Before we hung up I asked Robin if he knew Zerlina’s last name. He hadn’t been given a list of the smoke inhalation victims but promised me he’d get it from Dominic at our meeting this afternoon.
I finished tidying up the sofa bed, then took the sheets down to the washing machine in the basement. I’m not normally so obsessive about cleanliness, but I wanted to get all traces of Cerise—and Elena—out of my apartment. If I washed the sheets, it was a clear commitment to myself that I didn’t have to put the younger woman up here when I fetched her back from Lotty’s. Although I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do with her.
It was possible that Cerise had given Lotty her surname. If she hadn’t, I thought Carol might call Michael Reese for me and get them to give her Zerlina’s last name. I didn’t want to meet with the police until I talked to Zerlina, assuming I could find her at Reese.
When I got to the clinic I learned that a chunk of ray schedule had dropped out—Cerise had disappeared. Carol was worried, Lotty angry. Lotty had given her a mild tranquilizer and something to control her nausea. Cerise had slept for about an hour in the examining room. The third time Carol went in to check on her she was gone. Mrs. Coltrain had seen her walk out of the clinic but had no reason to stop her—she’d assumed since Cerise came with me that I had arranged to pay Lotty for her treatment separately.
Of course. I’d forgotten the money. A hundred dollars to pay Cerise’s bill and help fund some of the clinic’s indigent patients. Lotty, furious with me for interrupting her day with such a case, was in no humor to discount her services. I pulled my checkbook from my handbag and wrote out the check.
“I guess I should have taken her to the hospital,” I said wearily, handing it to Mrs. Coltrain. “But she got sick so suddenly and so violently that I was afraid she might be dying on me. I didn’t know if she had some neurological disease or was coming down from heroin or what. If something like this happens again, which I hope it doesn’t, I won’t bother you.”
That pulled Lotty up short—she hates having her standard of care impugned. Her tone was a little less abrupt when she responded.
“It was a combination of heroin and pregnancy. If there’s to be any hope for that fetus, Cerise needs to get into a drug program today.”
“I wouldn’t bet the farm on her doing it,” I said. “I want to try to get in touch with Cerise’s mother.”
I explained that Zerlina might be in Michael Reese recovering from the fire but that I didn’t have her last name. Carol went off to phone the hospital for me—she felt irrationally responsible for Cerise roaming the streets pregnant and addicted. Getting Zerlina’s last name was something active she could do to help.
“Not your problem,” I tried to tell her when she returned a few minutes later. “If Cerise is bent on destructing, you can’t stop her. You should know that by now.”
“Yes, Vic,” Carol admitted. “I do know it. But I feel as though we let you down. That’s partly why Lotty’s so angry, you know. She tries to work at such a high level and then when she fails to save someone she takes it personally. And for it to be someone you brought in.”
“Maybe,” I said dubiously. The truth was, I was happy that Cerise had vanished. It was magic. I didn’t have to look after her anymore.
“Anyway, the mother’s last name is Ramsay.” Carol spelled it for me. “She’s in room four-twenty-two in the main hospital building. I told the head nurse you were a social worker, so there won’t be any problem you getting in to see her.”
I made a face as I thanked her. Social worker! It was an apt description of how I’d spent my time since Elena showed up at my door last week. Maybe it was time for me to turn Republican and copy Nancy Reagan. From now on when alcoholic or addicted pregnant strays showed up at my door, I would just say no.
11
Smoking Grandma
I climbed into the Chevy and slumped over the wheel. It was only noon, but I was as tired as though I’d been climbing Mount Everest for a week. A faint odor of vomit still hovered in the car, despite the twenty minutes I’d spent scrubbing the backseat. It slowly came to me that I was smelling my own clothes. My jeans were soiled where I’d been kneeling on the car seat—I’d just been too wound up with Elena to notice it earlier. Shuddering violently, I turned on the engine and drove south at a reckless pace, not even bothering to keep an eye out for the blue-and-whites. All I wanted to do was to get home, get my clothes off, get myself scrubbed as clean as I could manage.