“Yes. But he’s a bit of a perfectionist, and in the art of presenting a proposal, balancing all the factors involved … well, he’s still an engineer at heart.”
Hereford nods briefly, his aquiline nose wrinkling. “I understand. In fact, I was wondering why you described him as good, when his previous two proposals lost.”
Yes, yes; Lemon is perfectly aware of Hereford’s powerfully retentive memory, thanks. He shrugs, scrambling mentally, says, “I meant from the engineering standpoint, of course.”
Hereford looks down at Manhattan. Finally he speaks. “Cut everything by five percent, and the management and data costs by ten. Any more than that and the MPCs are likely to be embarrassing. But that’ll bring it down into the range of the other bids, right?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Good. When’s the proposal due?”
“A week from today.”
“Talk to me then. I’ve got to go now.” And the video screen goes blank.
30
Abe and Xavier are driving back from Buena Park Hospital after working a nasty head-on in Brea, and Abe can feel that Xavier has about gone over the redline. The torque has been too heavy for too long, all the parts are fatigued to shear points, Abe can hear the gears grinding within and it sounds like all the teeth are about to strip out and fly away.… The truth is that they’re both stressed, to the burnout point and beyond. Making up for clumps of vacation time in the past, setting up clumps of vacation time in the future, filling in for other friends on the squad: one way or another they have arranged for too many hours on in the last month, and the effects are showing.
So they get a call from the radio dispatcher and they both groan and then just stare at the thing. Tapped out again. Slowly, very slowly, Xavier presses the transmit button. “What do you want.”
They’re directed to a side street near Brookhurst and Garden Grove avenues, in Garden Grove. “How could anybody get up enough speed in that neighborhood to make more than a fender-bender?” Xavier wonders.
“The call was not too coherent, I’m told,” says the voice of the dispatcher. “No idea of the code or anything. There might even have been a relevant address—1246 Emerson.”
“Sure this one isn’t a police matter?”
“Said rescue squad.”
Xavier clicks off. “Don’t kill us getting there. This one has got to be bullshit somehow.”
So Abe drives then to Brookhurst and Garden Grove, and they find no sign of a wreck. They see only:
A Jeans Down discount clothing store.
A Seedy audio outlet, a See-All Video Rental.
The Gay/Lesbian Adult Video Theater, A Kentucky Colonel’s.
Your dingy apartment complex. You live there.
A retail furniture warehouse outlet.
A robotics and camera discount repair shop.
Two used-car lots. A Pizza Hut.
Yes, despite theory, the monad still exists.
Here you are, right?
A coin and map store. A dance hall.
The parking lot fronting all these establishments. The cars.
Billboards, traffic signals, street lights, street signs,
Telephone wires scoring the sour milk sky,
and so on, out to where parallax brings the tracks and the two sides of the long straight boulevard together. In short, the OC commercial street, which one can see repeated a hundred times anywhere in the county. But no sign of an accident.
“Well?” says Abe.
“Let’s try the address they gave us.”
“But,”—they track around to Emerson Street backing Garden Grove Avenue—“it’s just the back lot for the furniture outlet, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but observe, there’s maybe some aps tucked on top of it there. A look is in order.”
Abe shakes his head. “Looks suspiciously like police work to me.”
They get out of the truck and walk up the outside of the building on concrete stairs that rise above an alley between buildings. The alley is filled with gray metal trash dumpsters and flattened cardboard boxes of immense size. At the top of the stairs is a wooden door that’s been kicked open a lot, once painted an orange that’s faded to dusty yellow. Xavier raises a fist to knock and there’s a sudden yelping, like a dog in pain. They look at each other. Xavier knocks.
“Keep out! Ah, God—get the fuck out of here!” It’s a woman’s voice, hoarse and wild.
“Hmm,” says Xavier. Then he calls out: “Rescue squad, ma’am!”
“Oh! Oh, you! Help! Help!”
Xavier shrugs, tries to open the door. It’s locked. “Your door is locked!”
“Don’t bust it! He’ll evict me—ahh! Ahh! Help!”
“Well, come open up, then!”
“Can’t!”
“Well.” Xavier looks at the door, jiggles the knob. Nothing doing.
“Help, damn you!”
“We’re trying, lady! It’d be easier if you hadn’t locked your door!” X looks around. “Here, Abe, the kitchen window is just over the rail, and it’s open. It looks like you’d just about fit in.”
Abe looks at the little window dubiously. “It’s too small. Besides, it’s hanging out over the alley!”
“No it’s not. Give it a try, I’ll hold on to you.”
So Abe climbs over the flimsy black-iron railing, reaches inside and finds nothing to hold on to except the sink faucet. The window really is too small. But … he steps onto the railing and squirms inside. Powerful stench of garbage left under the sink too long. His shoulders just make it through, then it’s a matter of twisting over the sink and pulling his legs in. X gives him a final shove that catapults him onto a dirty kitchen floor. “Hey!”
“Help! Oh—oh—help!”
Abe gets to his feet and rushes into the little living room/ bedroom of the ap. A black-haired woman in a sweat-soaked long T-shirt is on her back on the floor. And unless she’s unfashionably fat—nope—pregnant woman here, gone into labor. Abe rushes to the door. “Hey!” the woman shouts. “Over here!”
“I know!”
He unlocks the door and Xavier hurries in. The woman jerks back awkwardly against an old green vinyl couch. “Hey! Who are you!”
“Rescue squad.” Xavier kneels beside her, holds her wrist and moves her hand off her belly. “Relax, lady—”
“Relax! Are you kidding? What took you so long? Ahh! ahh!” Her face is dripping with sweat, she rolls her head from side to side. “I wanted an ambulance!”
“We are the ambulance, lady. Try to relax.” Xavier checks her out. “Hey, how long have you been in labor?”
“Couple hours. I guess.”
“Say, you’re making awfully fast progress.”
“You’re telling me! Listen who the fuck are you?”
“Rescue squad.”
“I don’t want some spade playing around down there while I’m trying to—ahh!—have a baby!”
Xavier frowns at her. “I’ll try to refrain from molesting you till you’re done, all right? It’s a little too crowded in there to rape you just now.”
The woman takes a weak swing at him. “Get away from me! Leave me alone! Ah, God!”
“We’re the rescue squad, ma’am,” Abe tries to explain.
“Will you cut that ma’am shit! All I need is the ambulance!”
“We can do that too,” Xavier says. “Abe, run down quick and get the stretcher. I think we’ve got time to get her over to St. Joe’s.”
Abe runs down and grabs the furled stretcher, carries it back upstairs. Back in the ap Xavier and the woman are arguing loudly. “They can’t hold your kid hostage, woman! If you can’t pay, you can’t pay! You’re going too fast here, and it’s pretty sure to rip you up some. You’d best be in the hospital!”
The woman is hit by a severe contraction and can’t reply. Abe can see she wants to reply, her eyes are fixed on Xavier’s and she’s glaring fiercely, shaking her head. “Don’t—want—to go!”
“
That’s tough. We’re not allowed to just let you bleed to death, are we.”
Abe finishes getting the stretcher unfurled and set up. As they lift the woman onto it she arches, sobbing with pain. “Try to push in a rhythm, will you?” Xavier says. “Don’t you know anything about how to do this?”
“Fuck you!” the woman cries, trying again to hit him. “Goddamned molesters! I didn’t even know—ahh!—didn’t know I was pregnant until two months ago.”
“Great. Here, Abe, hold her shoulders up for her. Push, woman, push!”
“No!” But push she does, an awful straining effort, the veins and tendons in her neck standing out like pencils under the skin. Abe finds that he’s a little freaked, here; paramedics are supposed to run into this situation all the time, but it’s a first for him, and the way that she’s writhing under his hands is disconcerting indeed. He isn’t so sure he doesn’t prefer them a little more comatose.
They’re about to pick up the stretcher when the contractions begin again, and Xavier stops to check her out once more. “Oops, top of its head is showing here, I don’t think we’ve got time anymore. Push, woman.”
“Can’t—”
“Yes, you can, here when I press on your belly. Legs up, hands down here. A big push, hold it, let off. Rest for a bit. Now again.”
“X, have you done this before?” Abe asks.
“Sure.”
“Are you going to do an, an episiotomy?”
“Are you kidding? This kid’s doing it himself.”
“Great!” the woman cries in a break between pushes. “Just what I want to hear! What kind of medic are you?”
“Army. Here, pay attention to what you’re doing.”
“As if I’ve—got any choice!”
The woman gasps, bears down again. She’s gasping for more air. Abe had no idea they had to work so hard at it. He jumps up and gets a grayed towel from the bathroom, wipes off her face. Her belly heaves again, she squeaks, teeth clamped, eyes squeezed shut so hard the lids are white in a bright red face. “Breathe in, push on the exhale,” Xavier says softly. “Okay, push. Push.”
“Fuck off.”
Suddenly Abe notices that the light has dimmed; there’s a big crowd of neighbors in the doorway! The woman notices them and curses between gasps. “Hey, get out of here!” Abe says. “Unless you’re a doctor or a midwife, go wait outside! And close the door!” He gets up and chases them off, having trouble with the smallest kids, who are fast. Mostly kids and teenagers, looking in round-eyed with curiosity.
“Push! Push, yeah! Here we go, head’s out. Now push those shoulders out right quick.” Xavier’s hands are busy at the woman’s crotch, Abe glances and sees a wet blood-and-mucus-streaked baby, rubbery-looking red in X’s black hands, just about clear of her, sliding out the last part of the way. Amazing. Xavier starts working on the umbilical cord and the placenta. He flicks the infant on the side and it wails. “Here, Abe, take it.” Abe crouches and is handed a baby. Wet, warm, sticky. It hardly weighs a thing, and its whole head fits in one hand easily.
“A little hemorrhaging,” Xavier remarks, frowning.
“Hey—when do I push!”
“You’re done, lady. The kid is born.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me!” The woman takes a weak swing at the air. “What kind of doctor are you, anyway? Hey! Boy or girl?”
“Umm…” Abe checks. “Boy, I think.”
“You think?” the woman demands. She and Xavier laugh. “What you got here, spade, some kind of medical student or something?”
“Come on,” Xavier says. “We’ve still got to get to the hospital. Lady, can you hold the kid on top of you while we carry you downstairs?”
She nods, and they arrange the little creature on the wet T-shirt, in her arms. It makes quite a picture—messy, but … good.
As they maneuver her down the stairs, however, shooing the neighborhood kids ahead of them, the woman fades a little. She lets the kid slip off to the side; they have to drop the stretcher and grab the baby fast before it goes over the railing and into the dumpsters. Thump, thump, the stretcher and the woman land half on Xavier, who almost falls down the stairs; he has to sit fast to avoid it. “Lady, what are you doing?”
“Who are you guys anyway! Trying to kill me! Give me my kid back!”
“Try holding on to it this time, okay?” X is disgusted. “Little tip for mothers, I give to you free—don’t drop your kid into trashbins when you can help it.”
They make it down the stairs and to the truck. Xavier jumps in back with her, Abe drives them off toward St. Joe’s.
Xavier calls out from the ambulance chamber. “Make it snappy, Abe, I can’t really get the compresses up where the bleeding is.”
“You damn well better not try!” Abe hears the woman say sharply. “It was one of your spade brothers knocked me up in the first place.”
“Uh-huh. You just relax, lady, and shut up if you can. I’ll keep a hold on myself.”
X sticks his head through the window, into the cab beside Abe. “Ungrateful bitch.”
“So you’ve done deliveries before?” Abe asks.
“Yeah, couldn’t you tell? That was the real midwife touch, there.”
“I see. Was this one unusual?”
“Awful fast.”
“That’s what you think!” the woman cries from the back.
“Quiet, lady. Save your strength.”
Abe says, “I didn’t know it was such hard work. I mean I’d heard, but I’d never seen it.”
“No? Man, you are a rookie. Yeah, it wipes them out. Brains have gotten bigger a lot faster than cunts, and that makes it dangerous. You got two healthy people there and they can still both die on you. In fact, step on it, will you?”
When they get to St. Joe’s, and get the woman and her child onto a gurney at the ER entrance, she gets sentimental and starts to cry. “I really appreciate it—I was really scared. I’m sorry I said all those things about you. You aren’t really a spade.”
“Well,” X says, compressing his lips to keep a straight face.
“What’s your names? Abe? Okay. Xavier? Xavier? How do you spell that? Okay. I’m gonna name him William Xavier Abraham Jeffers, I really am. I really am.…”
She’s wheeled away. They wash up in the ER men’s room, then go back to the waiting room.
A doctor comes out in a few minutes and tells them that the woman is fine, the baby is fine, there are no problems. No problems at all.
Back out in the truck. Abe has kind of an unreal feeling. They’re both grinning like fools. “So,” Abe says. “William Xavier Abraham Jeffers, eh?”
“Got any cigars?” X asks.
And they both start to laugh. They laugh, they shake hands, they pound each other on the arm, they laugh. “Could you believe it when the whole neighborhood came in to watch?” “Or when the kid fell off into the trashbins!” “Hey, aren’t we about done for the night? Let’s go get a drink.”
So they go to celebrate at the Boathouse in lower Santa Ana, on Fourth Street. One of X’s regular hangouts. They drink a lot of beer. Abe relaxes, feeling good to be a part of X’s off-work life, to be accepted in this black bar, if only for a little bit, as a friend of X’s. Xavier tells their story to the guys and the whole place howls, immediately sets to retelling the story with a million elaborations. “Why you ain’t no spade after all! Heeee, heee heeee heeeee…”
Abe and Xavier get drunk. Abe watches X’s laughing face, and feels his own grin. He hasn’t seen X this relaxed in … well, whenever. Abe squeezes his eyes shut, trying to hold on to the moment, the smell of smoke and sweat, the rowdy voices of X’s friends, the look on X’s face. Hold, time. Stop.
31
But time, of course, does not stop. And eventually they take the truck back to headquarters, and Xavier goes home.
Abe tracks to Sandy’s place, still feeling high. Into the endless party, and for once he’s in sync with the prevailing mood. There’s been a headline in
the Los Angeles Times that morning:
DEA DECLARES ORANGE COUNTY
“DRUG CAPITAL OF THE WORLD”
and Sandy has therefore declared the day a local holiday. He and Angela have gone all out to decorate the ap, with balloons, ribbons, confetti, streamers, noisemakers, and big strips of paper that have the headline reproduced on them in various spectrum bends. Samples of every recreational drug known to science are on hand and in action, Sandy is in the kitchen singing along with the blender as it grinds up quantities of ice cream, chocolate sauce, milk, and, well, Abe isn’t too sure what else, but he has his suspicions. “Rnn rnn rnn, rnn rnn rnn!” Sandy sings, and grabs the blender from its base. He pours the frothy milkshakes into tall plastic glasses, handing them to whoever gets a hand out first, “Hey, drink this! Try this!” His pupils are flinching just inside the blue rims of the irises as he sees Abe and hands him a glass. Cold in the hand. Sandy uses the blender itself to clink a toast. “To the day’s work!” with that Sandy grin blazing at San Onofre–level megawatts. Now how did he know that his toast would be appropriate on this night of all nights? Another drug mystery. Abe drinks deep. No taste but chocolate, though it’s maybe a bit chunky. What might it be? He’ll soon find out. Best to establish a transitional period by lidding as much as possible.
A lot of people are already pretty stoned, they’ve got eyes like black holes and their mouths are stretched wide like they’re trying to do imitations of Sandy’s ordinary smile, they’re grinding their teeth and giggling a little and staring around like the walls have sprouted fantastic morphological formulations out of the usual condo cottage cheese ceilings, say, is that, could that be a, a stalactite there? Abe can only laugh. But Sandy splutters with dismay. “No zoning out here, this is a celebration, get on your feet!” People stare at him like he’s maybe part of the ceiling’s deformations. “Uh-oh. Jim! Jim! Jim—put something inspiring on the CD.”
Happily Jim hurries to the collection of tattered old CDs, bought in boxfuls by Sandy and Angela at swap meets, no idea what’s in the boxes, a perfect situation for Jim, who is in heaven bopping from box to box and rooting around. Abe laughs again, lidding from an eyedropper of the Buzz and feeling his spine begin to radiate energy. Jim, King of the Culturevultures. Hopping birdlike box to box, talking as fast as he can to people who clearly aren’t understanding a word he says. Head still as a bird’s, snapping instantaneously from position to position just like a finch’s, except that now Abe sees a kind of after-image of Jim, trailing behind him. A hallucinogen, eh? Fine by Abe. He can’t help laughing at his good friend Jim, who would no doubt look for the perfect music till dawn; but Sandy returns and grabs him by the elbow. “Now, huh? Desperate need for music now!”