Free Bank Robbers by C. Clark Criscuolo Page B

for that. It was humiliating, having her breast treated like a slab of meat, that was true, but at least there were no needles involved. She turned and was walking out to the elevator.
    â€œMrs. Newhouse, oh, Mrs. Newhouse, wait!” a woman’s voice called out, and Teresa turned around.
    â€œI can’t have nothin’ more poked into me today, capisce? I had enough a this crap!” Teresa shot off at the scrawny woman in a white lab coat who had given her the sonogram.
    â€œNo, no, Mrs. Newhouse, no more tests today,” the woman said gently.
    â€œWell, that’s a relief,” Teresa barked at her and turned for the elevator.
    â€œAre you planing to go back and talk to your doctor now?”
    â€œWhich one? The Arab or the one I don’t know where he comes from?”
    â€œUh, which one sent you here?”
    â€œA nurse at Metropolitan Hospital sent me here; I don’t know which one.”
    â€œAll right.” The scrawny woman looked upset. “I’ll find out who your physician is and have them give you a call. It’s important that you talk to a doctor.”
    â€œYeah? Somebody finally gonna explain what the hell you’ve been poking around so much for the last two weeks?” Teresa began. “I mean, you wanna soak Medicaid, youse go right ahead, just so long as I can go home”—Teresa looked at her fiercely—“unless you know something I don’t?”
    â€œWe’re not at liberty to divulge results. But when you talk to your doctor…” The woman was talking at her and looking jittery.
    Teresa suddenly felt a chill go through her and she grabbed the little woman and nearly lifted her off the floor.
    â€œWhat the hell’s going on here?” she said, her voice loud and panicky.
    â€œI really can’t say—”
    â€œLook, you know something, you spit it out! You don’t just run after someone and be all mysterious and scare the hell out of them.” Teresa’s voice was beginning to rise loudly. She could feel the woman shaking inside her white coat.
    â€œLook,” the woman said, lowering her voice, “we saw something on the mammogram and then on the sonogram we don’t like. I urge you to call your doctor immediately.”
    â€œDon’t give me this crap, I been around hospitals plenty recently, I just buried my husband five weeks ago. I know when you doctors aren’t saying something. Now what is it?”
    â€œYou have a—a density—”
    â€œSpeak English, goddammit!”
    â€œYou have a lump. I think it’s cancerous. I think you may have breast cancer. I don’t know what stage it’s in.”
    Teresa went numb, and her eyes darted wildly all over the woman’s face. She suddenly felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the hallway and she was going to pass out.
    â€œI’m sorry,” the scrawny woman said fearfully.
    Teresa let go of her and took a step backward. She was pale and her mouth was moving without a sound, and her eyes just kept moving from the woman to the walls, to the lights, to the chairs; she couldn’t focus in on anything. And deep inside her head, images of the hospital and Fred and the way he had died in such pain from cancer was rerunning itself mercilessly.
    â€œW HAT ? I HAVE WHAT?” she screamed out and her voice echoed off the walls.
    *   *   *
    D OTTIE walked up the stairs of her building and noticed a spring in her step. She went to the mailbox. Her smile dropped as she pulled out the only envelope. It was a bill from Con Ed with the words FINAL NOTICE stamped on it in red. Oh, Christ. It would be in two weeks. And this was it, the beginning of the end, Dottie thought. The phone was going to be cut off by the middle of next week.
    Now, heavily, she trudged up the stairs to her apartment. She took the key out and let herself into the apartment. She dropped the keys down on the table