There is a short pause. Then Troy speaks again. “Maybe. We’ll see. You are one stubborn lady.”

Troy is now interrupted by the sickly sweet GPS voice from the cell phone: “You have reached your destination.”

Chapter 71

Chapter 71

THE BUILDING THAT HOUSES General Infant Health looks like a dreary suburban high school circa 1955. A low-slung two-story building, a rectangular box of fading yellow brick. I usually don’t notice fancy things or even a lack of fancy things, but I can’t help but notice that there is absolutely no landscaping—not a shrub, not a bush, no flowers, no trees. Large neon initials—GIH—hang over the front entrance door. Somehow I don’t associate neon signs with medical research.

A red-and-white metal signpost points us to the parking lot, only a few hundred yards from the Passaic River. In keeping with the bleak architecture of the building, the parking lot is muddy and unpaved, sparsely sprinkled with gravel. I do notice that most of the fifty or so cars parked in this lot are BMWs and Mercedes, high-end models of each type. Two red Ferraris, one gray Rolls-Royce.

Troy and I formulate a rough plan. We decide that I’ll go into the reception area and try to bluff my way back into the offices and labs. Meanwhile, Troy will walk around and survey the campus.

“Yeah, good idea,” he says. “No one’ll notice a 300-pound black man strolling around the grounds in the middle of the day.”

“You fight the war with the soldiers you’ve got,” I say as he parks the ambulance.

Troy looks at me skeptically. “I don’t quite think what you just said makes any sense.”

Then we move on to discussing our plan. He’ll start at the river, which even at a few hundred yards away is letting off a nauseating scent.

“Something tells me the river is not going to be sparkling clean for swimming,” Troy says.

“Yeah, well, if you change your mind and you do decide to dive in, watch out for human bodies and human waste,” I say.

“You always give your people really good advice, Lucy.”

We are now at a point when Troy needs to walk toward the slope leading down to the river and I need to walk straight ahead to the steps going up to the building entrance.

“Lucy, look, before we split—” Troy says.

“Troy, I’m nervous as hell. Don’t bug me. I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to tell me I should call Leon Blumenthal. And I’m not going to. And I’m telling you, Jesus, I am really nervous, and I’m not sure what to do about it.”

“Lucy, okay, okay. Just calm down. Just try to calm down,” he says.