“Her name was Jackie Chang. She was a grandmother who cared for five young granddaughters. Her daughter died last year in a traffic accident. The husband is off someplace. We cannot locate him. The girls are now homeless with nobody to care for them.”
“Tough break.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m sure you care a lot about that sort of thing.”
“I’m sorry. But I didn’t shoot her. And she died instantly. I was there, right next to her. I heard the sound of the bullet when it hit her.”
“You saw the gunman?”
“Only a silhouette against the sky. Nothing else. He was busy trying to put bullets into my friend. I was busy trying to get Chawlie under cover. It was just too intense to make any observations that might help you now. I’m sorry.”
“I can see that you and I don’t see eye to eye,” she said, her voice rising. “I can see that you will not make an ideal witness in this case.”
“I told you all I know.”
“I think you are lying!”
Felix and one of the nurses came in, their eyes on full alert. Our voices must have carried out into the hall.
“I think that you must go now,” said the nurse. “He is a patient and—”
“I know what he is!” Henderson gathered her notebook and her purse and glared at me.
“Thank you for stopping by.” I held out my hand.
“Save it,” she said. She took one more look around the room and made a beeline for the corridor. The little Thai nurse followed her, as if she feared she would turn back and revisit her wrath on her only patient.
Felix shook his head. “She’s pissed.”
“Disappointed is all. Thought she’d solved the Patty Hearst kidnapping.”
“Didn’t they already do that?”
“Yeah. Judge Crater did it.”
Felix stood there looking down at me, his face a mixture of relief and concern. I realized that I’d used up my store of energy and was thoroughly spent.
“You don’t look so good,” he said.
“I don’t feel so good, Felix.”
“I’ll get the nurse.”
4
“Another one.”
Felix nearly smiled as he stuck his head into my room, announcing yet another visitor. Personal or official, he didn’t say, but I could almost read his expression now and knew this was not an officer of the court, come to summon or depose me. Or another member of the medical profession, come to poke me full of holes.
Over the past four days my body had started to heal. I felt it grow a little stronger. My wounds began to close, a mixed blessing. They itched in places I could not reach. But I was able to sit up without the pain and they’d disconnected the plastic feedbag from the intravenous tube to my arm and let me eat real food. Not steak. A little mush, some Jell-O. Something to chew. I’d nearly forgotten the gratification of chewing and swallowing. It was a sensuous pleasure, the only one so far allowed.
Life is good.
“Hello, John.” Barbara Klein walked in, a little hesitant, a little shy. I had wondered where she had been while I had been flat on my back, wherever I was, somewhere within the boundaries of her city.
She picked up the magazine I’d been reading. “Glamour?”
“It’s all they’ve got here. I’ve asked Felix to run over to City Lights, but he’s been too busy.”
She studied the cover. “Men’s One Hundred Twenty-five Secret Sex Desires?”
“I wanted to find out what the other one hundred twenty-four were.”
She smiled at me, her eyes twinkling. I’d once loved those eyes, they way they looked at me. And then they didn’t look at me with affection anymore, and we both were adult enough to admit that our fling was over. Somehow the friendship hadn’t died along with the affair, a fact for which I was grateful, and for which I credited her wisdom.
“Hello, Babs.”
She made a face. “You know I hate that name.”
“Should have complained to your parents when you had the chance.”
She gave me a lopsided smile. “Inevitable?”
I nodded. Nodding was fine. I could nod now. If I was careful and didn’t get carried away with it.
“How are you feeling?”
“Better. Every day is better. They tell me I can go home next week. I can hardly wait.”
“I’ll bet. You know … I was here. When they first brought you in. Those first couple of days, they said you were going to live, that you’d been injured but it wasn’t life threatening. They said you’d lost a lot of blood, and that you had internal injuries, and there was a risk of infection, but that you’d be okay. But one look at you and they couldn’t convince me. You looked dead already.”
“Only the good die young.”
“You’re no longer young. Even so, you’re still indestructible, I see.”
“Take me a few of months to leap tall buildings again. Even then, it might take a couple of bounds.”
“I’ll be watching.”
She nearly looked at me the way she used to look at me. I saw her start to get that warm glow before she remembered and the warmth blinked out. “I heard what happened,” she said, her voice husky.
“Whose version?”
“Chawlie told me. He said that you two were even again, whatever that means.”
“He thought I was in his debt. He thought I was paying penance for a continuation of our friendship by being here.”
“Why were you here?”
“It was a dangerous time for him. Someone had to watch his back.”
“That’s the only reason?”
“You were here. I was hoping to see you after he had performed his ceremonial duties.”
She smiled again. This time it was a sad smile.
“He said you did your job.”
“I’m happy to hear that. I haven’t heard from him at all. Except through Daniel.”
“Was Daniel the one who exchanged Claire’s money?”
“Yep. One of Chawlie’s sons. Or nephews. Or something. He called him his son, and I think I can see the resemblance.”
“You were in his debt. Does that have something to do with your trip to nowhere with the mysterious Margo? That trip that took almost a year?”
“I was never in his debt, but that’s how he sees it. I either failed him or I did exactly what he wanted me to do. I’m never sure which is true. He isn’t either, I think.”
She gripped my hand. Hers was warm and comfortable, and made me happy when she touched me. “I’m really glad to see you.”
“Me too, Barbara. You’re looking well. How’s the student?” Barbara’s son was a student at Berkeley, studying nuclear physics. He was the one who inadvertently caused us to come together in the first place. The day I met him now seemed a lifetime ago.
“David’s fine. It’s finals week, and he’s ready to get out of the pressure cooker and cut loose for the summer. He wants to go back to Hawaii to dive again. David says there are some underwater caves of Maui and the Big Island.”
“Incredible places. David will be fine.”
“I’d be happier, knowing you’re over there.”
“Tell him to call me. I think I’ll be taking some time off for awhile.”
“From what? Do you ever do anything except lie around and work on your boat and fish and dive, or chase dolphins in your sleep, and then come out every once in awhile and get shot? Or take some woman you hardly know for a world cruise?”
“I’ll just lay around and fish, and … that first part of what you said.”
She smiled again, gently, her face softening. “I will always love you, you know.” She almost said something else. I could see her tongue working. But she held it, and settled for retaining the gentle smile.
I knew what she wanted to say. I’d heard it before. And I knew that in her world, in her heart, she was right. So I made it easy for her.
“We’ll always have Honolulu, sweetheart,” I said out of the side of my mouth
, the way Bogie would have said it. “You wore blue, the Hawaiians wore gray … and brown and red and green and pink and yellow and lavender—”
“Stop!” She laughed.
“—and fuscia.” I watched her eyes. She was laughing, but her eyes were crying. “I told you before, kid. If you don’t get on that plane, you’ll regret it. No tonight, not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.”
“Now you stop that,” she said, sniffing. “You did tell me that. At the Honolulu airport. And I did get on that plane. And I thought I’d put you behind me. And then you had to come here to my city and get shot. That’s not my fault.”
“It was not. And I’m grateful that you came to see me.”
“I was here often. You were not here. Your body was in the bed, but John Caine wasn’t here. Wherever you were, it wasn’t here.”
“I was dreaming of the lions.”
“I was here, John. If you ever need me, I’ll be here. I owe you my son’s life, and that’s something a mother never forgets, irrespective of the cruises you take with mysterious strangers.”
She regarded me once more, started to say something, and then stopped. She went through the motions three times before she finally found the words she wanted to say. “It’s really a shame about you and me, but we’ve been down that road so many times I can’t go that way again. I don’t think you can either. We can be friends. Not like people say to each other when they stop being lovers, but really friends, and that is something to cherish. I’ll always love you. And I think I shall stay in love with you a little. But I cannot live with you, and you cannot live with me, and so we can be adult, and we can be friends.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll tell David to call you when he gets to Hawaii.”
“I’d like that. If I’m feeling better, maybe we’ll take Olympia over to Maui or Molokai. Float around the chain for awhile, diving and listening to Jimmy Buffett. I’ll introduce him to some nice girls.”
“He’d love that. I’m glad that you’re looking better. I’m glad that you survived. I want to say try to stay out of these kinds of situations, but I know that won’t help, because you won’t do it. You’ll just do what you want to do when you want to do it. You always have and you always will. It defines you. Some people do what they want to do, they’re just self-involved jerks, but I can’t say that about you. You go out of your way to risk your life for other people. That’s what you do. You went back into that wreck to rescue David, and he would have died that day if you hadn’t, so I guess I can’t criticize. But I can’t stand here on the sidelines and cheer you on, either. Not when I have so much invested. So I had to back off.”
“I understand, Barbara.”
“I know. I repeat myself.”
“I think you and I both want something different from life.”
“What do you want?”
“I wish I knew.”
She shook her head. “You are an adult, and you don’t know what you want? So you’re off here or off there, and you can’t stay in one place long enough to put down roots. You live on a boat in the middle of the ocean because you’re afraid that you’ll take root on land. No commitments. No alignments. No responsibilities. You don’t even have a pet, for God’s sakes. That’s a sad situation. You’ve been an adult for years and yet you won’t grow up!”
I nodded. That was as accurate a description of my character as I’d ever heard.
“And that’s the reason you’re there and I’m here, isn’t it?”
“I think we both made that clear, Barbara.”
“I love you, God damn it!”
I smiled at her and she hugged me like I was made of broken glass. Then she withdrew and walked to the door, where she stopped and turned to face me. “You are a very difficult man, John Caine. I’ve never met another one like you. Loving you is both a blessing and a curse.”
“Thank you for loving me, Barbara,” I said quietly.
“It hasn’t been easy,” she said. “But I think it’s been worth it, all the same.” She smiled that lopsided smile again. “You’re the e-ticket ride of men. You know that? It’s thrilling, it’s fun, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, but eventually you have to get off and go back to the real world. Does that make any sense to you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m on my way to Telluride. In Colorado. Ever been there?”
“No.”
“The bank lent forty million dollars on a hotel project and the developer’s way behind schedule. Like a year. The loan’s running out and the deal’s about to fall apart. I’m flying out in the morning to stick my nose in it and to see what’s what. So you’ll be gone when I get back. Watch my son if you can. Please? For me?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Your best is usually pretty good. Even when you’re all shot up, from what I hear. Good-bye, John.” She clutched her purse, started to say something else, checked the impulse, and walked out the door.
Felix looked in on me. “That’s a pretty woman.”
“Very pretty, very smart, very strong. very smart. Too smart to get mixed up with me for very long. She called me an e-ticket ride.”
Felix looked confused. “Like the airplane?”
“From Disneyland,” I explained.
He shook his head.
“Never mind. It’s a generational thing, I guess.”
“Doctor’s here. He wants to examine you.”
“Well send him in, Felix. Don’t keep the man waiting.”
The doctor was a slim young man, young for a specialist, proud of his work and impressed with himself. He had me lie down, which I did. Gingerly. When I got comfortable, he pulled up my gown and inspected his handiwork. He listened to my heart and my lungs, smiled, and scribbled in his chart.
“You seem to be healing beautifully,” he said. “The incision is closing. It looks good. Surprisingly little infection. Your renal function is returning to normal. Should be one hundred percent in a few weeks. I think we can remove your catheter by tomorrow.”
“I’d like that.” Peeing in a bag was not something I wanted to get used to.
“When you came in I thought you were going to lose your kidney. The bullet damaged the midsection of the organ, so I had to do a partial nephrectomy.”
“Is that bad?”
“Bad enough. You were shot in the back, but I had to go in through the front. You have a hole all the way through you, you know that?”
“Back to front.”
“Both ways. I put in a stent from the upper chamber of your kidney to your bladder. It will have to be removed, too, but not just yet. I placed it there to keep scar tissue from blocking the chambers. You don’t want that kind of pain, my friend.” He scribbled in his chart, keeping his hands busy.
“I understand you live in Hawaii. I’ll refer you to a urologist there who will remove it. There’s no hurry, but within the next month or two.”
“A month or two.”
“Leave it in for six weeks, but no longer than two months. Any longer could be dangerous.”
“Good to know.”
“You’ll have to refrain from strenuous physical activity until it is out. Of course, nothing for the next six to eight weeks. From the look of you—considering your age—you have continued to keep your body in shape. That’s good. That’s good. That has helped. But you’ll have to take it easy for a few months.”
“Considering my age,” I said, thinking that a layoff of a few months at my age would put me way over into the soft side of life. It would be hell coming back. If I could. Maybe it was time to find something else to do.
“I didn’t mean it the way it sounded,” he said.
“Ageism.”
“Whoa! I apologize.”
“I know. It was a medical term.”
He looked relieved, unaware that I was having some small fun at his expense. He was intense. Perhaps too intense. And then I remembered for whom he worked. Chawlie would have made my cont
inued existence very important in this young man’s scheme of things. He’s like that. Chawlie can become very insistent when he wants something. Sometimes it makes people nervous.
“So when can I go home?”
“We’re going to let you rest for another day or so. If you continue to improve at the same rate we’ll let you go by Friday.”
“That’s great. What day is today?”
He laughed. “Tuesday. Don’t you read the newspapers?”
“Too depressing. Too much politics. Too much violence.”
“Considering what you’ve just been through, Mr. Caine, the newspapers should be restful. That police inspector talked to me, too. So did the ER crew. You were covered in blood, but we didn’t know it was yours. You made no complaint. Nobody thought you were hurt until you fell.”
“Haven’t you ever had to hold on until something got done?”
“Often,” he said, nodding. “During surgery you can’t afford to let down. Not even a little bit.”
“It was the same.”
He nodded. “One thing I haven’t had a chance to talk to you about, but it’s important. The woman who just left made me think about it. Your body has received a great deal of trauma. Your whole system was shocked. Then I inflicted even more trauma to your reproductive system in my business of healing you. You may have some problems with lovemaking for some time. Don’t worry. It’ll come back. Just don’t rush it.”
“You’re saying I’ll be impotent?”
“For a short time. You should expect it. Everything will come back. Eventually.”
“Eventually,” I said. “Not a problem. That woman is a friend, and she’s on her way to Colorado. I’ll be heading back to Hawaii in a few days. Difficult to get together that way, you know?”
“Then it should be a restful time for you.” He looked at me as if he didn’t believe me. “Be best, you know. You need the rest. Six weeks, minimum, Mr. Caine. No strenuous exercise. Just relax.” He patted my shoulder. “I don’t want you to find out the hard way how bad it can be. I’ll tell your doctor to arrange for an IVP before he removes that stent.”
“Ivy pee?”
“Intravenous pyleogram. It’s a noninvasive radiological test to watch how your kidneys are working.”
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