“They warned me about this at the hospital,” he said. “There’s always a chance with old people who have to stay in bed. I have some antibiotic pills they gave me. We’ll give those to him, then I’ll go to Bellevue to see if I can get some more — and see if they won’t readmit him. He should be in an oxygen tent.”
Sol barely woke up when he swallowed the pills, and his skin felt burning hot to Shirl when she held up his head. He was still asleep when Andy returned, less than an hour later. Andy’s face was empty of expression, unreadable, what she always thought of as his professional face. It could mean only one thing.
“No more antibiotics,” he whispered. “Because of the flu epidemic. The same with the oxygen tents and the beds. None available, filled up. I never even saw any of the doctors, just the girl at the desk.”
“They can’t do that. He’s terribly sick. It’s like murder.”
“If you go into Bellevue it looks as though half the city is sick, people everywhere, even in the street outside. There just isn’t enough medicine to go around, Shirl. I think just the children are getting it, everyone else has to take their chances.”
“Take their chances!” She leaned her face against his wet coat and began to sob helplessly. “But there is no chance at all here. It’s murder. An old man like that, he needs some help, he just can’t be left to die.”
He held her to him. “We’re here and we can look after him. There are still four of the tablets left. We’ll do everything that we can. Now come inside and lie down. You’re going to get sick too if you don’t take better care of yourself.”
7
“No, Rusch, impossible. Can’t be done — and you should know better than to ask me.” Lieutenant Grassioli held his knuckle against the corner of his eye, but it did not stop the twitching.
“I’m sorry, lieutenant,” Andy said. “I’m not asking for myself. It’s a family problem. I’ve been on duty nine hours now and I’ll take double tours the rest of the week—”
“A police officer is on duty twenty-four hours a day.”
Andy held tight to his temper. “I know that, sir. I’m not trying to avoid anything.”
“No. Now that’s the end of it.”
“Then let me off for a half an hour. I just want to go to my place, then I’ll report right back to you. After that I can work through until the day-duty men come on. You’re going to be shorthanded here after midnight anyway, and if I stay around I can finish off those reports that Centre Street has been after all week.”
It would mean working twice around the clock without any rest, but this would be the only way to get any grudging aid out of Grassy. The lieutenant couldn’t order him to work hours like this — if it wasn’t an emergency — but he could use the help. Most of the detective staff had been turned out again on riot duty so that the routine work had fallen far behind. Headquarters on Centre Street did not think this a valid excuse.
“I never ask a man to do extra duty,” Grassioli said, grabbing the bait. “But I believe in fair play, give and take. You can take a half an hour now — but no more, understand — and make it up when you come back. If you want to stay around later, that’s your choice.”
“Yes, sir,” Andy said. Some choice. He was going to be here when the sun came up.
The rain that had been falling for the past three days had turned to snow, big, slow flakes that fell silently through the wide-spaced pools of light along Twenty-third Street. There were few other pedestrians, though there were still dark figures curled up in knots around the supporting pillars of the expressway. Their crowded numbers, along with the other citizens of the city, pressed out from the buildings with an almost tangible presence. Behind every wall were hundreds of people, seen now only as dark shapes in doorways or the sudden silhouette against a window. Andy lowered his head to keep the snow out of his face and walked faster, worry pushing him on until he had to slow down, panting to catch his breath.
Shirl hadn’t wanted him to leave that morning, but he had no other choice. Sol had been no better — or worse — than he had been for the past three days. Andy would have liked to have stayed with him, to help Shirl, but he had no choice. He had to leave, he was on duty. She had not understood this and they had almost fought over it, in whispers so that Sol wouldn’t hear. He had hoped to be back early, but the riot duty had taken care of that. At least he could look in for a few minutes, talk to them both, see if he could help in any way. He knew it wasn’t easy for Shirl to be alone with the sick old man — but what else was there to do?
Music and the canned laughter of television sounded from most of the doors along the hall, but his own apartment was silent; he felt a sudden cold premonition. He unlocked the door and opened it quietly. The room was dark.
“Shirl?” he whispered. “Sol?”
There was no answer, and something about the silence struck him at once. Where was the fast, rasping breathing that had filled the room? His flashlight whirred and the beam struck across the room and moved to the bed, to Sol’s still, pale face. He looked as though he were sleeping quietly, perhaps he was, yet Andy knew — even before his fingertips touched — that the skin would be cold and that Sol was dead.
Oh, God, he thought, she was alone with him here, in the dark, while he died.
He suddenly became aware of the almost soundless, heartbreaking sobbing from the other side of the partition.
8
“I don’t want to hear about it any more!” Billy shouted, but Peter kept talking just as if Billy hadn’t been there, lying right next to him, and hadn’t said a word.
“ ‘…and I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea,’ that is the way it is written in Revelation, the truth is there if we look for it. A revelation to us, a glimpse of tomorrow…”
“SHUT UP!”
It had no effect, and the monotonous voice went on steadily, against the background of the wind that swept around the old car and keened in through the cracks and holes. Billy pulled a corner of the dusty cover over his head to deaden the sound, but it didn’t help much and he could hardly breathe. He slipped it below his chin and stared up at the gray darkness inside the car, trying to ignore the man beside him. With the seats removed the sedan made a single, not too spacious room. They slept side by side on the floor, seeking what warmth they could from the tattered mound of firewall insulation, cushion stuffing and rumpled plastic seat covering that made up their bedding. There was the sudden reek of iodine and smoke as the wind blew down the exhaust-pipe chimney and stirred the ashes in the trunk, which they used for a stove. The last chunk of seacoal had been burned a week before.
Billy had slept, he didn’t know how long, until Peter’s droning voice had wakened him. He was sure now that the man was out of his head, talking to himself most of the time. Billy felt stifled by the walls and the dust, the closeness and the meaningless words that battered at him and filled the car. Getting to his knees, he turned the crank, lowered the rear window an inch and put his mouth to the opening, breathing in the cold freshness of the air. Something brushed against his lips, wetting them. He bent his head to look out through the opening and could see the white shapes of snowflakes drifting down.
“I’m going out,” he said as he closed the window, but Peter gave no sign that he had heard him. “I’m going out. It stinks in here.” He picked up the poncho made from the plastic covering that had been stripped from the front seat of the Buick, put his head through the opening in the center and wrapped it around him. When he unlocked the rear door and pushed it open a swirl of snow came in. “It stinks in here, and you stink — and I think you’re nuts.” Billy climbed out and slammed the door behind him.