THIRTEEN
THERE WAS A single donut left in the box when I got back to the office. I helped myself to the donut and turned to Briggs.
“Ranger needs to talk to Gardi,” I said. “Can you get him into St. Francis?”
“That could be tough. From what I hear the floor is crawling with FBI. They won’t even let hospital security in.”
“Someone must be getting in,” I said. “Doctors, nurses, housekeeping, food service. What would be our best shot?”
“Housekeeping. I’m sure everyone going into that room is gowned and masked, so that’s an advantage. I can get you suited up, and then all you have to do is go in with a stack of towels and sheets. Late afternoon is best. Unless Gardi’s having an emergency, he should be alone. Doctors do rounds in the morning, and nurses do paperwork around four o’clock. Usually, security doesn’t stay in the room. They hang outside the door. The problem is with Ranger. Housekeeping’s all women. They work in pairs, pushing a cart filled with supplies.”
“I could be a pair with Stephanie,” Lula said. “Ordinarily I don’t like being in a hospital, but this would be different. This would be like one of them doctor shows where I’d have a chance to give an award-winning performance. I could perform the snot out of this role.”
“Are you sure you can’t get Ranger in?” I asked Briggs. “He needs some specific information.”
“I can suit him up,” Briggs said. “And I can tell him how to get on the floor. I don’t know if he can bluff his way past the FBI. If I was protecting Gardi, I’d be reluctant to let a big guy I didn’t know get into the room.”
“But being we’re ladies we wouldn’t have those problems,” Lula said. “We could go about our business like we were invisible.”
“Maybe,” Briggs said. “I think it’s a crapshoot.”
“Do you know what Ranger needs to get out of Gardi?” Lula asked me.
“He wants to know who gave Gardi the polonium.”
“If you need information from Gardi you want to try to get it sooner rather than later,” Connie said. “He’s not doing well.”
St. Francis is walking distance from the bail bonds office, but we had Connie drive us. I called Ranger on the way and told him the plan.
“This wasn’t what I had in mind,” he said.
“If I get caught you’ll be my one phone call.”
This was met by silence on Ranger’s side, so I disconnected.
Briggs took us to a back entrance that was used for maintenance purposes. The door had a four-digit thumb lock. He tapped in the combination, and the door opened.
“They never change the combination,” he said. “This isn’t exactly the world’s most secure hospital.”
We followed him down an empty corridor to a supply room. We pulled scrubs on over our clothes, grabbed sterile gowns and masks, and Briggs rolled a laundry cart over to us.
“Connie said he’s in isolation on the third floor,” Briggs said. “Ordinarily he’d be in the lockdown ward for prisoners, but they don’t have the ability to segregate him there. Tell the guard at the door you’re here for the contaminated linens. Make sure you’re wearing double gloves and the mask. If the guard has any sense, he’ll walk away from the room when you go after the linens.”
“How do you know all this?” Lula asked Briggs.
“There’s a protocol for patients getting radiation. It’s nasty stuff. The drill with the laundry is that one of you stays just outside the room with the laundry cart and one of you goes in and empties the hamper and checks the bathroom. There are a bunch of security cameras past this point, so I’m going to stay here. You want to put your masks and gowns on now, and don’t take them off until you’re back here, out of camera range.”
“We need names,” Lula said to me. “I’m going to be Shaneeka. Who do you want to be?”
“Judy.”
“Say what? That’s a lame name for a secret-agent nurse.”
“I’m not a nurse. I’m pushing a laundry basket.”
“It don’t matter. You still could take pride in your work. I think you should be Shandra.”
“Okay, I’m Shandra.”
We followed Briggs’s instructions and took the service elevator to the third floor. Three men in rumpled gray suits and wearing earbuds were at the end of the corridor.
“Showtime,” Lula said, setting her sights on the three men.
“We’re going to keep a low profile,” I said to her.
“Sure,” she said. “I know that.”
Lula stopped in front of the men and looked into the room. The door was closed, and on it was a sign with the international symbol for radiation.
“Shandra and me are here to get the contaminated linens in this room,” she said. “We’re sort of new at this, so you might want to stand back in case we accidentally spew some bad shit out at you.”
All three men took several steps back.
I pulled on double gloves, took a large heavy-duty orange plastic bag with a radiation symbol on it from the cart, and went into the room.
Gardi was in bed, hooked up to a bunch of tubes that were dripping stuff into him. His eyes were closed, and his skin was the color of wet cement.
“Hey,” I said to him. “How’s it going?”
He half opened his eyes. “Great.”
“Sorry about the polonium.”
“Shit happens.”
“I heard someone set you up.”
“You heard wrong. I set myself up. It was a business deal. I needed money. Bad. Now I’m a dead man.”
“There might be an antidote.”