Mercy 6

Amihan got there faster. The cups shook in her hands. Mendenhall stood at the opening to her cubicle and motioned for her to set down the coffees.

“Have a seat.” She offered the only chair in the cubicle.

“Thank you, Doctor.” Her accent was heavy, even with this simple phrase.

“Everyone’s shaking right now. Just sit. Just don’t spill anything.”

Amihan sat and looked at her lap, her hands twisting there. She was young. Her hair was black and straight, a shine to it.

“Were you in Manila? Before here?”

She nodded, still looking down.

“Did you know Cabral there?”

She shook her head.

“Try to speak.”

“No, Doctor. He was here before me.”

“But you knew him.”

She nodded.

Mendenhall tapped her lips.

“Yes, Doctor. A little.”

“Tell me about him.”

“Tell you what?”

“Just something. Was he funny? Did he tell jokes? Did he smile?

Was he quick?”

“Yes. He made little jokes. Little faces. He was quick. He made little — jokes — with his hands.”

Mendenhall squinted. “Jokes with his hands?”

“Like this.” Amihan fashioned her hand into a beak and made talking motions.

“Hand puppets.”

“Yes. Those. But on the wall.”

Mendenhall smiled. “Shadow puppets.”

“Yes. He talked for them but without moving his lips.”

“Good.” She checked her watch. “Now, just one more thing.

Then I’ll leave you alone. How was his posture?”

“Posture?”

“His shoulders?” asked Mendenhall. “Did he keep them straight?

When he moved quick?”

“Yes, Doctor. He made them straight. Always straight. Tried to look tall, maybe.”

Mendenhall hurried from the cubicle, left the nurse without word or wave. It was the only torture she had time for, the only one she could imagine.

28

Silva was waiting for her in the Pathology hall. The tech’s mask hung loose about her throat. She stood before the closed door.

There was an invitation to her stance, an angling toward the handle, exposing it. She lifted her chin — too high.

“How furious is he?”

“You are not to be let in.”

Mendenhall neared Silva, was careful to relax her expression.

“He must be curious.”

Silva looked perplexed.

“Why not just lock the door? Why not just listen to me push the buzzer, bang on it?” Mendenhall raised her chin, level with Silva’s brow. “Why have you out here?”

“To avoid unnecessary contact with Cabral.”

“But right here,” said Mendenhall. “He told you to stay right here, no?”

Silva nodded once, then twice.

“Then he’s curious.” Mendenhall wanted to be more graceful, to ease her way through the exchange. Silva — her intelligence, its devotion — soothed her. But she felt a press from above, ID buzzing about the ER, coming down to take Cabral.

“Ask him to let me in if I can guess the occlusion, its location and position.”

“I have orders not to do that.”

“Then go in and tell him. Just walk in and say, ‘Renal membrane to gluteal. Through the pelvis. No major vessels.”

Silva flinched, a pretty inhale, gathering.

“Come on, Silva. Just do that. He’ll be disappointed if you don’t.

If there’s no try.”

Silva applied her mask, opened the door, which wasn’t locked, and went in. Mendenhall could only hear the sound of Silva’s voice, not the words. She could hear the effort, pulses of forced volume.

Then silence, nothing from Claiborne.

Silva came back out, mask still covering her nose and mouth.

There was hope in this; she was going right back inside. “Which side and which direction?”

Mendenhall recalled Cabral’s position on the bed. He had rested on his right side. So left, he had been favoring his left, whether he knew it or not. The direction? Up or down? At about seven twenty, when the others had fallen, had he been standing or sitting or lying down or crouching to make shadow puppets on the bay wall?

“Left side. From renal membrane — but not the kidney, not even grazing the kidney — down through pelvis.” Almost confident of the location, she was guessing the direction, going with her initial claim, which had not been thought out. She guessed that Claiborne was testing her doubt. Mendenhall was all doubt, every word weighted with it.

“Okay, come in.” Silva drew mask and gloves from her lab coat and handed them to Mendenhall.

When Mendenhall entered the lab, Claiborne was extracting marrow from Cabral’s left pelvis. Cabral was naked and positioned symmetrically on the steel bed, arms open, legs open. She knew not to speak and took the seat arranged for her, a stool with wheels locked. She was careful with her posture, mimicking Silva’s straightness as best she could, the level shoulders.

Claiborne continued the extraction as he spoke, mask pumping.

“Six dead, four at once, maybe one later, one more definitely later.

What does that indicate?”

Mendenhall did not hesitate. “Infection.”

Claiborne nodded for Silva to approach the body. The tech began entering readings on her tablet. The readings appeared on an overhead screen beneath a figure of a digital scan revealing the tornadic occlusion through Cabral’s left pelvis.