The Devil in Silver

“All these agencies pay different fees for different treatments,” she continued. “And one of the reasons we charted so much was because we were basically writing up receipts. In the past, we would send copies of those receipts in, and the different agencies would pay the hospital.”

Nurse Washburn opened one folder and waved the sheets of paper under her chin like a fan.

“But now everything is computerized. That means we don’t have to send copies of anything. We just send electronic files from our computer to their computer. Then their computer authorizes money to be deposited in New Hyde’s accounts. But Equator Zero is kind of like automatic billing. Once the patient is in our system, New Hyde Hospital will bill for that patient’s care until the end of time.”

“At least you all won’t have to keep doing it yourselves every month.”

Nurse Washburn put the papers back into their folder, closed it, and set it neatly at the top of a stack. “No, Pepper. You don’t understand. Equator Zero will continue to charge for the care of a patient even after that patient is gone.”

“Discharged?” Pepper asked.

She put her hands on the paperwork again. One on Frank Waverly’s pile. One on Mr. Mack’s. “Deceased,” she said.

“But what about when they get caught?”

“If they ever get caught, they’ll call it a computer error. They’ll repay some portion of what they made in a settlement. But the amount they take in before they’re ever called out will be ten thousand times what they have to pay. Equator Zero makes patients profitable in perpetuity. That’s how Dr. Anand put it once. You all are worth more to them missing than present. More lucrative dead than alive.”

Pepper nodded appreciatively.

“Wow,” he said. “That’s devilish.”

“Dead souls,” Josephine sighed. “Good business.”

And quickly, instantly, Pepper saw himself trying to tell someone about Equator Zero. Nurse Washburn, Josephine, had just offered him quite a lot. He had the name of the program, he had the names of at least four dead patients (Kofi Acholi, Doris Walczak, Frank Waverly, Gerald Mack), and if he thought back a bit, he could probably list the exact dates when they died. Compare that to the dates on the bills recently submitted in their names and you had a report—verifiable, credible, simple, clear—that could force someone else outside the walls of New Hyde to take a goddamn interest. Pepper even saw himself using Coffee’s blue binder and trolling through the list of names and numbers of public officials that his friend spent so long amassing. And if those channels failed, maybe he could even try the reporter who’d written about Sue. Pepper wouldn’t change Coffee’s plan, just complete it.

Josephine tapped at the plastic pane, as if she was about to hand him his food order. She scanned the nurses’ station.

“I’ve got something here for you.”

Now one of the lines on the newly returned staff phone lit up. A bright red beacon on the cheap tan plastic phone. Josephine stopped searching for Pepper’s item and picked it up, didn’t even listen for a voice. “Be right there,” she said, then hung up again.

She walked to the formerly open end of the nurses’ station. There was a shatterproof plastic door there, running from ceiling to floor. Josephine slipped the red plastic key chain from a pants pocket.

Pepper walked toward the door of the nurses’ station, almost like he was the nurse’s escort.

“Stay where you are, Pepper.” Josephine didn’t sound scared like she might have a couple of months ago. She locked eyes with Pepper when she spoke, held his gaze until he nodded and backed away. She unlocked the door and stepped through, shut it again and locked it.

“That’s new regulations,” she told him. “I wasn’t trying to snap at you.”

Pepper put his hands up. “I didn’t take it that way.”

She nodded and, as proof of her comfort, she let him walk alongside her freely. He followed her. She began down Northwest 1, toward the front door. This was the only item on the unit that cost too much to move. Pepper passed the threshold of the hall, and Josephine put her hand out, just a millimeter away from his belly.

“No men on the women’s hall,” she said. “You know that.”

Pepper looked at the doors of the former conference rooms.

“But then how do you get male patients in and out of the unit?”

He pointed at the front door as proof of his clear logic. And Josephine didn’t fight him. She just shrugged and waved him toward her.

“That was easier than I thought,” he said.

“Maybe I don’t care because I’m leaving.”

“You got another job?”

As she walked, she looked from side to side, from one room door to the next. The swivel of a seasoned staff member. She was leaving just as she got good at the job. “I found something a little less … unpredictable,” she said.

“Bomb squad?” Pepper asked.

“Close!” Josephine laughed. “I joined the Army.”

“Get out of here!”

“Better pay,” she said. “Sad as that is. And I already feel like I’ve had some war training.”

“That’s kind of insulting,” Pepper said. “But I see your point.”