After Hours (InterMix)(72)
The first floor was nicer than S3. It seemed sunnier, with oak wainscoting and hardwood floors, not the speckled linoleum we had upstairs. Our footsteps were noisy, echoing with history.
Dr. Morris led us down a long hall, punctuated by doors with frosted windows, each boasting the name and credentials of one of the staff doctors. At the very end of the corridor was a windowless door with two plaques. The first read Admissions and the one below it, Vacant. Dr. Morris slid the bottom plaque from its brass runners, flipped it over, and put it back in place reading In Session. He keyed in a code and led us inside, leaving the door swung wide.
“Only S1 office without windows,” he told us, wheeling chairs over. “Normally we’re happy to give patients a view, minimize the confinement vibe, but in here we can’t afford too many distractions. Too much stimulation. No telling what shape folks are in when they get delivered.”
He arranged two chairs facing another two chairs, plus one more, off toward the corner. That was my seat. Part of me was a bit hurt, shunted to the sidelines, but another part didn’t envy Darius’s proximity to a new and unpredictable patient. Who the fifth body would be, I didn’t know. A police escort or security guard, likely.
Darius and I were both nervously eyeing the room, scanning the austere wood paneling, and like me, maybe he was getting an escape route plotted, in case things got intense.
Dr. Morris flipped the folder open on his crossed legs. “Don’t you two just tremble like fawns?” he teased, scanning a page. “No need to panic. The patient’s been detoxed to his previous doc’s satisfaction, and his paliperidone regimen seems to be working.”
I scanned my mental flashcards for the side effects—restlessness, tremors, tics—so I wouldn’t make the mistake of blaming them on his disorder, when and if Dr. Morris asked my opinion. Darius was surely doing the same, nodding with a blank expression as Dr. Morris outlined the patient’s meds situation.
Voices came from down the hall, but I was too far from the door to see who was approaching. A woman’s voice grew louder, then a face I recognized appeared—a senior nurse who spent most of her time on S1 but made the occasional appearance during hand-off.
“Ready for Mr. Paleckas?”
Dr. Morris smiled graciously, all his wryness dutifully packed away. Darius’s hand was frozen above a legal pad, pen hovering at the ready.
Two men entered. I barely noticed the first one, as the second was Kelly.
My nerves short-circuited, morphing from trepidation to that funny, pleasurable knot of misgiving I always got around him. I kicked it aside. Now was not the time for distraction.
Kelly waited for the patient to sit, then did the same, linking his fingers atop his belt buckle and looking blasé. I just bet he’d prefer to be standing, arms folded, but I supposed it wasn’t helpful to give the patient the impression he was being held and interrogated. Kelly and I shared the briefest eye contact, and if he was as surprised to see me as I was to see him, he didn’t let me know it.
The nurse briefed Dr. Morris on the patient’s latest vitals before taking her leave. She shut the door with a heavy, telling click, and Dr. Morris leaned forward to offer his hand. “I’m Dr. Robert Morris. You must be Lee Paleckas.”
Lee accepted the shake. He was medium height, wiry, and surprisingly attractive—charismatic, if not actually handsome. He looked a bit like Edward Norton, only . . . twitchier, and with an unhealthy milkiness to his complexion. A vampire Edward Norton, who could stand a few square meals. He was already dressed in Starling’s gray uniform, and it made him look undeniably like a convict. He even seemed to be wearing invisible cuffs, his hands now dangling limply from his wrists between his spread legs.
“Who’re these people?” Lee asked Dr. Morris, sounding more tired than suspicious.
“This is my intern, Darius, and one of our nursing staff, Erin. I’ve asked them to sit in on this chat, but all the same confidentiality applies.”
Lee sniffed and rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed to have an audience but seeming resigned to us. Resigned to this entire situation, maybe resigned to his whole damn life. I decided to channel my inner Kelly Robak and sit nice and still, blend into the furnishings until or unless my services were needed. I’d observe with my ears and eyes and intuition, and leave the obsessive scribbling to Darius.
Dr. Morris opened the interview with the basics, determining that Lee had grown up outside Louisville, Kentucky, in a broken home, had been getting into trouble since he could crawl, and had been paranoid and punchy for as long as he could remember.