Infected Page 6

  The ten-foot projection TV screens of Scorekeeper’s Bar & Grill blazed San Francisco’s crimson jerseys and gold helmets along with Green Bay’s tradition-rich green and yellow. The slow-motion replay showed a perfect spiral descending toward a Packers receiver, then the 49ers defensive back reaching up and swatting the ball away.

  Perry screamed at the TV. “You see that?” He turned to stare in disbelieving anger at Bill, who sat calmly sipping from a Budweiser bottle. “You see that?”

  “Seemed like a good call to me,” Bill said. “No bout-a-doubt-it. It was practically rape when you look at it.”

  Perry howled in protest, beer spilling from his mug as his hands moved in accordance with his speech. “Oh, you’re crazy! The defender has a right to go for the ball. Now the Packers have a first-and-ten on the friggin’ fifteen-yard line.”

  “Try to keep some of that beer in the mug, will you?” Bill said, taking another sip from his bottle.

  Perry wiped up the spilled beer with a napkin. “Sorry. I just get pissed when the refs decide who’s supposed to win and don’t just let them play.”

  “It is a cruel and unjust existence, my friend,” Bill said. “We cannot escape the inequities of life, even in the sporting world.”

  Perry set his mug on the table, his eyes focused on the screen, his right hand casually scratching his left forearm. A corner blitz swept around the left offensive end, crushing the Green Bay quarterback for a seven-yard loss.

  Perry shook his clenched fist at the screen. “Take that, baby. Man, I love to see that. I hate quarterbacks. Friggin’ nancy-boys. It’s good to see someone put a snot-bubbler on the QB.”

  Bill looked away and put up a hand as if to say, “Enough.” Perry smiled and drained the rest of his beer in one long pull, then scratched at his thigh.

  “Beer make you break out in hives or something?” Bill said.

  “What?”

  “Your fleas again. You’re on your fifth beer, and with each one you scratch a little more.”

  “Oh,” Perry said. “It’s no big deal. It’s just a bug bite.”

  “I’m starting to wonder if we should be sitting in the same booth—I wouldn’t want to catch lice.”

  “You’re a regular comedian.” Perry signaled to the waitress. “You want another?”

  “No thanks,” Bill said. “I’m driving home after this. You better slow down, cowboy—you’re getting a little excitable.”

  “Aw, Bill, I’m fine.”

  “Good, and we’re going to keep it that way. You know how you get if you’ve had too much to drink. You’re done for the night.”

  Annoyance flared at the command, and Perry’s eyes narrowed. Who the hell was Bill to tell him what to do?

  “Excuse me?” Perry said. Without thinking, he leaned toward Bill, lip curling into a small sneer.

  Bill’s face showed no change. “You know when you scowl like that you look just like your father?”

  Perry flinched as if he’d been slapped. He sat back, then hung his head. He felt his face flush all hot and red with embarrassment. He pushed the beer mug away.

  “I’m sorry,” Perry said. He looked up with pleading eyes. “Bill, I’m really sorry.”

  Bill smiled reassuringly. “Don’t sweat it, buddy. You’re under control. It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not okay. I can’t talk to people like that—you especially.”

  Bill leaned forward, his tone soft and supportive. “Give yourself a break, Perry. You haven’t had an incident in years.”

  Perry stared off into space. “I still worry. I might slip up, you know? Not be paying attention, smack the shit out of someone before I realize what I’m doing. Something like that.”

  “But you haven’t smacked anyone. Not for a long time, man. Just relax. Your sob story is bringing tears to my manly eyes.” Bill’s smile showed his understanding.

  Perry thanked the powers that be, and not for the first time, that he had a friend in Bill Miller. Without Bill, Perry knew he’d probably be in jail somewhere.

  Bill put his hand on Perry’s arm. “Perry, you gotta give yourself some credit. You’re nothing like your father. You’ve left all that behind. You just have to be careful, that’s all—your temper is fucked up, man, just stay on point. Now can we stop with all this sissy-boy simpering and watch some football? The time-out is over. What do you think the Pack will do here?”

  Perry looked up at the screen. He let go of the small incident, let go of memories of his father’s endless violence. It was always easy to lose himself in football.

  “I’ll bet they go off-tackle on this one. They’ll try to catch the ’Niners sleeping, but they haven’t been able to block the inside linebacker all day. He’s creeping up right on the snap—he better watch his ass or they’ll go play-action and throw behind him when he comes barreling in.”

  Bill’s reassuring touch had started Perry’s arm itching again. He dug at it absently as he watched the Packers running back go off-tackle for two yards before the inside linebacker drilled him.

  Bill took a swig of beer and stared at Perry’s arm. “You know, I understand that your protruding brow is indicative of a certain caveman mentality, but maybe you should set aside your negative feelings toward the medical profession and see a doctor.”

  “Doctors are a rip-off. It’s all a big racket.”

  “Yes, and I’ll bet you saw Elvis last night and there’s some great alien hookers at the trailer park down the road. You’ve got a college degree, for God’s sake, and you still think doctors are medicine men who bleed you with razors and use leeches to suck away the bad spirits.”

  “I don’t like doctors,” Perry said. “I don’t like them, and I don’t trust them.”

  On the screen, the Packers QB took the snap and faked a handoff. The inside linebacker took a step forward, and as soon as he did, Perry saw the opening in the middle. The QB saw it too—he stood tall in the pocket, the picture of poise, and rifled the ball into the end zone just a few yards behind the linebacker. The receiver hauled it in with a diving catch, giving the Packers a 22–20 lead with only fourteen seconds left in the game.

  “Fuck,” Perry said. “I fucking hate quarterbacks.” He felt that gnawing jealousy inside, the one that always came when he watched someone blow a play he himself would have easily made. It was so hard to watch the weekly NFL battles, knowing damn well that’s where he belonged, knowing damn well he wouldn’t have just been competitive, but dominant. He silently cursed the injury that had ended his career.

  “First the Lions, now the ’Niners, and you still haven’t figured out the problem in Pullman,” Bill said. “Looks like this just isn’t your week.”

  “Yeah,” Perry said as he scratched his forearm. His voice sounded resigned. “You can say that again.”

  12.

  CLUES

  Margaret arched her back and took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves, the Racal suit encumbering her every movement. Her hands shook, only slightly, but it was enough to disturb her control of the laparoscope.

  The laparoscope, a surgical tool used for operations in the abdominal cavity, consisted of a sensitive fiber-optic camera and an attachment for various probes, scalpels, drills and other devices. The camera, complete with its own light, was barely larger than a piece of thread. The rig included a big monitor on a video tower. Surgeons utilized the equipment to perform delicate operations without cutting into the patient via traditional means.

  Few people used such equipment for autopsies, but Margaret wanted to examine the area surrounding the growth while disturbing it as little as possible. Her strategy seemed to have paid off.

  Just as in her examination of Charlotte Wilson’s corpse, the growths had already rotted into a liquefied black pulp. There was nothing in the growth itself she could examine. The surrounding tissues were decomposing at a frighteningly fast pace, but this time she was ready. Using the laparoscope, she’d probed the area in and around the growth. Deep inside,
almost to the bone and in the midst of rotting black flesh, she’d found a piece of matter that clearly didn’t belong to the victim.

  She cracked her knuckles one at a time. The bones popped silently, muffled by the Racal suit. She drew another breath, then took the camera’s control with her left hand. The monitor showed the growth’s blackened, decaying interior. She knew the rot would soon spread to other parts of the body, dissolving it into a useless pile of putrefaction in a few scant hours. Every second counted.

  Her hands grew steady; they had to be for such delicate work. The piece of material, barely a quarter inch across, looked to be part of the growth. It was black, the same color as the decomposed gore around it, but reflected the light almost like plastic. That reflective quality was the only reason she’d spotted it.

  Her left hand maneuvered the camera, pushing it closer to the black piece. Her right hand controlled a trocar, a hollow tube through which specialized surgical instruments could access a patient’s body cavities without cutting him or her open. Her trocar carried a tiny pair of pincers. Like a kid with a hundred-thousand-dollar video game, she moved the pincers closer to the black plastic fleck. Her finger rested on a trigger that, when pressed, would close the pincers.

  Margaret tweaked the camera controls. The image, slightly distorted from high magnification, focused in on the mysterious shiny fleck. The pincers looked like metallic monster claws about to pluck a lone swimmer from a sea of black.

  She gently squeezed the trigger. The pincers gripped firmly on the strange material, squishing out thick bubbles of rancid goo as they closed.

  “Nice job,” Amos said. “First try. Give the lady a cee-gar.”

  She smiled and pulled back on the pincers. The material resisted the pull. She looked closely at the monitor, then gently moved the pincers from side to side, wiggling the clamped object. The reason for the resistance became clear—the object appeared to be embedded in a rib. She pulled back gently, slowly increasing the pressure. The object bent slightly, then popped free. They heard a wet squelch as the tiny pincers—smeared with black slime—pulled free from the wound.

  Amos held a petri dish under the pincers. Margaret released the trigger, but the little fleck clung to the goop on the bottom pincer. He grabbed a scalpel, then gently used the point to push the object into the petri dish.

  She took the dish and held it close to her faceplate. The fleck had a shape to it, and she could see why it had stayed so firmly planted in the bone. It looked just like a black rose thorn.

  She felt a rush of satisfaction. They were still a hundred miles from figuring out the key to this horrific puzzle, but thanks to Charlotte Wilson she knew better what to look for and how much time she had to work with. The black fleck was something new, and it brought them one step closer to an answer.

  “Hey,” Amos said, “what do you make of this?” He stood next to Brewbaker’s hip, one of the places least damaged from the flames. His finger rested beside a small lesion, sort of like a gnarled zit.

  A gnarled zit with a tiny blue fiber sticking out of it.

  “So he had some acne,” Margaret said. “Do you think it’s significant?”

  “I think everything is significant. Should we excise it and send it out?”

  She thought for a moment. “Not yet. It doesn’t look like there’s any decomposition on that spot, and I want to examine it for myself. Let’s focus on the areas that are rotting, as we know we won’t have much longer to work with those, then come back to it, okay?”

  “Sounds good,” Amos said. He grabbed the camera from the prep table. He leaned in close to the zit, snapped a picture, then put the camera back on the prep table. “Right, we’ll come back to it.”

  “How much longer until we get the results from the tissue analysis of the growth?”

  “We’ll have info tomorrow. I’m sure they’re working through the night. DNA analysis, protein sequencing and anything else that might pop up.”

  She checked her watch—10:07 P.M. She and Amos would also be up all night and well into the next day. Had to be. They knew from hard-earned experience that they had only a few days before Brewbaker’s body rotted away.

  13.

  TWO-FER TUESDAY

  “Good God, Perry,” Bill said. “Two days in a row. I’ve seen flea-ridden dogs scratch like that, but never a human.” Bill, half hung over the cubicle wall, looked down at a madly scratching Perry.

  “Of course, I’m assuming you’re human,” Bill added. “Scientists still debate that one.”

  Perry ignored the mild gibe, concentrating instead on his left forearm. He’d pushed the sleeve of his ratty Detroit Lions sweatshirt up past his elbow. His right hand looked a blur as he raked the hairy forearm with his fingernails.

  “I hear scabies is nasty this time of year,” Bill said.

  “Damn thing itches like all get-out.” Perry stopped for a moment to stare at the welt. Its texture resembled a small strawberry—if strawberries were yellow and oozed tiny drops of clear fluid. The yellowish welt felt solid, as if a piece of cartilage had broken free from somewhere in his body and lodged in his arm. His arm, and six other places.

  The digging nails left long, angry-red scratches. The scratches surrounded the welt like egg white around an overcooked yolk.

  “Gee, that looks healthy,” Bill said, then slipped back into his cube.

  “It’s no big deal.” Perry turned his attention to his screen, which displayed a computer network diagram. He absently reached up and brushed a lock of straight, heavy blond hair out of his eyes.

  StickyFingazWhitey: Dude, seriously…nasty.

  Bleedmaize_n_blue: It’s no big deal, mind yer own.

  StickyFingazWhitey: God forbid you just go buy some—oh, dare I speak the word that should never be spoken—MEDICINE?

  Perry tried to ignore Bill’s sarcasm. As if the wonderful rashes weren’t enough of a distraction. Perry had been working on the Pullman problem, the same one he hadn’t solved the day before, for more than an hour. At least he tried to work. The rashes made it difficult to concentrate on customer support.

  “Quit being such a macho stud-boy and go buy some Cortaid.” Bill hung over the gray cubicle wall like a puppy trying to decipher a new and unusual sound. “You don’t have to go to Mr. Evil Witchdoctor, for God’s sake, just buy something to help that itch. A disinfectant wouldn’t hurt either, by the looks of things. I’ll never understand why you like to sit in pain rather than partake in the wonders of a modern society.”

  “Your doctors couldn’t do anything for my right knee, now could they?”

  “I was at the game, Perry, remember? I saw your knee when I visited you at the hospital. Jesus H. Christ couldn’t have brought that knee back from the dead.”

  “Maybe I’m just a Cro-Magnon, that’s all.” Perry fought the urge to scratch again. The rash on his right ass cheek demanded attention. “We still hitting the bar tonight?”

  “I don’t think so, contagion-boy. I prefer the company of at least semi-healthy people. You know, those with rubella or smallpox? Perhaps a bit of the Black Death? I’d rather associate with them than deal with scabies.”

  “It’s just a rash, asshole.” Perry felt anger slowly swell up in his chest. He immediately fought it down. Bill Miller seemingly lived to irritate people, and once he got rolling he didn’t quit. It would be “scabies this” and “scabies that” for the rest of the week—and it was only Tuesday. But they were just words, and good-natured words at that. Perry calmed himself. He’d already let his temper slip once this week—he’d be damned if he’d insult Bill like that again.

  Perry moved his mouse and clicked, magnifying a section of the network schematic. “Leave me alone, will ya? Sandy wants this thing fixed right away. The Pullman people are going apeshit.”

  Bill slid back into his cube. Perry stared at the screen, trying to solve a problem taking place more than a thousand miles away in the state of Washington. Analyzing computer glitches over the phone wa
sn’t an easy job, especially with network difficulties where the problem could be a wire in the ceiling, a bad port, or a single defective component on any of 112 workstations. Many times in customer support, he faced problems that would have chewed up Agatha Christie, Columbo and Sherlock Holmes in one big swallow. This was one such problem.

  The answer danced at the edges of his mind, but he couldn’t focus. He leaned back into his chair, which set the itch on his spine afire with maddening intensity. It was like a thousand mosquito bites all rolled into one.

  Perry’s train of thought dissolved completely as he ground his back into the office chair, letting the rough cloth dig through his sweatshirt. He grimaced as the welts on his leg flared up with itching so sudden and so bad that he might as well have been stung by a wasp. He attacked the leg welts, clawing his nails through blue-jean denim. It was like trying to fight a Hydra—each time he stopped one biting head, two more flared up to take its place.

  From the next cube, he heard Bill’s poor impression of a Shakespearean actor.

  “To scabies, or not to scabies,” Bill said, his voice only slightly muffled by the divider. “That is the infection.”

  Perry gritted his teeth and bit back an angry reply. The welts were driving him nuts, making him easily irritated by little things. Still, although Bill was his friend, sometimes the guy didn’t know when to quit.

  14.

  DIRTY FINGERNAILS

  Margaret stared into the microscope’s eyepiece, trying to focus on the magnified image. Her eyes were red from lack of sleep. She couldn’t rub them, thanks to the plastic faceplate and the cumbersome biosuit. She blinked a few times to clear her vision. How long had she been working on Brewbaker? Twenty-four hours and counting, and no end in sight. She bent and stared into the microscope.