by Dean Koontz
He worried, as well, about Heather and Toby. They were alone, which troubled him in spite of the fact that Heather, under Alma Bryson’s guidance, seemed to be prepared to handle everything from a lone burglar to a foreign invasion. Actually, the thought of all those weapons in the house—and what the need for them said about Heather’s state of mind—disturbed him nearly as much as the thought of someone breaking into the place.
Money worried him more than cerebral embolisms. He was on disability and had no idea when he might be able to work again full time. Heather was still unemployed, the economy showed no signs of emerging from the recession, and their savings were virtually exhausted. Friends in the Department had opened a trust account for his family at a branch of Wells Fargo Bank, and contributions from policemen and the public at large now totaled more than twenty-five thousand dollars. But medical and rehabilitation expenses were never entirely covered by insurance, and he suspected that even the trust fund would not return them to the modest level of financial security they had enjoyed before the shootout at Arkadian’s service station. By September or October, making the mortgage payment might be impossible.
However, he was able to keep all those worries to himself, partly because he knew that other people had worries of their own and that some of them might be more serious than his, but also because he was an optimist, a believer in the healing power of laughter and positive thinking. Though some of his friends thought his response to adversity was cockeyed, he couldn’t help it. As far as he could recall, he had been born that way. Where a pessimist looked at a glass of wine and saw it as half empty, Jack not only saw it as half full but also figured there was the better part of a bottle still to be drunk. He was in a body cast and temporarily disabled, but he felt he was blessed to have escaped permanent disability and death. He was in pain, sure, but there were people in the same hospital in more pain than he was. Until the glass was empty and the bottle as well, he would always anticipate the next sip of wine rather than regret that so little was left.
On his first visit to the hospital back in March, Toby had been frightened to see his father so immobilized, and his eyes had filled with tears even as he bit his lip and kept his chin up and struggled to be brave. Jack had done his best to minimize the seriousness of his condition, insisted he looked in worse shape than he was, and strove with growing desperation to lift his son’s spirits. Finally he got the boy to laugh by claiming he wasn’t really hurt at all, was in the hospital as a participant in a secret new police program, and would emerge in a few months as a member of their new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Task Force.
“Yeah,” he said, “it’s true. See, that’s what all this plaster is, a shell, a turtle shell that’s being applied to my back. When it’s dry and coated with Kevlar, bullets will just bounce off.”
Smiling in spite of himself, wiping at his eyes with one hand, Toby said, “Get real, Dad.”
“It’s true.”
“You don’t know tae kwon do.”
“I’ll be taking lessons, soon as the shell’s dry.”
“A Ninja has to know how to use swords too, swords and all kinda stuff.”
“More lessons, that’s all.”
“Big problem.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re not a real turtle.”
“Well, of course I’m not a real turtle. Don’t be silly. The department isn’t allowed to hire anything but human beings. People don’t much like it when they’re given traffic tickets by members of another species. So we have to make do with an imitation Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Task Force. So what? Is Spider-Man really a spider? Is Batman really a bat?”
“You got a point there.”
“You’re damned right I do.”
“But.”
“But what?”
Grinning, the boy said, “You’re no teenager.”
“I can pass for one.”
“No way. You’re an old guy.”
“Is that so?”
“A real old guy.”
“You’re in big trouble when I get out of this bed, mister.”
“Yeah, but until your shell’s dry, I’m safe.”
The next time Toby came to the hospital—Heather visited every day, but Toby was limited to once or twice a week—Jack was wearing a colorful headband. Heather had gotten him a red-and-yellow scarf, which he’d folded and tied around his head. The ends of the knot hung rakishly over his right ear.
“Rest of the uniform is still being designed,” he told Toby.
A few weeks later, one day in mid-April, Heather pulled the privacy curtain around Jack’s bed and gave him a sponge bath and damp-sponge shampoo to save the nurses a little work. She said, “I’m not sure I like other women bathing you. I’m getting jealous.”
He said, “I swear I can explain where I was last night.”
“There’s not a nurse in the hospital hasn’t gone out of her way to tell me that you’re their favorite patient.”
“Well, honey, that’s meaningless. Anybody can be their favorite patient. It’s easy. All you’ve got to do is avoid puking on them and don’t make fun of their little hats.”
“That easy, huh?” she said, sponging his left arm.
“Well, you also have to eat everything on your dinner tray, never hassle them to give you massive injections of heroin without a doctor’s prescription, and never ever fake cardiac arrest just to get attention.”
“They say you’re so sweet, brave, and funny.”
“Aw, shucks,” he said with exaggerated shyness, but he was genuinely embarrassed.
“A couple of them told me how lucky I am, married to you.”
“You punch them?”
“Managed to control myself.”
“Good. They’d only take it out on me.”
“I am lucky,” she said.
“And some of these nurses are strong, they probably pack a pretty hard punch.”
“I love you, Jack,” she said, leaning over the bed and kissing him full on the mouth.
The kiss took his breath away. Her hair fell across his face; it smelled of a lemony shampoo.
“Heather,” he said softly, putting one hand against her cheek, “Heather, Heather,” repeating the name as if it was sacred, which it was, not only a name but a prayer that sustained him, the name and face that made his nights less dark, that made his pain-filled days pass more quickly.
“I’m so lucky,” she repeated.
“Me too. Finding you.”
“You’ll be home with me again.”
“Soon,” he said, though he knew he would be weeks in that bed and weeks more in a rehabilitation hospital.
“No more lonely nights,” she said.
“No more.”
“Always together.”
“Always.” His throat was tight, and he was afraid he was going to cry. He was not ashamed to cry, but he didn’t think either of them dared indulge in tears yet. They needed all their strength and resolve for the struggles that still lay ahead. He swallowed hard and whispered, “When I get home…?”
“Yes?”
“And we can go to bed together again?”
Face-to-face with him, she whispered too: “Yes?”
“Will you do something special for me?”
“Of course, silly.”
“Would you dress up like a nurse? That really turns me on.”
She blinked in surprise for a moment, burst out laughing, and shoved a cold sponge in his face. “Beast.”
“Well, then, how about a nun?”
“Pervert.”
“A girl scout?”
“But a sweet, brave, and funny pervert.”
If he hadn’t possessed a good sense of humor, he wouldn’t have been able to be a cop. Laughter, sometimes dark laughter, was the shield that made it possible to wade, without being stained, through the filth and madness in which most cops had to function these days.
A sense of humor aided his recovery, too, and made it possib
le not to be consumed by pain and worry, although there was one thing about which he had difficulty laughing—his helplessness. He was embarrassed about being assisted with his basic bodily functions and subjected to regular enemas to counteract the effects of extreme inactivity. Week after week, the lack of privacy in those matters became more rather than less humiliating.
It was even worse to be trapped in bed, in the rigid grip of the cast, unable to run or walk or even crawl if a sudden catastrophe struck. Periodically he became convinced that the hospital was going to be swept by fire or damaged in an earthquake. Although he knew the staff was well trained in emergency procedures and that he would not be abandoned to the ravages of flames or the mortal weight of collapsing walls, he was occasionally seized by an irrational panic, often in the dead of night, a blind terror that squeezed him tighter and tighter, hour after hour, and that succumbed only gradually to reason or exhaustion.
By the middle of May, he had acquired a deep appreciation and limitless admiration for quadriplegics who did not let life get the best of them. At least he had the use of his hands and arms, and he could exercise by rhythmically squeezing rubber balls and doing curls with light hand weights. He could scratch his nose if it itched, feed himself to some extent, blow his nose. He was in awe of people who suffered permanent below-the-neck paralysis but held fast to their joy in life and faced the future with hope, because he knew he didn’t possess their courage or character, no matter whether he was voted favorite patient of the week, month, or century.
If he’d been deprived of his legs and hands for three months, he would have been weighed down by despair. And if he hadn’t known that he would get out of the bed and be learning to walk again by the time spring became summer, the prospect of long-term helplessness would have broken his sanity.
Beyond the window of his third-floor room, he could see little more than the crown of a tall palm tree. Over the weeks, he spent countless hours watching its fronds shiver in mild breezes, toss violently in storm winds, bright green against sunny skies, dull green against somber clouds. Sometimes birds wheeled across that framed section of the heavens, and Jack thrilled to each brief glimpse of their flight.
He swore that, once back on his feet, he would never be helpless again. He was aware of the hubris of such an oath; his ability to fulfill it depended on the whims of fate. Man proposes, God disposes. But on this subject he could not laugh at himself. He would never be helpless again. Never. It was a challenge to God: Leave me alone or kill me, but don’t put me in this vise again.
Jack’s division captain, Lyle Crawford, visited him for the third time in the hospital on the evening of June third.
Crawford was a nondescript man, of average height and average weight, with close-cropped brown hair, brown eyes, and brown skin, all of virtually the same shade. He was wearing Hush Puppies, chocolate-brown slacks, tan shirt, and a chocolate-brown jacket, as if his fondest desire was to be so nondescript that he would blend into any background and perhaps even attain invisibility. He also wore a brown cap, which he took off and held in both hands as he stood by the bed. He was soft-spoken and quick to smile, but he also had more commendations for bravery than any two other cops in the entire department, and he was the best natural-born leader of men that Jack had ever encountered.
“How you doing?” Crawford asked.
“My serve has improved, but my backhand’s still lousy,” Jack said.
“Don’t choke the racket.”
“You think that’s my problem?”
“That and not being able to stand up.”
Jack laughed. “How’re things in the division, Captain?”
“The fun never stops. Two guys walk into a jewelry store on Westwood Boulevard this morning, right after opening, silencers on their guns, shoot the owner and two employees, kill ’em deader than old King Tut before anyone can set off an alarm. No one outside hears a thing. Cases full of jewelry, big safe’s open in the back room, full of estate pieces, millions worth. Looks like a cakewalk from there on. Then the two perps start to argue about what to take first and whether they have time to take everything. One of them makes a comment about the other one’s old lady, and the next thing you know, they shoot each other.”
“Jesus.”
“So a little time passes, and a customer walks in on this. Four dead people plus a half-conscious perp sprawled on the floor, wounded so bad he can’t even crawl out of the place and try to get away. The customer stands there, shocked by the blood, which is splattered all to hell over. He’s just paralyzed by the sight of this mess. The wounded perp waits for the customer to do something, and when the guy just stands there, gaping, frozen, the perp says, ‘For the love of God, mister, call an ambulance!’”
“‘For the love of God,’” Jack said.
“‘For the love of God.’ When the paramedics show up, first thing he asks them for is a Bible.”
Jack rolled his head back and forth on the pillow in disbelief. “Nice to know not all the scum out there are godless scum, isn’t it?”
“Warms my heart,” Crawford said.
Jack was the only patient in the room. His most recent roommate, a fifty-year-old estate-planning specialist, in residence for three days, had died the previous day of complications from routine gallbladder surgery.
Crawford sat on the edge of the vacant bed. “I got some good news for you.”
“I can use it.”
“Internal Affairs submitted its final report on the shootings, and you’re cleared across the board. Better yet, both the chief and the commission are going to accept it as definitive.”
“Why don’t I feel like dancing?”
“We both know the whole demand for a special investigation was bullshit. But we also both know…once they open that door, they don’t always close it again without slamming it on some poor innocent bastard’s fingers. So we’ll count our blessings.”
“They clear Luther too?”
“Yes, of course.”
“All right.”
Crawford said, “I put your name in for a commendation—Luther too, posthumously. Both are going to be approved.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“Deserved.”
“I don’t give a damn about the dickheads on the commission, and the chief can take a hike to hell too, for all I care. But it means something to me because it was you put in our names.”
Lowering his gaze to his brown cap, which he turned around and around in his brown hands, Crawford said, “I appreciate that.”
They were both silent awhile.
Jack was remembering Luther. He figured Crawford was too.
Finally Crawford looked up from his cap and said, “Now for the bad news.”
“Always has to be some.”
“Not actively bad, just irritating. You hear about the Anson Oliver movie?”
“Which one? There were three.”
“So you haven’t heard. His parents and his pregnant fiancée made a deal with Warner Brothers.”
“Deal?”
“Sold the rights to Anson Oliver’s life story for one million dollars?”
Jack was speechless.
Crawford said, “The way they tell it, they made the deal for two reasons. First, they want to provide for Oliver’s unborn son, make sure the kid’s future is secure.”
“What about my kid’s future?” Jack asked angrily.
Crawford cocked his head. “You really pissed?”
“Yes!”
“Hell, Jack, since when did our kids ever matter to people like them?”
“Since never.”
“Exactly. You and me and our kids, we’re here to applaud them when they do something artistic or high-minded—and clean up after them when they make a mess.”
“It isn’t fair,” Jack said. He laughed at his own words, as if any experienced cop could still expect life to be fair, virtue to be rewarded, and villainy to be punished. “Ah, hell.”
“You can’t hate the
m for that. It’s just the way they are, the way they think. They’ll never change. Might as well hate lightning, hate ice being cold and fire being hot.”
Jack sighed, still angry but only smoldering. “You said they had two reasons for making the deal. What’s number two?”
“To make a movie that will be ‘a monument to the genius of Anson Oliver,’” Crawford said. “That’s how the father put it. ‘A monument to the genius of Anson Oliver.’”
“For the love of God.”
Crawford laughed softly. “Yeah, for the love of God. And the fiancée, mother of the heir-to-be, she says this movie’s going to put Anson Oliver’s controversial career and his death in historical perspective.”
“What historical perspective? He made movies, he wasn’t the leader of the Western world—he just made movies.”
Crawford shrugged. “Well, by the time they’re done building him up, I suspect he’ll have been an antidrug crusader, a tireless advocate for the homeless—”
Jack picked it up: “A devout Christian who once considered dedicating his life to missionary work—”
“—until Mother Teresa told him to make movies instead—”
“—and because of his effective efforts on behalf of justice, he was killed by a conspiracy involving the CIA, the FBI—”
“—the British royal family, the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers and Pipe Fitters—”
“—the late Joseph Stalin—”
“—Kermit the Frog—”
“—and a cabal of pill-popping rabbis in New Jersey,” Jack finished.
They laughed because the situation was too ridiculous to respond to with anything but laughter—and because, if they didn’t laugh at it, they were admitting the power of these people to hurt them.
“They better not put me in this damn movie of theirs,” Jack said after his laughter had devolved into a fit of coughing. “I’ll sue their asses.”
“They’ll change your name, make you an Asian cop named Wong, ten years older and six inches shorter, married to a redhead named Bertha, and you won’t be able to sue for spit.”