Selection Process, part 3
Here’s a link to Part 1, which was followed by @whumpadoodle’s Part 2. That leads directly into this one...
“What happened?”
“He had words with some young men in the street. One of them pulled a knife. Rafi had one too.”
The young man looks up with a hint of resignation. “Rafa.”
“Si, Rafa.” He rubs the boy’s head gently, smoothing back the sweat-dampened hair, then stands and turns to the doctor. “They grow up fast, here. They have to. Can you help him?”
The doctor steps over a jumbled box of first aid supplies and crouches down by the bed. “Hi, Rafa, I’m Nicholas. I’m going to take this bandage off, OK? Tell me if I hurt you.” The boy nods tiredly and closes his eyes.
The reddened skin under the bandage is hot to the touch. The angle of the laceration, driving up into the shoulder muscle, suggests the attacker was aiming for the throat. Rafa must have spun aside in the nick of time. Lucky kid…maybe. A lump of dread settles in Nicholas’s stomach, and he asks his patient several questions…but the answers are all good. Rafa isn’t having trouble swallowing; his neck isn’t stiff; he’s just feverish, and in a lot of pain. Not tetanus, then.
“What he needs more than anything is a good antibiotic,” Nicholas says to Jefe. “I’m…I’m not sure what to tell you about that. He needs them as soon as you can get them. I don’t suppose you know any pharmacists who owe you a big favor?”
Jefe shakes his head. “What else can you do?”
Nicholas blanks slightly. He’s got to come up with something. He was brought here for a reason, and if he can’t give Jefe what he wants....
“Do you have any contacts in animal industries?” he asks. “Veterinarians? Horse trainers? Cattle farms?”
“Maybe.” Jefe’s face is inscrutable. “Why?”
“A lot of antibiotics are the same whether they’re for people or animals. Meds for humans have stricter production requirements, that’s the main difference. More quality testing, more oversight. I can tell you what dosage you’d need for the most common ones.”
Jefe nods thoughtfully, and walks to the door for a low conversation with the man in the hall, while Nicholas rebandages the boy’s shoulder. Working with whatever supplies are available is an acquired skill, he thinks, as he gently pats the last bit of tape into place.
“Done? Let’s go,” Jefe says, motioning Nicholas toward the door. As they walk down the stairs, Nicholas wonders if it’s a good sign or a bad one that he’s not blindfolded now. If Jefe isn’t worried about who or what he sees…but there’s not much to see. The room they enter on the ground floor is probably the kitchen, but it’s been completely cleaned out, fixtures and all, as if in mid-remodel. The only thing in the room is a folding table and a few chairs.
Jefe gestures for Nicholas to be seated, and hands him a pen and a torn-off sheet of paper. “Write down what you think will help Rafa.”
He makes a short list of meds and dosages, and hands it up to Jefe, who nods in satisfaction. “I’ll work on this after I let you go.”
Nicholas meets Jefe’s eyes. “Are you going to?”
“You’ve done what I asked you to, doc. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because…” He’s reluctant to put it into words. “Because you don’t seem to care that I know what you look like, or that I know your name.”
Jefe gives him an amused look. “You can talk to the cops if you want. You can describe me, and they’ll say Oh, that guy. They’ve got six or eight different names in my file, I think, but they don’t have the real one. And neither do you.”
Some of the tension leaves the doctor’s shoulders. Maybe he actually will make it out of this after all.
Jefe looks at him curiously. “You did all of that, everything you did, even though you thought I might not be playing straight with you?”
He shrugs. Even he can’t quite explain the drive he feels. “Rafa needed help, and I was able to help him. That’s…just what I do.”
“I know,” Jefe says. “You want to know why your lucky number was the one that got picked tonight? Partly because you work late a lot, but also because I’ve seen you work that free clinic on Maple on your off days.”
Conflicting emotions roll through the doctor’s mind; he’s not sure if he feels creeped out or complimented. “How…how long have you been watching me? Rafa can’t have been sick for long—”
“Since before that. I plan ahead. Never know when it might not be possible to bring somebody into the clinic. Never know when it’s going to be open, for one thing.”
The doctor sighs. “I’m sorry about that. We try to keep regular hours, but all our supplies are donated. We’ve got to be stocked to a minimum level before we open, or there’s no point. I wanted to open last Friday, but we’re really low on consumables. Gloves and disposable syringes, mainly.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Sorry, I know it doesn’t matter to you.”
“It matters to a lot of people I know,” Jefe says.
~~~
Three days later, Nicholas’s phone rings. “Hey doc, nice work on the procurement!”
“Uh…procurement?”
“You talked to somebody about a clinic donation? We just got two big boxes dropped off! Consumables, mostly – gloves in a few different sizes, sterile bandages, disposable syringes…. There’s not a return address, but the note inside says, “R is much better. Hope this is helpful.” No signature. Who’s it from?”
He’s momentarily speechless.
“Doc? Still there?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here. The…the donor wanted to remain anonymous.” It’s the truth, after all.
“Well, I’m not looking a gift box in the mouth. See you Friday?”
“…Yeah. See you then.”
