“What the hell you think I’m doin’ here?” He turned his head to glare at the guard. “They gave her this MRI thing this morning? She ain’t come out of medication all day. They gave her too much, or some damn thing.”

A nurse came by and took the baby; they had been waiting for her. Army hunched over a clipboard and signed his name, straightening up as Lorenzo nodded to the guard.

“She was, I don’t know, like, born with something wrong. Doctor says she had a stroke in the belly.”

Lorenzo jerked his head. “The baby’s belly?”

“Naw, the mother. You know, when she was carrying her? We brought her in. Doctor says to my wife, ‘Were you doing drugs when you was pregnant?’ My wife says, ‘She’s my granddaughter,’ but, you know, yeah.” He looked off, sighing. “My daughter, when she had this one? She just cut out, ain’t seen her since, and you know, like yeah, she wasn’t, taking care of herself, my daughter, so…” Army sucked air through the side of his mouth, shook his head, Lorenzo thinking, What goes around comes around, volume 99. “Now this one’s mine too,” Army muttered. “Like starting all over.”

Lorenzo kept his mouth shut, thinking anything he said right now would be too much like rubbing it in, with Army Howard being, among other things, an on-again, off-again midlevel dealer since the seventies.

“Yeah, go on an’ say it.” Army lit another cigarette.

“I ain’t said nothing, Army.” Lorenzo smiled soberly, his eyes subdued and level.

“No, huh? Well, you can say it anyhow because you ain’t wrong.”

“C’mon, brother, put out the cigarette.”

“Naw, I want Captain Crunch to put it out.” Army glared at the guard across the floor. The kid ignored the taunt, having had time to think about things.

Lorenzo shrugged, stepping away. “I hope she’s OK.”

“Yeah, me too,” Army said through his teeth, still staring down the guard. “Captain Crunch motherfucker…”

Heading down the corridor to Room 23, Lorenzo greeted another security guard, an X-ray technician clutching a dozen fresh transparencies for the surgery room, and a drunk brought in by cops after taking a beating at the bus terminal, his face a bounty of lumps. The drunk looked at Lorenzo and said almost sweetly, “It’s OK, I’m all right. Thanks, thank you.”

“Yo, Pops, you gonna stop gettin’ oiled now?” Lorenzo was just saying it because you had to say something.

The drunk smiled sheepishly. “Most likely not.”

“Young man.” Chatterjee’s elegant monotone rang out as the doctor floated toward Lorenzo now, his trim collegiate threads spattered and soiled, from his oxblood loafers to his blue broadcloth shirt and gold silk grenadier’s tie. Lorenzo knew that this disarray was a nightly state of affairs for Chatterjee that usually came less than halfway through his shift no matter how long the hem or how high the buttons of his examination-room whites.

Chatterjee extended a petite hand, which disappeared into Lorenzo’s oversized mitt.

“Papa Doc, what’s up. She being admitted?”

Chatterjee shrugged. “Won’t even let me take an X ray.”

“She good to talk?”

“I think, I think she’s not… she’s lying about something, leaving something out. She got a little roughed up.” The doctor thrust his hands straight out, palms facing the floor. “Got knocked down pretty hard. Broke her fall with, like this.” He shot out the heels of his palms again, arched his fingers backwards. “Might have fractured …” He took Lorenzo’s hand and ran his thumb and forefinger along the outside bones flanking the wrist. “She won’t let me X-ray, so… and she picked up half the parking lot or wherever. I had to force her to take a tetanus shot. Also, she’s got a nice little contusion up here.” Chatterjee reached up and tapped Lorenzo’s crown. “You can’t fall forward on your hands and cut the top of your head, correct?”

“I hear you.”

“So, I don’t know. My feeling? I think she might have gotten raped, but she won’t go upstairs.” He shrugged. “Or maybe she knew the guy who attacked her, you know, like an outdoors domestic.”

“Maybe she just don’t want anybody knowing she was in a dope spot that time of night,” Lorenzo said dryly, unconsciously voicing why he had taken his sweet time getting over here.