David Bajo - Mercy 6

He illuminated the handprint again, singling out the highest one.

“I’ll go in and get that answer for you.” He lifted his face closer to the print, seeing something new. “If you make the fight about blood.”

“It’s never that simple. Sometimes you have to use paper. When paper trumps blood. And I’m good at faking when I need to get something from a patient. But I’m not good at fooling myself.”

In the dimness, she could still see his gaze. He was looking at her face, her eyes, her mouth, back to her eyes. She was being honest. He remained silent.

“When you go in there,” she told him, “she’ll be scared. You’ll be another doctor. You can’t approach her like this. Like this, with me. She’ll swear she didn’t even touch Verdasco. She won’t listen to your question. She’ll want answers first. She’ll want to know why things are attached to her.” Mendenhall wiggled her index finger at Mullich. “Why this?”

She pointed to the range finder hanging from his neck. “And take that off before you go in.”

Mullich left the file room, pausing to offer the window to her, the space, kept the light off, softly closed the door. She watched the door eclipse his long shadow on the linoleum. The outside light from the loading bay reminded her of hard candy. Now that she knew where to look, she could see the four handprints on the window, the cluster of smudges where they tried to slide the pane.

She could see them only with averted vision, her focus the supply truck beyond.

She was testing the effect, letting the handprints vanish and reappear, when a message pinged. Anything from outside her hospital life chimed that particular way. It was her aunt.

Cortez

?

He misses you.

Not fair.

Take him back.

You see why I cant.

Then when this is over.

Then no.

Are you ok in there?

Yep.

Safe?

And sound.

She slung the cell in its holster and pressed her wrists to her temples, rolled her jaw. She leaned against the wall and was about to let herself slide into a sitting position, stare at the window, when Pao Pao buzzed her. The zap on her hip made her clench her thigh, trailed the sciatic path. She let Pao Pao record her message. The nurse worked best that way, uninterrupted, no questions, no false assurances.

Mendenhall picked up when she saw that Pao Pao had finished.

They had four new arrivals, all high fevers and pain. Mendenhall counted three even breaths in the resinous light before she left the file room.

Pao Pao had the four gurneys arranged in order of arrival, the EMTs kept at bay. Only one other nurse was working with Pao Pao, like her dressed in gloves, mask, and glasses. Patients in the beds lining the ER walls watched Mendenhall’s approach. An EMT offered her a fresh protection kit. She took the gloves and waved off the rest as she headed to the arrivals.

Arrival one was a nurse, her expression widening as Mendenhall neared. Mendenhall looked at the nurse’s eyes, then her fingers, then her length on the gurney. She eyed Pao Pao. “Let me guess. Third Floor. Pain…” Mendenhall palpated the sternum. “ Here .”

Arrival one gasped. Mendenhall checked herself, took a breath.

The EMTs had formed a line. Within this line gathered some of the ER nurses. Mendenhall wondered how they gauged their distance.

What possible piece of medical knowledge had they gleaned that told them that twelve feet was safer than ten? What was gathering now in their sympathetic little nerve bundles?

She turned to Pao Pao.

“Fever 102, sudden fatigue,” said Pao Pao. “Chest pain.”

Mendenhall surveyed the three other arrivals, resting her hand on the sternum of the nurse from ICU. All three were focused on her, lips parted, heads lifted. One was an EMT; two were nurses.

Mendenhall moved away, tried to disguise her anger in quickness, and conferred with Pao Pao.

She raised a finger to stop Pao Pao from speaking. “Listen to my guesses first. If I’m right—pretty much right—then we’ll know.”

Pao Pao nodded once, jaw firm.

“The EMT’s from here; one other nurse is also from Three, the other maybe from Seven. The one from Seven—neck pain. I’d say the other nurse from Three has the highest fever: 102 five, by the look in her eyes. Chest pain. The EMT, no pain at first, then neck and chest.”

Pao Pao said nothing, blinked once, then waited.

“One came in about five minutes before the other from ICU. The other two right after.”

“Cabral—the EMT,” said Pao Pao. “He—”

Mendenhall raised a hand. “He. He just kind of joined in. When he saw them coming.”

Pao Pao waited. Blinked.

Mendenhall spoke as softly as possible. “Here’s what we do. We’re going to give Thorpe one of these.” She checked arrival one.

“I focus on her, tend to her. You remove your mask and goggles and touch the other three, push them away, get that other nurse to join you. Get her to chat them up.”

Cabral sat up and scooted to the edge of his gurney before the nurses reached him. He was still in his EMT scrubs. He peeked at Mendenhall and inhaled through parted lips. Mendenhall said nothing to her patient as she palpated beneath the arms. She was tracking Pao Pao and the other nurse. They made a good tandem: Pao Pao silent, her arms swift and deliberate, the other nurse stooped and cooing.

Mendenhall felt something along the brachial crease, a spasm, realized too late that she had let her fingers linger there. A second later the woman convulsed, hips thrusting, head pushing back.

Perspiration dampened her brow and neck, visible to all in the tendrils sticking to her skin. The nurse with Pao Pao lifted her hands away from their patient, held them there, her eyes widening along with the sudden spread of her fingers.

Three went to ID. Cabral would maybe escape. Mendenhall sat in her cubicle, trying to fashion her entries. She was hoping to just leave Cabral out of the charts. There would be more of these hysterics; he might be forgotten.

Pao Pao was clearing a corner of the bay for fever arrivals, forming slots between empty beds for incoming gurneys. Mendenhall felt the dull nausea of defeat, nearing surrender. She could just play this out, let Thorpe get everything he wanted. How long could this last?

Three, four days at the most? But she had trouble imagining an end, Thorpe never managing to isolate anything.

Because there is nothing to isolate . She entered this on her screen.

She needed to read it, to close her eyes, then open them and see it again.

Pao Pao stood at the opening of the cubicle. Her expression was one of flat assessment, the Samoan lift in her eyes checking the grim line of her jaw.

“Are you right?” she asked.

Mendenhall tried to nod but only lifted her chin, looked.

“Because ID is going to fill up,” said Pao Pao. “They will start to pick and choose from these fevers, sending some back here. I plan to work through it. Working makes work pass quickly.”

“Does it matter, Pao?” Mendenhall sighed. “If I’m right?”

“To me, yes.”

Mendenhall pivoted her screen for the nurse, pointed to the last entry.

“Say it,” said Pao Pao. “Please can you say it, Doctor?”

“I’m right,” said Mendenhall.

“That convulsion,” said Pao Pao. “That convulsion surprised you. I saw.”

“That was my fault. I contributed to the hysteric. I left my hand in one spot too long. She thought I found something.”

“Did you find something?”

Mendenhall shook her head. “I’m right.”

She tried to be Thorpe, to see as Thorpe. On her screen she brought up the latest studies on toxic shock and viral hemorrhagic fevers. When she read the descriptions, the symptom variations and anomalies, she could see the possibilities.