Chapter 7: Blind Spots

Benji dragged me into stairwell B by the sleeve.

"Explain," he said.

"There's nothing to..."

"I put twenty dollars on 'before Thanksgiving,'" he said. "Dolores took 'before Halloween.' She's been right for thirty-four years about everything."

"You bet on me?"

"I bet on you and the Chief. I'm hurt that you think I wouldn't."

I slid down the wall and sat on a concrete step with my head in my hands.

He sat beside me and bumped my shoulder with his.

"How bad is it?" he asked.

"It's Policy 9, Benji. If Pembrey finds out, I'm fired and reported to the state board."

"And him?"

"A letter in his file."

"That's not fair."

"It isn't," I said. "I know."

He was quiet for a second.

"Are you happy?" he said.

I opened my mouth to say it was complicated.

What came out was "Yes."

He grinned the gap-toothed grin I'd known since our first day of residency.

"Then I'll be the world's best lookout," he said. "I'll text you a chicken emoji when Pembrey's on the floor."

"Why a chicken?"

"Because he's a chicken. Obviously."

By lunch, Dolores had joined us.

She spread a floor plan of the fourth floor on the nurses' station counter.

Then she took a red pen out of her breast pocket and put a small neat X on it.

"Two weeks ago Pembrey put a camera over the elevator," she said. "This morning, one over the door to 4-112."

"The closet?" I said.

"Your closet," she said, without blinking. "Since the guard wrote up the badge swipe."