“We need something big to set up out front. Not just chains and handcuffs,” said Vahidi. “Everybody does that. We need something outrageous to get her in the papers, get her known by the tourist and visitors bureaus, get her in those, those whaddayacallits, the what-to-do loops they play in the hotel rooms. She’s got a great show, but people aren’t going to know if they don’t come in and see it.”
Oh. She had a great show. That was nice to know.
“We’ll come up with something,” said Seamus.
“End of this week? We have to premiere it the same day as she premieres, make a big splash.”
“We’ll get right on it.”
“All right, all right,” said Vahidi, scribbling with his pen. “We’re looking at three weeks starting next Saturday, two shows a night, six days a week, three hundred dollars a show. Sound good to you?”
It did sound good. Seamus was nodding at her. “Sounds good,” she said.
“Sounds good,” he told Vahidi.
Vahidi stood as he told Seamus, “We’ll work out the details and get you a contract.” He and Seamus shook hands.
Mandy sat there watching her life being managed, her flesh being peddled. So human warmth wasn’t part of the business down here. Well, okay. She’d live with that. She’d make the best of it. She’d show them.
“And don’t go out on the casino floor either,” Vahidi reminded her. “You’re underage.”
chapter
35
Doris Branson was tucked away in a private room at Clark County Medical Center, stabilized and sedated.
Dr. Margo Kessler, medical director, stood by her bed going over her chart. “Bruising over her face with swelling …” From the air bag, she thought but didn’t say. “A 3.5 linear laceration of the right shoulder overlying the deltoid, running transverse to the axis of her arm and extending down to the muscle fascia.” From a loose object in the vehicle. “Right knee is diffusely edematous, but without evidence of joint space effusion. There is deep ecchymosis in the suprapatellar region.” Just like last time. Interesting that the patient’s clothing had no tears even though the shoulder was lacerated.
She looked at the patient’s face, the expression marred by the bruising and troubled by the dispute over what really happened. The paramedics said she’d fallen down some stairs, but they got that from witnesses on the scene. The patient herself, seemingly intoxicated and erratic, insisted otherwise. For now, Kessler simply noted, “Obtunded mental status secondary to presumed concussion.”
She looked at the crew standing by. “All right, let’s do a CBC and chem panel, and …” Now, this should be interesting: “Let’s get a urinalysis for blood ethanol and drug screen.” She checked the IV. “What’s she getting?”
A nurse answered, “IVD5 normal saline with 20mEq of KCl, 100 MLs per hour.”
“That’ll do for now. Let’s line up a CT scan of the head.”
“The family is waiting to see her,” a nurse told her.
Kessler nodded approval and got out of the room before her facade faltered. A safe distance down the hall she slipped into an alcove, punched a number on her cell phone, and fidgeted until her party picked up. “This is Kessler. Yes, the patient is Doris Branson, the injuries are exactly the same, and”—she nearly raised her voice—“I will need an explanation.” She listened, huffed a flustered breath. “I’ll see you in my office in five minutes.” She caught an elevator to the main floor.
When she reached her office, immediately adjacent to the emergency room, Dr. Martin DuFresne was there waiting for her, expression calm as always, something Kessler found aggravating—that, and DuFresne’s ghostly way of appearing for updates, briefings, and consultations, then disappearing into the bowels of the medical center, never to be seen. As usual, he wore scrubs and a white coat with the CCMC logo on it, something else that aggravated her. As far as she knew, he had no affiliation with the hospital, only that secretive bunch of ghouls in the basement—as if she were not one of them, especially now.
She closed the door and the blinds, then stood facing him down. “Well?”
He spread his hands and perked his eyebrows as if he were asking her the same question.
“Were you listening? I’m sure you’re fully aware by now, Doris Branson just came through the ER—again.”
“I would say she’s had another accident—”
“Don’t insult me. I could show you the chart from her automobile accident three months ago and it would be identical to the chart she has now, the same injuries in the same places, apparently by the same causes. So history has repeated itself and I’m sure you know what I mean even as I don’t.”
He paused, the same mild look on his face.
“Don’t stand there thinking of a clever answer. Just tell me what went wrong down there.”
He gave her half a smile and conceded, “We don’t know. Not yet.” She threw her head back and sighed out despair. “But the Machine is down so the only medical options are conventional. I can assure you, we’re working on it.”
“You said that about Mandy Collins.” She sank into the chair behind her desk, closed her eyes, and breathed, clinging to control.
He leaned over her desk. “As I began to suggest, she had a second accident. She was drinking again, she got disoriented and took the stairs instead of the elevator, she fell down the stairs and then stumbled as far as the casino, where she collapsed and her people found her.”
“ Yourpeople, you mean, covering your backs every moment, but I predict her UA is going to come up zero; no blood alcohol.” He gazed at her as if he could communicate with eyes alone. Maybe he could. She got his drift and rolled her gaze away in disgust. “So you just assume I’ll rewrite the lab report.”
He gave her one, diminutive nod. “And bear in mind, she was never told what her injuries were the first time. She thought she didn’t have any, so for her, history has not repeated itself.”
“Yes,” she said, slightly reassured. “Yes, that’s an important point.”
“And you’ve sedated her, so that will help to fog her recollections. No one actually saw her until she fell and drew attention. By the time she wakes up she will have slept off her intoxication and … you’re the doctor. You can tell her what happened. Your explanation is the only explanation.”
She thought it over. It could work. Maybe. “What about Mandy Collins?”
“She’s the reason the Machine’s malfunctioning. But we know where the problem’s originating, so it’s only a matter of time—pardon the pun. Don’t worry, you won’t be seeing her again.”
The thought. The horrendous, unspeakable thought. She blinked it away.
“Let us know how things go with Ms. Branson.” And with that, the ghostly DuFresne slipped quietly out her door and out of her sight.
The intercom on her desk came to life. “The salesman from Baylor Pharmaceuticals is here.”
She cursed, something she rarely did.
“He had a two-o’clock appointment?”
She grabbed a bottle of water from a minirefrigerator. “Yeah, send him in.” She uncapped the bottle and gulped half of it down. Pharmaceutical salesmen. If it weren’t for the free lunches …
A tap on the door.
“Come in.” She touched up her hair even as the door swung open.
“Hi,” the man said. “I’m Willard Chatwell from Baylor Pharmaceuticals. Not really.”
He sat down in a chair opposite her desk, a briefcase in his lap, and smiled at her, just smiled at her without a word.
If there was a God or gods, they had to have come up with this. Her insides felt pummeled, her face hot. Payday. The time of judgment.
The man was Dane Collins.
Wow! He’d never seen a white-coated professional, a knowledge-is-power doctor looking so fallible. Her hand was trembling. All she could do was gawk at him.
So all he did was smile and let her gawk. The torturous silence was delicious.
“You’re not …” Phlegm made her voice rattle. She cleared her throat. “You’re Mr. Collins.”