Thank God!
Nikki was there, seated opposite a receptionist, thumbing through a copy of People. A wizened Asian woman occupied one of the other chairs. Just as Matt stepped off the elevator, a darkly handsome young man with a Hollywood chin emerged from one of the offices, crossed to Nikki, and introduced himself as Duty Officer Sherman. Nikki, clearly startled by Matt's sudden appearance, didn't respond immediately to the agent. The hesitation was all Matt needed. He moved quickly to her side, slipping his hand around her arm, and applying as much force as he dared. Nikki looked momentarily shocked, but then came through and handled the assault coolly, her expression saying, This had better he good.
"I'm sorry to bust in like this, Officer," Matt said, "but we're going to have to come back a little later. There's been a death in the family."
"Now, you jes listen here, Sara Jane Tinsley. You gotta stop actin' up an' let me get some damn work done. There ain't no one followin' you an' there ain't no one tryin' to hurt you. Now go on out an' find somethin' to do or someone to play with. If'n you can't occupy yerself, then jes get out back an' start pickin' corn." "Corn ain't ready, Ma, an' you know it," Sara Jane snapped.
"It's plenty ready."
"Besides, you jes want me out there so those men can have me. You hate me. You hate how ugly I done become. You think it's my fault. You think I'm staying up all night jes to git under yer skin. You don't understand that I cain't sleep. No matter how hard I try, I cain't sleep."
She was twelve, tall and willowy, but yet to show any outward signs of becoming a woman. Right now, she thought, she really didn't care if she became a woman er not. She cared about the men who had tried to git her into their car as she 'uz walking down the road. First they called her by name an' offered her a big stuffed panda to come with them. Then one of them — the thin one with the cowboy hat — got out of the car with a fist fulla money an' held it out for her. At the sight of him, Sara Jane had whirled and taken off through the woods. The man came after her, but there was no way in hell he 'uz gonna catch her. Those were her woods. No one caught her out there less'n she wanted 'em to.
"You're making a big mistake," the man had called after her as he gave up chasin'.
Sara Jane reported the incident to her ma, but it 'uz clear she didn't believe her. All she said was that Sara Jane wouldn't be get-tin' in such trouble if she'd jes stop runnin' off ever' chance she got an' stayed closer to home. Seven kids an' Sara Jane was the only one actin' out the way she was. Stayin' up all night. Makin' up stories. Havin' tantrums. Screamin' at her ma. Gettin' into fights with her brothers and sisters. Racin' off into the woods.
It were the bumps on her face that were poisoning her an' makin' her do bad things, Sara Jane had tried to explain. The bumps. The doctor in Ridgefield disagreed. He said she 'uz jes becoming a woman an' doin' it harder 'n most. The lumps'd go away as soon as her monthlies started. Maybe so. But this mornin' she had found another one, this one jes above her eye — nearly as wide as a dime an' hard as a knuckle. It was the sixth one, plus two right on the top of her head. Them monthlies had better come soon or there wouldn't be nothin' left of her face.
It was clear that her ma had said all she was of a mind to say on the topic of Sara Jane Tinsley. Well, to hell with her. If she wanted the corn picked so damn bad, her fav'rite daughter would pick it.
Sara Jane stormed from the house, slamming the torn screen door behind her, and grabbed one of the plastic baskets. Takin' in laundry an' ironin' was her ma's main source of money, but the corn, half an acre of it, helped. Only this year had been dry, real dry, an' many of the ears was runted. Well, she wanted 'em, she was gonna get 'em, runted or not.
Furious, Sara Jane marched to the end of the farthest row and began tearing off all the ears she could find and throwing them into the bucket. The bending and shaking stalks made a sound like a thresher was going through them. The noise and her own wild movements kept her from hearing the man stealthily approaching her from behind, or sensing his presence until it was too late. Simultaneously, one of his strong, bony hands pinned her to him across her chest, while the second one clamped a cloth over her mouth and nose — a cloth soaked with something that smelled sickly sweet. Sara Jane tried to fight and bite, but he pulled her down to the ground and smothered her with his hand and his body. She knew it was the man with the cowboy hat, but there was nothing she could do. Quickly, her struggles lessened.
I told you, Ma… I told you they 'uz after me…
Her head began to spin. Then, just as she thought she was going to throw up, peace and darkness settled over her.
CHAPTER 27
Ellen sat alone, nestled in the well-worn leather easy chair in Rudy's pine-paneled den, a barely touched avocado and Swiss sandwich on the TV tray in front of her, a nearly drained glass of Merlot — her second — cradled in her hand. She had never been much of a drinker and couldn't remember if she had ever drunk wine in the morning. But the Omnivax "documentary" she was watching, put together by the Marquand campaign, coupled with the letter in her purse that she had yet to deal with, had generated a level of tension that simply could not go untreated.
It was just after twelve noon on the day following her remarkable interview with Nattie and Eli Serwanga, and a few hours after that, with Lassa victim John Gendron, a thirty-seven-year-old schoolteacher from Baltimore.
It was a frantic dash, with some luck from the traffic gods thrown in, but Ellen managed to catch a return flight from Chicago to BWI Airport. Her car was at Reagan International outside of D.C., so she rented one and drove to Gendron's place — a modest town house on Fayette, several blocks from the sparkling Baltimore waterfront.
Before his infection with the Lassa virus, Gendron had taught English in an inner-city junior high school. He was now eighteen months past his close brush with death, and believed he was too disabled ever to teach again. Ellen's conversation with him was limited by his hearing, which was 70 percent gone in one ear and 100 percent in the other as a result of his illness.
"I went to Sierra Leone to visit my sister, who is a nurse with an international aid organization," he said. "About a week after I returned, my throat began to burn when I swallowed anything — even water. Within three days, my temperature was spiking to a hundred and five. Blood was coming out of my nose and rectum."
The man's eyes began to glisten, and Ellen could see that, however gracious he had been about inviting her to his home, this exchange was exquisitely painful for him.
"Mr. Gendron, please feel free to send me packing if this is too hard for you," she said. "I live close enough to come back another time."
"No. No, I'm okay. You promised to tell me what it is you're working on."
"And I will," Ellen said.
"Well, I became delirious around the end of the second week, and was put in the hospital. They… they had to remove my intestine to keep me from bleeding to death. Even so, I nearly did. I'm divorced and live alone, so my sister flew back here from Sierra Leone and took care of me for nearly two months. My colostomy is a souvenir of my trip to Africa."
It may actually be the souvenir of your flight home, Ellen was thinking.
"Go on," she said.
"As far as I know," he went on flatly, "I infected six of my students, plus my son and one of his friends. The friend made it okay. Two of my students and my son, Steven, weren't as fortunate."