Unsympathetic Magic - Laura Resnick [67]
12
“I don’t think it’s the best possible idea for us to bring Max in there with us,” Jeff said to me in a low voice.
“He wants to see Nolan,” I said.
“But—”
“He’s coming with us,” I said firmly. “You, on the other hand, are entirely expendable if you keep irritating me.”
Jeff gave a disgruntled sigh but dropped the subject.
We were entering the hospital where Nolan was a patient, a few blocks away from Puma’s shop. I didn’t want to make a bad impression on the D30 production office by missing my visit altogether. It was early evening now, well past my afternoon slot on the visitation schedule; but I figured better late than never. I also thought that the sooner I introduced Jeff to Nolan, the sooner I could shed him; his skepticism was getting a trifle shrill. Meanwhile, Max wanted to interview Nolan and assure himself that the heart attack was exactly what it seemed to be, rather than a devious voodoo assault that mimicked natural causes.
Apparently crack whores weren’t that unusual a sight at the hospital, since the nurses on staff scarcely even blinked at my appearance. Or perhaps they just had very low expectations of the sort of person likely to visit Nolan. In any case, my name was on the security list that the D30 production office had given the hospital for its star’s private room, and my two companions and I were told where to go.
Puma, who had already been anxious about angry spirits and voracious baka when we’d first met, was now totally freaked out by the prospect of an army of zombies being raised in Harlem as part of some major dark mojo that Max believed was in the works. So she was going to consult Mambo Celeste about holding a community ritual to appease the gods and seek their protection. It should be done soon, Puma thought—very soon. Meanwhile, she would also try to learn if the ruptured intestine that killed Darius might have been magically inflicted on him.
With zombies and baka on the loose in this neighborhood, Biko didn’t want his sister walking home alone from the store, even though it was still light out. So he would help her close up the shop, take her home, and then meet us at the hospital. Max wanted to see the places where Biko had encountered baka during his recent nocturnal adventures, as well as the spot where I had met Darius’ zombie. And since I wasn’t keen on making that tour after dark, I wanted to get this visit to Nolan over with in a hurry and get back outside while there was still some evening light left.
The door to Nolan’s hospital room was guarded by his personal assistant, a plump, anxious, bespectacled woman whose appearance suggested that, like me, she hadn’t been home since the actor had fallen ill last night.
She checked off my name on her list. “You’re late.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Very late.”
“We were unavoidably detained,” Max said. “Please accept my humble apologies. The fault is mine, I fear.”
“And you are?”
“Dr. Maximillian Zadok,” he said, taking off his straw hat. “A specialist from Oxford University.”
“A specialist? Oxford? All right, you can go in, too.”
“And I’m Jeffrey Clark.” Oozing charm, my old boyfriend said to Nolan’s twitchy assistant, “You’ve had quite a day, I’ll bet. Maybe you want to go get yourself a cup of coffee or something while we visit with Mike?”
She was too accustomed to actors to be flustered by his flirting with her. “I can’t. He likes me to be within shouting distance at all times.” She looked down at her notebook. “Jeffrey Clark? Your name’s not on my list.”
Jeff nudged me. I said, “He’s with me.”
“Hmm. Well, there’ve been two no-shows already, and Mike’s cranky about how few visitors he’s had so far. The star of Criminal Motive was hospitalized for exhaustion last year,” she said, naming an Emmy Award-winning drama in the Crime and Punishment franchise. “Mike found out how many visitors he had while he was in the hospital, and now he’s keeping score. We’ve only been here one day, and we’re already way behind.” She said to Jeff, “So I guess you can go in. It’ll help the tally.