“Yeah?”
“Stick with me, kid. You’ll pick up a thing or two. Let’s talk later about that proof of yours.”
“I have it on a USB,” John said.
“Calder’s denial?” she said. She pointed to her notebook. “Big deal. I’ve got the fastest handwriting on the block.”
She wheeled off before John had time to explain what he had meant.
KEITA ATE A BANANA AND TWO SLICES OF TOAST WITH PEANUT butter, and then he took the bus with Ivernia to the town of Grant Valley, fifteen minutes west of Clarkson. He got off the bus, left his bag with Ivernia and headed out on a jog to warm up. It was a hot day: thirty-two degrees Celsius in the morning, and humid to boot. He kept the jog short and then began stretching. He jogged some more, did a few wind sprints and then pushed his way forward through the throng of runners waiting for the start of the race. It took him about five minutes. Sometimes people moved gracefully to the side and let him pass, seeing that he looked like a serious runner. Others gave him a hard time, staring and frowning.
“Excuse me,” he said to one woman, who said, “Sure,” and moved to the side. They looked at each other for a long moment.
“Keita,” Candace said. “You should be way up front.”
“Trying to get there,” he said.
“I hope we can talk,” she said.
He lifted a hand so she could see him wave as he moved through the crowd.
“Good luck,” she called after him.
Keita couldn’t understand her kindness. If she was a police officer and had hidden that from him, she could not have good intentions, could she? Keita banished the memory of her in bed. He had to get to the starting line.
BIG RACE. HUGE CROWD OF RUNNERS. EVERYBODY FIGURED they could run that far. Just 21.1 kilometres, but a good test of fitness. Rocco figured he could run the half-marathon in ninety minutes. So that was his target. But who knew how he would handle the heat? The race was set to start in ten minutes, and his phone was vibrating again.
“Calder,” he said into it.
“Rocco. Geoffrey here. What’s all that noise? Sounds like cattle.”
“I’m lined up to run the Grant Valley Half-Marathon.”
“I figured as much. Can you get a good look at that Roger Bannister or Keita Ali guy?”
“He runs a bit faster than me,” Rocco said.
“We want to talk to him. If I come to the race, can you point him out afterwards?”
“Geoffrey boy, you don’t get it. There are five thousand runners corralled behind the starting line. He’s going to finish half an hour ahead of me. By the time I get there, he will have showered, had a massage and two beers, and gone home.”
“Don’t they have a prize ceremony afterwards?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t the victors have to stick around for their prize money?”
Christ, this guy was annoying. “Yeah.”
“Well, what’s he look like?”
“Thin, black, too short for a job in cabinet.”
“Very funny. Meet me at the end of the race and point him out to me.”
“You won’t need me for that,” Rocco said. “He’ll be onstage getting a medal. Anyway, what do you want to do with him?”
“Just talk,” Geoffrey said.
“The end of a race is not a good place to talk,” Rocco said.
“Meet me there.” Geoffrey hung up.
Damn. Who was running the immigration department, anyway? Rocco tried to shake off his annoyance. Ninety minutes. That was his goal today. He would have to run at a pace of 4:15 per kilometre. He would need to reach kilometre 10 by about forty-two minutes. He could do it. Right? Already bloody hot weather, though. Note to self: drink more than usual.
Rocco pushed closer to the starting line. The race official raised the starter’s pistol. In the other hand, he held a megaphone and issued last-minute instructions that were completely unintelligible.
Well, what do you know? To Rocco’s right. Roger Bannister.
THE GUN CRACKED. THE RUNNERS BEGAN MOVING. IT TOOK Keita ten seconds to cross the starting line. But then they were off.
Keita dodged and darted, squeezing between recreational runners. He shot past them, fixed his eye on the race leaders up ahead, and tried to get into a smooth groove. Half-marathons brought out fast runners, especially for a twelve-thousand-dollar prize. It was a long shot that Keita would win. But the good thing about racing a half-marathon was that he would recover quickly. Racing a full marathon really took it out of your legs. But a half-marathon—he could run that and bounce back in two weeks. To win this race, Keita would have to run sub-sixty-one minutes. That meant running faster than 2:50 per kilometre. Keita pulled down the first kilometre in 2:40. He kept that up for the second kilometre, and slid in behind the pack of five leading runners.
Keita was paying a price for the fast pace. Trouble breathing. And for the first time in his life while running, he had a headache. Every step jarred his skull. He tried slowing down his breathing, but he gulped and gasped for air as if he were coming up from under water. He tried shorter, shallow breaths, but that didn’t work either. He concentrated on trying to inhale in ways that filled out his diaphragm, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth, but he felt on the edge of hyperventilation.
In the first kilometres, he sat right behind the leaders, letting them break the wind. But he didn’t feel that he could run much faster. His legs felt heavy. Dead. At kilometre 10 he heard Hamm shout at him from the sidelines.
Kilometre 17. He had pulled into the lead and slowed to a 2:50 pace, and noticed, rounding a corner, a group of three runners less than fifty metres behind him. You could make up that distance very fast on a dying runner.
At kilometre 18, his face felt hot, his body was trembling, and he wished he could stop then and there to take a pill for his headache. Mitch Hitchcock pulled even with him on the back of a police motorcycle and studied him. Keita was sure that he saw concern in Hitchcock’s face. Keita grabbed a sports drink from the table at kilometre 19 and took a sip, but it did not make him feel better. Two runners were right on his ass. By kilometre 20, they had pulled even with him.
One was Billy Deeds. “Got a song for me today?” his competitor said.
Keita didn’t like the look of his chief rival—he seemed strong, and he did not appear to be suffering.
Ivernia was on the sidelines, cheering for him.
“Ain’t that sweet,” Deeds said. “Roger Bannister and his mother.”
Deeds pulled ahead as if Keita were standing still. He had only one kilometre left. Less than three minutes, but he couldn’t hold on to the pace. Deeds pulled even farther ahead, and two more runners blew past Keita. He was aware that he was slowing dreadfully. He was swaying too. He heard someone shout, “Help that runner!” Now he was barely jogging. Three other runners flew past. He could see the finish line just a hundred metres ahead, but he could barely put one foot ahead of the other. A race official came out to him, but Keita could not understand what he was saying. Walking now. Forty metres. Twenty. There was the finish line. Not quite over it. Down.
SURE, MITCH THOUGHT, RUNNERS HAD BAD DAYS. SOMETIMES a runner felt sick and finished as much as ten or twenty minutes off the mark. Or just dropped out. Runners fainted, got heat prostration, had cramps. Mitch thought he had seen it all. But Keita had been running fast, at a sub-sixty-one-minute pace, right up to kilometre 18. Might he get out-kicked at the end? Sure. Might some other runners finish the last kilometre more quickly? Entirely possible. But to slow to a jog and then a walk, and then to stagger and sway like a drunk man and fall right on the finishing line? You almost never saw that with elite athletes. The smart kid from the Clarkson Academy was running toward him, shouting, “Please, sir, he’s my friend and he needs an ambulance.” Mitch jumped into action.
VIOLA HAD A SPOT RIGHT BEFORE THE FINISHING LINE. SHE saw him coming. He looked like a toddler who hadn’t quite learned how to walk, zigzag
ging, almost stumbling and finally pitching forward like a blind man. Was it the beating he had received? No, it couldn’t be. She had heard the radio reports. Keita Ali had been with the leaders through kilometres 4, 10 and 15. He had taken the lead at kilometre 15. The competitors caught up to him at kilometre 18, and then he just died. What was going on?
She dictated into her tape recorder: “Mystery runner Keita Ali, clearly the most talented runner in the bunch today, ran into problems at the Grant Valley Half-Marathon. He staggered like a drunk man in the last metres and was passed by seven runners in the last kilometre. He was drooling. His eyes were rolled back. When he reached the finish line, spectators shouted for an ambulance. He fell so abruptly that his body was on the line—not over it—when ambulance workers carried him off, motionless, on a stretcher.”
Maybe Viola lost, in that moment, any semblance of objectivity. Maybe it was a fluke. But as the marathoner she sought to describe on the page was carted out of her field of vision, she felt a sudden wave of phantom pain. Once more, the knife ripped right through her thigh. She screamed. Turned a dozen heads. And then the sensation was gone.
IVERNIA IDENTIFIED HERSELF TO THE PARAMEDICS AS HIS next of kin, and even though that drew a strange look from Mitch Hitchcock, he made room for her in the ambulance.
“He would not wish to be taken anywhere where he will be documented,” Ivernia told him.
“Sorry,” Hitchcock said, “we’re going to the hospital.”
“At least take him to a hospital that is out of the way. Somewhere where people won’t think to look for him. Please.”
“Out of my control. How are you related?”
“He works for me.”
He looked at her with surprise. “Really?”
“Yes,” she said. “Long story.”
“He’s got talent. Do you realize where he could go, if he had support here in Freedom State?”
“I don’t think he wants to go anywhere,” she said. “He wants to win because he needs the money.”
“He finished eighth today,” Hitchcock said, “so no money in that. And he wasn’t really even eighth. He had to be lifted off the finishing line. Technically, he didn’t finish the race at all.”
Ivernia took another look at Keita, who was lying on the gurney, his mouth covered because an EMT was pumping oxygen into him. He had an IV drip. He was breathing. And his heart was beating. But he was unconscious.
CANDACE PULLED RANK. SHE WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO DO IT, but she did it anyway. It had felt good to run the half-marathon in 83:08. It hadn’t hurt all that much. On a cooler day, she could have run two minutes faster.
It had been a good effort today, but any positive feelings dissipated when she crossed the finish line and heard that Keita had collapsed at the finish line and been rushed to the hospital. She asked for the race director, but he was gone. She asked for the assistant race director, and some official tried to stall her. She brought out her badge and identified herself as a sergeant with the Clarkson Police Department and said she needed to speak to the assistant race director pronto. That got action.
From him, she found out that Mitch Hitchcock had accompa-nied Keita to the Freedom Hospital. She hailed a cab and changed into street clothes in the back seat. The driver watched through his rear-view mirror. But she couldn’t care less.
Waiting in the emergency area were Hitchcock and, to her surprise, Ivernia Beech. Candace sat down beside the older woman to wait.
“Are you two friends?” Ivernia asked.
“We’ve met,” Candace said. “I heard he had some troubles, and I was worried. You know each other too?”
“We do,” Ivernia said. “I got in by saying that he worked for me, but I’m not really here as his employer.”
“I’m not really here as a police officer,” Candace said.
“I figured as much. He is very handsome.”
Candace blushed.
A couple of hours later, a doctor in scrubs came into the waiting room looking for next of kin. Three people stood up. The doctor looked quizzically at Ivernia, Mitch and Candace, and motioned to Ivernia, who said she was like a mother to him.
“If you don’t mind,” Mitch said. “As the director of the race where Mr. Ali has hurt himself, I really must join you.”
Candace stood. “Clarkson Police,” she said, flashing her badge. “I guess it will be a full party.”
KEITA, FOR HIS PART, WASN’T FEELING SO BAD NOW. HE wanted to have the IV detached. He wanted to leave. A hospital was not a safe place to hide.
The doctor came in and said that three people wished to join them for a conversation.
“Who are they?” Keita asked.
“An older woman, a guy with a grey ponytail, and a lady cop. I can tell the cop to wait, if you wish.”
“Does she look like she has come to arrest me?” he asked.
“She’s in civilian clothes. I think she just ran the half-marathon too. She probably isn’t planning to arrest you, if she was prepared to sit patiently for two hours in the waiting room.”
“Okay,” he said. “Let them all in.”
“IT’S THE HERNIA, RIGHT?” HE SAID TO THE DOCTOR, A TALL black man.
Keita wondered how he had come be a doctor in this land. Was he born here? Had he come from elsewhere? He didn’t seem to have a foreign accent.
“I saw your hernia, and another physician checked it out too. It is enlarged. You should have it operated on. But it is not your chief issue here.”
“It has been growing, and I’ve been feeling sick lately when I run. It wasn’t this big before. Are you sure—?”
“Yes,” the doctor said. He cleared his throat. “Mr. Ali, you could have died today.”
“Shit,” Mitch said. “Don’t tell me it’s his heart.”
“His heart is fine,” the doctor said. “Mr. Ali, you have diabetes. And today you suffered from dehydration. It’s not to be ignored.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you don’t get this under control, it could lead to diabetic ketoacidosis.”
“Which is what?”
“If your blood sugar rises too high, and if you suffer from serious dehydration, you could fall into a coma and suffer cardiac arrest. You need medicine to control the levels of sugar in your blood. You need it, starting today.”
Nobody said a word. Keita looked at the faces of the three who had come to see him. He saw Ivernia trying to be calm and strong. She took his hand.
“Are you quite sure?” Mitch finally said.
“Positive. Nobody goes to levels that high without being diabetic. And he responded immediately when we put him on an insulin drip. Plus fluids and electrolytes.”
Keita swallowed hard. “Can I keep running?”
“Yes—if you go on insulin and get your blood sugar under control.”
Keita dropped his eyes. Whatever this treatment meant, he knew he did not have the money for it.
“I’m a runner too, by the way,” said the doctor. “Ten kilometres is my max. I am blown away that you could run a sixty-three-minute half-marathon while suffering from dehydration. It would take me sixty-three minutes to jog half that distance in perfect health.” He paused, seemed to read Keita’s mind. “You’re wondering about cost. I don’t know what situation you are in, but we will worry later about the hospital bill. My first job is to treat. Others can worry about money. We can get you some free supplies. Enough to keep you going a few months. Keep the stuff refrigerated, that’s all. Maybe you can work out a solution after that.”
“I’ll help him with the needles,” Ivernia said.
“Okay,” the doctor said. “I’ll set you up with a nurse. It might take another hour or so. Have some water and relax, and we’ll get you out of here before the day ends.”
“Doctor?”
“Yes.”
“If I take this insulin, the problem will go away?”
“It can be controlled. Lots of high-performance athletes manage diabetes, with t
he help of medication.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. We’ve run some blood tests already, to figure out the right level of insulin.”
“Doctor,” Keita said.
“Yes?”
He lowered his voice. “I have to be out of here very, very soon.”
The doctor raised his eyebrows.
“It’s true,” Ivernia said. “He’s in danger.”
“I’ll do what I can,” the doctor said, and he left the room.
“Handsome man,” Ivernia said.
Mitch and Candace laughed.
“I’ve got to get going, now that I see you’re alive,” Mitch said. “I want you to come see me, but I know you’re not going to do that. So I’m going to come to you. I want you to train with the national team. If you can get your health back on track, you could be one helluva marathoner.”
“I appreciate that, and maybe later, but right now I’m facing a crisis. Someone needs me, and I can’t let that person down.”
“I think he needs to consider the matter when he is feeling better,” Ivernia said. “No more pressure.”
Mitch stood. “Okay, okay. We’ll talk when you’re feeling better. And by the way—we’ll take care of your hospital bill and look into getting that hernia fixed.”
Candace stood as well. She asked if she could have a moment with him. Mitch and Ivernia nodded and left the room.
“How you doing?” she said.
“I needed to win that race today.”
“Right now, you need to focus on your health.”
He took her hand.
“You got the wrong idea about me,” she said.
He looked at her. “You didn’t tell me you were a police officer.”
“I am not after you—in that way,” she said.
He smiled. “I have a lot of problems. Too many to tell you about.”
“Try me.”
“I’ll call after things get under control.”
“Or you could let me help you,” Candace said. “You know how to reach me.” She kissed him on the cheek and left the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN