“Why aren’t the phones working, anyway?” Darcy asked.
“I’m not sure,” Heather said.
“Whoa,” Darcy said, reading Heather’s card. “‘M.D.’ ‘Epidemiologist.’ That’s awesome. I thought about being a doctor, before I blew my GPA and got pregnant.”
“I’m sorry,” Heather said. “But it looks like you’re in good health. I’m sure things will get better for you. Life does get easier as you get older.”
Darcy slouched as she shuffled out through the curtain.
Heather watched the girl join her father, an obese man in a wheelchair, who looked like he was missing a foot. Maybe it was an injury, but from his inflated size, Heather wouldn’t be surprised if he’d lost it to diabetes.
“Hurry up!” Darcy’s father barked, while Darcy pushed his wheelchair. “Jog that big ass of yours!”
On the database, Heather added an extra notation to Darcy’s listing: “Possible psych. issues related to religion, parents.”
Heather sterilized the area, changed out her disposable rubber gloves for new ones, and greeted the next subject.
Her name was Brenda Purcell, seventeen years old, five months pregnant.
Chapter Ten
Tommy roared along the highway. He had ditched the old lady’s piece-of-crap Chrysler in Alabama, walked three miles to a biker bar, and picked out a machine he liked. He wanted something fast, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off one particular Harley-Davidson with a stylized, devilish red gargoyle painted on the side.
He didn’t know how to hotwire a motorcycle, so he’d waited in the shadows of the abandoned gas station next door. Eventually, the machine’s owner came out, staggering and drunk, a balding man with a long mullet and a long goatee. He was short but very stout. In Tommy’s experience, you had to watch out for the short guys—they were the most eager to fight, as if they had something to prove.
The man sat on the bike and tried a few times to insert the key into the ignition, but he kept missing. Once he got it in, he seemed to have forgotten how to turn the key.
“Howdy,” Tommy said as he approached the man. Then he pulled out a wad of cash. He still had most of the prison guard’s bank account.
The drunken biker eyed Tommy’s cash wad with great interest. Tommy tucked it back into the pocket of his own jeans, which he’d bought at Kmart. The biker’s eyes followed the money.
Tommy stuck out his hand. “Name’s Freddy,” he said. “And I’d like to make you an offer.”
“How’s it going, Freddy?” The biker shook Tommy’s hand.
Tommy squeezed the man’s hand and pushed fear into him.
The biker’s eyes swelled, and his hand trembled in Tommy’s grasp.
“Why don’t you step off that bike?” Tommy suggested.
The biker reached for the keys.
“Leave those there,” Tommy said. He didn’t let go of the man’s hand, so they ended up holding hands over the Harley-Davidson.
“Aw, look, Beater’s got a girlfriend,” another biker hollered. Two of them had just stumbled out of the bar. The shouter wore a Confederate flag do-rag, and his friend wore a very faded T-shirt featuring the band Poison.
“Hell, prettier than his last one!” the guy in the Poison T-shirt yelled, and the two of them laughed. Both men were big, disheveled, and clearly favored denim.
“I’ve just purchased your friend’s bike,” Tommy said, though he hadn’t given the man any money. He shook Beater’s hand again. “Right, Beater?”
“Yeah,” Beater said. “Yeah, man. You got it.”
Beater’s friends stopped laughing when Tommy got on the man’s bike and started it up.
“Hey, that’s not cool,” Rebel Flag Guy said. “You can’t take that.”
“He sold it to me,” Tommy said. “Isn’t that right? The bike’s mine now, right?”
“Yeah, man.” Beater took several steps back. “Whatever the guy says.”
Rebel Flag and Poison T-shirt stepped up to Tommy.
“I don’t think you made a fair trade,” Rebel Flag said, and he poked Tommy in the chest. “I think my buddy’s drunk, you come over and run your mouth, try to steal his bike. That’s what I think.”
“You don’t want to touch me,” Tommy warned them. He tried not to let them see how bad he was shaking. Rebel Flag put a calloused hand around his neck, and Tommy felt the fear move into him. Maybe Tommy could use that.
“Look out!” Tommy shouted. He seized Rebel Flag’s wrist and pushed the fear as hard as he could. Tommy had always imagined the fear as a kind of low-grade current of black electricity, something that flowed out from him when he touched other people. Now he imagined turning up the voltage. He wanted to make the guy panic, lose his mind. People were much more open to suggestion when they were frightened.