Dr. Mirabi’s treatment room was long and rectangular and full of tall canvas-shrouded machinery. Like every place else in the clínica , it was air-conditioned to a deathly chill, and smelled of sharp and potent disinfectant. Alex wished that he had thought to snag a fotonovela on the way out of his room. Alex pretended distaste for the novelas’ clumsy and violence-soaked porn, but their comically distorted gutter-level Spanish was of a lot of philological interest.