The Crystal Child (17 page)

Aaron shot her a cross look.  “You said I could see him today.”

The receptionist put on a stony face.  “Yes, and I also just told you that Dr. DeLeon has no time to see you now.  If you had left me a phone number, I would have called to reschedule your appointment.”

“I couldn’t do that.  I have to see him today.”

Aaron was trying not to sound preemptory, but that was how he was coming across.  The receptionist began repositioning toward rigidity.  “Well, that’s not possible,” she declared, turning to other work.

Aaron thrust a large, unmarked envelope across the desk. “Show him this. He’ll want to see me.”  She started to open it.  “That’s confidential,” Aaron snapped.  The receptionist was jarred by the authority in his voice.  She laid the envelope aside.

“Wait if you wish,” she said with an officious shrug.  She pointed toward a ring of chairs surrounding an indoor fountain.

“Do you have a washroom I might use?” Aaron asked.

The receptionist weighed his question. She pointed across the lobby.  “Through that door and to the right,” she said in a tone that implied she was granting a special indulgence.

“Thanks,” Aaron said and followed her directions.  He returned fifteen minutes later with his disguise removed.  He had washed away the make-up and combed out his hair.  When he reappeared, the receptionist was even more astonished.  Yes, this was a boy.  But she had never seen a face like this.  It was so strikingly perfect that it might have been still another disguise.

Back at the desk, Aaron asked, “Where is Dr. DeLeon going today?”

“I really can’t say.”

“Can’t or won’t?  Is he going to San Lazaro?  Is that a big secret?”

She eyed Aaron suspiciously.  She could not recall a child appearing on his own at the spa.  But this was clearly an unusual child.  His self-possession was unsettling.  His eyes, a cold, ice-blue, held her with an unwavering gaze that demanded attention.  Swallowing away her unease, she said, “As I said, you can wait if you please.”

“I don’t please.  But I’ll wait.”  Aaron took a seat by the fountain.  He noticed the receptionist was making no haste to deliver the envelope he had handed her.  Instead, she settled back in her chair to make calls.  From time to time she glanced surreptitiously at Aaron, her expression shifting steadily from hostility to curiosity.

As irritated as he was by his unwelcoming reception, Aaron felt relieved to be where he was.  Behind him lay a long day of circuitous traveling.  He had reached Los Angeles by bus, then hitchhiked to La Jolla.  The journey had been a successful escape.  He was free and on his own — and determined not to be thwarted at this point.  At a little past three PM a limousine pulled up at the front door.  Aaron observed a bustle of activity around the car.  Luggage was being loaded into the trunk.  Then he saw a man he recognized as DeLeon emerge from a gate and head for the car.

“Is Dr. DeLeon leaving?” Aaron asked, a note of angry alarm in his voice.

“Yes,” the receptionist said, a smug smile on her lips.  “As I said, he has to leave  … ”

Aaron cut her off.  “If you don’t give him the envelope before he leaves, it will cost you your job.”  The remark was preposterous; the receptionist was bewildered by her own willingness to believe what the boy said.  His eyes would not leave her face.

At that moment, DeLeon leaned in at the front door.  He was carrying a brief case and had a jacket thrown over his shoulder. “I’m off, Phyllis,” he announced to the receptionist. “If Nancy calls, tell her to ring me tomorrow at San Lazaro.”

“You may want to look at this,” the receptionist said, rising to hand him Aaron’s envelope.

“Yes?  What is it? I’m late.”  The receptionist nodded toward Aaron, who stood up and took a step toward DeLeon.  DeLeon, his eyes fixed on the boy with a riveting curiosity, worked the envelope open and glanced down at what he held in his hand.  There were two photographs.  One was labeled “Before,” the word written in block letters with a marking pencil.  The other was captioned “After.”  They showed Aaron on either side of Julia’s treatment.  DeLeon looked back at Aaron, then again at the photos.  When he looked up for a second time, he put his brief case down and laid his jacket across it.

“I’m a friend of Julia Stein,” Aaron said.  He stepped forward to shake DeLeon’s hand.

***

Julia was right about this guy. He’s so eager I can almost smell it.  The odor of pure greed — so strong he can’t waste time being prudent.  “I want to go to San Lazaro,” I tell him, and fifteen minutes later, I’m in his limousine and on my way, no questions asked — not until we reach the airport.

“And your family?” he finally gets round to asking.

“Do I have a family?” I say.  “I prefer to think of myself as a changeling.”

He knits his brows and ponders the remark.  “In what sense?” he asks, covering his ignorance not very well.

“Lacking true parents.  Parents who understand that I’m not a child.”

After a moment he asks, “How old are you then?”

“How old would you say?”

“Well, I’d guess …”

“No, don’t guess.  Wait until you’re sure.  Otherwise you might be guilty of smuggling a minor out of the country.”  That gives him a jolt, but not enough of a jolt to make him stop the car.

On the plane, he tries to begin a conversation about Julia and me.  What exactly did Julia do?  How did she heal me?  The man is so obvious.  Arrogant types are always obvious; they give themselves away.  DeLeon is all but drooling to have the answer.  I decide to play dumb.  “I have no idea,” I tell him.  “She tried so many things.  Maybe it was the phosphatidylserine enemas.  Twice a day.”

That gets a rise out of him — as if I’d touched him with a live wire.  “Ah, yes,” he answers, faking it.

“Or maybe it was the phyto extracts.  Phyto extracts blended with shark liver.  She was giving me huge doses.”  I can see him making mental notes.  Incredible!  I’m talking to someone who believes the secret of eternal youth might be anything you find moldering away behind the refrigerator.  I give him an inquisitive look.  “Lately I’ve been interested in crystals.  Do you know about crystals?”

“Why of course,” he says.  “I’m regarded as an authority in the field.”

“Are you?”  I turn on a grateful smile.  “I was hoping  you could help me understand this remarkable thing that’s happened to me.  I’m sure everybody in the world would like to know. “

He lights up at that, as if I’ve offered him the crown jewels.

I don’t mention how urgent I am about getting away.  It will be another hour before we land.  The changes are coming so rapidly, I can’t tell what might happen next, even between now and then.

***

Sitting across the table from Julia, Todd Lacey was livid, his face twisted with anger and fear.  He was doing all he could to make clear that at any moment he might burst out screaming.  His wife beside him looked no less fearful, but there was no anger in her.  She looked simply depleted.  Fortunately, a woman from children’s services was there to mediate or the meeting might have dissolved into a flurry of shouts and tears.  Her name was Angie.  Julia had met her a few times before about various legal matters.  She was pert and youngish and well-versed in all the counseling techniques agents of the state were supposed to know.   “You’re absolutely sure, Mrs. Stein, that Aaron hasn’t been in touch with you?” Angie asked.  She had asked the same question twice or three times before.  “Remember, we’re off the record here.”

“As I’ve told you, my mail and all my calls are monitored,” Julia said with as much patience as she could summon up.  “There’s no way we could possibly communicate.”

“Can we put her under oath?” Todd Lacey blurted out.  “I want her to know she could be prosecuted for perjury.”

“I have no way to do that, Mr. Lacey,” Angie said.  “This is not an official interrogation.”

“So she’s free to lie?  We have to sit here and listen to her lie and lie and lie?”

“I’m not lying, Todd,” Julia said.  “I have no idea where Aaron might be.”

He sneered at her answer.  “They could have laid plans,” he said to Angie.  “They could have arranged to meet after she’s released.”

“Did you?” Angie asked, passing the accusation on to Julia.

Todd Lacey underlined the query in a near-shout.  “Where are you planning to meet him?  Tell us, damn it!  He’s our child.”

“I’ve done you and your son more harm than I can ever make up for,” Julia answered.  “Believe me, if I knew where Aaron has gone … “

“
Believe you
?  Why should we believe you?”  Angie tried to calm him, but he refused to be quieted.  “You’ve ruined our lives as well as your own.  Isn’t that bad enough?  Don’t take him away from us.”

Julia looked away to hide the tears that she could not fight back.  When she looked back, she found Louise Lacey studying her, an odd, pleading look in her eyes that seemed to say she understood and forgave.  But how could she?

***

It was a busy morning in the infirmary.  Julia had no time for tender loving care.  Nor did her patients expect it.  But her reputation inside Stockton frequently created obstacles.

“You the child molester?” the young black woman asked, fixing Julia with a coldly suspicious look.  It was not a question but an accusation.  She was barely out of her teens and now in prison for the second time on a narcotics conviction.  She had come to the infirmary complaining of nausea and severe stomach cramps.  She looked a wreck, emaciated, sweating, her face tight with pain.

“Undress to the waist and put this smock on,” Julia said, as if she had not heard what the woman said.

“I’m axing you, you the child molester?”

“That’s nothing you have to worry about.”

“Where’s the real doctor? I want the real doctor.”

“I’m a real doctor.”

“No, you ain’t.  You a sex pervert. I heard what you did. I ain’ undressin’ for no sex pervert.”

“You don’t have much choice, do you?”

“I don’ want you touchin’ me.”  Before Julia could begin to exam her, the woman drew herself into a tight, defensive posture and simply glared.  “You keep offa me!” she cried.

“As far as that goes,” Julia replied, no longer holding back her temper, “I have more to worry about than you.  You’re the one with AIDS.”

The woman’s jaw dropped open.  “AIDS?  Hey, girl, you tellin’ me I got AIDS?”  She made a nasty, twisted face. “What kinda shit is that?”

“That can’t be news to you.  It’s here in your blood work from last April.”  Julia handed the woman her chart and papers, which, of course, she could not understand.  The woman stared at the paper, then looked up as if pleading for an explanation.  “That’s why you’re losing weight.  You shouldn’t be in prison at all. You need intensive care.”

The woman was staring at Julia in wide-eyed horror.  “You tellin’ me I gonna die?” she wailed, suddenly overwhelmed with fear.

“You’re very sick.”

“What about my baby?”

“You have a baby?”

“Sure I do.  She pretty sick.”

“Where is your baby?”

“She at home — with my mama.”

“She should be receiving treatment. She’s probably HIV positive.”

“HIV … ?”

“HIV positive.  That means she’s probably carrying the AIDS virus.  That could be why she’s sick.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus!”

“Dr. Santiago never told you you were infected?”

“Oh, sweet Jesus!”

Suddenly the woman’s arms were around Julia’s neck. Not a gesture of affection; she had gone dizzy and lost her balance.   She was weeping convulsively.  Julia circled the thin, trembling body in a reluctant embrace, then winced with displeasure.  There was a smell on the woman, a pungent sweat born of fear.  Julia was familiar with the odor.  She had often detected it working with elderly patients who faced death, the stink of mortality that gathered around them.  Only now did she realize how repulsive that odor was, how much she had always hated it, though she had never shown her distaste.

***

Julia had been on the job at the infirmary for over ten hours that day, for the most part explaining to patients how little she could do for them with what she had at hand.  “We do aspirins,” she was in the habit of saying.  “That’s about it.”  She was weary and disconsolate, and especially embittered by the ignorance of the woman who never stopped reminding her who was boss.  The position Julia held, Medical Technical Assistant, was ordinarily assigned to guards whose knowledge of medicine usually went no further than knowing how to apply a Band-aid.  Dr. Santiago’s expertise went little further.

“Don’t you think we should run a PSA on her?” Julia asked one morning after a long, tiring night on duty.  She was grouchy and feeling vindictive.

Dr. Santiago, frowning over a blood test Julia had delivered, looked up from the papers she held with a hard squint, as if she were pondering Julia’s question. “Yes, yes, definitely,” she answered.  “You order that, okay?”

“A PSA?  You want me to order a PSA?”

“Yes.  You have the form?  I sign.”

“That’s a prostate test.”

“Yes.  That’s what we need.  I sign.”

“A prostate test on a woman?”

“Yes.  Go ahead. I sign for it.”

Pausing at the door, Julia turned to say, “The lab may find that hard to do.”

“Yes?  Why?  If we need, they do.”

“It’s like ordering a pap smear for a man, Doctor.”

She waited several seconds standing in the doorway, giving Dr. Santiago a chance to register her mistake.  The woman stared back, trying not to look puzzled.  It was as Julia suspected; Amelia Santiago had never seen the inside of a medical school.  The woman’s medical expertise was hardly at the level of a well-trained registered nurse.  Julia’s medical conscience told her that would be good reason to take the matter up with the warden.  But another more cynical voice reminded her,
You’re not a doctor anymore.  Why make trouble?
  Instead Julia decided to wait and see if there might be a way to use what she knew about her supervisor.  She was learning prison politics.  Deals, favors, pay-offs, cover-ups, quid pro quo.  You used what you had.  Advantage was the coin of the realm.  She took her time and felt her way forward carefully.  When, a few weeks later, she requested more library privileges and an afternoon off each week, Dr. Santiago seconded the application as if she could tell that Julia was in a position to do her damage.  Similarly, Julia’s request for a pencil and notebook and a flashlight to read by after lights out were granted.  Such minor favors were quickly noted by other prisoners, though few of them regarded books as much of a privilege.  In a few months’ time Julia had carved a niche for herself that allowed her more time to herself.  She had one more favor to ask of her boss.  “The girl who shares my cell,” she told the doctor, “she looks as if she’s down with something serious.  Clap, I’d guess.  Don’t you check the women when they come in?”