* * *
"Laura, can you dig up a number for me?"
"Sure, Dr. Imran. Whose?"
Laura opened her desk drawer and fished out a steno pad and a pencil. When she looked up, Imran stared down at her.
A little too close, she thought, clasping the deep vee collar of her purple scrubs. She uncrossed her legs and pushed a slippered sole against the L-shaped desk, rolling the chair away from the doctor.
"What? Do I stink?"
"As a matter of fact, you do."
"About that number…" he said, ignoring the insult.
"Yes, go on."
"I need you to look up a Doctor Ted, or Theodore, Hubert. That’s H-U-B-E-R-T. He’s a friend—colleague—of mine, out of Montgomery."
She scribbled the name. "Um, I don’t think I keep any personal numbers in my rolodex." She feigned searching the cluttered desk, moving loose papers and coffee mugs, forming piles, rearranging disorder. "Yeah, you should have it."
Seeing her struggle, Imran intervened. "You’re probably right." Walking away, he added, "Your rolodex is in the drawer, by the way. I saw it when you opened it."
"Wait!" she cried out. "Come back."
He was already halfway down the hall. He considered ignoring her; but in the end he turned and went back to the receptionist’s desk.
"What is it, Laura?"
"Is this about the fat kid? I mean, is there something wrong with him, besides—" lowering her voice to a whisper, "I mean besides him being a Grade A asshole."
Imran chuckled politely, then nodded his head. "I’m starting the rabies series on him. He was bit the other day but won’t say by what. Word to the wise, Laura: when your kid gets old enough to start experimenting with alcohol, keep a close eye on him."
"No way. Rabies?"
"Not rabies, but the rabies series of shots. It’s impossible to tell two days after getting bit whether or not someone has rabies."
"Huh? That’s weird."
"Why?"
"‘Cause about an hour ago I heard some noise about the CDC showing up in Riley. Shirley Hampton, a friend of mine down there, said they were there for rabies, or something to do with rabies. She also said they found a bunch of dead animals in somebody’s backyard, a lot of them rabbits—oh, and a dead dog."
"Really?"
As she spoke, Laura rummaged through the drawer in search of the elusive rolodex. "Yeah, and this kid, Hector…what’s-his-name…he’s from Riley, too. Do you think they could somehow be connected?"
"I always thought you were better than that, Laura," Imran admonished. "Gossiping and spreading rumors."
Laura looked away sullenly, hurt.
Noticing the effect his words had on her, Imran immediately added, "I’m sorry I said that. Listen, if there’s any truth to what you’ve just told me, then I’d be willing to guess that the family living in that house either collects hides or sells them in order to make ends meet. They probably throw the carcasses in the backyard, hoping the buzzards will take them. You know the saying, ‘Out of sight, out of mind?’ Tell me, Laura, was the family your friend told you about poor?"
"Yes—well, I think so. Shirley said everybody’s congregating to the poorer part of town to see what’s goin’ on."
"There you go. I wouldn’t be surprised if they find all kinds of snares and traps on that property. You can’t let dead animals rot out in the sun, especially with neighbors on either side of you. It’s a health hazard."
"I guess so," she said. Then, pulling a black object out of the drawer: "Here it is! I knew I still had it."
"Good. Ted Hubert…"
"Okay." She flipped through the old fashioned rolodex until she got to the H’s. "Ready?"
She read the number, and Imran jotted it down on a scrap piece of paper. When Laura asked if he needed anything else, the doctor replied, "That’ll be it, Laura. Thank you."
Imran turned and headed for the back of the clinic. Halfway there, Laura called out his name again. She was a nice lady, and a terrific nurse and decent receptionist, but she really didn’t know how to take a hint that a conversation was over.
"What is it this time?"
He turned and saw Laura smiling at him from the open end of the hallway.
"How’s Pepper?”
Pepper was Imran’s miniature schnauzer (more his kid’s than his). The thing had been up all of the previous night and most of the morning, sick with some God-awful stomach virus. Naturally, this had caused a mild panic in the Imran household. Starting at six o’clock yesterday evening, Pepper had puked and shat alternately in torrents—so much so that, at times, Farouk wondered how the little dog kept from flying erratically away like an unknotted balloon—and since the man of the house was a doctor—a human doctor who practiced medicine on humans—his wife and kids had expected him to do his mini-god thing. Apparently this included all hours of the night. Watching a miniature schnauzer expel a jet of liquid feces onto a sandstone and mica patio at four o’clock in the morning wasn’t something Imran had been exposed to in med school, nor was it something he particularly wanted to see as a forty-five-year-old man and a father of three.
"He’s better now," he yelled down the hall. "He caught a bug, that’s all."
Laura wiped her brow with the back of her hand, oblivious to the triteness of the gesture. "Phew. I’ve been worrying about that poor little baby ever since you called saying you were running late."
At that, Imran turned and continued down the hall.
"I just hate knowing some poor little animal is in pain," Laura called out after him.
"What about people?" Imran mumbled to himself. "Doesn’t anyone care about people anymore?"
He entered the cramped and outdated lab at the end of the hall, went to the locked refrigerator, pulled out his key chain, found the right one, and unlocked the door. The vials marked Human Rabies Immune Globulin and Human Rabies Vaccine were way at the back of the bottom shelf but, thankfully, well within their expiration dates.
Please don’t let the kid be a screamer, Imran prayed. He looks like one, but please, Allah, please keep his fat mouth shut. I can’t take that today, not after staying up all night with that sick dog. Please don’t let him scream.
That was when he smelled it: a foul, sulfurous odor of which he was painfully familiar. He sat down on a squeaky lab stool—mainly to keep his balance, but also to keep from accidently smearing the mess on his slacks. He didn’t need to check (he was sure of what he’d stepped in), but he checked anyway. And sure enough, there it was, wedged in like peanut butter between the heel piece and insole of his right Italian loafer.
He muttered something in rapid Arabic. Then in English, he added sarcastically, "‘Get a dog,’ Nari says. ‘The kids want a dog.’"
Flicking the light off with one hand and carrying the vials in the other, he reentered the hallway. As he closed the door behind him, he couldn’t keep from saying to himself, "‘They’ll take care of it,’ she says. But when the dog gets sick, who’s the one staying up all night? It certainly isn’t the kids. It certainly isn’t her."