Page 89 of Casualties of War
Chapter Nineteen
“God, if I see another bag of coffee, I’ll puke,” Garrett breathed.
Carmen used her good hand to stack cotton bags packed with coffee beans against the back wall of the tiny room they used as a kitchen. “It’s good coffee,” she pointed out. “Especially spiced.”
Garrett sorted through the diminishing bottles and serums in his big bag. “Coffee doesn’t buy drugs and supplies,”he said. “Or food for us to eat while we’re ministering to the needy.”
“Maybe you should ask everyone to pay for your services with drugs and bandages, instead of coffee,” Carmen suggested.
“Or gossip,” Daniel said, from the doorway. He raised his brow. “Wow, thatisa lot.”
Garrett scowled. “That was the point I was trying to make,” he said, his tone grim. “I’m useless as a doctor if I don’thave something to treat them with. All I can do is diagnose, which isn’t the help they’re looking for.”
Daniel leaned against the doorway. “I’ve been chatting to everyone who sits in the front room waiting for you. I was right. The city folk have seen things we can only guess about out in the woods.”
“Like what?” Carmen asked, her interest piqued.
“People have been disappearing. More than usual.It’s not because they’ve headed for the hills to get away from the Insurrectos, because everyone inclined to run escaped in the first few weeks. This is different. The people going missing are folk who have found a way to live under the Insurrectos, who suddenly don’t show up the next day.”
“We knew that was happening,” Carmen replied.
“Now we have proof. It points to something. I just don’tknow what, yet.”
“See anything up on the roof today?” Garrett asked.
“A lot of nothing,” Daniel said, his tone philosophical. “They’re not going to put up a public notice on the bars of the palace gates. Only, theywillslip sooner or later. They always do.” He moved over to the stacks of coffee and lifted one of the bags and sniffed it. “That’s the Mejia stuff. Puts hairs on your chest.” Heput the coffee back as a soft tap sounded from the room beyond. “Andthatis someone else at the door.”
“Another patient,” Carmen said.
Garrett sighed.
She moved over to him and kissed the corner of his eye, which was all she could reach while he scowled down at the meager contents of his medical bag. “Stop making that sound. Youlikehelping people at the grass roots level. If I snapped myfingers right now and conjured up a white office in a tall building with nurses and appointments and waiting lists, you’d jump out the window before the end of the day.”
“Sooner than that,” Garrett admitted, with a small smile. He sat on the rickety chair and pulled her into his lap. “You know me too well. It’s just that Ican’thelp without even basic supplies.”
“We’ll get more. We always do.”
He kissed her back. His lasted longer and had a greater effect.
When Daniel tapped on the door frame, Carmen sighed and got up.
Daniel grimaced, which was a form of apology. “You’d better come and hear this,” he said.
“Another STD?” Garrett guessed, with a put-upon air. Carmen smacked his arm.
Daniel jerked his thumb backward. “Pablo, out here, works at the medical clinic, downtown. He saysthe palace ordered in a week’s worth of insulin, late yesterday.”
Garrett’s eyes narrowed. “He just blurted that out?”
“I asked him about drugs and supplies.Thenhe blurted it out. I told you people wanted to help. You have to tell them what sort of help you need. Otherwise they guess and bring coffee.”
Garrett got to his feet. Carmen handed him the nearly empty bag. He closed it with a pinchof his fingers and thumbs and took the handle. “It’s the first time the palace has ever asked for insulin?”
Daniel stood aside. “I don’t know what to ask the man. Go be a doctor and find out for me.”
Garrett moved out to the front room to speak to the new patient.
Carmen tucked her good hand under the sling. It was the closest she could come to crossing her arms right now. “If they’ve not orderedit before, then it might mean someone who has just arrived there needs it. Diabetes isn’t something the average person can diagnose, so it wouldn’t be a new case.”
