Drought Page 9

  ‘Yes, all right,’ said Martin. He wasn’t going to argue about it.

  ‘Ralph? Are you OK?’ called a podgy, white-haired man from across the street.

  The homeowner lifted his arm in acknowledgement and called back, ‘We’re fine, thanks, Leland, thanks to this gentleman here. I didn’t think they made Good Samaritans any more, but I was wrong.’

  NINE

  When he turned the corner, he found that the road outside Highland Medical Center was crowded with vehicles, and that a large crowd was gathered outside, at least two or three hundred people. He had to park five hundred yards away and then walk. The crowd weren’t shouting or tossing rocks like the crowds downtown, but it was edging close to 120 degrees and everybody was clearly suffering from heat exhaustion and growing restless.

  Martin maneuvered his way through to the front of the crowd. A barrier had been lowered across the entrance to the medical center’s parking lot, and it was guarded by five men in dark blue police-style combat uniforms, with peaked caps. Martin recognized who they were without having to check out the badge on their sleeves: a rising sun with the letters ESS embroidered on top of it. Empire Security Services.

  He approached one of them and said, ‘What’s going down here?’

  ‘Do you have an appointment to see a doctor here, sir?’ the security guard asked him. He had bleached-blue eyes and clear drops of perspiration on his upper lip.

  ‘No, I don’t. I tried to make an appointment but the phone’s always busy and the website’s not working. I need to see Doctor Lucas. My daughter’s sick.’

  ‘Well, your daughter and a whole lot of other folks, I’m sorry to say.’ He was carrying a clipboard under his arm and he lifted it up and folded back the first two or three pages. ‘Want to tell me where you live, sir?’

  ‘My daughter lives at sixteen-oh-five Fullerton Drive. She’s registered with Doctor Lucas. She’s been on his list for two years at least.’

  The security guard licked the ball of his thumb and turned over another sheet of paper. ‘Fullerton Drive … Fullerton Drive … oh, yeah, here we are, Fullerton Drive. I’m sorry, sir, but no.’

  ‘What do you mean, “no”? What difference does it make where she lives? She’s sick. She has a fever.’

  ‘Don’t waste your time, buddy,’ said a man in a 66ers baseball cap standing close behind him. ‘My wife has diabetes and they won’t let her in to see Doctor Grove. Just because we live on West Kendall Drive.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the security man repeated. ‘The medical center can’t deal with any patients from hiatus areas.’

  ‘You mean neighborhoods where the water supply has been shut off?’

  ‘That’s correct, sir. The doctors simply can’t handle the demand from those areas.’

  ‘But the people from those areas are the people who need treatment the most. You heard this gentleman. His wife has diabetes. I’m not a doctor but I do know that it’s dangerous for a diabetes sufferer to get dehydrated.’

  The security man had heard some shouting on the opposite side of the medical center and he turned his head to see what was happening. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said, abstractedly. ‘The hiatus period in your area is only expected to last for another twenty-four hours. Then you’ll get priority medical care and the people from other areas will have to wait, the same way that you’re having to wait now.’

  ‘This is insanity,’ Martin protested. ‘The council is cutting off people’s water but when they get sick they’re actively preventing them from seeking treatment – even though it was them who made them sick in the first place?’

  ‘The way I understand it, sir, each hiatus is only going to last forty-eight hours. Even the sickest person can survive without water for forty-eight hours.’

  Martin stood very close to him, face to face, so that his chest was actually touching the security man’s clipboard. ‘Are you going to let me in to see Doctor Lucas, or what?’

  ‘No, sir. I’m not.’

  ‘Do you know who I am?’

  ‘No, sir, I don’t.’

  ‘My name is Martin Makepeace and I’m an officer with Children’s and Family Services. So I represent the council even more than you do. Apart from that I served three years in Afghanistan and other places east and they trained us to eat little shits like you for breakfast, just to keep our bowels moving.’

  The security guard remained impassive. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I’m not allowed to admit anyone domiciled within a designated hiatus zone during the period of hiatus.’

  ‘OK,’ said Martin. He had to concede that this security guard had neither the imagination, the authority or the inclination to use his initiative. The British squaddies he had met in Afghanistan would have called him a ‘jobsworth,’ as in, ‘I can’t let you do that, it’s more than my job’s worth.’ He turned away and walked back to his car. He was so angry now that he felt deadly calm. He knew exactly who he needed to talk to now, and that was Saskia Vane.

  As he backed out of the street with squealing tires and softly-bouncing suspension, he thought: maybe it’s time for a little arm-twisting, Ms Vane. You asked me to help you out, now you can return the favor.

  Behind him, he thought he heard more shouting, and two shots.

  As he was driving back to Fullerton Drive, his cell played ‘Mandolin Rain’. It was Corporal Evander, calling him from police headquarters.

  ‘Just wanted to let you know, sir, that we’ll be sending Tyler over to West Valley Detention Center tomorrow afternoon. Right now we’re kind of short-staffed, on account of the demonstrations we’re having to deal with.’

  ‘OK, Corporal. Good of you to let me know.’

  ‘Well, I’ve been talking to Tyler again, sir, completely informally, and between you and me I think he’s probably telling the truth.’ He paused, and then he added, ‘Just don’t quote me on that.’

  ‘Is that something you’d stand up and say in front of a judge and jury?’

  ‘In front of a judge and jury, sir, I can only answer the questions that are put to me, and I can only answer those questions with the facts. Detectives aren’t paid to have opinions.’

  Martin parked outside Peta’s house and rang the doorbell. It was so hot now that the mountains appeared to be melting.

  Peta came to the door. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked him. ‘He’s not going to come, is he?’

  ‘This whole drought situation is a lot worse than they’re telling us,’ said Martin. ‘They have security guards outside of the medical center and they won’t treat anybody who lives in an area where the water’s shut off.’

  ‘What? That doesn’t make any sense. Surely those people need the treatment most.’

  ‘Can I see her?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  He opened Ella’s bedroom door and looked inside but Ella was asleep, her cheeks flushed pink. Martin turned to Peta and said, ‘They’re not moving Tyler to Rancho Cucamonga until tomorrow afternoon. I’ll go see him then.’

  ‘Do you want to stay for something to eat?’

  Martin shook his head. ‘No, thanks. I’d like that a lot, but I have some business to attend to. I want to find out why my son had to go out foraging for water and my sick daughter isn’t allowed to see a doctor, and I want to hear it from somebody who knows what the hell is really going on.’

  ‘Martin—’

  ‘What?’

  Peta reached out and touched him, almost as if she were bestowing a blessing on him. ‘Be careful,’ she said, with her eyes lowered.

  Martin headed due south on I-215 to Riverside. Again, the freeway was almost deserted, and he drove for almost three miles before he passed another car. Off to his left, a pall of black smoke was still hanging over the city center, over two hundred feet high. It had taken on the shape of the Grim Reaper, with a long pointed hood and a scythe over its shoulder, and two police helicopters were circling around it, which made it look as if its cloak was swirling.

  He had hea
rd Governor Smiley’s media conference being advertised on the radio this morning, and that was how he had guessed where he could find Saskia Vane. Governor Smiley would make a statement on KNBC at six p.m., and then he and members of his drought emergency team would answer questions in front of a studio audience. Martin was almost one hundred percent sure that Saskia Vane would be there.

  He switched on his radio now to listen to the latest news. The headline story was that the San Bernardino City Council were considering closing three fire stations for ten days every month on the same rotational basis as the water supply, in order to save three and a half million dollars. They were also thinking of outsourcing their trash collection.

  ‘We’re flat-busted,’ said the City Attorney. ‘San Bernardino is over forty-five million dollars in the red and at some point we have to start making some drastic cuts.’

  ‘Well, leaving the city to burn to the ground should save quite a few bucks,’ retorted the Acting Fire Chief.

  Martin arrived at the KNBC studio on Chicago Avenue and found a place to park outside a dry cleaner’s two blocks away. Three shiny black Escalades were already lined up outside the studio, which was a white-painted single-story building with a red shingle roof. Four security guards in the caps and dark blue uniforms of Empire Security were standing by the entrance. It looked like Governor Smiley had already arrived, and maybe Saskia Vane had, too.

  Martin approached the tinted glass doors and as he did so one of the security guards immediately stepped forward, holding up his hand.

  ‘Sir? You want to show me your pass?’

  ‘I have an appointment to see Ms Vane.’

  ‘She arranged to meet you here?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Martin, but he produced Saskia’s card from his shirt pocket and held it up so that the security guard could read it. ‘She said any time. And now is “any time”, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Sorry, sir. Access to this evening’s event is by invitation only, and for that you need a pass, which would have been emailed to you.’

  ‘I know Ms Vane personally and she said that any time I had a question I could ask her.’

  ‘Sorry, sir. Those are my instructions. No pass, no access. Period.’

  Martin’s skull was still aching from that devastating head-butt. He was hot and sweat was sliding down his back and if anything his anger was even greater than it had been before. He closed his eyes for a moment to control himself, because he knew that if he didn’t the next words he tried to speak would be completely incoherent.

  When he opened his eyes again, however, he saw that the tinted glass doors were opening and Saskia was stepping outside. Saskia, smiling. She was wearing a light gray suit with a very short skirt and light gray shoes with perilously high heels.

  ‘Martin! It is Martin, isn’t it? What are you doing here? I thought you’d be out in the field somewhere, you know, trying to calm people down.’

  ‘That’s not so easy, I’m afraid,’ said Martin. ‘Maybe it would be easier if I was calm. But I’m not. I need to talk to you. I’m very, very far from being calm.’

  She came up to him and laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s all right,’ she told the security guard. ‘Martin’s with me. I’m sorry, Martin, I forget your second name.’

  ‘Makepeace.’

  ‘Very appropriate,’ she said. He could smell that perfume again. She had something else about her, too, apart from her scent. Her fingers were barely touching his shoulder and yet he felt as though she was lightly caressing him, rather than simply guiding him toward the door.

  They went into the reception area. It was crowded with more security guards, as well as harassed young women with iPads and bored-looking TV technicians with headphones and at least four Councilmen that Martin recognized. The noise of self-important men trying to out-shout each other was deafening.

  ‘I can’t spare you very long, I’m afraid,’ said Saskia, leading Martin past the reception desk and along an empty corridor with a gleaming yellow floor. ‘What seems to be the problem? Well, I don’t know why I’m asking you, really. I know what the problem is already. We thought that people would be irritated if we shut off their water for forty-eight hours. We didn’t realize that they would start to stage violent demonstrations, and almost immediately. We misunderestimated them, to quote George W. Bush. And very badly.’

  ‘You’ll have to call this off, this hiatus thing,’ said Martin. ‘If you don’t, people are going to die.’

  Saskia had been walking along the corridor quite quickly, her heels rapping on the vinyl tiles. Now, however, she abruptly stopped, and looked into Martin’s eyes with an expression that he had never seen on any woman before. It was partly arrogance, partly impatience and partly pain. I have to act like this, because that’s the kind of person I am, and I don’t have any choice, no matter how much it’s hurting me.

  ‘I know people are going to die,’ she said, in little more than a whisper. ‘But it’s about time we realized that our resources are finite. We don’t have enough money so we can’t afford all of the social services that people need. We don’t have enough water so we can’t afford to drink. It’s simple math and simply physics. You can’t create something out of nothing.’

  Martin tried to keep his voice level. ‘Saskia, I have an eleven-year-old daughter back home who’s burning up with fever. I managed to steal some water from my office which I shouldn’t have done but so far as I’m concerned charity begins at home. I went to Highland Medical Center but one of these Empire Security Service goons told me that the doctors wouldn’t see patients from neighborhoods where the water was shut off.’

  Saskia looked down at the floor. ‘That’s true, I’m afraid. That’s part of the rotational hiatus. Medical services are restricted, as well as water, otherwise all of the emergency rooms and clinics would be totally overwhelmed.’

  ‘So it’s a double whammy. No water, and no doctors? What kind of people are you?’

  ‘I’ve admitted it, Martin. People are going to die. People die in earthquakes. People die in floods. People die in tornadoes and epidemics. They’re all natural disasters and so is this. There’s nothing we can do about it except to share out our limited resources of water as fairly as we can, and rotational hiatus is the only way.’

  She looked back up but Martin returned her look with his eyes narrowed.

  ‘You’re not telling me everything,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. There’s nothing more to tell you.’

  ‘Yes, there is. There was definitely a “but” in there somewhere. “People are going to die,” you said. OK, people are going to die. But, what?’

  She took hold of his watch strap, the same way she had in Arlene’s office, when she was trying to dissuade him from telling Peta about her water being cut off. ‘Why don’t you come and meet the governor? Maybe he can put your mind at rest.’

  ‘Oh, you think so? As it happens, there’s something a whole lot worse than my daughter having a fever. I told my wife to stock up on bottled water, just like you suggested, and she sent my son out to buy some. When he got to the store he found himself mixed up in a robbery – some punks trying to steal water, would you believe? The storekeeper got shot dead and his daughter got gang-raped.’

  ‘My God,’ said Saskia. ‘That’s terrible.’

  ‘Oh, you think? It gets worse. When the cops arrived, all of the punks managed to run away, but my son was caught and charged with felony homicide. Felony homicide, for doing nothing, except trying to buy some bottled water, just like you suggested.’

  ‘Where is he now, your son?’

  ‘He’s still at police headquarters. They’re shipping him over to West Valley tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Do you have a lawyer?’

  ‘David Lemos. You know him?’

  ‘Yes, I know David. He always looks like Neil Sedaka after a heavy night out, but he’s good. Listen, though, I’ll tell you what I can do for you. I’ll talk to some of t
he people I know in the District Attorney’s office.’

  ‘And what good will that do?’

  ‘If a gang was responsible, and not your son, they’ll make sure the gang gets what’s coming to them. The DA’s office is very hot on gangs these days. They’ve even been serving civil process against gangs, like the Cuca Kings in Rancho Cucamonga. They’ll move heaven and earth, Martin, don’t you worry, especially for me.’

  Martin said, ‘I ran into another gang this afternoon, stealing water from a house in Shandin Hills. Like, they were stealing water from this couple’s house at knifepoint, would you believe? You can’t let this go on.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Saskia, soothingly. ‘Let me introduce you to the governor.’

  Again she laid her hand on his shoulder and guided him gently along the corridor to a door at the end. A security guard was standing outside but all Saskia had to do was give him one of her toothy smiles, and he opened the door for her.

  Inside, Halford Smiley was sitting in front of a make-up mirror with a white gown around his neck, while a plump blonde girl was patting orange foundation on to his face. Perched on the dressing table next to him was Joseph Wrack, sucking at an unlit panatela and looking sour. Lem Kunicki was standing in the far corner, as pale and chameleon-like as he had been before.

  ‘Halford,’ said Saskia. ‘I’d like you to meet Martin Makepeace. He’s one of the leading lights in San Bernardino’s Children and Family Services. Martin, this is Governor Smiley, and this non-smiley gentleman is Mr Joseph Wrack, of Empire Security Services.’

  Halford’s hand appeared from under his gown to give Martin what he obviously considered to be a power handshake. Martin could have scrunched every bone in his fingers but decided it would be more diplomatic not to.

  ‘Martin is concerned about our rotational hiatus policy,’ said Saskia. ‘It’s impacted on his own family as well as the families he cares for.’

  Although she was talking to Halford, she didn’t take her eyes off Joseph Wrack, and Joseph Wrack didn’t take his eyes off her.