"You'll pick up," Nicholas said clumsily.
"Listen, Nick. How many leadies we made this month?"
He considered whether to lie or tell the truth. Souza had been here in this bed eight days; surely he had lost contact, could not check and trip him up. So he lied. "Fifteen."
"Then--" A labored pause; Souza stared upward, never turned his eyes toward Nicholas, as if he were looking away in shame. "We could still make our quota."
"What do I care," Nicholas said, "if we make our quota?" He had known Souza, been shut up with him here at the Tom Mix, for the total war-period: fifteen years. "I care whether--" God, a misspoken word; impossible to amend, too.
"'Whether I get out of here,'" Souza whispered.
"Naturally I mean _when_." He felt furious with himself. And, now, he saw Carol at the door, looking professional in her white smock, her low-heeled shoes, carrying her clipboard on which, no doubt, she had Souza's chart. Without a word Nicholas rose, walked away from the bed and past Carol and out into the corridor.
She followed. They stood together in the empty corridor and then Carol said, "He'll live one more week and then he'll die. Whether your tongue wags and says 'whether' or if you--"
"I told him our shops had turned out fifteen leadies so far this month; make sure nobody else tells him different."
"I hear," she said, "it's more like five."
"Seven." He told her not because she was their doctor and someone they depended on, but because of The Relationship. Always he told Carol everything; that was one of the emotional hooks that gaffed him, held him to her: she, and this was so rare, could see through any sham, even the little daily innocences. So why try this now? Carol never wanted pretty words; she lived by the truth. Here now she had once again gotten it.
"Then we can't meet the quota," she said. Matter-of-factly.
He nodded. "Partly it's because they've asked for three type VIIs and that's hard; that strains our shops. If it had all been the III or IV types--" But it hadn't; it never was, nor would be. Ever.