I was ill by the time I reached Richmond. When Marino met me at the gate, the expression on his face turned to abject fear.
‘Geez, Doc,’ he said. ‘You look like hell.’
‘I feel like hell.’
‘You got any bags?’
‘No. You got any news?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘One tidbit that will piss you off. Ring arrested Keith Pleasants last night.’
‘For what?’ I exclaimed as I coughed.
‘Attempting to elude. Supposedly, Ring was following him out of the landfill after work and tried to pull him for speeding. Supposedly, Pleasants wouldn’t stop. So he’s in jail, bond set at five grand, if you can believe that. He ain’t going nowhere anytime soon.’
‘Harassment.’ I blew my nose. ‘Ring is picking on him. Picking on Lucy. Picking on me.’
‘No kidding. Maybe you should’ve stayed in Maryland, in bed,’ he said as we boarded the escalator. ‘No offense, but I ain’t gonna catch this, am I?’
Marino was terrified of anything he could not see, whether it was radiation or a virus.
‘I don’t know what I’ve got,’ I said. ‘Maybe the flu.’
‘Last time I got that I was out for two weeks.’ His pace slowed, so he did not keep up with me. ‘Plus, you been around other things.’
‘Then don’t come close, touch or kiss me,’ I said, shortly.
‘Hey, don’t worry.’
This continued as we walked out into the cold afternoon.
‘Look. I’m going to take a taxi home,’ I said and I was so mad at him I was next to tears.
‘I don’t want you doing that.’ Marino looked frightened and was jumpy.
I waved in the air, swallowing hard and hiding my face as a Blue Bird cab veered toward me.
‘You don’t need the flu. Rose doesn’t need it. No one needs it,’ I said, furiously. ‘You know, I’m almost out of cash. This is awful. Look at my suit. You think an autoclave presses anything and leaves a pleasant smell? The hell with my hose. I got no coat, no gloves. Here I am, and it’s what?’ I yanked open the back door of a cab that was Carolina blue. ‘Thirty degrees?’
Marino stared at me as I got in. He handed me a twenty-dollar bill, careful his fingers did not brush mine.
‘You need anything at the store?’ he called out as I drove off.
My throat and eyes swelled with tears. Digging tissues out of my purse, I blew my nose and quietly wept.
‘Don’t mean to bug ya, lady,’ said my driver, a portly old man. ‘But where are we going?’
‘Windsor Farms. I’ll show you when we get there,’ I choked as I said.
‘Fights.’ He shook his head. ‘Dontcha hate’em? I ‘member one time me and the wife got to arguing in one these all-you-can-eat fish camps. She takes the car. Me, I take a hike. Five miles home through a bad part of town.’
He was nodding, eyeing me in the rearview mirror as he assumed that Marino and I were having a lovers’ quarrel.
‘So, you’re married to a cop?’ he then said. ‘I saw him drive in. Not an unmarked car on the road that can fool this guy.’ He thumped his chest.
My head was splitting, my face burning. I settled back in the seat and shut my eyes while he droned on about an earlier life in Philadelphia, and his hopes that this winter would not bring much snow. I settled into a feverish sleep. When I awoke, I did not know where I was.
‘Ma’am. Ma’am. We’re here,’ the driver was saying loudly to wake me up. ‘Where to next?’
He had just turned onto Canterbury and was sitting at a stop sign.
‘Up here, take a right on Dover,’ I replied.
I directed him into my neighborhood, the look on his face increasingly baffled as he drove past Georgian and Tudor estates behind walls in the city’s wealthiest neighborhood. When he stopped at my front door, he stared at fieldstone, at the wooded land around my home, and he watched me closely as I climbed out.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said as I handed him a twenty and told him to keep the change. ‘I seen it all lady, and never say nothing.’ He zipped his lips, winking at me.