Die-Off Read Online Free Page B

at the spilled pike.
    ‘I’m glad he’s not here to see this. He wouldn’t understand someone trying to take out the salmon and trout. He wouldn’t get it.’
    ‘But you get it.’
    ‘I don’t know what I get or don’t. It’s like the world has turned into one big shopping mall, an open market where everything is up for grabs. Everything is for sale. To say something like a river is sacred is a joke to people. Nothing is sacred. Rivers are for drinking water and having fun, and if they grow fish great, and if they don’t we’ll get the fish somewhere else or grow them in factories like we do with chicken and hogs. We can probably screw that up just as well as we did with them. You know what I’m saying – when they stop being fish or anything living they’ll just be product grown to eat. What are we going to do about these assholes that are behind that kid in the pickup? It wasn’t his idea. He’s probably all of nineteen.’
    She paused then turned to him. ‘You know he’s going to die.’
    Marquez was afraid she was right. She shook her head. ‘It’s overwhelming. I can’t get my head around how we’re going to stop something like this.’
    He couldn’t help her with that. He’d been skeptical about the pike tip but wasn’t anymore. He pulled his phone and after finding the hospital address said, ‘I’m going to head to the hospital.’
    Forty minutes later he was on the surgery floor among the anxious waiting to hear the results. At the desk the woman seated looked up and asked. ‘Are you family?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘His brother is here.’
    She pointed out a big man who looked like he was in his early thirties, so an older brother and maybe one with a different mother or father – or, on closer look, maybe a man who wasn’t Enrique Jordan’s brother at all. The man was quietly on his cell phone and Marquez moved out of the waiting lounge to the corridor and then to an empty corridor where he still had a good view of the carpeted opening to the Family Resource Center.
    He called Captain Waller as he stood near a window in sunlight in the corridor.
    ‘If I’m right about the guy in the waiting area, I’ll need help following him when he leaves here. Right now he’s waiting to hear surgery results.’
    ‘Maybe he really is his brother.’
    ‘He may be.’
    ‘But you’re sure he’s not.’
    ‘That’s my gut feeling.’
    ‘All right, let’s talk again when you actually know something. In the meantime I’ll find out who can back you up. How many pike spilled this morning?’
    ‘I’m guessing a thousand.’
    ‘That’s an awful lot but it may just be some sport fishing nutcase.’
    ‘And maybe the guy in the waiting room is his brother. Get me two SOU wardens if you can. I’ll call you when I know.’

FIVE
    A bloodstained surgeon and a woman that Marquez guessed was a hospital administrator came through the stainless clad doors of the surgery area. The surgeon looked tired and trailed a step behind. The administrator’s face was grim but she walked with a take-charge step and continued to the reception desk in the Family Resource Center. The surgeon stopped in the hallway and checked his phone. He looked like he was ready for a smoke or a drink or both.
    Marquez focused on the administrator. She leaned over the counter in front of the woman at the desk, who then turned and pointed toward the guy sitting in a corner, the brother. When he realized they were talking about him he sat up and appeared attentive and concerned. The administrator made her way to him and he rose, stood towering over her in a baggy white T-shirt and loose-fitting jeans.
    Whatever she said caused his face to twist in pain and she put a hand on his back and guided him across the carpet and out toward the surgeon. The big man moving with the small well-dressed administrator made Marquez think of a tug pulling a cargo ship across San Francisco Bay, but he had that thought without any real humor and drifted back