Robin Cook - Contagion

When the cab pulled up to his destination, Jack paid the fare and stepped out into a street alive with people. He looked up at the building he was about to enter. At one time it had been a fine, proud single-family home in the middle of an upscale neighborhood. Now it had seen better days, much like Jack’s own tenement.

A few people eyed Jack curiously as he mounted the brownstone steps and entered the foyer. The black-and-white mosaic on the floor was missing tiles.

The names on a broken line of mailboxes indicated that the Hernandez family lived on the third floor. Jack pushed the doorbell for that apartment even though his sense was that it didn’t work. Next he tried the inner door. Just as in his own building, the lock on the door had been broken long ago and never repaired.

Having climbed the stairs to the third floor, Jack knocked on the Hernandezes’ door. When no one answered he knocked again, only louder. Finally he heard a child’s voice ask who was there. Jack called out he was a doctor and wanted to speak with Gloria Hernandez.

After a short, muffled discussion that Jack could hear through the door, the door was pulled open to the limit of a chain lock. Jack saw two faces. Above was a middle-aged woman with disheveled, bleached-blond hair. Her eyes were red and sunken with dark shadows. She was wearing a quilted bathrobe and was coughing intermittently. Her lips had a slight purplish cast.

Below was a cherubic child of nine or ten. Jack wasn’t sure if it was a boy or a girl. The child’s hair was shoulder length, coal black, and combed straight back from the forehead.

“Mrs. Hernandez?” Jack questioned the blond-haired woman.

After Jack showed his medical examiner’s badge and explained he’d just come from Kathy McBane’s office at the Manhattan General, Mrs. Hernandez opened the door and invited him inside.

The apartment was stuffy and small, although an attempt had been made to decorate it with bright colors and movie posters in Spanish. Gloria immediately retreated to the couch where she’d apparently been resting when Jack knocked. She drew a blanket up around her neck and shivered.

“I’m sorry you are so sick,” Jack said.

“It’s terrible,” Gloria said. Jack was relieved that she spoke English. His Spanish was rusty at best.

“I don’t mean to disturb you,” Jack said. “But as you know, lately people from your department have become ill with serious diseases.”

Gloria’s eyes opened wide. “I just have the flu, don’t I?” she asked with alarm.

“I’m sure that’s correct,” Jack said. “Katherine Mueller, Maria Lopez, Carmen Chavez, and Imogene Philbertson had completely different illnesses than you have, that is certain.”

“Thank the Lord,” Gloria said. She made the sign of the cross with the index finger of her right hand. “May their souls rest in peace.”

“What concerns me,” Jack continued, “is that there was a patient by the name of Kevin Carpenter on the orthopedic floor last night who possibly had an illness similar to your own. Does that name mean anything to you? Did you have any contact with him?”

“No,” Gloria said. “I work in central supply.”

“I’m aware of that,” Jack said. “And so did those other unfortunate women I just mentioned. But in each case there had been a patient with the same illness the women caught. There has to be a connection, and I’m hoping you can help me figure out what it is.”

Gloria looked confused. She turned to her child, whom she addressed as “Juan.” Juan began speaking in rapid Spanish. Jack gathered he was translating for him; Gloria had not quite understood what he’d said.

Gloria nodded and said “si” many times while Juan spoke. But as soon as Juan finished, Gloria looked up at Jack, shook her head, and said: “No!”

“No?” Jack asked. After so many yeses he didn’t expect such a definitive no.

“No connection,” Gloria said. “We don’t see patients.”

“You never go to patient floors?” Jack asked.

“No,” Gloria said.

Jack’s mind raced. He tried to think what else to ask. Finally he said: “Did you do anything out of the ordinary last night?”

Gloria shrugged and again said no.

“Can you remember what you did do?” Jack asked. “Try to give me an idea of your shift.”

Gloria started to speak, but the effort brought on a serious bout of coughing. At one point Jack was about to pound her on her back, but she raised her hand to indicate she was all right. Juan got her a glass of water, which she drank thirstily.

Once she could speak, she tried to recall everything she’d done the evening before. As she described her duties, Jack struggled to think if any of her activities put her in contact with Carpenter’s virus. But he couldn’t. Gloria insisted she had not left central supply for the entire shift.

When Jack could not think of any more questions, he asked if he could call if something else came to mind. She agreed. Jack then insisted she call Dr. Zimmerman at the General to let her know how sick she was.

“What could she do?” Gloria asked.

“She might want to put you on a particular medication,” Jack said. “As well as the rest of your family.” He knew that rimantadine not only could prevent flu, but if it was started early enough in an established case, it might reduce the duration and possibly the severity of symptoms by as much as fifty percent. The problem was, it wasn’t cheap, and Jack knew that AmeriCare was loath to spend money on patient care it didn’t feel it had to.

Jack left the Hernandez apartment and headed toward Broadway where he thought he could catch a cab. Now, on top of being agitated from the attempt on his life, he was also discouraged. The visit to Gloria had accomplished nothing other than to expose him to Gloria’s influenza, which he feared might be the strain that so readily killed Kevin Carpenter.

Jack’s only consolation was that he’d started his own course of rimantadine. The problem was, he knew rimantadine wasn’t one hundred percent effective in preventing infection, particularly with a virulent strain.

It was late afternoon by the time Jack was dropped off at the medical examiner’s office. Feeling stressed and despondent, he entered and allowed himself to be buzzed in. As he passed the ID area, he did a double take. In one of the small rooms set aside for families identifying their dead, Jack saw David. He didn’t know David’s last name, but it was the same David who had driven Jack and Spit back to the neighborhood after the episode in the park.

David also caught sight of Jack, and for the second their eyes made contact, Jack sensed anger and contempt.

Resisting the impulse to approach, Jack immediately descended to the morgue level. With his heels echoing loudly on the cement floor he walked around the refrigerated compartments, fearful of what he was going to find. There in the hall was a single gurney bearing a newly dead body. It was directly beneath the harsh glare of a hooded overhead light.

The sheets had been arranged so that only the face could be seen. It had been so posed for a Polaroid picture to be taken. Such a picture was the current method for families to identify their dead. Photographs were considered more humane than having the bereaved families view the often mutilated remains.

A lump formed in Jack’s throat as he looked down on Slam’s placid face. His eyes were closed; he truly appeared to be asleep. In death he looked even younger than he had in life. Jack would have guessed around fourteen.

Depressed beyond words, Jack took the elevator up to his office. He was thankful that Chet was not in. He slammed his door, sat down at his desk, and held his head in his hands. He felt like crying, but no tears came. He knew indirectly he was responsible for yet another individual’s death.