She silenced him with a finger in the air. "Hold that thought." She stood and went down the short hallway to his apartment bathroom.
Jake drank from his glass. He stood and went to the window that overlooked the street. It was late and everything outside seemed to have sharp edges. Painfully tight. The skyscrapers were holding their breath. The alcohol was taking its effect.
He drank again, thinking about the time he asked Chavez how he could live for so long and not become bored.
"You seek out and cherish the quiet moments," Chavez told him. "The dressing room moments, if you will. They are the moments that matter, the moments we truly remember. No one lies on their deathbed talking about traffic jams or their favorite TV shows. We don't reminisce about dieting or shopping or what kind of flooring we once had. We all die on linoleum and reminisce about the moments when we're full of anticipation. Moments when the world seems to pause, like a merry-go-round that has suddenly stopped, giving us time to get off the spinning thing and look around. A moment to catch a breath and see the playground before us, to recognize its beauty and grace."
Light came from down the hallway behind Jake—the bathroom door coming back open. The light shined on the window pane, blurring Jake's view of the city and his horizon.
"And then the world begins to spin again," Chavez had continued. "The force of its gravity pulls us back on to the merry-go-round and we must hold on tightly. We stop thinking of beauty and grace while we grip until our knuckles turn white, just trying to survive."
Jake turned away from the window to see Lori standing in the hallway with light behind her. She was wrapped in a plaid quilt up to her shoulders. He could see her bare feet and painted toenails, her collar bones, and a mole he couldn't recall having seen before. There was no t-shirt beneath the quilt, no blue jeans on her legs. Her eyes were sparking.
She dropped the quilt.
Jake dropped his glass.
31
Darnell Collins pushed his mop bucket down the hospital hallway. The back-left wheel wobbled and squeaked, announcing his presence. A touch that added credibility. He'd snuck the mop and bucket into Corktown Medical inside a hockey bag, the mop handle in two pieces he screwed together like a professional pool cue. The seam was nearly undetectable.
ICU was on the hospital's first floor, but Darnell rode the elevator to the hospital's top floor and back down again so anyone at the front desk would see him go up and hopefully forget about him. Besides, it gave him time to prepare. The jacket he wore covered the 'New Center' wording on the back of his coveralls, but otherwise he looked the part of Corktown Medical custodian right down to the beat-up shoes and jersey gloves he wore over the latex beneath.
The wig was another story. Even Darnell had to admit it looked silly. Like a hair band rocker straight from the eighties. He stared into the polished steel elevator doors and, using momma's voice, said, "You look like a goddamn tramp." He'd tied the hair up in a loose ponytail covering his melted ears and burned neck, threw on some personality frames to tone things down. Nevertheless, he felt like a spectacle as he moved down the hallway.
The squeaky mop bucket rounded the turn toward ICU in front of Darnell. By the time he appeared, the cop outside Leroy Jackson's hospital room door was eyeing him from way down the hall, as was the nurse at the nearby ICU registration desk.
Darnell kept his eyes down to the contents of his bucket. Sticking out from between the strands of the cotton mop-head was a syringe filled with general anesthetic, a carbide-tipped emergency glass breaker, and a Damascus steel hunting knife with a seven-inch blade. Darnell preferred to use found weapons, something at the victim's house—in this case, hospital room—but there was no accounting for what might be available here, and likely no time to search. He could use his hands, as he had before, but again there may not be time.
It was okay. Not every situation was ideal. What mattered was mercy.
He came to the registration desk first, smiled sheepishly at the nurse while keeping an eye on the cop in the distance.
"Can I help you?" the nurse said. She was blonde and skinny and talked like a girl on television, belonged on a beach somewhere. Her arms looked strong for a woman. Wiry. Typical of those helping the helpless in and out of beds, into bathrooms, showers, and back again. Over her shoulder the cop returned his attention to his smartphone.
"It's my first day," Darnell said to the nurse, pushing up his glasses. The lenses, though non-prescription, were thick.
"What do you need?" the nurse said.
"Custodial closet?"
"Down the hall and to the left."
"Can you open it for me?" He looked down. "They're still making my keycard."
She smiled flatly. "Come on."
Darnell followed the nurse down the hall, mop bucket rattling and squeaking. Machines bleeped in the din, monitors flashed. Distant doors opened and closed. They passed the cop at Leroy Jackson's room. He was sitting in a folding chair, elbows on his knees, playing Candy Crush on his phone. Darnell looked into the room, saw Jackson was hooked to a breathing machine, saw his own truck through the window, parked in the lot beyond. He felt a tickle of joy to know he'd chosen the parking spot well.
They turned a corner and came to the custodial closet. The nurse used her keycard to open it and gestured for Darnell to help himself while she held the door open.
The shelves inside the closet were loaded with bottles of cleaner, bleach, rows of paper towels, and boxes of rags. There was a faucet over a floor tub and drain, a mop bucket and a mop.
"Let's see," Darnell said, stepping closer to the nurse while pretending to assess the various cleaners on the shelf.
The nurse registered the bucket and mop on the floor in the closet. She looked at Darnell's setup and started to say, "How'd you alread-"
Darnell gripped her face and shoved her into the closet. She slammed against the back wall and yelped. Her feet were unsteady in the floor tub. She grabbed the faucet pipe to stabilize and then opened her mouth to scream, but Darnell's hand was already at her throat. Her pale skin began to redden as he choked her. He calmly pulled his mop and bucket into the small room and pulled the door closed behind them, darkening the room while holding her against the wall. She thrashed, kicking and punching at him. It was like holding a flopping muskellunge.
He socked her in the guts, taking her wind and collapsing her.
He let go of her throat as she crumpled and wheezed. He felt for her chin in the darkness, lifted it, and delivered a right hook with enough force to clack her teeth and put her out. She fell against him. He let her slide to the floor, head against the shelving unit. He felt inside her mouth and sniffed his gloved fingers. No blood. He moved the syringe from the mop bucket to the leg pocket of his coveralls, collected himself, and left the closet.
The hallway that led back to the Leroy Jackson's room was empty, save for the cop outside the downed officer's door. Darnell approached with his bucket and squeaky wheel. It was clearly irritating the cop, who looked sidelong at the bucket as though he wanted to pump some lead into it. His glare didn't reach Darnell's face, though.
Always so interesting, Darnell thought, how people try to communicate indirectly, hoping a look will tell someone what our cowardice keeps us from saying. He stopped in front of Leroy Jackson's room and looked in. "Hero cop, right?"
"Step back, sir," the cop said as he stood and slipped his phone into his pocket.
"Oh," Darnell said. "I'm sorry." He moved back a few inches. "He's the one that got shot a couple days ago?"
"Is there something you need?"
"No," Darnell said. "I was just wondering."
"Move along, please." The cop gestured for Darnell to move down the hallway.
Darnell nodded agreeably. He started to move along, and then stopped and looked back into Leroy Jackson's room. "Is his IV properly attached?"
The cop turned his head to follow Darnell's line of sight.
Darnell inserted the syringe into the
cop's neck and depressed the plunger. The cop's eyes went wide. He slapped at his neck like there was a mosquito there, but by the time his palm came to his skin Darnell had removed the syringe and dropped it back into his bucket.
"What the f-" the cop said. His eyes rolled back as he staggered forward, reaching aimlessly for the service weapon on his waist.
Darnell underhooked the cop and carried him into Leroy Jackson's room like a pal helping a drunken friend. He set the cop down in the corner with his back against the wall, his head slumped forward. He pulled in his mop and bucket and closed the door behind them.
Darnell took the glass breaker from the bucket, pocketed it, and wielded the hunting knife. The Damascus steel was beautiful in the glow of the fluorescent lights, its etched patterns like an oil slick on the metal. He moved around to the Leroy Jackson's bedside nearest the window. He knelt down with his elbows on the railing like he was preparing to pray. The covers smelled like piss. Must be they hadn't changed the poor man's bedpan in some time.
Leroy Jackson's face was puffy beneath the bandages wrapped around his head. His arms were covered in tape and tubes, IV needles near his wrists. There was a breathing tube down his throat, causing his head to appear thrown back in laughter.
"I'm sorry this happened to you," Darnell said, removing his jersey gloves to reveal the latex gloves beneath. He showed the unconscious Leroy his hand, pulling the glove tight to reveal the burned skin beneath. "I'm sorry they haven't changed your bedpan."
He set the knife on the bed.
"You were a hero once. I don't like to use weapons on heroes. They're for animals, for creatures meant to be food. But you'll forgive me in this case, and you may appreciate knowing the blade will be yours. Only your blood will it ever shed, only your life will it ever take. It's as beautiful as you once were."
Leroy Jackson's closed eyelids fluttered.
"I know you can't see this," Darnell said as he produced and unfolded the newspaper article concerning Leroy Jackson's heroism, "but I want you to know that I know who you are." He held the article in front of Leroy's face for a moment before folding it up and putting it away. He looked Leroy's prone body up and down. "I'll tuck you in now."
He reached beneath the blankets and removed Leroy's bedpan. He shoved it beneath the bed and then arranged the pillow beneath Leroy's head, just so. He reset the blankets so they were straight and tight. Satisfied with his work, Darnell inserted the seven-inch blade into Officer Jackson's neck, severing the jugular.
While holding the knife in place, he looked into Leroy's closed eyes, imagining momma's rheumy eyes beneath the lids. Tears fell from behind Darnell's thick lenses. "Tell me I'm a good goy."
"Excuse me?"
Darnell turned at the sound of the voice. A small black girl was standing in the room with him. She was holding a bag of potato chips in her left hand, a bottle of Pepsi in the right. Her hair was puffing out from beneath a Detroit Police baseball cap.
The vital stats machine sounded off. Alarms went crazy.
Darnell leapt over the bed and grabbed the little girl by the arms. She screamed and dropped her Pepsi and chips. Darnell lifted her up, turned her around, and clamped a hand over her mouth. He dragged her kicking and flailing to the window. He released her mouth to hold her up by the waist.
She started screaming again.
Darnell fished in his pocket to find the glass breaker. One shot and the window to Leroy Jackson's hospital room was shattered and gone. Darnell clamped the little girl's mouth and held her to his body as he ran through the opening and across the small yard toward his truck in the parking lot.
32
Day Four
Lori was in the shower now. The door was open a crack and steam snuck out past the light beam stretched across the floor. Jake sat on the edge of the bed, naked and shivering. Post-sexual endorphins mixed heavily with the quickening. The combination nearly incapacitated him. The night he'd just experienced played out like a decade in his memory. The images and smells were as indelible as scars. He knew lust. He understood the mechanics of sex. But he didn't know this. It was something more, something impossible to process. He never wanted to leave this room, never wanted the spell to break. He lay back and closed his eyes, mentally pressing rewind to the moment Lori's quilt dropped. He let it play forward and then pressed rewind again. Again and again until sleep took him.
Jake dreamed he was at a construction site, helping build a home. He was kneeling near a wooden wall frame, hammering a masonry nail through the wood into the concrete below—only the nail refused to be driven home. He pounded at it, sending sparks off the nail head, but it wouldn't budge. Perplexed, he hit the nail again, and again, and again.
Nothing.
"Don't be stubborn bastard," a voice said. Motown's voice.
"Let it be," another voice said. Ray Westerhouse.
No, Jake thought. He kept at the nail, kept swinging his hammer. Kept sending sparks.
Night fell and the rest of the construction crew left to go home. Jake kept at it, kept swinging. Morning came. He kept swinging. He grew weary, his muscles screamed with every movement, he struggled to breathe, struggled just to lift his arms, but he kept swinging, kept sending sparks.
The nail simply wouldn't move.
For hours he'd been at it. For days. For years.
Exhausted in the dream, he told himself he'd swing one last time. One final shot to make sure he could say he'd given it his all, to ensure he didn't walk away too early. He reared back with what little strength remained and cracked the hammer head against the nail.
It moved. Only a quarter inch. But it moved.
Jake fell into shock and dismay. His body surged with power. He spit on his hands, preparing to finish the job of finally driving home the godforsaken thing. He reared back with his hammer and swung with all his remaining strength... only to bend the nail.
He awoke with a start.
The other side of the bed was empty.
There was a yellow sticky note pasted on the doorjamb near the stairs. Jake got up and went to it, read it.
JD,
I think we made a mistake. I'm sorry.
Lori
Jake crumpled the note and tossed it aside. The quickening rushed through his veins. His legs felt weak. He was faint. He managed his way to the nightstand and picked up his watch. 9:21 a.m. He looked outside to see the sun, his horizon below it—a thickening band. He picked up his phone and checked for a text from her.
Nothing.
With shaky hands he typed 'WTF?' but then backspaced over it.
He typed 'Why did you leave?' but backspaced over that, as well.
He typed 'How can you call it a mistake?' but again, he backspaced it away.
He dropped the phone and sat on the edge of the bed thinking this is how sane people end up at Dover. First they throw their phone through that window right there, then they get into their truck and drive around for hours, letting the pressure cooker in their chest heat up to boiling, until finally they...
Jake counted on his fingers. He took slow, deep breaths. He thought of the facts he knew about his father, Vincent Kali. He imagined Kali was a cool customer. Unflappable. He'd never let a woman hurt him like this. After all, his mother was a trophy and he'd held no love for her, right? He never would, either. He was the type of guy that left the notes on the doorjambs, the type that did the walking away. Vincent Kali would laugh at his heartbroken son and tell him to stop acting like a child.
Jake picked up his phone and found his pants. They were tossed in the corner next to one sock, the other MIA. He found new socks and put on a pair of shoes and a shirt. He went down the stairs and out to his truck. It was time to go talk with Frankie Collins and his mother, get the kid to change this ridiculous wish.
33
There was broken glass and gore everywhere. After being stabbed, Leroy Jackson had somehow come out of his coma, reached up, and pulled the hunting knife out of his throat, spraying arteria
l blood across the hospital bed, the vital stats monitor, and his breathing machine. He made it as far as the bed railing and died slumped over the steel, his eyes open to a sea of little square panes on the linoleum floor. The machine above the bed hadn't been turned off, only the sound muted. The screen showed a glowing flatline.
The cop who'd been stationed outside Leroy Jackson's room was still unconscious. He'd been forcefully injected with a heavy dose of general anesthetic and was lucky to be alive. The nurse Collins had beaten in a custodial closet was awake and being prepped for interview down the hall.
Sergeant MacDonald sighed. He stood in the hospital room doorway, surveying they scene. The grass outside hadn't been mown in some time and it was still bent where Ghost Mother had run through. Witnesses say he was carrying Keisha Jackson with him. There were uniforms out in the yard and in the parking lot, taping off the scene. A few nurses and a couple doctors were out there, too. Some were smoking cigarettes as a cover for their morbid curiosity, others were just rubbernecking without shame. Crime scene techs were examining the grass, the asphalt, and the shattered glass, tweezing things, marking things.
MacDonald moved his eyes to the bag of chips lying on the floor, the bottle of Pepsi beneath the bed. Each was circled in chalk. He imagined little Keisha dropping the bottle, it rolling in an arc until it came to rest beneath the steel frame where her daddy died.
"We don't know it's him," Harris said. He had just come up and was standing in the hallway behind MacDonald, looking into the room through the plate glass wall. "Not really his M.O."
"It's him," MacDonald said. "He was frantic about this one, needed to move fast, so he changed his routine. Didn't wait until Jackson was sent home. Probably figured he never would be."
"He used a knife," Harris said. "Before it was a choke-out or something from the home. Never brought a weapon with him."
"He needed to be sure he could get it done. Time was an issue. Look at that blade." He pointed to the Damascus steel knife on the floor. Almost none of the blade could be seen through the blood. "No doubt it was expensive. Not something you'd just leave behind unless using it was purposeful."
The Stonefly Series, Book 1 Page 18