The Devil in Silver

Dr. Anand shook his head emphatically. “No. Wrong. The system is working exactly right for those it was intended for. That’s why it hasn’t been fixed. Because it isn’t broken!

“Can you imagine anything more terrible? Doesn’t it hurt? I love being an American and I know it hurts me. I mean, New Hyde’s board knows we’ve got trouble with patients in Northwest. People hurting themselves, even dying. And what’s their solution? Equator Zero! Do you know what that program actually does?!”

Dr. Anand clapped his hands and glared at them, but they didn’t have any idea what Equator Zero was. Dr. Anand said, “The system is working and it hates us.” He shook his head and looked at his empty, open hands. “Sometimes I can see why people believe in the Devil.”

Dr. Anand’s cheeks drooped, his mustache sagged.

“But it can’t just be terrible and that’s that,” Pepper said. “Even on a sinking ship people still want to try to get out, to survive.”

“And you’ll be the one to save them, is that right?” Dr. Anand asked sarcastically. “You want to know your diagnosis? I finally figured it out.”

“I don’t want to hear that.”

Dr. Anand jabbed his finger in the air after each word. “Narcissistic. Personality. Disorder.”

He grinned at Pepper, but it wasn’t pleasant. “You’re going to get a lot of people hurt with your delusions of grandeur, Pepper.” He dropped his hand onto the table. “Maybe you already have.”

Behind them, the office door opened. Scotch Tape peeked in. “Dr. Anand?”

“What is it, Clarence?”

Scotch Tape jerked his head backward. “Cops is here.”

Dr. Anand pushed his glasses up with the knuckle of his pointer finger. “Okay,” he said. “Tell them to give me two minutes. I’m not done here.”

Behind Scotch Tape, the squawk of a police radio made everyone in the room jump. Scotch Tape’s head pulled back and the door opened wider. A cop stood there now, bulky and short. If he’d been out of uniform, you might’ve taken him for a funny guy; he had the build of a neighborhood comedian. The kind who taunts people and causes fights. In uniform, the same dimensions made the man seem petty and easily offended.

“Why don’t you talk to me right now?” the cop said. He had his hand on his police radio as if that were the handle of his gun.

Dr. Anand stood right up. Much to the surprise of Loochie and Pepper.

Dr. Anand walked over to the officer, and the officer said, “We can talk in the hall. I don’t care.”

The doctor looked back at Pepper and Loochie, narrowing his eyes. He tried to guess which would result in greater humiliation: ushering Pepper and Loochie out of the room, perhaps having to fuss with them about it (in front of this bossy cop), or just stepping into the hall as if following a command, here on his own unit. Which promised to wound his pride more? Dr. Anand stepped out into the hall and pulled the door three-quarters closed behind him, but held on to the doorknob. The doctor and cop had their conversation out there. Pepper heard their voices but couldn’t make out their words.

He looked at Loochie.

“Narcissist,” she teased.

He looked away from her. Could already imagine the time (how much time?) on the unit and all the days and weeks and years (decades?) when she’d whisper that word to him and it would be part of their secret language, a joke between lifers, and he despaired.

He scanned Dr. Anand’s desk. He heard the officer raise his voice, shouting to another cop there in the hall. Dr. Anand had been speaking with patients for hours, saving Pepper and Loochie for last. Was he trying to get the others to pin the blame for Dorry on them? On him? (Narcissist.) Pepper might’ve continued thinking this way if his eye hadn’t spied one particular device there on Dr. Anand’s desk.

Dr. Anand’s office phone.

They’d removed the device from the nurses’ station because patients regularly gathered there. But who would’ve thought to do the same in here, the doctor’s inner sanctum? Pepper didn’t hesitate.

“Loochie,” he said. “Will you do me a favor?”

She turned in her chair. “Why should I do anything for you?”

“It’ll piss off Dr. Anand.”

A grin tugged at Loochie’s lips, there under her towel. “Tell me.” She listened.

Pepper whispered, “Will you shut the door and keep them out?”

“That’s going to get us in some shit,” she said.

“Probably.”

Loochie grabbed the towel and pulled it tight around her scalp, tying it up as if she’d just stepped out of the shower. It was a surprise for Pepper to see her face again, unobstructed. To be reminded that he had just talked a child into committing another infraction.

Loochie stood up and jiggled her head from side to side. Limbering up. Then she picked up her chair with one easy motion and walked right up to the three-quarters closed office door. She kicked that bad boy closed.

Dr. Anand still had his hand on the knob, so when it slammed, he yelped with surprise. The cop next to him watched this in dumb paralysis. The door shut and they heard something jostling on the other side.