Notorious Nineteen

equipped lab. I assumed this belonged to Darhmal, the biochemist. There were two hospital type rooms across from the lab. Beds were made. No one in them. No sign that anyone occupied either of the rooms. No personal possessions. No toothbrush in the bathroom. No water glass.
    I could hear a television droning in the room at the end of the hallway. I swallowed back panic at the knowledge that someone probably was in the room. Cubbin maybe. More likely whoever owned the two vehicles in the garage. There were two doors opening onto the television room. Not anormal hospital room, I thought. It was most likely a dayroom for staff or a rec room for patients who didn’t exist.
    I had one more door to open. It had a numbered keypad on it. No window in the door. I gently pushed against it. Unlocked. I stepped in and flicked my penlight on. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing at first. It took me a moment to realize it was an operating room. My experience with operating rooms is little to none, but to my untrained eye this looked very complete and high tech. There were cabinets with drugs and syringes, refrigeration units, gas tanks, autoclaves, surgical equipment trays, high-powered lights, a hydraulic table, computers, and a bunch of mysterious machines.
    I heard a phone ring in the television room. Heard a man’s voice answer the phone. My heart stopped dead in my chest for a beat, and I started to sweat. I had the penlight in one hand and my phone in the other. Lula and I had done the drill before. If I opened the line to her it meant I was screwed.
    Hard to hear what the man was saying over the noise of the television, but it sounded like a social call. There were no shocked or angry exclamations. I stepped out of the operating room, tiptoed to the first door, and carefully peeked in. It was the Yeti with his back to me. No one else in the room.
    I whirled around and speed walked the length of the hall. I was almost at the stairs when I heard the Yeti yell.
    “Hey! What the hell? Stop right where you are .”
    I bolted the last couple steps, ducked into the stairwell, flew down the stairs, and ran past Lula and Briggs.
    “Time to go,” I said to them.
    I kept running, through the garage, out the door, across the driveway to the patch of trees. I could hear Lula and Briggs behind me. We were all breathing heavy when we piled into the Firebird. Lula put the car in gear and peeled out of the lot.
    “What happened?” Lula wanted to know, racing to the FedEx lot. “Did you see Cubbin?”
    “No,” I said. “I saw the Yeti. He was watching television, and he caught me creeping down the hall. I think I might have wet my pants.”
    “You saw a Yeti?” Briggs said. “Isn’t that one of them Big-foot things?”
    “Actually what I saw was a six-foot-six albino with one blue eye and one brown eye,” I told him.
    “We’re onto something,” Lula said. “This is big. We’re like crime solvers . We should have our own television show. What do we do next?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I need to go home and have a glass of wine and stop hyperventilating.”
    “Just remember who got you into the building,” Briggs said. “I want to be there when you get Cubbin. And I don’t want to be left out of the television show either. Little people are sexy now. Have you seen Game of Thrones? We’re hot.”
    I left Lula and Briggs and drove out of the industrial park. I didn’t have hands-free phoning in the Buick so I waited until I was home to call Morelli.
    “I’m home,” I said.
    “How did it go?”
    “I didn’t get arrested or shot at.”
    “That’s good.”
    “I don’t know what to think of The Clinic. It looks like it’s set up for business. It’s got offices, and a lab, and an emergency room, and rooms for patients, but there are no patients.”
    “And no Cubbin?”
    “I didn’t see him. I saw the albino.”
    “The guy who stunned you?”
    “Yeah.”
    There was a big awkward silence in which I imagined Morelli was trying to get a grip on himself.
    “And?” Morelli asked.
    “And he saw me but I ran away.”
    “Did he follow you?”
    “I don’t think so. I checked for a tail.”
    I had Tiki sitting on my dining room table, and he was telling me to go back to the Mexicana Grill for a bucket of margaritas.
    “Bad Tiki,” I said.
    “Are you talking to the wood chunk?” Morelli asked.
    “Only a little.”
    I woke up pleased with myself that I’d ignored Tiki’s margarita suggestion. I was