Healed to Death, page 10
“What do you need?” the man who had called them over pressed. “We’re happy to help you out.”
Kenzie looked at Zachary questioningly. He shrugged, gazing back at her, then finally turned to the man.
“Just, like… it’s nothing. Just maybe some antibiotics.”
None of them looked surprised. Zachary had played his part like a pro.
“Emergency room at the hospital,” the leader suggested.
“Sit there for six hours waiting? With sick people? We want to get better, not worse.”
“There’s a clinic—” the woman pointed in the direction of the clinic Kenzie had been to on Saturday to get Jack’s medical records. Kenzie started to shake her head, hoping they would come up with something different.
“Never mind,” Zachary cut them both off. “We don’t need any of that kind of help.”
The man’s mouth opened to protest.
“We’re fine,” Zachary insisted. “I can find something. A friend. Someone we can trust.”
“If you need medical care, you have to be willing to go to a doctor. There aren’t a lot who will take on new patients in our… situation. That’s why you have to rely on the hospitals and clinics. They won’t turn you away.”
“We need something private,” Zachary said stoically.
“They can’t even tell anyone they’re treating you. It’s the law.”
“Doesn’t stop loose lips. Too many people in those places. Too many ways word could get back to…” Zachary looked at Kenzie and stopped.
She gave a slight nod.
The man and his little group looked at each other, considering the question and what to do about it. They murmured to each other, their voices too low for Zachary and Kenzie to hear them. But she thought she heard the word ‘doctor’ and wondered if they were discussing the Night Doctor. Was that all it took? A homeless person only had so many options for medical care.
Private practices did not want to take them on. If they wouldn’t go to the hospital or clinic, then what was left? A friend who was a nurse? A vet tech? The Night Doctor?
21
“We know a guy,” the leader of the group said eventually. He looked around as if making sure that no one was eavesdropping on them. He motioned for Zachary and Kenzie to get closer, within the confines of the group.
After looking at Zachary, Kenzie moved toward them, and he followed, sticking close to her side.
“I’m Darius. Look, there’s a doctor,” the man offered in a confidential tone. “He helps us out sometimes. Antibiotics, stitches, setting broken bones. He does all that kind of thing.”
Kenzie nodded. “Some kind of medical student?”
He looked surprised that she had spoken, but didn’t comment on the fact or insist on only talking to Zachary.
“A real doctor. Not just a student or some foreign guy. Real, board-certified doctor.”
“He can do anything,” the smiling woman trying to befriend Kenzie told her. “Not just antibiotics. He can diagnose and everything. He can’t do surgery, ’cause he doesn’t have an operating room, you know, but other stuff… he’s really good.”
“This is Helen,” Darius introduced, gesturing toward her.
“Why doesn’t he have a practice like anyone else? Or work at the hospital?” Kenzie demanded.
“He wants to help the people who really need it. To take care of people who would fall through the cracks otherwise. I’ve seen him help people. He really cares what happens to us,” Helen explained.
Kenzie looked at the others in the group, inviting them into the conversation. “You all know him? You’ve all used him?”
They didn’t all answer, but Kenzie thought she could discern affirmation in some eyes but a negative response in others. Pretty much split down the middle.
“I dunno,” Kenzie displayed her reluctance. “Where does he work? How much does he charge?”
“It’s all free,” the leader told them. He jerked his head, flipping long hair out of his eyes. “He doesn’t charge anything. He helps anyone who needs it. It’s like… street medicine. Like a mobile clinic, only…”
“Where is he? He works out of a van?”
“No,” Darius explained. “He’s got a car—well, a van, yeah—but he doesn’t have a bed inside or anything like that. He doesn’t treat people inside there; he’s just got his equipment and stuff, and it’s his wheels. He goes where people are, and treats them there. Like an old doctor doing house calls, right? Except… we got no houses.”
“I don’t want to meet him in some back alley.”
“It’s safe. It isn’t like that. He’ll treat you where you are. If you’ve got a shelter or a tent, or a house, whatever. If you don’t got nowhere, he’ll find something. A hotel room or an empty house. Somewhere clean and safe.”
Kenzie doubted that all of the treatment sites were completely hygienic. But then, the worst infections were the antibiotic-resistant strains people contracted at the hospital.
She looked at Zachary, then back at Darius.
“How do you get ahold of him? If I want to see him, how can I? I can’t just… wait for him to come around somewhere.”
“We can put the word out. There are certain people who are… in the know. We’ll get word to him. Get together others who need to see him, because he wouldn’t want to come for just one person, just one antibiotic prescription.”
“And then he’d come? If there were enough people for him to see?”
Darius and the others nodded. Kenzie pondered this. If that were true, that he tried to only come when there were enough people to make it worth his while, then others might have seen what had happened to Jack. Other people might have been around when it happened.
Unless he had known that Jack’s condition was serious enough, it had demanded his immediate attendance, regardless of whether anyone else needed him.
Who were the people who knew how to get him? Who knew his phone number?
“Is he really any good?” she asked doubtfully. “There must be… a reason he doesn’t have his own office.”
They exchanged looks. Darius and Helen frowned and scratched their heads.
“Doctors can’t cure everything,” Helen pointed out. “Sometimes it doesn’t work out, but that’s true of any doctor.”
“Or there are side effects,” another girl contributed, looking away and not meeting Kenzie’s gaze. She was a redhead, quite young, but with old eyes. “Stuff that… you didn’t know would be a problem. A doctor can’t know all of that stuff. People have side effects, right?”
Kenzie nodded slowly, but something in the girl’s eyes made her wonder if she was just talking about side effects or if something else was going on. “What kind of side effects?”
“I don’t know… maybe allergic reactions or something… like a brain thing. Like a brain fog or not being able to remember what happened.”
“What happened? Like at his office? At the appointment, I mean?” Kenzie pressed.
“Yeah. Like when you’re at the dentist and they give you the gas, then you can’t remember what happened after, right?”
“I thought he didn’t do anesthesia.”
They all looked at her.
“You said he didn’t do surgery because he doesn’t have an operating theater,” Kenzie pointed out. “So why would he be giving anyone anesthetics?”
They looked at each other and didn’t have an answer to that.
22
“I would be really suspicious—” Kenzie started, then realized that she was falling out of the role that Zachary had set up for her. She was not the medical examiner. She was not a medical professional. She was a woman in a vulnerable position, seeking help from people she didn’t know, having to rely on them for what they knew about the mysterious doctor. “I mean… I don’t want to go to this doctor and not know what happened to me. I just want antibiotics, not some… weird encounter with the guy.”
“If he’s just giving you antibiotics, he doesn’t need to give you anything else,” Helen assured her, with a quelling glance at the redhead. “Maybe examine you, but he doesn’t need to give you anything to… help you relax, or anything.”
Kenzie pulled on Zachary’s arm. “Do you think this guy is kosher? This doesn’t sound right.”
“Things are done differently out here. You need to be willing to do things differently. To work with people who are… maybe they don’t fit into the normal system. Maybe they are… eccentric or do things differently. You’re not looking for someone who does things the same way. Right?”
“I just want…” Kenzie held her arms over her stomach, as if feeling cold. “I want someone who will give me what I need without…” She looked at Darius and the others.
“Without leaving a trail,” Zachary suggested. “We don’t want anyone who is going to tell people where to find us, tell them our business. Medical care is supposed to be private, but then you have doctors reporting to social services or the cops, and that shouldn’t be allowed, right?”
The others were nodding. They understood what it was to fear authorities, to know that, no matter how bad things got, they could always be made worse by some bureaucrat who thought he knew better and thought it was his place to control other people’s lives. The counselor who decided someone was a danger to himself or others. The social worker who thought a child was in danger when everything was perfectly fine. The doctor who knew better than the patient what she needed, or started asking questions about legal matters that were a person’s private business and not anyone else’s.
“The Night Doctor isn’t like that,” Darius assured them. “He wouldn’t tell anyone anything. He doesn’t need to know your real name or where you come from.”
Which meant that he wouldn’t be able to access a patient’s medical history, with previous treatments and diagnoses and what adverse reactions he might have had in the past. Only the little he managed to get out of them when they met.
“Can we talk to you?” Kenzie nodded to the redheaded girl who had made the comment about brain fog and forgetting what had happened at an appointment. “Just you by yourself?”
The redhead looked at the rest of the group, asking questions with her eyes and body language. Kenzie didn’t move and didn’t look at Zachary, not wanting to give herself away. He was better equipped to understand what was being communicated and give her whatever reassurance she needed.
“I don’t know you,” the girl said, shaking her head. “You guys just show up here today, looking for help. I’ve never met you before.”
Zachary nodded and started to turn away from the group. Maybe reminding them that they were the ones who had called Zachary and Kenzie over and initiated the discussion, pushing to find out what they wanted. It hadn’t been their idea.
Kenzie experienced a moment of panic. She didn’t want to separate from the group when she felt like they were just starting to get answers. But she had to trust that Zachary knew what he was doing and was more experienced in getting answers from people and dealing with distrustful street people than she was. She allowed him to steer her away from them, to return to the course they had been following along the street before they were stopped. They had taken just a few steps when they heard someone following. Kenzie looked back to see the redhead, who wasn’t ready to let them just walk away.
Zachary kept Kenzie walking when she would have stopped to resume the conversation. They put a few more steps between them and the group.
“There’s a place up here,” the redhead murmured. “We can get coffee.”
She moved in front of them and led them a block further to a street vendor at the edge of a park selling baking and fancy designer coffees to the wealthier businesspeople who could afford to throw away money for such things. He looked up at their approach and nodded. When they reached him, he pulled a few cups from the lower shelf in his cart and handed them over. No money changed hands, and the young woman led them away into the park.
“I’m Venice,” she told them. She sniffed at the coffee and took a sip. “Sometimes people make an order and then don’t want it or say something is wrong with it. They changed their mind or forgot to say to use soy milk or whatever.” She shrugged. “Moth doesn’t like to have to just dump them out. So he hangs on to them until they get cold, in case someone else wants them.”
“Moth?” Kenzie repeated.
“I forget his name, like Mothershead or something like that. He’s a good guy. You never know what you’ll get, but they’re always good.” She sipped her coffee, then wiped a bit of foam from her lip. “Mmm.”
Kenzie tried her coffee, which was still hot, but cool enough to drink, and she tasted notes of vanilla and cinnamon. It was pretty good, even if it wasn’t something she would have ordered. Zachary’s expression was comically tentative as he brought his up to his lips as if he were afraid someone had spat into it or might have slipped him poison. He tipped up the cup and nodded.
“Mmm,” he agreed, “it is good.”
Kenzie suspected he hadn’t even tasted it. He was just playing a part. They were all getting to know each other, sharing an interesting experience, having a drink together, bonding over it. Something that would get them closer to the answers they were looking for.
“So,” Kenzie reintroduced the subject a few minutes later as they walked through the park and sipped the rejected coffees. “This guy, this Night Doctor…”
Venice nodded. “Everybody says how good he is,” she said. “And how lucky we are that he comes around, that he’s willing to do stuff for us. Make ‘house calls’ like an old-fashioned doctor.” She laughed. “Only without the house.”
Kenzie chuckled over this as well, waiting for more. “But he’s not as good as they say he is?”
“I think he’s good. He’s really smart and he helps a lot of people. Does more good than the mobile clinic,” she rolled her eyes, “or the missions that come with blankets and medical supplies sometimes.”
Zachary nodded encouragingly. “Sometimes people have to take things into their own hands. Break away from the bureaucracy, cut through all the red tape, and just give people what they need.”
“Yeah. Exactly. He doesn’t sit around waiting to see what they’ll let him do. He’s there, getting his hands dirty, doing what needs to be done.”
“I hope his hands aren’t really dirty,” Kenzie muttered.
“No.” Venice gave another nervous laugh. “Of course not. He’s always very good. Scrubs up, changes gloves, stuff like that. I don’t think…” she trailed off.
They kept walking, kept sipping their cups of coffee. Eventually, she spoke again.
“But no one wants to talk about the other stuff. Not to outsiders, especially. I hear things sometimes, and I think… he’s not quite as lily-white as they say he is. I think maybe he’s doing it for other reasons.”
23
“What kind of things?” Zachary asked.
Venice glanced at him and scratched the back of her neck. “I think sometimes he makes mistakes. Maybe he has a problem. Like, a drug problem or something.”
Kenzie swallowed. That would explain his operating outside of the law. Not having a private practice of his own with a clinic to work out of and staff and all of the things that went along with that. She didn’t say anything, letting Venice think about it and feel her way along.
“Sometimes, things don’t turn out so well, and people have to go to the hospital or they get worse.”
“That happens to regular doctors, too,” Zachary pointed out.
“Yeah. Sure, I know that. But it isn’t just that. There’s also… people who disappear.”
Kenzie stopped abruptly. Zachary was walking close enough to her that he collided with her side and grabbed her to stabilize both of them, apologizing. Venice took another step or two before realizing that they had stopped and turned to see what had happened to them.
“People who disappear?” Kenzie demanded.
“I mean, not people who just needed antibiotics,” Venice assured her. “Most of the doctoring he does, stitches and antibiotics and all of that stuff, it’s perfectly fine. But I had a friend, a guy I knew when I first got to Roxboro. He had a disease, something to do with his blood, and I knew he had been to see the Night Doctor. And then… he was just gone. No one knew where. I asked around, and they said he must have just taken off, left town for something else.”
“But you don’t think so,” Zachary suggested. He stood with the cup of coffee in his hand, seemingly forgotten.
“I never heard anything else about him, and there’s lots of talk between street people, lots of gossip. Even if someone goes to another city, you still hear back now and then.”
“That’s pretty scary.”
“Sometimes it happens. Things happen to people. You know how it is on the street. People disappear and you never know what happened to them. But then there was another girl who went to the Night Doctor to have her baby. Or he came to her, I mean, because she was having trouble with it. And… I wanted to know what had happened. No one said whether she was okay or if the baby was okay. I wanted to know, but no one could say.”
“There wasn’t anyone else with her?” Kenzie asked. “A friend or doula or something?”
“I don’t know. Any time I asked about it, people just said to let it go, not to talk about something that was going to get people in trouble.”
“Get who in trouble? The Night Doctor?”
“I don’t know who else would be in trouble. And he could only be in trouble if something had gone wrong, right? But I never knew what had happened. No one would tell me.”
“What do you think happened?”
