The Devil in Silver

“But you need it for your files, don’t you?” he asked.

Still Waters looked up at him with a broad smile of relief.

The women stood up when Pepper clambered to his feet.

In the article he’d been downgraded to a “fluke.” But Pepper didn’t even notice. Pepper’s part wasn’t the bulletin. Nor Sue’s sister’s efforts. The kindness of the lawyer. The diligence of the reporter. All incredible, but secondary. Sue was safe. That was the lead. Sue was safe.

Is there ever any good news in this world?

Yes.

Then Mr. Mack had to go and change the subject.

He entered the oval room and walked right up to Pepper, Redhead Kingpin, and Still Waters. He moved around them, on his way into the phone alcove.

But just before he passed them, he hissed, “Tonight.”

“How will we know when?” Pepper asked.

Mr. Mack had one foot in the alcove already.

“I’ll come knocking on your door,” he said.

39

AND THE OLD man wasn’t lying. Pepper had just finished separating the beds in his room. (What did that matter now?) He put on the street clothes Dr. Anand gave him. He pulled his boots on. Then a faint rapping began. Rapping, tapping at his door. But when Pepper opened the door to his room?

No one was there.

He peeked into the hallway and saw that every other door to every other room in Northwest 2 was shut. Down at the nurses’ station, Miss Chris and Nurse Washburn and Scotch Tape were on night duty. All three sitting or standing in there, looking serene. Probably a first for them on the unit. Everyone seemed to have gone to sleep. Not even the late-night crew of Heatmiser, Redhead Kingpin, and Still Waters were up. Quiet rooms were good. Logging files into the computer was all they had to do now. The clacks of the keyboard were audible. Pepper ducked his head back into his room.

But before he could shut the door, he heard the faint knocking again. It was coming from the wall, where his dresser had once been. From the door that had been painted over, sealed shut.

For the third time he heard the knocking.

Pepper brought his face to the wall. (Door?) “Mr. Mack?”

From the other side, a harsh whisper. “Hush!”

Then came this chipping and chopping sound from the other side of the wall. It seemed to go on so long, though really it was only minutes. That rust-colored ceiling tile, the site of the leak, quivered each time the door in the wall was hit. More small cracks appeared up there. Pepper thought it would almost be funny if all Mr. Mack’s work caused the ceiling to cave in.

Then a few bits of paint fell from the wall on his side. A small hole, no bigger than a dime, appeared at waist height. A moment after that, a piece of metal poked through. The business end of a flathead screwdriver.

The screwdriver blade stayed still in the hole for a moment, but then, slowly, it turned.

“Push,” Mr. Mack whispered from the other side of the door.

Pepper pressed at it. Mr. Mack had chipped away at the paint around the door frame on his side, but on Pepper’s side it remained intact.

“Put your weight behind it,” Mr. Mack commanded.

Pepper shouldered the door hard. When the paint separated, it sounded like ice cracking, a frozen lake splitting under someone’s weight, and Pepper felt his face go cold, as if he’d been dunked. It was the fear that he might’ve been heard by Miss Chris, Scotch Tape, and Nurse Washburn. Pepper stopped pushing and watched the other door.

When he turned back, Mr. Mack had pulled the former wall door open.

Now Pepper could move freely from this room to the next. No need to walk out into the hallway and risk the wrath of the staff. Thank you, Repurposing. In order to cut costs, the hospital had inadvertently provided them with a secret path.

Mr. Mack held the screwdriver like a scepter. He used it to wave Pepper through. Into room seven. The floor here was littered with off-white paint chips. They looked like pencil shavings. Pepper stepped into the doorway, but didn’t enter the other room yet. Being right here, where a threshold had suddenly just appeared, made the moment seem so magical that he expected to step through and be transported to some fantasy kingdom.

(The Lion, the Witch, and the Psych Unit.)

But that didn’t happen, of course. This moment was fantastic enough as it was. Pepper entered room 7 and saw, in the far wall, that another doorway, exactly like this one, had been pried open. It led to room 9, and past that, another doorway that led to room 11. Room after room, all the way to the last in line. The door in room fifteen, down there, was still sealed. A white wall. What was behind that? The sidewalk?