Robin Cook - Blindsight

“Hey,” she said, disengaging herself. “How about an after-dinner drink?”

“Your wish is my command,” Jordan said with a rueful smile.

Laurie was a little surprised at herself. Surely she was not so naive to believe Jordan’s gesture wasn’t expected. After all, she’d gone out with the man nearly three nights in a row, and she did find him attractive. Yet for some reason she was beginning to have serious second thoughts.

“Well?” Tony mumbled as Angelo came back to the table from the phone outside the men’s room. Tony’s mouth was full. He’d just finished shoveling in a huge bite of tortellini con panna. Lifting up his napkin, he wiped off the ring of cream and cheese from his lips.

Angelo and Tony were in a small all-night restaurantsub shop in Astoria. It was Tony’s idea to stop, but Angelo didn’t mind since he had to call Cerino anyway.

“Well?” Tony repeated after he’d swallowed the tortellini in his mouth. He washed it down with mineral water.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk with food in your mouth,” Angelo said as he sat down. “It makes me sick.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony said. He was already busy stabbing tortellini with his fork in preparation for the next bite.

“He wants us to go out again tonight,” Angel said.

Tony shoveled the forkful of tortellini into his mouth, then said, “Great!” It sounded more like “rate.”

Having had yet another disgusting look at the mash of pasta in Tony’s mouth, Angelo reached over and picked Tony’s bowl from the table and crammed it upside down on Tony’s place mat.

Tony flinched at the sudden movement and stared at his upturned bowl with shocked surprise. “Why did you do that?” he whined.

“I told you not to eat with your mouth open,” Angelo snapped. “I’m trying to talk with you and you keep eating.”

“I’m sorry, all right?”

“Besides it pisses me off about Cerino sending us out,” Angelo said. “I thought we were finally finished with all this crap.”

“At least the money is good,” Tony said. “What are we supposed to do?”

“We’re supposed to stick to the supply side,” Angelo said. “We might be finished with the demand side, which is fine by me. That’s where we got into trouble.”

“When?” Tony asked.

“As soon as you get your ass out into the car,” Angelo said.

Fifteen minutes later, as they were approaching the Queensboro Bridge, Angelo spoke up: “There’s another thing that bothers me about this. I don’t like the timing. Late Saturday night is not a good time. We may have to change things around and be creative.”

“Why don’t we just use the phone?” Tony said. “We can make sure things are copacetic before we do anything else.”

Angelo shot a glance in Tony’s direction. Sometimes the kid surprised him. He wasn’t dumb all the time.

9:15 a.m., Sunday

Manhattan

Bending over and trying to point the umbrella into the wind, Laurie slowly made her way up First Avenue. It was hard for her to believe that the weather could change as much as it had in a single day. Not only was it windy and rainy, but the temperature had plummeted during the night to just a tad above freezing. Laurie had taken her winter coat out of its mothballed storage container for the occasion.

Standing on the corner, Laurie vainly waved at the few cabs that streaked past, but all were occupied. Just when she had resigned herself to walking to the office, a vacant taxi pulled up to the curb. She had to leap away to keep from being splashed.

Having finally made significant progress on her paperwork the day before, Laurie was not planning on working that Sunday, yet she felt compelled to go to the office because of a superstitious feeling. It was her idea that if she’d made the effort to go, there wouldn’t be any additional cases in her series.

Stomping off the moisture in the reception area, Laurie unbuttoned her coat and walked through to the ID office. No one was there, and nor was there a schedule for the day’s cases. But the coffee machine was on and someone had made coffee. Laurie helped herself to a cup.

Leaving her coat and umbrella, Laurie descended a floor to the morgue and walked back to the main autopsy room. The lights were on, so she could tell it was in use.

The door creaked open to her touch. Only two of the eight tables were occupied. Laurie tried to recognize who was working. With the goggles, face masks, and hoods, it was difficult. Just when she was about to go into the locker room to change, someone noticed her and, leaving the autopsy table, came over to speak with her. It was Sal D’Ambrosio, one of the techs.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Sal asked.

“I live here,” Laurie said with a laugh. “Which doctor is on today?”

“Plodgett,” Sal said. “What’s the problem?”

“No problem,” Laurie said. “Who’s at the other table?”

“Dr. Besserman,” Sal said. “Paul called him; we got a lot of cases today. More than usual.”

Laurie nodded to Sal, then called over to Paul. “Hey, Paul. Anything interesting?”

“I’d say so,” he replied. “I was going to call you later. We got two more overdoses that can go into your series.”

Laurie felt her heart sink. So much for superstition. “I’ll be right in,” she said.

Once she had changed into her full protective gear, Laurie went to Paul’s table. He was working on the remains of a very young woman.

“How old?” Laurie asked.

“Twenty,” Paul said. “College student at Columbia.”

“How awful!” Laurie said. This would be by far the youngest in her series.

“That’s not the worst of it,” Paul said.

“How so?” Laurie asked.

“Dr. Besserman is doing the boyfriend,” Paul said. “He’s a thirty-one-year-old banker. That’s why I thought you’d be interested. Apparently they injected themselves simultaneously.”

“Oh no!” Laurie felt almost dizzy: as a double tragedy the incident was doubly poignant. She moved over to Dr. Besserman’s table. He was just lifting the internal organs out of the body. Laurie looked at the dead man’s face. There was a large discolored bruise on his forehead.

“He convulsed,” Dr. Besserman said, noticing Laurie’s curiosity. “Must have hit his face on the floor. Or it could have happened in the refrigerator.”

Laurie switched her attention to Dr. Besserman. “This man was found in a refrigerator?” she asked.

“That’s what the tour doctor told us,” Dr. Besserman said.

“That’s the third one, then,” Laurie said. “Where was the girlfriend?”

“She was in the bedroom on the floor,” Dr. Besserman said.

“Find anything special on the post so far?” Laurie asked.

“Pretty routine for an overdose,” Dr. Besserman said.

Laurie stepped back to Paul’s table and watched him slice off several samples of liver.

“What kinds of specimens have you been sending up to Toxicology on these cases?” he asked when he noticed Laurie by his side.

“Liver, kidney, and brain,” Laurie said. “In addition to the usual fluid samples.”

“That’s what I thought,” Paul said.

“Have you found anything remarkable on this case?” Laurie asked.

“Not so far. Certainly consistent with a cocaine overdose. No surprises. But we have the head to go.”

“I hear you have a lot of cases today. Since I’m already here would you like me to help?”

“It’s not necessary,” Paul said. “Especially since Dr. Besserman’s come in.”

“Are you sure?” Laurie asked.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’m sure.”

Going through all the paperwork on the cases, Laurie got the names of the victims as well as the male’s address. It had been at the male’s apartment that the bodies had been found. Then she went back to the locker room and changed. She was extremely disheartened. There was something particularly tragic about two young lovers losing their lives so senselessly. She began to regret anew Bingham’s decision not to inform the public about the potentially tainted drug. If he had, those two people might be alive today.