Chapter 5 - The Sugar in the Glass
Hannah woke to the sound of an oscillating fan.
It was not the dry, rattling screech of the five-dollar fan she had bought at the thrift store on Archer Avenue. This fan was silent, a heavy, brushed-steel tower that moved the air with a soft, rhythmic whir-whir-whir that smelled faintly of eucalyptus and cold water.
She tried to turn her head, and the room tilted forty-five degrees to the left.
"Don't do that," a man's voice said.
The voice was rough, like two bricks being rubbed together, but it had a measured, careful cadence that belonged to someone who had spent decades around sick people.
Dr. Althaus sat on a low stool by the foot of the bed, holding a small penlight.
"Where..." Hannah croaked. Her throat felt as though she had been swallowing wood shavings. "Where is the... the binder?"
"Which binder would that be, Miss Miller?" Althaus asked, shining the light into her right eye, then her left. "The one with the tax receipts, or the one with the rail manifests?"
"The... the third quarter," she whispered, her hand moving across the bedspread, searching for her glasses. Her fingers hit empty air. "I didn't... the freight from Green Bay didn't balance."
Althaus sighed, tucking the penlight into his breast pocket. "The freight from Green Bay has been balanced, Miss Miller. By a woman named Whitmore who is currently discovering that paper dust does terrible things to an eighty-dollar manicure."
Hannah’s brow furrowed. The pain behind her eyes was sharp, throbbing in time with the saline drip above her.
"My glasses," she said.
"Crushed," Althaus replied. "Leo Vitucci has large feet and very little grace. A courier is bringing three pairs from an optometrist on Michigan Avenue within the hour. Until then, you’ll have to look at the world through the fog."
She tried to push herself up on her elbows.
The pain in her left ribs caught her like a dry branch snapping under a boot. She gasped, her breath catching in her teeth, her forehead instantly breaking into a cold, greasy sweat.
"Two cracked," Althaus said, his hand resting firmly on her shoulder to guide her back down onto the pillows. "Do not try to be a heroine, Miss Miller. You are thirty-two years old, not a middleweight contender from the golden gloves. Lie still."
"The... the rent," she said, her chest heaving against the tight elastic bandage they had wrapped around her ribs. "My purse was on the table. The postal orders—"
"The rent is paid," a new voice said from the doorway.
Dominic stood there.
He had removed his jacket, his tie loosened two inches at the throat, the white sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his forearms, showing the dark hair and the long, thin white scar that ran from his wrist to his elbow—the one she had bandaged eighteen months ago while his blood ruined her mother’s tax returns.
Althaus stood up, picked up his clipboard, and walked out of the room without looking at either of them. The door clicked shut with that heavy, air-sealed thud that only expensive buildings possessed.
Dominic walked to the side of the bed.
He did not sit down. He stood with his hands in his trouser pockets, looking down at her swollen cheek, his face completely devoid of the polite, corporate expression he wore for the cameras on the local news.
"Mr. Vale," she whispered. Her voice was slightly stronger now, but it still sounded like dry husk. "You shouldn't... you shouldn't be here."
"Why?"
"People... people see your car," she said, her fingers plucking at the hem of the white hospital gown. "The people on Lituanica. They talk."
"There is no one on Lituanica who has the courage to speak my name to a stranger, Hannah," Dominic said.
He reached out, his large, square-nailed hand moving toward the nightstand.
He picked up the almond biscotti he had left there five hours ago.
"You missed your shift," he said.
A tiny, dry laugh escaped her throat, ending in a wince as her ribs protested. "Are you... are you firing me, Mr. Vale?"
"I’m considering it," he said, turning the biscotti over in his fingers. "The coffee on the forty-sixth floor tasted like river sludge today. Marcus tried to use the machine in the executive pantry. He put salt in the hopper."
Hannah looked up at him through her swollen, blurred vision. Even without her glasses, she could see the heavy, dark line of his jaw, the straight bridge of his nose that had been broken at least twice, and the strange, quiet focus in his hazel eyes that always made her feel as though she were the only person in the room, even when twelve lawyers were shouting around him.
"Uncle Ray," she whispered.
Dominic’s expression did not change. "Uncle Ray is currently on a bus to Tampa. He has five thousand dollars in an envelope and strict instructions not to return to the state of Illinois until he has learned how to live on a pension."
"And... and Leo?"
"Leo has accepted a position in our heavy equipment recycling division," Dominic said, setting the biscotti down on the white napkin beside her water glass. "In Lake County. He will not be returning to Bridgeport."
Hannah turned her face toward the window.
The rain was still falling, but the sleet had stopped, the drops running down the heavy glass like tears across an old photograph.
"I didn't want your help, Mr. Vale," she said, her voice dropping into that low, flat gravel that had first caught his attention in the basement. "I’ve spent twelve years keeping my head down. If you keep your head down, the city doesn't see you. You pay your nine hundred dollars, you buy your bread, you go to the hospital, and you come home."
Dominic stepped closer until his knee touched the edge of the mattress.
He leaned down, resting his hand on the metal rail, his face six inches from hers.
"The city saw you eighteen months ago, Hannah," he whispered. "When you opened that archive door and told me to take my shirt off."
She looked at him.
"You’re a dangerous man, Mr. Vale."
"I am," he agreed.
"You have people killed."
"Yes."
She closed her eyes for three seconds, letting her forehead rest against the cool cotton of the pillow.
May you like
"My hot plate," she murmured. "Did they break the little glass top?"
"No," Dominic said, and for the first time since 8:07 that morning, something that looked almost like a smile touched the corner of his mouth. "The hot plate is in my office. On the walnut table."
