Fire in the Blood Read online

  “Five dollars,” he said.

  “What?” said Coop.

  “Five, man.” The guy wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “It’s fresh, you just saw me.”

  “You want me to buy your spit,” said Coop. Wondering if this was some weird put-on, a hazing ritual aimed at tourists.

  “Man, who the fuck are you? Five is a deal.”

  Coop opened his mouth to answer, but before he could say anything, the man with the cup arranged the fingers of his other hand into an occult gesture of dismissal.

  “Forget your face,” he said, and stalked away.

  Coop blinked after the man, trying to figure out what he’d done wrong. He’d never been quick with strangers, that was Kay’s domain. She had always been so sure of herself, possessed with an honest confidence that Coop sometimes found corny. It was like she had nothing to hide, not even from strangers. Had she still been like that, even after moving back to New York? There was so much he didn’t know about her life here. He needed to know what had happened to her. He needed to know if Kay had still been Kay when she died.

  Coop continued into the clinic. He passed through a blast of hot air into a small entryway, the rubberized floor puddled with snow and rock salt. Through the glass of a second door he saw a gathering of worn-down faces and cheap coats. In one corner a man was dipped forward at the waist, his head practically touching the floor, while a young black woman with a clipboard tried speaking with him. Everyone in the lobby held a cup of coffee, even the bent-over guy, who was somehow managing to keep it steady.

  Pushing his way inside, Coop was immediately stopped by an accusatory voice.

  “Sir! Are you here to be admitted?”

  It was the woman with the clipboard, walking toward him across the crowded lobby. She wore a turtleneck sweater and a long skirt, and though she couldn’t have been more than five or ten years older than Coop, she carried herself with a professional severity that made Coop instantly feel like he’d done something wrong.

  “What’s your business here?” said the woman, positioning herself squarely in front of Coop. Now everyone was looking in Coop’s direction, except the bent-over guy, who was still looking at the floor.

  “I’m just looking—” he stuttered.

  “Just looking?” the woman repeated. She motioned behind her, toward a cubicle of ballistic glass. A uniformed security guard sat inside, and at her gesture he took up a phone and started dialing.

  “I’m just looking for— Wait, who’s he calling?” said Coop. “He doesn’t have to call anyone.”

  “Then maybe you want to tell me why you’re here, sir?”

  “I just had a few questions,” said Coop, lowering his voice to a frantic whisper. “About my wife.”

  Already Coop’s mind was spinning out the scenario: police show up, ask for identification, maybe even call his unit to ask why he’s in New York and not Afghanistan.

  “Your wife?” said the woman.

  “I think she worked here. Her name was Kay.”

  The woman’s face transformed: eyes softening, the stern vigilance melting away. One hand went up to wave an okay at the man behind the glass. He hung up the phone, and Coop let out a slow, shuddering breath.

  “I’m Eva,” said the woman, finally. She reached out to shake hands.

  “Coop,” said Coop.

  Up close he noticed Eva’s hair was composed of hundreds of tiny braids, all tied up like a corded tiara.

  “Kay and I worked together,” said Eva. “What happened…” Her voice trailed off. “I’m sorry, maybe you’d like to sit down somewhere?”

  “Sure,” said Coop. “I appreciate it.”

  Eva brought him past the barrier of bulletproof glass, toward the back of the building.

  “Hey Rodney,” she said to the guard in the cubicle, “you got the lobby?”

  Rodney buzzed them through a door leading to a long carpeted hallway.

  “I’m sorry if I seemed confrontational back there,” said Eva. “Unfortunately, not everyone coming through that door is looking for treatment.”

  “What else would someone come here for?”

  Eva didn’t answer. They passed a corkboard covered in old flyers, OSHA notices, a calendar featuring quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh.

  “Can I ask where you’re coming from?”

  “Afghanistan, most recently,” said Coop.

  Eva looked back at him with new curiosity. “What branch?”

  “Army.”

  “Oh yeah? What unit?”

  Coop was surprised by the specificity of the question. “Eighty-Second Airborne,” he said.

  Eva gave him a knowing smile. “So, you jump out of perfectly good airplanes, is that right?” she said.

  “That’s right,” said Coop. It was a tired line—perfectly good airplanes—one of those slogans you’d find printed on military kitsch sold by vendors outside the gates of Fort Bragg. Coop wondered how Eva knew the reference, if maybe her boyfriend was a vet.

  Before he could ask, Eva opened a door into a small conference room. The walls were covered in scrawled-up sheets of chart paper, and centered on the linoleum floor was a haphazard ring of folding chairs.

  “We can sit here,” said Eva. “Would you like coffee or anything?”

  “Sure,” said Coop. He was distracted by the walls. Something pulled at him from the jumble of notes.

  “Okay, be right back,” said Eva. Coop moved closer to one of the hanging sheets. I’m THANKFUL for today was written across the page in purple marker.

  Coop stared at the paper, the wide-block capitals and underlined words. It was Kay’s handwriting, the same lettering from all the postcards she had sent him during the first months of his deployment. Coop remembered one now. He had memorized the words:

  It’s SO amazing to think a day will actually come when you’re here, back home with me. I’m looking forward to that FIRST moment we lay eyes on each other.

  Coop ran his hand over the paper’s curling edge, smoothing the crinkles with his palm.

  The door opened behind him and Eva stood there with a cup of coffee in each hand. Smiling at him sadly.

  Coop yanked away his hand, and as he did, the butcher paper slipped free from the wall, collapsing in folds. Coop bent down to retrieve it, muttering “Sorry” while Eva set down the cups on a small table and came over to help.

  “It’s okay,” she said, and together they got the sheet back up, smoothing it in place. They both stood for a moment, looking at the paper on the wall. Then Coop turned away, cleared his throat, and went for one of the coffees.

  “On my way over here, a guy tried to sell me his spit.”

  Eva frowned and nodded, as if this oddity, like Kay’s death, belonged to a world whose tragedies could be deciphered.

  “Spitbacks,” she said. “Too many clients were selling their pills, so we started giving methadone in an oral suspension. Now they just cough it back up and try to sell that.”

  Jesus, Kay, thought Coop. This is the world you left me for?

  “Anyway,” said Eva, “I hope I can answer your questions. We worked in different departments, Katherine and I. She was a case manager, so she was in the field a lot. I’m a resident.”

  “You live here?”

  “I’m a physician,” said Eva, a subtle tightness forming in her cheeks.

  “You’re a doctor?” As soon as Coop heard his own dubious tone, he wanted badly to retract the question. Eva’s face became notably fatigued.

  “I mean, I didn’t realize…”

  She smiled politely. “I’m a psychiatrist. It’s okay, we don’t wear the white coats.”

  He hadn’t meant it that way, Coop insisted to himself, though if he was being honest, he had been surprised to hear that Eva was a doctor. It was the coat, he tol
d himself.

  A silence followed. Coop had so many questions, but now he was distracted by an irritating sense of guilt.

  “So maybe you were wondering about the work we do?” Eva prompted, obviously making an effort to keep the conversation going. Coop noticed now that her eyes were puffy, and she kept sniffling. Probably she was sick, exhausted, and very much ready to get this conversation over with.

  But before he could answer, the door was opened by a man in a knee-length white smock, a stethoscope coiled around his long neck. Coop was startled to recognize him, a tall skinny doctor with long gray hair. The man who’d burst into the reception after Kay’s funeral, demanding to see Mrs. Bellante.

  “Dr. Presser,” said Eva, looking immediately uncomfortable. The doctor stood regarding them with his hands pressed together, as if in prayer.

  “Please, introduce me to our visitor,” said Dr. Presser. Coop met the pale blue eyes, the doctor studying him, but without a trace of recognition. Not surprising, Coop thought, given the singlemindedness with which he’d sought Kay’s mother at the funeral.

  “Doctor, this is Mr. Cooper, on leave from Afghanistan. He’s Katherine’s husband.”

  “Husband?” repeated the doctor. Coop didn’t like his tone of surprise, but he managed to put on a fake smile and stood up to shake the doctor’s hand.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss,” said Presser.

  “I thought you guys didn’t wear white coats,” replied Coop.

  Presser frowned.

  “Well, unless there’s anything else you need…” said Eva, standing up. “Dr. Presser, I’m sure you’d be best prepared to answer Mr. Cooper’s questions.”

  Presser looked stumped by Eva’s self-dismissal. Coop recognized her maneuver; he used the same trick against officers and NCOs. By asserting your own unimportance, you robbed them of the power to make you feel inferior.

  “It was nice to meet you,” said Eva, giving Coop a tight-lipped smile before leaving him alone with Presser.

  Coop was surprised by how much emptier the room felt with Eva gone. In the two days since he landed in New York, she was the first person he’d met who didn’t come off like she was trying to outmaneuver him, and he’d sensed there was more she had wanted to tell him.

  “You know,” said Presser, “the white coat, it’s an important symbol of the profession.”

  Coop realized the doctor had been staring at him, maybe taking the time to compose this.

  “As a man in uniform, I’m sure you understand.”

  Coop shrugged and kept his mouth shut. He had to remind himself he was here to get information. Pissing off Kay’s former employer wasn’t going to help.

  “It’s about respect,” continued the doctor. “Not to mention instilling an atmosphere of hygiene.”

  As if the word—hygiene—had reminded him of all the floating, infectious germs of the clinic, Presser turned and paced across the room to a wall dispenser labeled BODY SUBSTANCE ISOLATION. He squeezed a plop of antiseptic foam from the machine and vigorously cleaned his hands.

  “So,” said Presser, over the wet smack of his hands, the doctor scrubbing with almost frantic energy. “I understand you had some questions?”

  “I’m wondering, can you give me a sense of Kay’s work?” said Coop. “Like what did she do on a daily basis?”

  “She was a case manager. Assigned to outpatient counseling.”

  “What does a case manager do?”

  “Each new client is paired with someone like Katherine. We like to make sure they have a partner to guide them through the process of recovery.”

  “And these clients, the case manager meets them here?” said Coop, looking around at the room, all the notes on the wall.

  “Yes. For group sessions.”

  “What other kinds of sessions are there?” Coop asked. A motor was going in Coop’s brain, he sensed something evasive in the clipped economy of that answer. She was in the field a lot, that’s what Eva had told him. And something Melody had said at the funeral, something about a house call.

  “Case managers also meet with clients on a one-on-one basis,” said Presser, still cleaning his hands. The foam was long evaporated, but he continued rubbing his wrist and forearms.

  “Where do these one-on-ones happen?”

  Presser smiled. “Excuse me, can I ask if there’s a particular reason—”

  “Do you send people to their homes?” Coop imagined Kay standing on the stoop of a crumbling tenement. Saw her knocking. A door opens, Kay vanishes into the darkness inside the building.

  “I can assure you, we take every reasonable precaution,” said the doctor, now using one wrist to dispense a paper towel. “And furthermore—”

  “Fine,” said Coop, getting irritated. “Just tell me, was she working on the day of the accident?”

  “I’m sorry,” said the doctor, “but I’m professionally restricted from discussing this matter any further.”

  “Have you discussed the matter further with her family?”

  Presser flinched. “I’m not sure how that’s relevant.”

  “I’m family too,” said Coop. He held up a fist, showing Presser the wedding ring. “And I was at the funeral. We were both there, but you came late. Missed the entire service. Like you only showed up to talk with Mrs. Bellante.”

  He heard his voice rising, felt himself leaning toward Presser. “See, I’m only here for a few days, and I’m just trying to get a sense of what happened. How it could have happened. And if Kay was out knocking on these junkies’ doors…”

  “Junkie. That’s a nasty word.” The doctor’s eyes had a new, hungry gleam. The scavenging look of a seabird.

  “Mr. Cooper, I understand you’re in a state of grief. And I can’t imagine what kinds of things you’re seeing overseas. We miss Kay here. It’s very sad what happened.” The doctor came forward, lowered himself into a seat across from Coop. Studying him. “Maybe I can be helpful in another way,” he said. “I have a colleague who specializes in trauma therapy. I’m not sure exactly how the insurance would work with the VA, but if you’re interested…”

  Behind Coop came a flapping. He turned to see that Kay’s notes had fallen again to the floor.

  “Oh, excuse me,” said Presser. He got up to retrieve the sheet. Presser held the paper up to the window light and examined the adhesive, his skeletal silhouette imposed for a moment against the banner of Kay’s handwriting. Then he neatly folded the sheet and carried it toward a row of recycling bins at the back of the room. Before Coop was forced to watch the doctor dispose of Kay’s notes, he pushed himself up from the table and stalked out.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Instead of going back to his hotel, Coop found himself lingering across the street from Next Start. The street was mostly empty. At the end of the block, two men pushed an old Plymouth while a third cranked its engine. A host of pigeons fluttered across the gray sky, flashing their ragtag wings.

  “Please don’t be sitting on my stoop, sir,” snapped a small voice, and Coop turned toward a trio of young girls bouncing down the stairs of the building behind him. They all wore enormous backpacks and oversized wool hats. He wasn’t sure which one had scolded him.

  “Sorry—” began Coop, but one of the girls held up her mittened palm.

  “Get yourself to God,” she said, in a mockingly deep preacher’s voice, and the trio exploded into shrill, piping laughter. They scattered down the street, little neon boots kicking up sprays of slush. Coop faltered in the girls’ wake. He felt stupid, purposeless, standing in the cold across from the clinic. Looking for information, he told himself. The last traces of Kay. Something he could take with him, some shred of coherence, before he went to the airport and gave himself up.

  His instincts told him Eva was his best shot. And there she was, coming onto the street with one arm r
aised, pulling on a puffy red coat.

  Coop followed her for several blocks through the snow until she turned in to a building fronted in steamy glass. Over the door was a sign that said LAUND-O-MAT below a string of Chinese characters. For a few minutes Coop waited on the sidewalk. His body was bone-weary, and his head hurt from the cold. What are you doing? he asked himself. Then he thought: What else are you going to do?

  Coop was surprised to find the laundromat empty. No sign of Eva or anybody else, but at the back of the laundromat was another door, unmarked, and Coop headed that way, down the narrow alleyway of rumbling machines.

  He opened the door on a world of purple darkness, weird geometries of electric color, a static roar of jingles. It was an arcade. Game consoles clumped together in the repurposed storeroom, most of them older titles that Coop recognized—Battle City, Metal Slug, Kung Fu Remix. He found Eva in the corner playing Asteroids, quarters spread out on the dash in front of her.

  Coop knew the game from childhood. The asteroids followed a random trajectory, and each time one was destroyed they exploded into smaller, faster-moving rocks. It was impossible to win. In each successive round the asteroids arrived in greater numbers, all of them moving faster until the whole universe was a blur of killing debris.

  He watched Eva play until she lost her last life, the ship coming apart with a coarse explosion.

  “You want the next game?” she said, and it took Coop a moment to realize Eva was talking to him, addressing his reflection in the countdown screen.

  “Look,” she said, “I know you’re not from the city. But it’s a bad look, following people.”

  To avoid her scolding look, Coop studied Hydro Thunder: dueling rocket boats navigating a tropical canal. He tried to formulate an apology.