Blood Test

We walked together toward the viaduct. The sky had darkened and quieted. Beyond the gates engines rumbled to a start. We stepped onto the bridge, treading on cool stone. Milo reached up, plucked a grape from the arbor, split it with his teeth, and swallowed.

“You made a big difference, Alex,” he said. “Eventually they’d have gotten him on the drug thing. But it’s the murder rap that’ll put him away. Combine that with lowering the boom on Stinky Pants and I’d say it’s been a fine week for the good guys.”

“Great,” I said wearily.

Several yards later:

“You okay, pal?”

“I’ll be all right.”

“Thinking about the kid?”

I stopped and looked at him.

“Do you need to head back to L.A. right away?” I asked.

He put a heavy arm around my shoulder, smiled and shook his head.

“Getting back means diving into a mess of paperwork. It can wait.”

27

I stood at a distance and looked through the wall of plastic.

The boy lay on the bed, still but awake. His mother sat by his side, rendered nearly anonymous by spacesuit, gloves, and mask. Her dark eyes wandered around the room, settling momentarily on his face, then upon the pages of the story book in her hands. He struggled upright, said something to her and she nodded and held a cup to his lips. Drinking exhausted him quickly; he fell back against the pillow.

“Cute kid,” said Milo. “What did that doc say his chances are?”

“He’s severely infected. But the I.V. is pumping in high-dose antibiotics and they feel it will eventually clear up. The original tumor has enlarged — it’s begun to press against the diaphragm, which isn’t good — but there’s no evidence of any new lesions. Chemotherapy will start tomorrow. Overall, the prognosis is still good.”

He nodded and went into the nurses’ office.

The boy was asleep, now. His mother kissed his forehead, drew the blankets around him, and looked at the book again. She flipped a few pages, put it down and began straightening the room. That done, she returned to sitting bedside, folded her hands in her lap, and remained motionless. Waiting.

The two marshals emerged from the nurses’ office. The man was thick-waisted and middle-aged, the woman petite and dyed-blond. He looked at his watch and said “It’s time” to his partner. She walked over to the module and tapped on the plastic.

Nona looked up.

The woman said, “It’s time.”

The girl hesitated, bent over the sleeping child and kissed him with sudden intensity. He called out and rolled over. The movement caused the I.V. pole to vibrate, the bottle to sway. She steadied it, stroked his hair.

“Come on, honey,” said the female marshal.

The girl stiffened, stumbled out of the module. She took off the mask and gloves and let the sterile suit fall around her ankles, revealing a jumpsuit underneath. On the back was stenciled PROPERTY SAN DIEGO COUNTY JAIL and a serial number. Her copper hair was drawn back in a ponytail. The golden hoops had been removed from her ears. Her face looked thinner and older, the cheekbones more pronounced, the eyes buried deeper. Jailhouse pallor had begun to dull the luster of her skin. She was beautiful, but damaged, like a day-old rose.

They handcuffed her — gently, it seemed — and led her to the door. She passed by me and our eyes locked. The ebony irises seemed to moisten and melt. Then she hardened them, held her head high, and was gone.

28

I found Raoul in his lab, staring at a computer screen on which were displayed columns of polynomials atop a multicolored bar graph. He’d mutter in Spanish, examine a page of printout, then turn to the keyboard and rapidly type a new set of numbers. With each additional bit of datum the height of the bars in the graph changed. The lab was airless and filled with acrid fumes. High-tech doodads clicked and buzzed in the background.

I pulled up a stool next to him, sat and said hello.

He acknowledged me with a downward twist of his mustache and continued to work with the computer. The bruises on his face had turned to purplish-green smudges.

“You know,” he said.

“Yes. She told me.”

He typed, hitting the keyboard hard. The graph convulsed.

“My ethics were no better than Valcroix’s. She came wiggling in here in a skintight dress and proved that.”

I’d come to the lab with the intention of comforting him. There were things I could have said. That Nona had been turned into a weapon, an instrument of vengeance, abused and twisted until sex and rage were inexorably intertwined, then launched and aimed at a world of weak men like some kind of heat-seeking missile. That he’d made an error in judgment but it didn’t negate all the good he’d done. That there was more good work to be done. That time would heal.