“Didn’t I tell you?” Ben asked Carol. “Didn’t I say we could trust the Fireman to have a plan for us?” He spoke in a flat, almost bored tone, but beneath that there was an edge in his voice.
Harper tried again. “John thinks he can help us get what I’d need to look after your father and see to his long-term care, if he remains incapacitated. I think it ought to be considered.”
“Tell me,” Carol said.
Harper laid out the Fireman’s plan: how he wanted them to take Ben’s police cruiser to Verdun Avenue, use one of the camp cell phones to call an ambulance, wait for them to show up, and then—
“—then John says he’ll send a phoenix to chase away the EMTs and any police who come along with them,” Harper finished. She felt this was a rather lame way to wrap up and was, briefly, nettled with John and John’s perverse theatrical impulses. “I’m not sure what he means by that, but he hasn’t let us down in the past.”
“It’ll be another of his stunts,” Carol said. “One of his distractions. He does like his distractions.”
Ben said, “I don’t see why we need his help. We can take down an ambulance without him. We have enough guns.”
“To get how many people killed?” Harper asked.
“Oh, it won’t come to that. We’ll put it to them like this: either you give us what’s in the ambulance or you wind up riding in one. Most people are pretty cooperative when they’ve got a rifle poking them in the eye.”
“They’ll have guns, too. They’ll have a police escort.”
“Sure. But when we meet them, I’ll be in my uniform and driving my police cruiser. They won’t be on guard. We’ll have the drop on them before they know what’s up,” Ben told her.
“Why go it alone?” Harper asked. “Why not do it John’s way?”
“The last time we did things John’s way, someone nearly murdered my father,” Carol said.
“What happened to your father happened here, back on our ground. John’s plan worked.”
“Yes. It worked out all right for him.”
“Now what does that mean?”
Instead of answering, Carol said, “When was John planning to give us the benefit of his help?”
“Three nights from now.”
“We can’t wait that long. It’ll have to be tomorrow. Ben, I’m trusting you to do this without any violence unless you absolutely have no other way.”
Ben said, “Right. Well. There’ll be four of them—two responders in the ambulance, two in the police cruiser—so there better be five of us. Jamie is the best shot in camp after me. Nelson Heinrich used to have his own NRA Facebook page and is apparently good with a rifle. That girl Mindy Skilling who just walked out of here could place the 911 call for us. She’s old enough, so I wouldn’t feel irresponsible about taking her along, and she’s dramatic. Went to Emerson, I think? I figure—”
“Wait. Wait,” Harper interrupted. “Carol, there’s no reason we can’t hold off for three nights. Your father—”
“—is nearly seventy years old. Would you wait three nights if it was your father? If you could do something now?”
It was in Harper to say, My father wouldn’t want people getting shot for him, but she couldn’t get the words out of her mouth. In truth, she thought Carol was right. If it were her father, she would’ve begged the Fireman to do whatever he could, as soon as possible. Begging wasn’t the sort of thing Julie Andrews did, but Harper wasn’t above it.
“All right. I’ll talk to John. See if he can move things up to tomorrow night.”
Carol fussed with the black curl of hair that fell across her forehead. “John John John John John John John John. If John is in no hurry to help my father, I’d feel awful about rushing him.”
“He isn’t delaying for no reason. His ribs are knocked in, Carol.”
Carol nodded sympathetically. “Yes. Yes, of course, John must be allowed to rest. I don’t want him disturbed. We don’t need him. Nurse Willowes, Ben will require a list detailing everything you need to give my father the very best care.”
“That won’t work. I have to go with them.”
“Oh, no. No, you couldn’t. You are so brave and kind to want to go, but I need you at my father’s side. We can’t risk you.”
“You’re going to have to. Ben is only going to have a few minutes in the ambulance. Do you really want him picking through two hundred bottles, trying to make sense of pharmacological abbreviations? Personally, I wouldn’t take a chance on it, if it were my father.” Turning it around to see how Carol liked it.
Carol gave her a baleful look.
“My father needs more than good medicine. He needs a good nurse,” Carol said. “One is no good without the other. Be sure you come back.”
Harper didn’t know what to say to that. The whole conversation had been confounding, full of hints she didn’t understand and implications she didn’t like.
Carol said, “Ben, I want to talk over the plan with you. I want to know everything. Who you’re taking with you. What Verdun Avenue is like. Everything. Nurse—” She flicked her glance at Harper. “You can find your own way back to the infirmary, I hope.”
It surprised Harper that they would just let her walk out unsupervised. To a degree, she thought herself as much a prisoner as Gilbert Cline, only with a nicer cell. They had brought her to the House of the Black Star under guard, and she had expected to leave the same way.
A part of her wanted to walk out the door right away, before Carol changed her mind and decided to send her back with Bowie or one of the Lookouts hanging around outside. She already had in mind a modest detour on her way back to the infirmary. But she forced herself to wait, fingering the black buttons on her overcoat. There was, after all, still one other matter to address.
“Carol . . . I was hoping we could talk about Allie. She’s been walking around with a rock in her mouth for days, because she believes she has something to atone for. I think she’s doing it, partly, because she looks up to you. She wants to impress you. She wants everyone to know how devoted she is to camp. Can’t you make her stop?”
“I can’t,” Carol said. “But you can.”
“Of course you can make her stop. Tell her she’s punished herself enough. You’re her aunt and she loves you. She’ll listen. You’re almost all she has. You’re responsible for her. You need to step in before she has a collapse.”
“But we’re all responsible to each other,” Carol said, her face assuming a maddening serenity. “We’re a house of cards. If even a single card stops supporting its share of the weight, the whole camp will collapse. That is what Allie is trying to tell you. She carries your stone in her mouth. Only you can pluck it out.”
“She’s a child and she’s acting like one. It’s your job to be the adult.”
“It’s my job to look after more than a hundred and fifty desperate people. To keep them safe. To keep them from burning alive. In a way, I am a nurse, too. I have to protect this camp from the infection of despair and selfishness. I have to protect us from secrets, which can be like cancer. From disloyalty and disaffection, which run like fevers.” As she spoke, she straightened in her chair, and her wet eyes glittered with a sick heat. “Since my father fell, I have tried to be what all these people need. What they deserve. My father wanted Camp Wyndham to be a nice place for people who had no other place to go. And that’s all I want. I just want it to be a nice place . . . and I think it’s nicest when we all look out for each other. My dad thought so, too.” She clenched her hands together and then squeezed them between her knees. “We’re stronger together, Harper. And if you’re not with us, you’re all alone. These days, alone is no way to be.” Her look, Harper thought, was almost pitying. “Don’t you see that?”
11
Harper followed a barely discernible path beneath an obscure sky.