Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [83]
She passed by the man, the bag full of takeout cartons swinging at her side. He moaned and tried to sit up, and she glanced down at his face. It was a handsome face—for a Round Eyes (the derogatory term her uncle used for Caucasians)—and there was something about his eyes that made her look twice. She stopped walking and stared at him. Clearly, he was not a drunk—he was well dressed and well groomed. His mouth was bleeding, though, and she could see dark bruises on his cheeks.
“Are you okay?” she said, keeping a safe distance.
The man raised his head and gestured to her. She stepped closer.
“Please,” he said. “Can you help me?”
Later, she would recall that she thought it was odd he refused to go to a hospital; instead he asked her to help him to a cab. She didn’t hear the address he gave the cabbie, but she remembered those eyes—the wounded look in them stayed with her for a long time afterward. It also occurred to her later that before 9/11 she might not have helped him, but now—well, things were different now, she told her mother and all her cousins. Now we all have to look out for each other.
Chapter Thirty-seven
“For God’s sake, Lee, will you stop this nonsense and go see a doctor?” Chuck Morton said as they walked through the labyrinth of hallways in the building housing the medical examiner’s office. Their heels rapped sharply on the shiny polished floors, echoing down the tiled basement corridors.
“I’m all right,” Lee said as they rounded a corner on the way to the lobby. Overhead fluorescent lamps cast a sickly yellow glow on his face, and Chuck wondered if he looked as bad as his friend under these lights.
“Well, you don’t look all right,” Chuck replied, casting a sideways glance at him. He had just about had it with Lee Campbell’s bullheadedness. Underneath his anger was worry, of course—but he was damned if he was going to show it.
“You could at least take a day or two off,” he muttered.
“Not right now. I need to see these people. I need to get a sense of whether they’re on the level or not. You know as well as I do that I should be here at this meeting.”
Chuck clenched his fists, digging his fingernails into his palms. Lee was right, but he really didn’t feel good about seeing his friend up on his feet after the attack of the previous night. The two mysterious assailants, obviously professionals, had worked quickly and efficiently, Lee had said—and they had taken nothing, not even bothering to stage the attack as a robbery. They had even worn gloves, minimizing the possibility of gathering DNA evidence. It was obviously a message—but from whom? The whole thing gave him the creeps.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said. “That’s the last time you go anywhere without a tail. From now on counter-surveillance is twenty-four-seven.”
They rounded another corner and pushed open the door to the foyer, where Pamela Stavros’s parents were waiting for them. They were the only people in the dingy waiting room, with its collection of mismatched plastic yellow chairs and dying spider plants crowded together on the dusty windowsill, thin and straggly in their cracked green pots. The only other living creature in the room was a fly trying vainly crawl up the dirty windowpane, buzzing feebly as it slid back down. Some places give the impression of having gone downhill, while others look as if they gave up before ever trying. The waiting room in the ME’s office was one of those places.
The Stavroses were blunt, plain people who were obviously in shock. Theodore Stavros was a square, stolid man with meaty arms and legs, and sported the buzz-cut, flattop hairstyle he had probably worn since he was a boy. It looked like you could bounce a quarter off the meticulously mowed top of his head. He held his wife protectively to his side. Her face had sunk into a doughy middle age, though Lee could see that the delicate features must have once been pretty.
“I know this is very hard for you,” Chuck said to the couple as he led