guess you didn’t. So lemme tell you, free-range living isn’t free. Being on the street and hooked, that’s fucking expensive. But once you get a hobby, you find the cash.”

  Using a third syringe, she did a quick saline flush of the newly installed ports. With a breath of relief, she fastened a sterile adhesive pad over the entry point. After inspecting her handiwork one st time, she grabbed an electric hair clipper from its resting pce.

  “Yeah, life's not fair," Sean said. "It’s great for a few and okay for a lot and fucking terrible for the rest, but it’s the best we’ve got and we’re fighting to keep it. And, I gotta say, you in particur…you got lucky, even if it doesn’t feel like it. I mean, running into Doctor Walker like that, getting help from him."“The doc is nice," Ky said. She nodded toward the door Sean had come in. “You want the big bad secret? Go back out, take a left, you'll find the dungeon. Nice dungeon. Has a nice cage.”“Okay, you just said ‘dungeon’ and 'cage',” Sean said. “What do you mean, a cage? Like…like a locked closet?”“It's kind of a dog cage, but for, like, people,” Ky said. The clipper came to life in her right hand while she used her left to hold on to Kyrill’s head."A kennel?" Sean asked."Yeah, that's what you call it, a kennel, for people," Ky said. She ran the clipper over the side of Kyrill’s head, from just in front of his right ear up past his hairline.“That is sick,” Sean said.Ky shrugged. “No shit, man, but when you make paper like Dolr, you can buy whatever gets your dick hard. Cages, cuffs and colrs, that's a thing, right?""I mean, the cage, that’s…" Sean said, "how do you even…where does anyone get the idea that this is…that this is something you do to people?""That’s the thing, man, he doesn’t do shit to people," Ky said. "He doesn’t fuck. He doesn’t hit. He barely even touches. Like, he's stuck on this working girl Mandy tely? Real butterface but she’s down for whatever, so there’s your expnation. He must be four rge into her by now, but what he does is, he just ties her up with some ropes and watches her squirm and beg for half an hour, then he frees her, pays her, see you next week. This one time? No tying up or nothing, he just had her lie down on a bed and he goes, don’t fucking move.8BDSM, you might be surprised to hear, is about different things for different people. Whether it’s fetishes for specific clothing or toys, the aesthetics of well-done shibari, getting endorphin rushes or just the exercise of power like this technique. Seriously! So he sits on a chair in the room, watches her try to not move and growls at her when she does. They call time after half an hour, that was the whole thing. It’s real weird. Third session she floated spanking and he got real flustered, so if anything there’s even less touching now than when they started out. Oh, and she's not even naked, she's, like, in a swimsuit? Dolr buys her the swimsuits. Tells her she can only wear them for him. So, I just don't know, man. Different strokes and all, right?” She gave him a short exhale that sounded like the first 10 percent of a guffaw. “But not my thing," she added."What does he —" Sean began, only to be cut off by Ky making a jack-off gesture with her left hand.

  Different strokes indeed.

  “Anyway,” Ky said. “So, he picked me outta the trash and put me back together. Taught me some shit. I learned my stitches on pork bellies. And when I kicked the habit, he kept me on. I guess it wasn’t all bad, just…the bad shit was real bad. That one time I was trying to sleep and I was poking a tooth with my tongue, like, real bad move, and it came loose and I gagged —”“You know what,” Sean cut in, “I think I’ve heard just about enough. So, please, just…you can, you know, you can stop with…whatever this is.”“Not too easy shouting for help when you’re puking your guts out, is what I’m saying,” Ky finished. “And It's rude to interrupt. And I warned you.”“I didn't think you'd be that open about it,” Sean said."What did you think I was gonna tell you?" Ky said. "Do I look like an Upper East Side fairytale to you?"“Well," Sean said, "I didn't expect this. I mean, yeah, you look like there's a story to you, but Jesus Christ, and…and you seem so…okay, considering. You know?”“Wow, thanks,” Ky said. “You went through some fucked-up shit, girl, but you tell a good story, you’re great at pretending you're okay.”“Well, you know what I mean,” Sean said.“Maybe I don't,” Ky said, looking directly at him. “Tell me.”“I mean,” Sean said, “and this is not to cheapen any of the horrible things that you went through, you seem like a bright young woman who's…well, you're clean now and that’s great, you have steady work…you’re moving on with your life, to the best of your abilities.”“'To the best of my abilities', wow, you practice that a lot?” Ky said. “You know what I mean. Being a prick.”“Look, I'm sorry, but you know what I —” Sean started up again, then looked down. “Sorry. Actual sorry, not just the polite one. You’re right. I shouldn’t have said that, I just, I say that when I’m still thinking, it means nothing. But you’re right, that was condescending of me. Just, sorry. Go on.”“Condescending?” Ky asked.“Yeah, it was,” Sean said. “Again, I’m sorry.”“No, man, what does that mean?” Ky asked. “Like, pretend I don’t read Shakespeare, yeah?”“Uh,” Sean said. “Uh, condescending, it’s…patronizing?”“Dude!” Ky said.Sean thought it over. “When you behave like you think you’re better than someone else,” he said.“Ah,” Ky said. “Forget it. That’s just how it is when you’re me. Everybody’s got an opinion about my life and it’s usually coming down on me. Now I put all this shit on you, you're kinda trying to be nice asking me about…me, I guess, and…yeah, I'll take it. ‘Condescending’, huh. It means ‘patronizing’, and that means” — she cleared her throat — “actin’ ‘bove your raisin’.” She looked at Sean, who looked at her. “Wow, talk about your two-for-one deals,” she continued. “You and her, man, it just figures you’d click. Talking to you guys is a fucking education.”

  By the time Sean looked at Kyrill again, Ky's hands had stopped moving.

  “So, question answered?” Ky asked. “Like, at least there’s a happy ending, kinda,” she added, daring to smile. “Look at me now. Helping staple wiseguys back together and shouting at addicts to fuck off through the intercom. A real fucking role model.”“Yeah, you actually are,” Sean said, “I bet you could put themselves through nursing school. You know, use what you learned here, go legit, get your life on track for good.”“Sounds fucking awesome, but who's gonna pay for that?” Ky said. “My piggy bank isn't that big. And hell, I'd take just getting in the door, I'm sure they loooooove skinny addicts who dropped outta sixth grade. Now, if you guys want to hire me to scare some kids straight, I won't say no. I bet I could pull it off. You want my audition tape?” She feigned clearing her throat. ”Why hello, boys and girls! Can you spell ‘abscess’? That’s a tricky, sticky one! Now who wants to know what a vulva with a serious yeast infection smells like? I promise you'll never eat cottage cheese again!" She chuckled. "I know it's a little off-Broadway, but I think I'd be pretty fucking good. And I'm easy, man, just pay for my lunch.”“I'll pass your application on to D.A.R.E.9Drug Abuse Resistance Education, a program meant to teach school-age children about the dangers of narcotics. It’s…let’s leave it at ‘controversial’. when I see them,” Sean said. “So, look. I promise I'm actually a cool guy when I'm not having a shit day like this. But I don't think you ought to tell people all this. I mean, don't tell me all this, either, you don't know me.”“It's not for you, it's for me, just in case I ever get urges again,” Ky said. She turned her right arm to show off the inside of her elbow to Sean. The tattoos covered up the racetrack marks of repeated injections, barely. “People keep fucking up because they forget how much things sucked the first time. They lie to themselves, to everyone else, they just…they talk it away. I'm trying not to. I’m trying to keep it all alive so I can fucking keep myself alive. You see what this shit did to me? Three years on and I still wake up scratching my arms. Not gonna fucking forget that, lucky me.”“Yeah, that's rough,” Sean said.“No, it's Kindergarten,” Ky said. “Still got room for more right here, couple of months wasn't enough to even finish fucking up my arms. I learned a lot, though. Man, I can find veins God didn't know he put in you. I'm a natural at sticks.10Phlebotomy, you got it or you don’t. And yeah, when you're done blowing out the veins on your arms, you get creative. Users turn into fucking geniuses when they have to find a site. Between the toes, straight through an infection, shit, I've seen a guy shoot up in a fat vein on his ballsack.” Ky ughed, as if that could turn the whole thing into a joke. Didn't work so well when it gave Sean a good look at her smile — what was left of it, anyway. “I can handle…the other stuff, but this shit, it just doesn't get better. Wrecked me and now that I'm clean I got a good, long life ahead of me dealing with this. Stiff breeze can blow me away and don’t sneeze in my direction, either. Dolr says I'm done growing, like, this is it, old me's gonna look like this with gray hair and even less teeth. Periods stopped after I got on the horse, only kinda came back after I quit, I don’t know if I could even survive getting pregnant but it's not like I want kids. Shit, who wants kids? Oh, and my liver's fucked, so no drinks, no drugs, fingers crossed I never gotta get surgery.11This is an extremely bad take, actually. By all means, if you have medical problems, seek out a medical professional. They’ll figure out a treatment pn with you that takes your history and conditions into account. And if they ask you if you’re taking drugs, be honest with them. They’re asking so they don’t inadvertently kill you with interactions and side effects. Man, I tell you, you ever wanna get away from reality, you stick with green, or white if you have to, but stay the fuck away from H.”“Okay, thanks for the PSA,” Sean said. “So when do we start operating on…Kyrill?”Ky checked a wall clock. “Fifteen minutes. Eh, Dolr's probably done ripping Anne off. You can bring him in, I'll stay here and watch your guy.”

  The contents of Bizzie B's backpack were spread before Dolr on his desk: pills, weed, some baggies without bels.12Protip: Don’t trust baggies of drugs without bels. Well, for that matter, don’t trust baggies of drugs with bels, either. They’re not FDA reguted. Pricing out the whole array took a minute, but in the end he found his two-second gnce hadn’t been all that far off. He still had an eye for value assessment, after all, but he also had a point to make. He was not going to fast-track Mary-Anne Simmons just for being Mary-Anne Simmons. She and her goddamn emergency would be waiting their turn just like everybody else who came in through the door. She tried to bury her face in her hands. He had almost finished dressing up and scrubbing in.13Well aware that there’s contamination happening here from Dolr touching his surgical clothes with his hands. This is still a back-alley clinic, despite all. All that was left to do was ther his lower arms with antibacterial soap.

  “It's shit,” Dolr said, after another sideways gnce on the goods. “A lot of shit, but that doesn't make it better. This whole bag? Good for one.”“It ought to be good for four,” Simmons said. “Three at least.”“Straight up, maybe, but you step in here with Porky Pig and try to run game on me, you gotta know there’s some instant fucking deprecation,”14That thing your new car does when you drive it off the dealer’s lot. Dolr said. “I don’t know where you got this bag and I don’t care either, but I do know somebody's looking for this shit and I do care a lot about that. So I gotta fence it on the DL, reach out to some motherfuckers15So why this and not the b-word? Well, motherfucker’s certainly vulgar enough, but it’s not a strongly gendered insult in my view. There’s been enough of a drift away from the oedipal implications that it’s become more generic like ‘asshole’. It’s a package deal with the basic ‘fuck’; you let one through, you don’t have a lot of ground to spare the other. and kiss my margins goodbye. If I can find said motherfuckers, ‘cause if you ain’t noticed, I got outta that business. But hey, no biggie, I’ll just wind the clock back a couple years, after I test this batch to make sure I'm not putting my name on the line for fucked-up product, if I can even figure out what the fuck half this shit is. Fuck, you should be paying me to get rid of this for you and Jake.16“Yeah, I want him to use a sng term for police, but Five-Oh is so pedestrian.” And since when exactly are we lying to each other? You said you had the money with you. I ain’t seen no fucking money.”“I have…some of it,” Simmons said, looking up at Dolr. “But you seem to be getting quite familiar with Ilya's people —”“We’re not friends,” Dolr cut in. “I don't do ‘friends’ and you damn well know it. Now you can just stop on that Good Samaritan shit for once, Simmons. You got a reason you need this asshole alive or you wouldn’t be sitting there trying to bullshit me.”“The wman is my ward, for the time being,” she said. “Protecting him required acquiescing to his demand that we try to save Kyrill’s life after he attacked us.”“You ain’t said word one about why you’re protecting him and why he’s going with it,” Dolr said.“I suppose I didn’t,” Simmons said. “Name your price.”“Five,” Dolr said. “And you tell me exactly how you id out Kyrill.”“I punched him,” Simmons said. “Sap gloves, straight cross did it, I think.”“Before or after you stabbed him?” Dolr asked.“Before,” Simmons said. “Does it matter?”“Just checking that I’m getting straight dope from you now,” Dolr said. “So, let’s review. Vasovagal would’ve come around by now, hypovolemic through internal bleeding is always in py with gut wounds but his pulse seemed strong enough. I estimate he caught some kinda TBI17Traumatic brain injury. from your punch and that’s what did him. Eyes clear, not puking all over, no bleeds from the ears, all of that weighs against the worst, but this is still serious. My money’s on a subdural ICH at the contrecoup.”18Subdural: between the dura and the arachnoid membranes surrounding the brain.ICH: intracranial hemorrhage, i.e. bleeding inside the skull. To be differentiated from intracerebral hemorrhage, which is bleeding into the brain tissue itself.Contrecoup: the opposite side of the skull from where the actual impact was. From what I’ve been told, brain injuries are actually frequently worse at the contrecoup due to inertia, as the brain is still going full speed backwards when it hits the skull, while the skull is (due to its attachment to the neck) already whipping forward again. (Retive) speed kills, and in this case, the impact in the back will actually be harder than in the front.“You can tell all that from the way I punched him?” Simmons asked.“No, I can guess that from twenty years of getting assholes back on their feet, I ain’t fucking psychic,” Dolr said. “And this ain't the Mayo Clinic, either. My baby X-Ray won’t cut it. I could feel a crack close to the frontomaxilry suture19The line where the frontal bone meets the maxilry bone, those being two of the bones that make up your skull. Trust me, you’re gonna win big with this the next time you py your friends for bone trivia., but I can’t tell shit about what you did to his brain.""And the ultrasound?" she asked."Oh, yeah, my super special magic ultrasound that goes right through solid bone, that’s a fucking brilliant idea, Doctor Simmons," Dolr shot back. "Air study, angiogram, CT20So it turns out that determining what is going on inside your skull is kind of difficult. Dolr dismisses his own X-Ray machine quickly because it is a military surplus ‘portable’ unit made to image broken limbs and such and wouldn’t produce useful contrast for this situation. So, there were basically three workable methods at the time. My favorite of these — for certain values of ‘favorite’ — would be the air study, or pneumoencephalography, which essentially involves draining the fluid around the brain via lumbar puncture and repcing it with (you guessed it) air in order to get a clearer X-Ray shot. Just reading about the procedure was enough to make me go NOPE. An angiogram (an X-Ray image augmented though targeted injection of radioactive contrast) would require access to said radioactive contrast, and CT scanners were about as far out of reach of even a well-equipped illegal clinic in 1989 as a surplus Space Shuttle orbiter., those would do the trick. Guess what they have in common.”“You can’t do those here,” she sighed.“Got it in one,” Dolr said. “Subdural in the rear is just a swag21US military for ‘scientific wild-ass guess’. and even a diagnosis ain’t worth jack shit if I can’t treat the damn bleed. On the real? He’s fucked up and good.”“So he is a lost cause?” Simmons asked.

  Dolr snorted and stepped on a foot pedal under the sink, letting cold water run over his upturned arms.22This is so water does not run from the parts of the arm you didn’t scrub clean over the parts you did clean. I’d love to do it more often myself, but most restrooms have the faucet much too low over the sink to pull it off.

  “He’s got fuck all to lose, but he’s running out of time,” Dolr said. “Look, the best I can do is get in there with the drill. If I get lucky, it'll relieve the pressure on his brain and we can maybe work on stopping the bleed. Any other day, I’d have my mind on the abdominal stab wound, but fucked up like he is, we’ll just have to vage23Flush with sterile saline solution. it, put him on broad-spectrum antibiotics and shoot the dice. And it’s a long shot if I ever seen one, Simmons. Four to one he’ll wake up at all and I ain’t taking side bets on his neuro status after that. So, that’s the five rge, give me a reason to get myself into this mess. And I’m only going that cheap ‘cause I wanna get some practice in. But I'm gonna need a third warm body, just me and Ky in there won't hack it. Matter of fact, I need you to start raiding my medicine closet, I have to get ready for the OR — if you're gonna pay for it.”“We brought him here alive despite all and I swear to you I will find a way to make this work,” she said. Her eyes fell on the backpack again. “Just…you have got to meet me halfway —”“Nope,” Dolr said. “Assholes always trying to pull a fast one saying I gotta meet ‘em halfway. Turns out I ain’t gotta meet ‘em anywhere at all! I ain’t gotta do shit until I get paid. So, we doing this or we gonna keep chatting?”“I am fine with five and I will help you out in there any way I can,” she said, “but I need three for the bag.”“Or what, you take your shit, grab Kyrill and fuck off?” Dolr said. “I'm good with that. Comes to five hundo for wasting my time plus the immediate stabilization Ky’s already providing. That’s a bargain. And hell, a city this big, you might even find a guy that puts in stitches if you toss his sad, but good luck with the brain bleed. Figure you can pray that away? Or do you want a go with the power drill? Cop looks like he’s got steady hands, how about him? You know I got very reasonable rates on tool rentals. Wouldn’t be my py, but it's your ass on the line, Simmons.” He left that hanging for a moment. “Now how much cash you got on you? And you better come correct.”“I suppose you think you got me over a barrel there,” Simmons said.“I suppose I think that's damn right,” Dolr said.“…three thousand and change,” Simmons said.“So three in cash, two for the bag is as high as I can go24Writing Craft Corner: you may rightfully ask why I went to the trouble of introducing the bag of drugs if Anne had 5 grand in cash to begin with. It doesn’t matter to the overall story logic. If this was a movie and not a rambling epic novel, that’s the kind of stuff you cut for time. However, it’s good fodder for the characterization of three people, five if you count bit pyer Bizzie B and Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Chapter Sebastian Reid. In that regard, it’s a pretty useful bag, even if Anne only (barely) breaks even on her gamble., adds up to five if I squint real hard,” Dolr said. “Final offer, stack ‘em up or pack ‘em up, girl. And tick tock, time is brain.”25To directly quote one of my medical advisors.

  Sean cleared his throat, announcing his presence.

  "Your patient is ready, uh, Doctor Walker," Sean said.“He's not my patient,” Dolr said. “Not until Simmons here puts down some paper.”“Fine,” she said and reached for her money clip. “I will pay your price.”“Best get on counting that out, sister,” Dolr said. "What are you waiting for?” he asked Sean."I don't know, maybe for you to remember the Hippocratic oath?" Sean said. "You should be in there already. I mean, I could have this pce raided and you arrested for…everything. Seriously, practicing without a license, you're a no-shit sexual deviant and —"“Wow, you’re good,” Dolr said. He looked to Simmons with a grin. “He’s good, right? Got me all figured out already.” His gaze wandered back to Sean, grin still pstered on. “And you ran my license and got a w against icky loving on the books while I wasn’t looking?” He chuckled. “Fuck, does it matter? Yeah, sure, you could shut this down real fast, officer.""Detective," Sean corrected."But you’re gonna stay outta my way, Detective," Dolr said, the grin fading fast. "Because if I ain’t ying some healing hands on your new best pal Kyrill in that golden hour26So named because US combat trauma statistics showed first aid within an hour of injury had dramatically better chances of survival than ter treatment. This is one reason why the US military spent so much effort on MEDEVAC capabilities. The idea has trickled down to civilian emergency medicine, though some critics charge other developments from the military (like the current swing towards tourniquet use) are actually causing more harm in the civilian world because the injury profiles are different., he’s gonna be worm food real soon. And if it goes like that, I guaran-fucking-tee you'll have bigger problems than this humble unlicensed sexual deviant. You picking up what I'm putting down, Detective? Or do I call Ilya right now and tell him you two merked one of his soldiers and are standing in my pce dicks in hand, just feeling real sorry about everything?"

  Sean said nothing.

  "Hear that?" Dolr asked. “Anybody hear that?”“…what?” Sean dared.“Shush,” Dolr said, and silence filled the room. “That. ‘Cause that’s the sound of how correct I am.”“Alright,” Sean said.Dolr nodded. “Now get with it.”“Quod minimum specimen in te ingenii?”27“What microscopic evidence of wit can be found in you?” as quoted from Cicero. There are more vulgar insults in surviving Roman oratory, but I like this one quite a bit. Simmons muttered as she counted out the bills from her money clip. She frowned with a glimpse at one bill and quickly pocketed it again. Had mixed up her money, clean and dirty — not a good habit to get into.“Et tu, Brute?”28“You, too, Brutus?” as quoted from Shakespeare. We don’t actually know what Caesar’s st words were with any certainty, but why let that get in the way of a pithy phrase? Dolr said.“Whatever," Sean said. He stomped off in search of a fight he could win.Dolr chuckled. “Ah, love to babysit,” he said and nodded to her. “Just as long as I'm getting paid. How’s that paper coming?”“Three,” Simmons said, putting a neat stack of bills on the counter. “And the backpack. I do believe that was your asking price. Now, do we have a deal?”Dolr eyed the bills for a quick count. “Yeah, we have a deal,” he said, pulling on gloves. "Grab the keys and get my surgical drugs, a spread from the top shelf will do," he added, swaying his hip to expose the keys clipped to his belt. "Check the fridge, I think we got a bag of Kyrill juice from three weeks ago29Let’s put it this way: if you’re a criminal and dead-set against being admitted to a hospital with access to a blood bank, having a supply of previously donated blood on storage at the back-alley sawbone of your choice might not be the single worst medical decision you could make. After all, you know it’s gonna be a match for your bloodtype. Receiving your own blood this way is called an autologous transfusion and a legit medical technique. Of course, chances are any injury sustained in the line of crime that requires a blood transfusion is going to call for more than a token single bag — massive transfusion protocol, depending on your definition, involves >20 units of blood in 24 hours — but why would Dolr tell his customers that when he can charge them for the service?, ought to be still good. And grab some of that Ringer’s, he’s gonna need the volume.30Widely used in emergency medicine, so-called ‘volume expanders’ are fluids that are given after blood loss to restore the total volume of fluid in the patient’s circutory system, as best as possible, anyway. Dolr’s specifically asking for Lactated Ringer’s solution, essentially sterile saline with a few other essentials. Since it matches the salinity of blood, it can be given via IV without risking cell damage, but it also doesn’t have the blood cells, ptelets and albumin (essential blood protein), so there’s a limit to how much blood it can repce, after which you are going to need a transfusion of blood products. Why use it at all, then? Well, it’s cheap, it’s plentiful and it’s safe to administer before you’ve matched blood types. Plus, given the retive scarcity of said blood products even in first world countries, it’s simply not practical to give them for every loss of blood volume.Blood products, by the way, aren’t just used for trauma patients. Plenty of surgical procedures require substantial amounts of blood transfusion. Treatment of anemia caused by chemotherapy for cancer is another biggie. And I’ve never heard a medical professional compin about having too big a stockpile of blood products. Seriously, if you can, go donate. Got that?""I can handle that," Simmons said, retrieving the keys and weighing them in her hand."Never doubted you," Dolr said with a renewed grin.“Did you see which way Detective Collins went?” she asked.

  The silence following that question led to a lot of gnces exchanged between the two of them and the hallway leading to the OR, before the answer arrived in the form of a short sweet shout of “What the fuck!”

  “I think he found the cage,” Simmons said.

  Shortly, Sean found himself sitting alone in the waiting room, watching the wall clock above the reception desk click away the hour. Throughout the hour, Sean waited for…something, he just didn’t know it was Simmons. Not until she walked back into the room with her hair tied back and her sleeves rolled up.

  "The bleed in Kyrill’s brain is under control," she said, removing a pair of slightly bloody vinyl gloves and dropping them in the medical waste bin next to the sink. "They have it well in hand from here. Too early to tell if he is going to pull through, but we did what we could.""You sure did,” Sean said. “So, you do know him.”“Professionally, and I never cimed I didn’t,” Simmons insisted while she washed her hands. “Why is this such a surprise to you?”“The knowing part isn’t,” Sean said. “The part where you still tried to kill him without a second thought, yeah — that part? That’s throwing me. But I guess it’s all the same to you.”“While I don’t discriminate on the basis of personal retionships, I am well aware of exactly how much force I apply when I do apply it,” Simmons said. “That I didn’t have second thoughts before I engaged Kyrill is a dangerous assumption as well. After all, I could have just let him go after you and used the time and distraction to figure out a better pn for saving my own skin, one that would likely have been easier on Kyrill as well. But I promised to protect you, so I did what I had to do, no more, no less.”“Gee, that’s all very professional of you,” Sean said.“My pn was certainly not for him to draw a knife, but once that was in py, my choices became limited,” Simmons said. “In any event, what is done is done. Kyrill’s life is in more capable hands now.”“Yeah,” Sean said."Does this address your immediate concerns?" Simmons said."…yeah, sure," Sean said."So, do you mind if I grab a seat?" Simmons asked."Yeah," Sean said.

  She took that to mean he didn't mind, or at least wouldn't make a fuss about it, so she sat one seat over from him. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the top of her thighs.

  "Dolr is the best trauma surgeon you could ask for," Simmons said. "If anyone can help Kyrill, he can."“See, that’s hard for me to believe, because the good doctor has a cage,” Sean said. “And I don't mean, like, a bunny cage, I mean —”“I know what you mean,” Simmons said. “I have seen the kennel. Supposedly, it wasn't cheap, either.”“Oh, of course, it looked very sturdy and professionally made, good welds, nicely smoothed and polished, complete coverage on the powder coating, I'm sure it's a fucking great cage,” Sean said.“Well,” Simmons said, “I should hope it is a great fucking cage.”

  Sean looked at her. Which is to say, he looked in her direction and with his eyes focused on her, but what he was trying to see was a way to take all this as lightly as she did.

  “A joke, Detective,” Simmons added. “A cheap one, admittedly. I find it important to keep a sense of humor despite all. But I can see it wasn’t to your taste.”“Yeah, I prefer them funny, but thank you for the cheap joke at my expense and the crification,” Sean said, leaning back and closing his eyes for a spell. "You see, I was starting to worry about all this, I mean about getting framed for three dead Russians and the hired killer breaking into my apartment to be stabbed by the other hired killer who’s turned my heartbeat into her hobby, oh, and this quote-unquote clinic and Dr. Dolr and the runaway teenage addict and the room with a great fucking cage.” He opened his eyes again to stare at the unfamiliar ceiling.31This one’s for you, 90s anime nerds. “You know, now that I have a moment to think about it? This whole day, it wound me up. But fortunately, you think it’s all a joke, and I just wanted to say again, from the bottom of my heart: thank you. Your poise and mirth is a source of great comfort to me in these trying hours."“Your point is taken,” Simmons said. “I am sorry for causing you offense.”“I mean,” Sean said, “he showed Ky that room —”“If I may,” Simmons said. “I think you are too fixated on an aspect of Dolr’s private life that is orthogonal to his skill and ethic as a medical practitioner.”“Yeah, well,” Sean said, “it’s kinda hard not to fixate on it when it’s in my face like this. I mean, fucking try me. Why this guy?”“For ck of a practicable alternative,” Simmons said. “I suppose I also thought low of Dolr at first, so I can appreciate a degree of wariness when it comes to his…proclivities. Do not mistake my trust in his professional integrity as an endorsement of those. I should also insist that Ky's detoxification journey was far from anyone’s idea of a good time.”“'A good time' is absolutely the very st phrase that came to my mind,” Sean said. “I mean, damn. I felt like a total sleazebag just being a guy in the same room with her.”“She told you her story, the way she wanted it told,” Simmons said. “You are not the first and I doubt you will be the st to hear it.”“But it's true, right?” Sean said. "I mean, she called it a sob story herself, but —"“It is true, as far as I know,” Simmons said. “Though I can’t speak to the earliest days of her recovery, I heard her shouting when I was here right about two weeks after Dolr caught her, after which I became…involved in the process.”“You heard her,” Sean said.“Saw her, too, and she looked quite rough at the time,” Simmons said. “It was before Dolr could trust her to be up and about. He had her in medical restraints at the time.”“Wow, this just keeps getting worse — how does this keep getting worse?” Sean said. “To recap: you heard a teenage girl shouting for help, saw her strapped down to the bed in there and you didn’t think she might need you to do something?”“I asked Dolr about her and he told me she was a patient undergoing the aforementioned detoxification,” Simmons said. “Apparently, there was a substantial risk of self-harm, hence the restraints.”“You asked him and he just told you?” Sean asked.“My manners took leave of me during the asking,” Simmons admitted. “He told me the whole story after I let him go. That was good enough for me.” She smirked. “Then he charged me 200 dolrs for scaring the living daylights out of him.”“Of course he did,” Sean said. “Okay, you know what, let’s table the whole Ky thing. This is going all sorts of pces I don’t want to think about right now. Forget I even asked. Back to my original question: you trust this guy?”“Close enough,” Simmons said. “He has principles. I don’t agree with all of them, but he stands by them and that is more than can be said for most people.”“I’ll take your word for it,” Sean said. “I mean, the setup's professional-looking, I'll give him that. Clearly has good cashflow. Speaks to regur and repeat business, if nothing else, that’s a vote of confidence for his business practices. And he seems to know what he's doing, medical-wise. I'll level with you, when you brought up a back-alley doctor, I was expecting — well, I wasn't expecting a waiting room with lifestyle magazines.”"Quite," Simmons said. “So what if he has a sex dungeon in his basement?”“Oh, yeah, so what,” Sean said. “So what indeed. Don't we all have our own sex dungeons in the basement, who am I to judge.”“All kidding aside, I get the feeling you would actually get along pretty well with him if you weren’t standing on different sides of that yellow line,” Simmons said, nodding to the ‘Here There Be Surgeons’ paint separating reception from the rear of the clinic. “Besides, I haven't a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices.”“Petty vice, right,” Sean said. He looked over to her. “Wait. Was that Mark Twain? You’re coming at me with Samuel fucking Clemens?”32Specifically, Twains letter to the The Moral Statistician. Spoiler alert: Mark Twain takes eloquent cheap shots at something that bugs him.“There are not too many people I know who would appreciate the citation,” she said. “I am gd to see my suspicion in this matter was correct.”“It took me a moment,” Sean said. “What, you got a library card?”“I suppose it is not the fashion in my immediate circle of acquaintances, but I should be surprised if I were the only criminal who avails herself of publicly avaible information,” Simmons said. “You don't make it far in my line of work without research.”“Research,” Sean said. “Yeah, sure.”

  She nodded slowly.

  “Okay,” Sean said. “Listen, Simmons…about how this is going to work, because we’re gonna have to make this work, somehow. Right?”“I suppose we do,” she said.“Basically, I want to believe you've got good intentions here,” Sean said. “Retively, I mean, considering what you do for a living. Graded on the mother of all curves, so we’re pegging the most basic traces of human decency at an easy B, C- if you only infrequently burn down orphanages, honors students didn’t stab anyone this week, that kinda curve. Yeah?”“Left-skewed leptokurtic,”33I know even less about statistics than Sean, but it’s fun to use big words! Simmons said.“…yeah?” Sean said.“I take your meaning,” Simmons said.Sean nodded. “But if you want me to trust you a little in this, you need to trust me a little, and that means you need to give me some answers about you. I won't hold it against you personally if you don't, but, well, there's the door. So you either let me in or I let myself out, and once I'm out it's everyone for themselves. Fair?”“Fair enough,” Simmons said. “I suppose I haven’t made the best first impression in this partnership.""No shit," Sean said."Frankly, Detective, neither have you," Simmons said. "I am willing to not hold that against you. It has been a rough day for everyone.”“Rough day,” Sean said. “Well, that’s not the worst understatement I’ve heard. Close, though.”“I propose we start from the beginning, so to speak, and introduce ourselves to each other as decent folk should,” Simmons said. “Do you have any objections to that?”“Please, go ahead,” Sean said. “You know, I saw this 'being nice' thing on the cover of a magazine over there, and I want to take it out for a spin now.”

  Simmons held out her hand as she leaned forward in her chair.

  “Hello, Sir, my name is Mary-Anne Simmons,” she said. “You may call me Anne if you wish.”Sean shook her hand. “Marian or Marianne?” he asked. “Like, Maid —““Mary hyphen Anne,” Anne cut in. “I have heard all the jokes. ‘Anne’ gets around that.”“Anne's fine by me,” Sean said. “Hello…Anne.” He stared at her face for a moment. “I don’t know, you don’t think…?”“You can stick with Simmons if you like that better,” Anne said. “It is all the same to me, Detective.”“Oh, no,” Sean said. “I mean, okay. I mean…I'm Sean, then.”“It is nice to meet you, Sean,” Anne said, releasing his hand after one final shake. “I am thirty-two years old.”“Uh, alright,” Sean said. “I'm…thirty-one. Not sure why that matters, but, uh, thank you for telling me. Gd to know it.”

  There was a lot of silence. Sean coughed but couldn’t think of what to say next.

  “In truth, I don’t introduce myself very often, so I didn’t have much small talk prepared,” Anne said. “I suppose the weather needs no eboration. So what else do you want to speak about?”“The 'non-incriminating' part of the terms and conditions is heavily implied, yeah?” Sean said. Anne turned away, but he could hear her let out a sigh. “Okay, I have a question,” he said. “Where are you from?”“Why are you asking me that?” Anne said.“Because you’re obviously not from around here, I'd like to get a better sense of you as a person and I don't think I'll like your hobbies,” Sean said. “Also, I prefer no answers to clumsy deflections. I mean, really, counter-questioning that? I pitch a fucking softball as an opener and you, uh, you…actually, I don’t know where I was going with that metaphor. I don’t even like baseball.34Degree of Sean not liking baseball: not knowing that ‘softball’ is a whole different game and not an actual type of pitch within baseball. But, um, you know, maybe not go for that on the first fucking question.”“Well…to pick up on what you said, we do actually seem to share hobbies,” Anne said. “I noticed your bookshelves. Some interesting literature in there.”“Really?” Sean said. “Um, I mean, your taste in books, not my books, but — um…no.”

  Anne just looked at him. That was all she needed to say. Sean took a breath.

  ”Sorry,” he said, “I didn't mean that it's weird as a hobby or, like, too highbrow for a woman or a…”“Criminal?” Anne said coolly.“Uh, yeah, sorry.” Sean shook his head. “Wow, off to a great start on the 'nice' thing, huh? Okay, you don’t want to answer my original question, that's fine, let's get into books. It’s just surprising, you know. I’m in the same boat as you, odd man out. Feels like nobody else is reading these days. So you…you're serious? You really like books?”“Yes, really, Sean,” Anne said, a tiny smirk on her lips as he stumbled over his thoughts again. “I love to read, and it is more than having a library card, you should know. I buy books by the pound. Mostly the cssics,35Look, I’m aware that ‘the cssics’ are ‘the cssics’ because some old white dudes said so once upon a time and that that is a bullshit way to determine which books deserve to be enshrined in history as The Good Ones. Heck, the amount of historical revisionism and Eurocentrism that somehow still passes as mainstream views on culture and history is staggering and I can’t possibly do that justice here. I mean, what does it say about us that my decision to have Anne throw around Latin quotes is a useful shorthand for ‘cultured’?Now, I think this fits with the way Anne was brought up — and yes, I know, that’s just pushing the issue one step further down the line and also edging dangerously close to an Argument from REALISM. I hate those, too. So, more humbly: I’m not gonna front on having enough of a clue about the greats of other literary circles needed to portray someone whose tastes run that way. I can barely fake this much literacy. The decision to portray Anne like this is on me and my own shallow reference pool. as I come across them and the fancy strikes me. I am making up for lost time, I suppose.”“Okay, you can't say that and make me ask for details, that's mean,” Sean said.Anne nodded. “There were two books in the house I grew up in,” she said. “One was this big collection of Greco-Roman works, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid and a few more choice bits of poetry and pys. Now, before you ask, no, Catullus 16 was not36Despite its importance to the canon of poetry, any work that sets off on its literary journey by threatening to enact both oral and anal rape on the author’s critics will have a tough time finding the approval of straightced editors putting together collections. So, if you thought your favorite DMX diss track was problematic… included. So, that was my father's prized possession.""Is he the one who taught you Latin?" Sean asked."Among other things," Anne said.“Like what?” Sean asked.“Mathematics37Cue math degree holders groaning that what most people are taught in school and would consider ‘math’ is 95% boring calcution without actually understanding any of the underpinnings of the field, whereas real math is focused on theorems and proofs thereof. Few moments in my life were as sobering as getting into my first math lecture at university and understanding exactly zilch., well enough of the sciences to get by — as much as you can teach ‘enough’ of those — also how to survive.”“Judging from your skills, he also knew a thing or two about killing people, I assume?” Sean asked. “Ex-military?”“Not like you might imagine,” Anne said. "Yes, he taught me woodcraft and how to shoot true, but he had…more depths than people would give him credit for. You could say that runs in my family.""So, what was your favorite story, then?" Sean asked, quickly veering away from that topic. “Out of that big book.”"Oh, the Odyssey, hands down," Anne said. "I saw a lot of my father in Odysseus — the good and the bad. And I generally come down on the 'Greco' side of that book, at least as far as the stories go. The Romans always struck me as, well, I suppose you could call it stuck-up, more interested in making everything serve their own mythology than honest inquiry. My father quite liked the Aeneid, chiefly for its poetry. He called it the cssiest piece of propaganda ever written. It does have a couple of good lines, I will grant that.” She closed her eyes for a moment, reciting words with a cadence that was not quite hers. “Desine fata deum flecti sperare precando."38“Stop hoping you will change the will of the gods by praying.” She opened her eyes. “I realize that particur sentiment may seem odd coming from my mouth, but it does speak to a certain…stoicism I call upon from time to time.”"Right, I’m sure that’s pretty profound if you, uh, speak Latin," Sean said. "So, that's one book."Anne nodded. "The other was, well, you know," she said.“Pretend I don't,” Sean said.“The good book,” Anne said."Oh," Sean said.

  Neither did anything for a moment.

  "My mother must have written a couple of essays in the margins, too," Anne said. "I noticed you don't have a bible on your shelves.”“Uh, yeah,” Sean said. “I guess I don't, I…well, there's no big 'throwing out my bible' moment in my life, it's just, my dad was a lot more Lapsed than Catholic, and I didn’t regurly go to church or Sunday school or anything so I don't really need one, um, well, haven’t needed one so far. I think. I mean, now that you bring it up, I feel like I should have one, you know, to read? Like, common cultural heritage, you gotta know the bible and Chaucer, as much Hemingway as you can stomach, and…you know, the literary canon? But it would also feel kinda insincere, maybe, because I don’t…see, you can believe what you want, but I think that…I think we just don't know, about God. We can't know. I mean, I think we can’t know, scientifically. My opinion."“You’re agnostic,”39As there’s a lot of vagueness between the various fvors of non-God-worshippers, here’s a brief description of how I understand the terms.Agnosticism: I don’t think it’s possible to know whether God exists. But, eh, probably not? (This is me, by the way.)Weak Atheism: I don’t believe God exists.Strong Atheism: I’m convinced God doesn’t exist. In fact, I believe it is impossible for God to exist.Apatheism: I don’t care if God exists. You got any more beer?Misotheism: I believe God exists and I hate them. Oh how I hate them!Maltheism: I believe God exists, but they’re evil. (Everybody who first heard of Gnosticism via The Matrix, raise your hand.)This is, of course, only scratching the surface of the terms and even then only in the context of the Abrahamic religions. When you get down to it, most of us are unbelievers in most religions. There’s a reason long-standing, geographically dispersed cultures develop pantheons: it makes it easier to absorb the followers of disparate religions and integrate their worship into an overall structure. Plus, even the Romans tended to venerate their lineage and local gods in parallel with the ‘big’ pantheon, which was a fairly transparent crib from the Greeks in an attempt to look cultured. Yeah, here’s my hot take: Romans were hipsters.What I guess I’m saying is, insofar as all that makes it quite difficult to intellectually determine the ‘right’ way to worship whatever higher power might exist, I think Pascal’s Wager is bullshit. Believe what you believe and live it, that’s the best anyone can do. To loop back to the Romans, I’ll throw to (not really) Marcus Aurelius: “If there is a god, all is well; and if chance rules, do not thou be governed by it.” Anne said.“Uh, yeah,” Sean said. “Is that a problem? Like, I’ve got nothing against Christians, or…anyone else.”“Neither do I,” Anne said. “My faith and creed are mine and it would not be righteous to impose them on others.”“Yeah,” Sean said. “That’s a, I mean, it’s a sensible stance.”“Anyway,” Anne continued, “after I came here, I needed a way to fill my spare time, such as it is, and I just started picking up books whenever I could. I have found some real gems at library sales. On my shelf, Enoch Arden is staring daggers at Odysseus now.”40Literary poseur alert! I haven’t gotten around to reading Lord Tennyson’s Enoch Arden myself yet, but will attempt to illustrate the joke. The Odyssey has Odysseus coming home from a long sea voyage unrecognizable and thought long dead, but he then proves his identity and recims his old life. (With lots of violence and even more unfortunate implications re: gender roles, but hey, Ancient Greece.) Enoch Arden has the titur Enoch coming home from a long sea voyage unrecognizable and thought long dead, only to find that his wife has taken a new man. (Well, unrequited childhood love, but whatever.) Wanting his wife to be happy in her new life above all, Enoch doesn’t reveal his identity and instead dies with his wife still believing he was lost at sea. One must imagine he and Odysseus would not see eye to eye on familial commitments if they ever got into it at a bar. She smirked and looked at Sean with that smirk, expecting to find it mirrored on his face. “You know, Tennyson?”“The Charge of the Light Brigade,”41The most famous military blunder of the Crimean War, thanks to what is Lord Tennyson’s most famous poem. There really is nothing much to romanticize. An incorrect order was given, cavalry rode right into the field of fire of enemy artillery and that artillery id into them. Lots of people died for nothing, but they sure died galntly, which must have been a great comfort to them as they were shredded by grapeshot and musket balls. As General Pierre Bosquet is reported to have said on the occasion: “It is magnificent, but it is not war; it is madness.” (In French, admittedly.)But hey, any excuse to put on Iron Maiden’s The Trooper. Sean said, not quite getting the joke but hoping to bluff with a smirk of his own. “That's my favorite, short and to the point.”“I suppose we are drawn to different kinds of tragedies,” Anne said. “It is not all highfalutin, though. I enjoy travelogues, too. I saw you also had a few of those.”“Oh, yeah,” Sean said. “Yeah, I like those. Not going anywhere on my sary, so the magic of books it is. And I enjoy the more…practical literature.”“The Poor Man's James Bond42Exceedingly infamous book series about improvised weapons and traps. A bit like the Anarchist’s Cookbook having a passionate no-names encounter with a guerril warfare manual of dubious provenance. Published by the same people who brought you Soldier of Fortune magazine and, as the author cimed, actually intended to familiarize w enforcement personnel with devices they might run into in the field, so Sean’s not that far off in his justification for owning it. Sadly, none of the volumes I’ve sampled contain any advice on procuring second-hand tuxedos, which is what I’d really want to learn about.Cue Bond fans compining that book!James Bond favors ‘tropical’ lighter suits as appropriate for the situation and the formal wear thing was not as weird then as it looks now and it’s mostly the films getting high on their own supply anyway. doesn't strike me as very practical,” Anne said. “For a policeman.”“Hey, know your enemy,” Sean said.“Are you fighting in a guerril war?” Anne asked.“Feels like it sometimes,” Sean mumbled. “So, uh —”“Yes?” Anne said.“Well, while we’re on the whole subject, Anne, you know, I just have to ask the question,” Sean said. “I mean, all this, you killing people for a living, getting mixed up with the Russians of all people, this whole…your whole criminal quote-unquote career: why? No offense, but you don't seem the type. You collect books, you speak Latin, for crying out loud, and you're —““A bck woman,” Anne interjected.“Yeah?” Sean said, throwing in a rising tone at the end, the awkward bit of pusible deniability between accent and turning it into an actual question.43This is, like, such a stereotype? But also actually super annoying? idk lol “I mean, you’re not exactly what I think of when I hear Thieves in Law. You don’t have the…tattoos.”“I am a soldier, not a Thief,” Anne crified. “They would never make someone like me one of them.”“Okay,” Sean said, “then why become a soldier?”“Because I made a mistake and a deal to cover for it,” she said.“Right,” Sean said. "Thanks for clearing that up."Anne shrugged. “That is the non-incriminating version.”“I get that,” Sean said. “Sounds to me like that deal…was a mistake.”“And that is a very profound-sounding observation,” Anne said.Sean looked to her. "I mean, come on. Could you be any more vague?"“I suppose I could furnish you with further words on the matter,” Anne said, “but I don’t believe you would understand even then.”“Well, I'd like to at least try,” Sean said. “You can leave out the gory details, I’m not pying ‘match the killer to the cold case’ here, I just wanna see if I get it. You know?”

  Anne gave him another one of her sighs.

  “Did you choose a career in w enforcement?” she asked.“Yeah,” Sean said confidently. “I mean, there's not that much else I could have done with a BA in Criminal Justice, but I chose it, so, yeah, there was a point in my life when I said to myself, I’m gonna be a cop. Nobody made me, I could have done anything else I wanted to, but I wanted this. So I chose it. Now you're implying with your question that you didn't get to choose, and I have to say, uh, not to be a dick or anything, I don't know the details and again you don’t have to tell me the details, but I don't buy it. Not that it’s never a factor but I just don't buy it from you. I mean, okay, unfortunate circumstances happen, and you seem decent, well, decent enough, as a person, but you're no Jean Valjean44The main character of Les Misérables, but you knew that, if only because of the musical or the film of the musical starring Wolverine. miscarriage-of-justice type, are you? You’re a no-shit career criminal and professional killer and you sound so — okay with it. That’s what’s throwing me, you know? You’re not selling me on how terrible all this has been for you and how much you hate your life and want out, if you even do.45Prepare to have your mind blown: different people show their feelings differently. Even for a single person, emotional expression is highly dependent on the circumstances, and most adults are pretty good at controlling their outward expression. What you see in other people mirrors both what you expect to see and what you know about yourself, which you then project onto that person.So the next time someone tells you that you’re not really sad / happy / scared because you’re not bawling your eyes out / whooping and hollering / shivering and screaming, kindly tell them to fuck off. Bme it on me and my advice if you have to. But you don’t owe anyone a theater performance just so they’ll believe you’re feeling what you say you’re feeling. I mean, do you? I know it can be tough for” — Anne looked at him with a raised eyebrow — “I mean, tough for some…people. But how do you…how does someone so intelligent and art—""Don't say articute46If you don’t know why that’s insulting to Anne, I recommend a web search for ‘micro-aggression’. Back-handed compliments to a person of color that highlight how they’re ‘better’ than the common stereotypes are just one kind. For some reason, ‘articute’ seems to be a particur favorite among douchebags in that regard.Okay, not some reason. They don’t think African-American Vernacur English is ‘proper’ English. Joke’s on them, there is no such thing as one ‘proper’ English, just lots of varieties of which AAVE happens to be one. But I’m sure if you ask them, they’ll be perfectly happy to logically expin why AAVE is bad and, say, Scouse is fine., please," Anne said. “I am well aware of my own diction and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the path my life has taken.”"How do you have no choice?" Sean continued. "Are they holding your little sister hostage, or did they wire your trigger finger with C447Composition 4 pstic explosive, as everyone should know by now. Yes, there were Compositions 1 through 3, but C4 was the most enduring. The advantage of pstic explosives are that they can be shaped easily, stick to rough surfaces and also only explode under very specific circumstances. You don’t want your munitions going up when they’re stored in a shed on a sunny day or somebody drops a crate or it’s been lying about for three months and starts feeling frisky. You do want them to go off only when they’re exposed to extremely high heat / pressure / shock that can only realistically be induced with another explosive, such as a bsting cap. That’s called being insensitive, which is a far more popur trait with explosives than it is with people, I’m told. Anyway, there are Vietnam stories of soldiers using C4 scraped from mines to start fires, for example, because C4 will happily burn without exploding. Apparently, its oily consistency was also excellent at inducing diarrhea. Needed a sick day? Eat some C4!Discimer: Do not actually start fires or induce diarrhea with C4. Why do you even have C4? Do I need to call the BATFE on you?, or…” For a moment, it looked like he would actually think better of it, but he kept talking. "Is God telling you to kill?"

  Anne looked away from him and snorted.

  “We are done with this topic,” she said.“We are,” Sean affirmed. “I mean, if you say so, we are, we…we definitely are.""Good," Anne said."So, what do you want to know?” Sean asked. "I think I…I think I shouldn’t be asking you more questions, in general. Like, wow, hello everyone, my name is Sean and I have foot-in-mouth disease. The doctors tell me it’s inoperable." He paused. “See, the joke is that you answer with ‘Hello, Sean’.”

  Anne said nothing.

  “So, anything?” Sean said. “About me, I mean.”“Have I earned some of your trust?” Anne asked.Sean smirked. “Objection, your honor, leading the witless,”48If this made you groan, be thankful for all the other puns I edited out. he said. He thought on the matter for a moment. “I'm a little closer to believing your story, let's say that. Seriously, though, if there's anything you want to know about me, ask away.”“Well, where are you from?” Anne asked. “I assume that question is less fraught for you.”“Can't you tell from my very Irish name?” Sean said. “I'm American, born and raised. My father was from Irend, though.”“Fleeing the Troubles?” Anne said.“Not that type of Irish,” Sean said. “And I hate having to specify, but he wasn’t like that at all. He was not a terrorist, he had never picked up a gun in his life. He was a freaking fisherman from Cork,49Fun Cork facts: Cork’s weathervanes have stylized fish on top instead of roosters, visitors can ring the church bells of Shandon (I myself attempted to py Final Countdown on them), and there’s a Butter Museum I still regret not visiting when I had the chance. I mean, come on, a butter museum. About actual butter. Why would you not want to see what that’s about? h — heck, he'd never even been to the North or anywhere else other than Cork. All the Loyalist-Nationalist crap never touched him for a second. Heck, he came here in the Fifties before all that shit even started.”“Hm,” Anne said.“Now I want you to understand,” Sean said, “he was Irish. Plenty of Irish. He was as Irish a guy as you’d ever meet, like, you’d talk to him for a femtosecond50Milli is ten to negative three, micro is ten to negative six, nano is ten to negative nine, pico is ten to negative 12 and femto, finally, is ten to negative 15. Twista, Guinness’s Fastest Rapper Alive as of 1993 was clocked at 11.2 sylbles per second and no, Eminem didn’t beat that on either Rap God or Godzil. Let’s suppose, then, that Sean’s father’s incredible Irishness is apparent to the listener after just one single pronounced sylble and also that he’s not that far behind Twista, able to spit that in a tenth of a second. The proportion between that and what Sean cims would be (very roughly) as if you said that your outstretched arm was as long as our sor system is wide. Substitute proportionally shorter parts of your anatomy if you don’t believe Sean’s father was as skilled a rapper.So let’s take this for what it is: Sean showing off his college education by using uncommon SI prefixes. and you’d go, fuck, that is the most Irish, that is Peak Irish. There is not, there cannot be anyone more Irish than this one man. He was the guy you used to calibrate the 10 on the 1 to 10 scale of Irishness. That’s how feckin’ Irish he was.”“I take your meaning,” Anne said.“But the Troubles — “ Sean said. “You know, fuck the cute little English name for that, by the way. Oh, we’ve had some Troubles, oh my, how terribly inconvenient, do be a dear and go kill some more of those unruly Irishmen until it settles down, would you? I mean, fuck, that’s…that's, well, all of it is just part of the cute little stereotype, right? Not an occupation, not a bloody civil war, just Troubles, like they couldn’t start a fucking car in the winter! I mean, I don’t bme you, you just said what came to mind, making conversation and all that, but it gets me good. And isn't it weird how everyone immediately thinks emigrating from Irend must be a PIRA51The Provisional Irish Republican Army, i.e. one of groups who fought the UK’s control of Northern Irend from 1969 on. (There’s a few more and namedropping this one does not constitute my judgment on which was most relevant.) Sean insistently includes the prefix to make it clear he doesn’t mean the original Irish Republican Army from the 1919-21 Irish War of Independence. thing? Heck, not even emigrating, you said fleeing, because that’s the stereotype, too. Fleeing. Why would anybody emigrate from jolly old Irend if they weren’t running away from the Troubles? Every single fucking time I even mention my roots, I get it, it's like clockwork. Somebody needs to write a paper about it. Pull someone in from the street, I say my dad left the Emerald Isle, I guarantee they’ll bring it up. Ooh, Irend, that's all bombs and Guinness and leprechauns, toap o’ tha moarnin’ to ya, ddie, we're oll Oirish on Sain’ Patties!52More of that quality quasi-phonetic writing you’ve come to expect. I mean, seriously, I swear to fucking —““Language!” Anne interrupted. “Please.”“My bad,” Sean said. “Sorry. I guess I get pretty angry about that.”“I do not wish to deny you your anger, but I should think it can be expressed without bsphemy,” Anne said. “I would deeply appreciate the effort, if nothing else.”“So, seriously…all the ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’, that’s alright with you?” Sean asked.“I have learned to accept it, even if it is not my preference,” Anne said.“But ‘God’ and ‘hell’ —”“Kindly refrain from taking in vain,” Anne cut in.“How often does it come up that you have a cute little rhyme for it?” Sean asked.“More often than I would prefer since we met, hence my creating said mnemonic just now,” Anne said. “And for what it is worth, I am sorry for the assumption about your father’s past. It was a zy thought and I should know better than to entertain such prejudices.” Seeing in Sean’s nod a measure of forgiveness, she continued with a smile. “So, you said he left before the Troubles — that makes it the potato famine, yes?”53Of course, I didn’t just put everything I know about Irish history into this conversation. I left out the third thing.“Ah, fuck you, Anne,” Sean said. “I give you both barrels of my Irish heritage rant and you just nod and hit me again? You know, I've had it with your sense of humor.”“So do something about it,” Anne dared him.“Like arrest you?” Sean said. “I'm pretty sure we could scare up some handcuffs around here.”

  Anne chuckled. Sean joined her and they chuckled together. Ha, ha, arrest her, tell another one.

  “Thank you for telling me about your family, Sean,” Anne said. “So your father was Irish, and your mother —”“I don’t want her mixed up in this in any way, that’s all you need to know,” Sean said. “I mean, you didn’t say much about your mother, either.”“…and I shouldn’t,” Anne said.“She liked to write in her bible, I caught that much,” Sean said. “If that’s the picture you want to paint, hey, whatever.”After a few seconds of silence, Anne sighed. “I am not from anywhere,” she said.“It's okay if you don't want to answer that question,” Sean said. “Really. I understand.”“It is more that the precise location doesn't matter,” Anne said. “It was just a pce in the mountains far away from anything that matters.”“Sounds desote,” Sean said. “You know, lonely.”“I suppose it does sound like that,” Anne said. She reached into her coat, grabbed her now anemic-looking billfold and took out the st few bills, holding them out to Sean. “For the jacket.”Sean looked at the bills, but couldn't quite resist taking them in hand before the inevitable question came to him. “Uh, okay,” he said, “should I be checking these for blood spatter?”

  Anne ughed.