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'I wasn't sure what happened after that, but suddenly cartons were caving in and he almost knocked me over as he fell.
    "Marino?" I was disoriented and frightened. "Marino!"
    I cut the power on the Luma-Lite And took-off my glasses so I could see:
    "Goddamn fucking son of a bitch!" he yelled as if he'd been bitten by a snake.
    He was flat on his back on the floor, shoving and kicking boxes out of the way. The plastic bucket sailed through the air. I got down next to him.
    "Stay still," I firmly told him. "Don't go thrashing around until we're sure you're all right."
    "Oh God! Oh shit! I got this shit all over me!" he yelled in a panic.
    "Are you hurting anywhere-?"
    "Oh, Jesus, I'm gonna puke. Oh Jesus, oh4esus."
    He rushed to his feet and knocked boxes out of the way as he stumbled toward the container's opening. I heard him vomit. He groaned and vomited again.
    "That should make you feel better," I said.
    He ripped open his white shirt, gagging and heaving as he struggled out of its sleeves. He stripped down to his undershirt, balled up what was left of his uniform shirt and hurled it out the door.
    "What if he's got AIDS?" Marino's voice sounded like a bell at midnight.
    "You're not going to get AIDS from this guy," I said.
    "Oh, fuck!" He gagged some more.
    "I can finish up in here, Marino," I said.
    "Just give me a minute."
    "Why don't you go on and find a shower."
    "You can't tell anyone about this," he said, and I knew he was thinking about Anderson. "You know, I bet you could get a really good deal on some uh this camera shit."
    "I bet you could."
    "Wonder what they're gonna do with it."
    "Has the removal service come yet?" I asked him.
    He raised his portable radio to his lips.
    "Christ!" He spat and gagged some more.
    He vigorously wiped the radio on the front of his pants and coughed and conjured up spittle from the bottom of his throat and let it fly.
    "Unit nine," he said on the air, holding the'radio a good twelve inches from his face.
    "Unit nine."
    The dispatcher was a woman. I detected warmth in her voice and was surprised. Dispatchers and 911 operators almost always remained calm and showed no emotion, no matter the emergency.
    "Ten-five Rene Anderson," Marino was saying. "Don't know her unit number. Tell -her if she doesn't mind, we sure would like removal service guys to show up down here.", "Unit nine. You know the name of the service?"
    "Hey, Doc," Marino stopped transmitting and raised his voice to me. "What's the name of the service?"
    "Capital Transport:'
    He passed that along, adding, "Radio, if she's a ten-two, ten-ten, or ten-seven or if we should ten-twenty-two, get back to me.deg"
    A storm of cops keyed their mikes, their way of laughing and cheering him on.
    "Ten-four, unit nine;" the dispatcher said.
    "What did you just say that got you such an ovation? I know, ten-seven is out of service, but I didn't get the rest of it."
    "Told her to let me know if Anderson was a weak signal or negative, or had time to get around to it. Or if we should fucking disregard her."
    "No wonder she likes you so much."
    "She's a piece of shit."
    "By chance do you know what happened to the fiberoptic cable?" I asked him.
    "I had it in my hand;" he replied.
    I found it where he had fallen and knocked over cartons.
    "What if he's got AIDS?" He started in on that again.
    "If you're determined to worry about something, try gram-negative bacterias. Or gram-positive bacterias. Clostridia. Strep. If you have an open wound, which you don't as best I know."
    I attached one end of the cable to the wand, the other to the assembly, tightening thumbscrews. He wasn't listening.
    "No way anybody's saying that about me! That I'm a goddamn fairy! I'll eat my gun, don't think I won't."
    "You're not going to get AIDS, Marino;" I repeated myself.
    I turned on the source lamp again. It would have to run at least four minutes before I could turn on the power.
    "I picked a hangnail yesterday and it bled! That's an open wound!"
    "You have on