The Devil in Silver (7 page)

When they reached the nurses’ station again, the same tops of the same four heads were still bent over the same paperwork. The staff members hadn’t shifted. Just as Dorry and Pepper reached the oval room, a phone rang behind the nurses’ station and one of the staff, a woman, picked up.

“Northwest,” she answered, as if this was her name. She listened for a moment. “The doctor is not on the unit just now. Let me put you through to his voice mail. All right?” She asked without waiting for a reply. A faint click could be heard as the nurse pressed the transfer button. Then a clunk as the plastic phone went back into its cradle. The woman went back to paperwork. At New Hyde the term for this was
charting
.

Pepper found he could best move through the room if he focused on its discrete little details. If he spent too much time planning his phone call to Mari, everything he needed to explain and to ask of her, then he got tripped up.
Stick to the basic motor functions, Pepper!
Footsteps, and hands held tight to the railing, and keeping pace with Dorry as she led him forward.

But then he lost himself by counting hallways. They’d just left Northwest 5 and as they veered to the left, making a circuit around the nurses’ station, holding to the curved railing, they reached Northwest 1. As they crossed the mouth of that hallway, Pepper turned and recognized the secure door. Miss Chris stood in the open doorway. A
delivery man held a white bag, food from a place nearby called Sal’s. Miss Chris counted out her money. Pepper couldn’t even consider escaping just then, he could barely stay upright. Then they passed Northwest 1 and Pepper clung to the railing again. Up ahead was Northwest 2, the men’s hallway, where his room lay. He looked over and saw Northwest 3, the women’s. There he saw a pair of middle-aged women walking together, dressed nearly identically, and laughing over some impossibly funny joke. Really happy, at least in that moment. Were they patients? How could they be smiling if they were in here? He couldn’t stop watching the women as he moved.

And that’s how he bumped right into Dorry, nearly knocking her over. But he caught himself and her. The wooden railing groaned as the two of them held to it.

“Sorry,” Pepper said.

Dorry said, “My son was the same way. Never looked where he was going.”

Two of the staff members at the nurses’ station rose from their seats, just high enough to peek over the desktop at Dorry and Pepper. One of them was Scotch Tape, who recognized Pepper from last night and didn’t feel like being bothered this early. No one being hurt, no one attempting to escape, no one refusing treatment. As far as the staff’s checklist went, there were no problems then. He returned to his charting.

Dorry and Pepper had stopped midway on the wheel, between Northwest 2 and Northwest 3. Between the two halls there was a little alcove.

“Pay phones,” Dorry said.

“I can make as many calls as I want?” Pepper asked. Surprised that prisoners were limited to just one, but mental patients had unlimited access.

“As long as you’ve got the money,” she said.

He had the change right in the pocket of the slacks he’d slept in. Pepper reached into the pocket and pulled out the coins. Only then did he realize the act of balance he’d just achieved. A minor feat for anyone over two years old, agreed, but you’d be surprised how that
medication makes you feel like a wobbly infant. It had been two hours since he’d swallowed the meds and he still didn’t feel clearheaded, but maybe they had lost their worst effects.

The change in his palm looked like shiny communion wafers.

The alcove wasn’t terribly big. There were two pay phones. Both were in use. By the same guy.

Pepper’s roommate.

Mr. Malt Ball held one receiver to his right ear. The other was balanced on his left shoulder. He looked like an old-time receptionist, putting through calls. He didn’t notice Pepper, even in that cramped space. This guy had admirable powers of concentration. Either that or he was just ignoring the big man.

The roommate spoke into the phone by his right ear. “Yes, I will hold.”

Then he set that phone onto his right shoulder and lifted the other one to his left ear and said, “Hello? Hello? Come on!” But he’d already been put on hold on that phone, too.

Dorry peeked in. She said, “That’s Coffee.”

At least Pepper had a name for his enemy.

“I should warn you,” she said. “I wouldn’t go around flashing my change like that.” She pointed at Pepper’s open hand and he closed his fingers. “Coffee’s going to ask for money if he sees that.”

“He already did. He’s my roommate.”

Dorry winced like someone who’s just touched an open flame. “For the first time since we’ve met, I actually feel
sorry
for you.”

Dorry meant this as a joke, but why did it make Pepper flinch?

He walked right up to the still oblivious Coffee, who had returned to the phone at his right ear. His eyes were tilted upward as he listened to the hold message play for the fifth time in a row. That’s why he didn’t understand what was happening when Pepper snatched the other receiver out of his left hand to hang up the line.

“
I’m
using this phone now,” Pepper said.

Pepper stood half a foot taller than Coffee but, more important, Pepper outweighed Coffee by at least eighty pounds. And Pepper’s face, with its high, flared nostrils and bared teeth, looked about as
pleasant as an etching of a Chinese demon. The sensible reaction for Coffee would have been to make peace. Or even to get his ass out of the alcove. But let’s say this for Coffee: the man was out of his mind.

Coffee squared right up to Pepper, chest to belly.

Then he spat in Pepper’s face.

The saliva struck the big man’s chin, slid down, and hung there like a chrysalis for a full three seconds before Pepper hit the man.

Actually he
crushed
him. The alcove didn’t have enough room for real blows to get thrown, so instead Pepper threw himself. The smaller man got caught between a wall and two hundred seventy-one pounds of medicated murderousness. Coffee might as well have been ground into a fine powder. Ready for the French press. (Sorry!)

Coffee howled and went down to the floor. The other receiver slipped out of his right hand, striking against one wall like a gavel. A recorded announcement played from the receiver, repeating what it had already been saying for many minutes:

“Thank you for calling 311 in New York City. We’re here to help.…”

Coffee was curled on the ground, hands over his face. Pepper stooped over him. Pepper wanted to thump this guy for spitting on him. Really one of the most cowardly and disgusting moves a person can pull in a fight. But before he could do more, Pepper felt that saliva dripping down onto his neck and he panicked. What if this dude’s spit had passed through his lips, even just a little bit, and gone down his throat? AIDS? Hepatitis C? Who knew what could happen? The moment the thought came up, it was impossible to put down. He stuck his tongue out and pressed it to the sleeve of his shirt. Licking his arm to clean his tongue. Coughing loudly.

Try to imagine what Scotch Tape and the other staff members saw when they entered the alcove, drawn in by Coffee’s screams and Pepper’s wretching. The staff found a very large man standing over a smaller one, menacing the smaller man who was, even now, scrambling to get hold of the dangling pay-phone receiver to try his call again. And the big man was—what the hell else could you say?—
licking himself
.

Crazy-balls. The scene was absolutely crazy-balls.

Scotch Tape sucked his teeth. He stared up at Pepper with distaste. “Damn, my man.”

Pepper stopped applying his tongue to the fabric of his shirt and turned toward Scotch Tape. Below them both, Coffee spoke urgently into the phone.

“Hello?” he whimpered. “
Please
. I’ve seen it. I know where it lives.”

“Thank you for calling 311.…”

Two nurses poked their heads into the alcove, but with Coffee, Pepper, and Scotch Tape already inside, there was no more room. From farther outside the alcove Miss Chris shouted, “What’s this foolishness?!”

Scotch Tape called out, “New admit attacked Coffee.”

Hearing it like that, from a staff member, made Pepper understand what he’d just done. Hadn’t he resolved to control himself? To make the best impression possible? But getting spat on had to count as a mitigating circumstance. Pepper wanted to explain.

“I needed to make a phone call,” he began.

Scotch Tape waved the words away. “I’m taking you back to your room now, and you’re going to stay in there for the rest of the day. You hear?”

Coffee rose to his feet now, pushing himself up with his back against the wall. He shook the receiver of the phone Pepper had hung up. “Now you owe me a quarter, Joe! An American quarter!”

Pepper said, “This guy was using both phones and I just …”

Scotch Tape stepped closer to Pepper. They were squared up just like Pepper and Coffee had been, but Scotch Tape wouldn’t have to spit on anyone to make his point. That was clear.

“Save that shit,” Scotch Tape said. “You can explain all this to Dr. Anand.”

The way Scotch Tape said it, the name sounded like “AndAnd.”

From outside the alcove Miss Chris added, “Oh-ho, it’s Charlie Big Potato causing the fuss? I already told him to be easy.”

In defiance, desperation, and drugged-out confusion, Pepper grabbed the phone on the left, lifting the receiver out of its cradle. He’d make his phone call.

But Scotch Tape wouldn’t let that happen. He pressed two fingers
down on the cradle, and the dial tone choked before Pepper even got the phone to his ear.

Then, another quick flash of temper, Pepper half-raised the receiver like he’d bring it down on Scotch Tape’s head. But he stopped himself from making a bad day terrible and put the phone back in the cradle.

Scotch Tape grinned.

“That’s smart, big boy. First smart move you’ve made since you got here.”

Oh, how Pepper would’ve loved to pick up Coffee and use him to bludgeon Scotch Tape to death. Would that count as black-on-black crime?

Scotch Tape misread Pepper’s contemplative look. He spoke with a mix of compassion and condescension. “You calm now? All right, then. Let’s go. You and me. Back to your room.”

As Pepper followed Scotch Tape out of the alcove, Coffee still clung to the pay phone like a man adrift, trying to stay afloat. The receiver was tucked against his ear.

The automated voice on the other end thanked him, once again, for calling.

“It’s
here
,” Coffee said quietly.

SCOTCH TAPE MOVED
alongside Pepper, shaking his head as if he’d just seen a kid do something that would earn a powerfully strict punishment.

“I believe you,” Scotch Tape said as they walked.

A pair of old men, one small and one medium-sized, walked past Pepper and Scotch Tape, going in the opposite direction. They wore sport coats and walked in synchronicity. Scotch Tape nodded at them but they ignored him. The smaller one peeped Pepper.

“You believe me about what?” Pepper asked.

“What you said last night,” Scotch Tape continued. “That you don’t belong here. I believe you.”

Pepper stopped to reach for the handrail, put off balance by the residual effects of the medication or what Scotch Tape just said.

“Why do you believe me?” Pepper asked.

“You seen Dorry? Or Coffee? Most of the patients in here? Shit, I’ve seen crazy. And you’re not that. You can be an asshole, though.”

“Why don’t you unlock that big door for me then, so I can just go home.”

Scotch Tape shook his right arm and the red plastic cord slipped down below his wrist. It looked like a miniature Slinky. His keys dropped and he caught them with practiced cool.

“Today’s February 18. You got a seventy-two-hour watch and you’re not getting out any sooner than February 21. But if you keep acting stupid, you’re going to be staying a whole lot longer.”

Pepper didn’t say anything smart because even he’d known that rolling on Coffee had been really dumb.

Scotch Tape said, “Let’s keep going.”

Scotch Tape entered room 5 with Pepper and shut the door behind him. He moved to Pepper’s dresser and rested an elbow on it.

“You know how you got here?”

Pepper couldn’t get a handle on what this moment really was: surprising camaraderie, or just a staff member messing with a patient. So he said nothing.

“That cop who brought you in, the one who did the talking, his name is Detective Saurez. He brought you here because him and his boys aren’t getting no more overtime from the NYPD right now. Processing you at the precinct would have taken hours. Without that overtime they’d basically be working for free. But they know if they drop you off with us you’re our problem and their workday is
done
. Half of them got second jobs to get to. Like we don’t.”

Pepper shook his head. “That’s why I’m here? Because Huey, Dewey, and Louie got lazy?”

Scotch Tape looked confused for a moment, but he let it pass. He tapped the top of Pepper’s dresser with two fingers, for emphasis.

“That Saurez dude has pulled this same shit with Dr. Anand before. Plenty times. I’m telling you. And we have to process you. But I’ll bet you Dr. A is making some phone calls today.”

Pepper noticed one of his laceless boots standing by the door. The other was most likely under his bed. Yes. He fished beneath the frame and there it was. Pepper collected his shoes and set them both down, together, neatly by the foot of his bed. A little bit of order.

Pepper said, “They can’t just
do
something like that.”

Scotch Tape shook his head as if Pepper were a silly child.

“And yet here you are,” Scotch Tape said as he left the room and locked the door from the other side.

Pepper sat on his bed.

He wasn’t actually surprised to be locked in his room as punishment.
Even if this was a hospital, they’d fallen back on some old-school discipline. His mom and dad might’ve done the same, thirty years ago, when Pepper got into a fight with his kid brother, Ralph.