He stood over me, panting.
“Good-bye, John Caine,” he hissed, a whisper of hatred only the two of us could hear.
I jackknifed off the ground and thrust the Buck into his groin with all my remaining strength, slicing muscle and grinding bone, burying the blade to the hilt, twisting as I stabbed him at the fork of his legs.
He screamed, doubled over, then righted himself and fled across the street, wrenching the knife from my hand.
Albert struck his assailant when the man turned his head toward his partner’s scream. The man fell, then got up and scampered toward the alley, where the third man stood in the shadows. When the two men disappeared, the third man backed away, still facing us, until he, too, vanished. It was as if he had faded into nothingness. If I believed in ghosts or vampires I would have believed him one of those creatures of the night.
He was scary enough just being flesh and blood.
He looked familiar, but if it were the Vietnamese soldier, he would have been a ghost. I had killed him on that muddy hill, killed him as certainly as he had killed me.
The dream flooded into my consciousness. The end of the dream, the memory from so many years before, winked at me as it floated past on my synapses. The end of the fight that I had forgotten, that had haunted me, had come and then vanished. I remembered. And then I did not.
“Albert,” I said, my voice a hoarse rasp.
“Yes,” Chen had started after the two men, then thought better about entering the alley alone, armed only with his Indian cane. He was panting heavily, his breath coming in whoops and cackles.
“Angel,” I said, pointing. I was in no better shape.
He knelt next to her, felt for a pulse in her wrist, shook his head impatiently, and tried the artery in her throat. He must have felt something because he smiled quickly, replaced by a grim determination.
“She’s not dead,” he said, “but we have to get her to a hospital.”
“She’s not dead,” I said stupidly.
He crawled over to me. “Can you walk?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked around. The street was deserted. No cars, no pedestrians. Nothing came our way. Except for the veil of fog bestowing a halo to the neon lights, the street was dark and deserted.
“I think we’d better call the police,” he said, reaching for his cellular telephone.
“Yeah,” I said. The black spots were growing. When I looked at his face he had a strange complexion that reminded me of a leopard. I almost expected his ears and teeth to grow into points. “Get an ambulance, too. Angelica needs one.”
“You’re hurt,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said, trying to sit up and not making it. I lay down in the street, my back against the cold, rough surface, and closed my eyes. I saw the ending of the dream, just the way it was. I concentrated, trying to hold the memory, and then it floated away again.
“They hurt Angel. Can you believe that? Just because she was with me.”
I rolled over and tried to look at the sky, obscured by a thick blanket of fog. “I don’t think I like this town.”
47
I lay on a cot in the emergency room for two hours before I saw a doctor. While I waited I gave my version of the events to both a uniformed officer and a detective. Each time I gave a statement my attorney was present. He was present because he was lying on the cot next to mine. He had taken a nasty bump on the head and the powers that be decided that it would be better for all concerned if a medical professional took a look at it. So we waited among the ill and the injured, the accident victims and gunshot casualties, for the next available physician.
They took Angel into surgery as soon as they looked at her. Something to do with a cervical and cranial injury that the doctors feared might paralyze her if they didn’t get to it immediately.
Daniel waited with us, having come upon us while the police were still at the scene. After we had not appeared at The Jade Palace, he called the hotel. Learning that we had walked, he came looking for us.
Using his California Bar Association membership card he got inside the ring of police and yellow tape. It was Daniel who had taken charge, reminding the officers just who Chen’s friends were, and how seriously injured we were. It was Daniel who had secured us our ride to the hospital, instead of the jail. It was Daniel who had found a physician for Angel. It was Daniel who had convinced the police that we were victims and not perpetrators. And it was Daniel who had finally called in a private physician to look after Mr. Chen’s head and another one to look after my injuries.
Fortunately Chen’s head was just bruised. My arm was broken. The stent they had put in the kidney had also become dislodged during the fight and had slipped down the tube between the kidney and the bladder, blocking it. Some blood was pooling beneath the organ, which caused them even more concern, and they wheeled me out of the emergency room directly into surgery. I waved at Daniel and Chen just as the anesthesiologist injected me with a wonder drug that took me up and away in the space of a heartbeat. One moment I was waving, my hand in the air. The next instant the world turned black and John Caine was gone.
An angel hovered above me. Standing next to my bed, she looked exactly like Angelica, and I decided that the beautiful vision in front of my eyes must be she. Somewhere, deep down in the crevices of my cerebellum I knew that it could not be Angelica unless this time she was a real angel and we both were dead. But in my fuzzy state I decided that the bad dream I’d had had been just another one of those, and she was there to comfort me once again. My arm snaked out of the covers of its own volition and cupped one firm buttock beneath white nylon and spandex, just the way Angelica liked it. It was one of her favorite places. And one of mine.
“Stop!” She slapped my hand down.
“Looks like he’s getting better,” said a familiar voice.
“He’s a pig,” a familiar female voice said.
Dim as I was, I concluded that Angelica and I were not alone.
“That’s assault, buster.” The female voice sounded angry. My heart sunk. I recognized its owner.
“Come on,” said the male voice. “He’s just coming out of the anesthetic.”
“It’s a natural reflex,” said the angry voice of Shirley Henderson. “The anesthetic is just an excuse for him to act like a pig.”
“Hello, Detective Henderson,” I said with a mouth that felt like dry brush. “How nice to see you again.”
“Caine, the police person is here to see you.” That voice I recognized.
I opened my eyes. Chen had a puffy face, and he would have some souvenirs of the fight, but he looked none the worse for wear. Behind him, the police detective who had put me in jail the last time I’d come to San Francisco stood waiting, her arms crossed, an impatient look on her face.
“He’s right,” I said, my brain beginning to emerge from the fuzz. “I apologize, Nurse, and to you, too, Detective. It’s just the drugs.”
The nurse patted my hand.
I noted that she stood several feet away from the bed and leaned over to pat me before she left the room.
“The good news,” said Chen, “is that they took out your stent. You no longer have it.”
“Then there’s got to be a bunch of bad news.”
“Not so much. Your arm is broken, you’ve had more surgery on your kidney, so they sliced you up again. But your injuries are not as great as they feared when you first came in. You’re going to feel terrible for a few weeks, and,” he indicated Detective Henderson, “this lady still wants to put you in prison.”
“Now wait a minute,” she said, indignant.
“How is Angel?”
Chen smiled sadly. “They say she will be fine. She had a fractured skull, but her neck was not broken. It will take some time, but they say she will fully recover.”
“That’s good news.” I focused on the San Francisco detective. “What did I do wrong this time, Detective? Mr. Chen here is a highly regarded member of the Ba
r, not an assassin, not a gang member. I almost lost a good friend tonight, and my friend here was hurt, and I was hurt. What are you going to charge me with this time? Is it the practice of the San Francisco Police Department to let the felon go free while they jail the victim? Or is it just your idea?”
“John,” Chen said. “You are tired, and you have just come out surgery. I’m going to go get the doctor to chase this young lady out of the recovery room.” He stared at Henderson. “Do not ask him any questions while I’m gone.”
She nodded, and Chen went out the door.
“I’ll go,” she said to me. “It’s not my case, anyway. Every time you’re out there on my streets someone gets killed. Tonight we found two bodies near where you had your fight. I don’t like it, and I don’t like having you here. Please. For the sake of peace in my town, please just leave. As soon as you can.”
Two bodies?
I wanted to ask, but didn’t dare.
She looked at me, as if expecting me to confess all. True to her word she did not ask a question, although I knew she must have wanted to ask dozens. When I did nothing but stare back at her she turned and left the room, almost running into a woman who looked like a doctor on the way out.
“I’m leaving,” Shirley said to the woman.
“Are you okay?” The physician smiled down at me. She had a kind face.
“Hurt like hell. Otherwise … okay.”
“You need anything?”
“More drugs.”
She shook her head and smiled. “Not so fast. You’re not totally down from your pink cloud yet.”
Chen looked embarrassed. “Oh, this is Dr. Nancy McDevitt. Dr. McDevitt is your surgeon.”
“Am I going to live?”
“Well, that’s up to you. I read your chart. You seem to like it here in our hospital. But, yes, you’re going to be fine. We had to go in and open you up again and make some minor repairs, and you’ll have another scar to add to your collection, but everything should be fine in about six weeks.”
“Six weeks.”
“I know, we always say that. But it’s true.”
“I got shot six weeks ago. I just started feeling well for the first time tonight.”
“It was last night, but you’ll be fine.” She scribbled something in my chart and patted Chen’s shoulder and left us alone. He stood at the foot of the bed and looked sadly at me.
“Two bodies?”
“They found the bodies of two young Asian males lying in an alley about a block from where we were attacked. One was shot. They found a knife embedded in the other’s pelvic bone. It had sliced through a major artery in his leg. They’re assuming right now that he bled to death. The blood trail went all the way back to our location.”
“He knew my name.”
“What?”
“One of the killers, the one with the sai. He knew my name. How did he know my name?”
“I don’t know.”
“This was personal. This wasn’t random.”
Chen nodded.
“They going to arrest me for this?”
Chen tried on a ghastly smile, held up the empty knife sheath that had been on my belt and shook his head. Then he put it away in his pocket.
“Then I want to go home, Albert.” I lay back and closed my eyes. “I just want to go home.”
“You have a visitor,” said Felix, my bodyguard, much chastened, and back in his old location just outside my door. He stuck his head in, made the announcement, and backed out, still too embarrassed to confront the evidence of his failure. His absence had not been adequately explained, and from what Daniel had told me, he had felt terrible when he had heard the news. Some bodyguard, my Felix. The only time I really needed him he was missing in action. His assignment outside my door was his obvious penance. I wondered what else Chawlie had in mind for him, but I didn’t want to dwell.
Barbara came in wearing a tight white top and some kind of calf-length pants that I think used to be called Capri pants the last time they were in vogue. She was tanned and she looked healthy, the way people do when they’ve spent a lot of time outdoors. And under the tan, and under the healthy exterior, she glowed, and I suddenly realized that Barbara Klein was in love.
She leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. “Between you and David I have spent way too much time in hospitals,” she said.
“How’s David?”
“He’s fine. He’s got two of those,” she indicated my cast, “but he figured out how to use his laptop, so he doesn’t mind all that much, and he’s really, really happy. That young lady he met over there, the archeologist, she seems to be a wonderful girl. I don’t like it when he is hurt, but I understand that you helped catch the ones responsible for it that night, and so I thank you again.”
That was a lot of words for her to say in a short amount of time, and she seemed to rush to get them all out of her at once.
“How’s Colorado?”
“Telluride’s wonderful. I’m there full-time now, when I’m not flying off to Honolulu to see my son in the hospital, or stopping off in San Francisco to see an old friend in the hospital. They’re still having problems making the schedule, but they’re really trying now that I’m there watching them every day. We’re about to open the first phase, and I’ve got to run. Bill’s downstairs with the car. I just wanted to see how you were.”
“I’m fine.” Bill?
“Did you shave off your beard?”
“For the trial.”
She nodded. “You should think about keeping it off. It makes you look a little less fierce.” She gazed at me and I wished I could read her thoughts. Probably wondering how a woman like her could have ever found herself involved with a man like me.
“Well …”
“I know. You gotta go. I’m glad you stopped by.”
“I would have come to your trial, but I didn’t think … it was appropriate. I was afraid that they were going to put you away forever.”
“There was that possibility.”
“I stayed away because I didn’t want to be linked to you. I cannot afford to be tied to you, or to your activities.”
“I know. I’m a pirate. Is Bill respectable?”
She blushed. “He’s … very respectable. We met in Telluride. He has one of his homes up there.”
“And you’re in love.”
“He’s asked me to marry him and I said yes.”
“Then I wish you both much happiness.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes, Barbara.”
She leaned over and kissed me again. On the forehead. Again. I caught the scent of her perfume and it made me remember.
“You take care, you old pirate. I’ll never forget you.”
“I’m unforgettable.”
She nodded.
“David’s still in Hawaii. He went back to the site, wherever it is. It’s all so hush-hush. There’s a lot of excitement between those two. Do you know what they’re doing?”
“Yes.”
“It’s all some big secret, isn’t it?”
“It is, but I’m sure David will tell you about it.”
“He said he would. But not yet. Why does that bother me?”
“Because he is an adult now, and he has obligations other than to his mother.”
“You’re so flip with your answers, buster, but this time I think you’re right.” She looked out my window and I followed her gaze. The fog had moved in over the tops of the hills again. “I’ve got to get going. Bill’s holding the plane, but I wanted to stop by and see you.”
“An old friend. Does he know about us?”
“No.”
“He won’t hear it from me.”
She smiled, nodded, and left the room and my life.
Smart woman.
48
I sneaked out of the hospital without telling anyone but Angel. I kissed her good-bye, squeezed her hand and promised to come back for her when she was ready to travel, slipped past my bodyguar
d, and flew a commercial jet to Honolulu. I’d had enough of California, and I’d had enough of that beautiful, but cold and clammy, city by the Bay. I’d had enough loss and enough hurt. I’d had enough of the state’s problems and its weird laws, and the cold burning anger that seemed to permeate my experience there.
Finally, I’d had enough of hospitals. Assured that I was out of danger, Dr. McDevitt wasn’t quite certain she wanted to let me go.
“We’d like to keep you here for a few more weeks just to make certain that you will not relapse,” she said.
Relapse, hell, I’d had enough of their advice and their treatments. They would keep me there until I died of old age before they would be absolutely certain that I wouldn’t relapse. Chawlie’s mandate, I believed, had been very strong, indeed. So, free from consultation or prescription, I took myself out of the hospital, signed waiver after waiver, releasing them from all liability, including one that I particularly liked, a smart piece of legalese that indemnified the hospital “until the end of time.” I kept that one, wondering at the mind that could have produced it, and tossed the rest.
I wasn’t suing anyone.
That wasn’t the way I settled my disputes.
I flew first class, the only grade that was tolerable in my condition, and slept for most of the six-and-a-half-hour interval of suspended animation, waking only at the last minute to fill out and sign the little paper that reminded me I was a returning resident.
A returning resident. I liked what it said. I was a resident. Returning. I liked the word. I had been gone. And now I was home.
But back in Honolulu I found I had nowhere to go. Without Olympia I could not do as I normally did when recovering from trauma. For some reason I didn’t want to seek Chawlie’s help. Not yet. I was sick of depending on others and I needed time to heal and lick my wounds without the benefit of well-meaning friends. And I didn’t want or need another nurse. Angelica was still in the hospital. I didn’t want a replacement.
Feeling physically ill, weak and exhausted, I checked myself into one of the anonymous tourist hotels along the Waikiki shoreline and hid among the tall buildings and the sandy playgrounds. In a week I began to feel better. Solitude gave me time to reflect, and to heal some of the emotional wounds as well as the physical ones. I still had my nightmare. The young soldier came to visit nearly every other night and I would wake with the memory of a scream and the taste of copper in my mouth. I had no one to rub my back and comfort me in my terror, and no one to chase the adrenaline shakes away with her warmth and her tenderness. I was forced to confront my fear, exactly as I had confronted that soldier on that hill so many years before.
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