[Gina Mazzio RN 01.0 - 03.0] Bone Set

by JJ Lamb

  ”I thought that, too, at first. But, if you’d heard him—”

  “I’m sure it was scary. But you haven’t given me anything to work with.”

  “I see.”

  “Listen, if he calls again, give me a call. How long you gonna be there?”

  “I’m already off work, calling from my car.”

  “Wish I could be of more help, but this kind of thing’s pretty hard to track down.” She paused. “Let me mull it over. Call me if it happens again. Okay?”

  “I suppose it’ll have to be.”

  Gina started the Fiat and drove off into the darkness, her mind racing far ahead of every intersection. The detective hadn’t believed a word she’d said.

  If she and Harry weren’t getting married tomorrow, and out of town until Wednesday, she would have talked to her manager first thing Monday morning, or even now. But Lexie Alexandros was also going away for the weekend, might have left town already.

  She glanced at her watch. Late. She wondered if Harry was back from his travel assignment in Denver. If so, he was probably pacing the living room. wondering where she was. She sped up and gave a sigh of relief as she turned onto her street and, miracle of miracles, a car pulled away from the curb in front of the apartment building. She nosed into the empty space, avoiding having to do the dreadful parallel parking thing.

  When she entered the lobby, Harry was standing by the elevator, suitcases on the floor. “Great timing,” he said, giving her a huge grin.

  She ran toward him and launched all 5’10” of her into his arms.

  Harry squeezed her, nuzzled her neck. “Hey, beautiful, I wasn’t gone all that long. Just another out-of-towner.” He leaned back and looked straight into her eyes. “I sure did miss you, though.”

  “And I was afraid you’d be upstairs wondering what the heck happened to me.” She buried her fingers in his black hair and tousled his curls.

  He looked at her with dreamy blue eyes. “If you don’t stand on your own two feet soon, we’re both going down for the count.”

  She loosened her hold and allowed her feet to slide to the ground. He tightened his grip on her waist.

  “I’m so glad you’re back,” Gina said. Tears rolled down her cheeks; she pulled a tissue from her pocket.

  “Hey,” he said, pulling her into the elevator, “what’s going on?”

  She tapped the button for their floor. “I’ll tell you upstairs.”

  * * *

  “So, how was Denver?” Gina asked. They sat at the dinner table, bathed in the glow of candlelight. From the time they’d sat down, she’d merely picked at her food.

  “Another fiasco, but then what else is new?” He reached across and took her hand. “That’s not really important. Tell me what’s got you so upset.”

  “Later.” She still couldn’t talk about it. “I want to hear about your two-week stint in the Mile-High city.”

  He rolled his eyes to the ceiling, let out a deep groan, and put down his fork.

  “As usual, I couldn’t keep my big mouth shut – dared to question the ICU manager about her out-dated protocols for sepsis,” he said. “She all but told me to shove it and shove off. ‘What does a traveling nurse know anyway?’” He gave Gina a brilliant smile. “But the mountains were spectacular, covered with fresh, glistening snow. It was so pristine. I kept wishing you were there with me.”

  When she didn’t respond, he looked at her plate of pasta, which she’d still barely touched. “Hey, you usually like my Italian. Now I know there’s something seriously wrong.”

  Gina quickly stuffed a forkful of spaghetti into her mouth, chewed, then smacked her lips. “You’re the best Italian cook in the world. Next to me, of course.”

  She dipped her garlic bread into the sauce and took a big bite. She knew the concoction had its origins with an off-the-shelf brand that had been tastefully enhanced by Harry’s own combination of herbs and spices. It was pretty good ersatz Italian.

  “You’ve become even more adept at changing the subject than I am,” he said. “If you don’t want to talk about whatever it is, just say so.”

  Gina shrugged, took another bite of spaghetti, and started collecting their plates.

  “So, that was it with the ICU manager?” she asked as they rinsed off the dishes, put them in the dishwasher.

  “Unfortunately, no,” he said. “Actually, I sort of pulled a Gina.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  He ran soapy water into the pasta pot and swirled it around with a brush. “I did what I thought needed to be done.”

  “Oh-oh!”

  Harry kissed her cheek. “Anyway, instead of a reprimand, I got bamboozled into going before the hospital’s Future Health Care Committee, jumped right in and told them how inadequate their provisions were for the community’s underprivileged. And I suggested that maybe the docs should step up to the plate and become more vocal if they wanted to see any real change.”

  “Are we the only ones who actually think a change in health care for the poor is going to happen?”

  “I hope not.”

  “Don’t know why you go to meetings like that. It’s always talk, talk, talk. Nothing ever seems to get done.”

  “Yeah, but just think about it: Out on the road, I get a nice variety of bureaucratic bullshit, while at Ridgewood, you get the same old crap over and over. How boring is that?”

  Gina stretched and headed for the living room. “Let’s have some music to soothe the savage breast.” She set the player on random after selecting a number of their favorite CDs.

  “You got Santana on there?” he asked.

  ”That and some Gato Barbieri.”

  Harry leered at her. “Ah, wild romance to a Latin beat.”

  Gina smiled, but avoided saying anything about their plans for the next day.

  “I’ve seen that look before, Mazzio. You aren’t going to do it again, are you?”

  “Do what?”

  “C’mon! Regina and Bill have gone to a lot of trouble to make things happen.” He straightened the scatter of magazines on the coffee table, a little more forcefully than necessary.

  “I know,” she said. The Latin beat floated through the small apartment.

  Grabbing her hand, he pulled her down onto the teal-blue sofa they’d recently found at a garage sale. He tossed the purple throw pillows on the floor and nodded at the print of Chagall’s Lovers in the Night that hung over the sofa.

  “I still think that’s a portrait of us,” he whispered.

  They kissed until Harry pulled away. “I missed you, beautiful, and I really want to talk about our wedding, but before we do anything, you have to tell me what has you so down.”

  It took a moment for her to get the words out. “Something happened; it triggered some old memories. That’s all.”

  “The woman I ate dinner with tonight is not the woman I’m planning to marry tomorrow. My fiancée would have given me a half-hour discourse, with flying hands, for God’s sake, in a lousy Bronx-Italian accent about my hybrid spaghetti sauce.”

  He tilted her chin; they gazed into each other’s eyes. “Now tell me what’s going on. Please!”

  She struggled up from the sofa and walked to the window. Rain was coming down hard again, cascading from the eaves and rushing furiously into the street. The streetlights made it look as if someone was pouring water from a huge bottomless bucket.

  “I spoke to a crazy man today.”

  “A man? I thought most of the nutcases you spoke to in Ob/Gyn were women.”

  “Ha, ha! Aren’t you the cute one?”

  Harry held up his hands in mock surrender. “Just trying to be my usual humorous self.”

  “This guy wasn’t funny. He said a woman had been cut into pieces.”

  Harry rescued a pillow from the floor and tossed it back onto the sofa. “Come on, Gina. He’s not the first nitwit who’s tried to get his jollies by shaking you up on the phone.”

  “True. And it takes a lot
to get to me, really get to me. But this was different.”

  He moved next to her at the window, slipped a hand into hers. They both watched the rain and wind tear at an umbrella a woman was struggling to close before dashing into an apartment building across the way.

  “You should have heard his voice, Harry. He was having so much trouble breathing it intensified everything he said. Made it even creepier.”

  “Why would he call a female advice line?”

  “Wish I knew.”

  Harry wrapped his arms around her, crushed her to him. “I haven’t seen you so wrought up, so troubled since the last union negotiations.”

  “I wanted to let Lexie Alexandros know about it, but she was gone at five … on the dot. I tried the hospital’s Security Hot Line. And guess what? It was busy. I even tried Administration, if you can believe it.”

  Gina said in a falsetto voice, “‘Ridgewood General’s administrative offices are closed for the weekend. Please call back during regular business hours.’”

  “I felt like I was the only one left, not only in the clinic, but the entire hospital.”

  “What about the police?” Harry said.

  “All I had was a wild story to tell, with no facts to back it up. Besides, I’d had it. I needed to get out of there. I called the cops on my cell in the Fiat and the detective I talked to treated me as though I was mentally challenged. She basically blew me off.”

  “There’s nothing you can do now. Tell your manager about it when you get back to work on Wednesday. You know, after everyone has finally started calling you Mrs. Lucke.”

  “I can’t let go of it, Harry. What if there is some sicko out there.”

  “And what if it’s just some Neanderthal playing a rotten prank?”

  Gina kept hearing the caller’s words as a replay, over and over and over: Someone has to stop the cutting, the killing.

  “But suppose he’s murdered a woman?” Gina returned to the sofa and plopped down. If Harry didn’t believe her, who would?

  “Okay. So on Wednesday, tell Alexandros—”

  “—and she’ll tell the administrator, and neither of them will believe me. This time I’ll probably get tossed out into the street. Good ole troublemaker Mazzio.”

  Chapter 4

  Three times the caller circled the block, slowing down as the St. George Specialty Meats sign came into view. Instead of turning into the parking lot, he floored the accelerator, taking another spin around the block. He wracked his mind, went thought of every possible scenario to keep from doing what had to be done. It was too late. The ER nurse had recognized him, could tell the world what a monster he really was.

  Maybe that would be better. Just get it over with.

  But he finally drove through the opening in the chain link fence, parked the Jaguar in the shadows at the rear of the building, and walked to the back of the car. When he lifted the trunk lid, the woman unfolded like a striking viper – teeth bared, fingernails extended. She lunged for his eyes.

  He flinched, held her off with one arm, and punched her hard on the side of the head. She whimpered like a small puppy and collapsed back into the trunk. He stood transfixed, looking at her closed eyes, her limp body. The back door to the shop swung open, slammed into the outer wall with a bang.

  “It’s about time,” a gruff voice shouted. “I’ve been waiting more than an hour.”

  Eddie St. George yanked the woman from the trunk, carried her inside, and dropped her onto a large, scarred cutting table.

  “Can’t even get here on time. Jeez, you’re useless as tits on a boar.”

  Eddie ignored the tirade, used a boning knife to cut away the raincoat and scrubs. When she was naked, he duct-taped her ankles together, hoisted her on his shoulder, and hung her upside down between two sides of beef.

  “Get out of my way!”

  Eddie stepped back, dropped onto a stainless steel stool.

  “Look at her! What have you done to her face?”

  “I had to–“

  “How many times have I told you to stay away from their faces?”

  “I thought—”

  “You thought?” Jacob sneered at him, flicked the back of his hand at Eddie.

  “Maybe we should let this one go, Father.” Eddie clutched hard at the sides of the stool.

  Jacob laughed, fingered the woman’s arms, then squeezed her thighs. “No, she’s ours now.”

  Eddie fed a spark of rebellion. “You promised you’d tell me. Where is she?”

  Jacob leveled a burning gaze at him. “I’ll tell you where your mother is when I’m good and ready. Stop asking me every damn time we do this.”

  “You’ve been promising that for ten years.”

  “So?” Jacob swung the naked nurse into one of the beef carcasses, then waited for her to bounce back before pushing her again. “And during those ten years you’ve been up to your ass in this whole shtick.” Jacob pointed a finger at him. “Right?”

  Eddie closed his eyes, nodded his head.

  “I still remember that first little tasty piece you brought me.” He started swinging the woman again, back and forth, back and forth. “Little Eddie will do exactly what I tell him to do. Now get off your ass and get things ready. Milty Hiller will be here any minute. He’ll expect the packages to be sealed and ready for pick up.”

  The woman’s eyes fluttered, opened wide. “What?” She stared at them from her upside down position.

  “This is how you treat them. Watch!” Jacob spun the woman around and kicked her in the back of the head.

  “Please,” she pleaded, the word barely understandable. “Let me down. Please!”

  Another harsh bark of laughter cut through the room.

  The woman continued to spin. “Stop! Stop!” she screamed. “Please stop! I’ll do anything you want.”

  “You’re not fucking your way out of this, Ms. Nightingale.”

  High-pitched shrieks lanced Eddie St. Georges’ brain.

  Chapter 5

  Gina had backed out of their wedding again.

  Harry walked out on her Friday night after a horrendous fight, convinced she was never going to marry him. She’d never seen him so angry

  She spent the weekend hiding out in the movies. All she wanted was to forget her own problems, get lost in someone else’s story. But each time she left the theater’s cocoon and headed home, the reality that Harry might be gone forever hit her hard – her head ached, her stomach roiled, and her legs trembled.

  Monday morning, dressed and ready for work, she called her manager at the stroke of 8:00.

  “Lexie? Gina! I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

  “Really? I hope this doesn’t have anything to do with your derriere not being where it’s supposed to be on Wednesday morning.”

  “Sort of.”

  “Not one extra day off. That’s final!”

  “Not what I had in mind,” Gina said. “I’m home and available to work today, if you need me. But we have o talk later–“

  “Home?”

  “Like I said, we can talk later. Do you want me or don’t you?”

  “Gina, you know damn well the answer to that. It’s Monday!”

  * * *

  When Gina entered the Advice Center, her two co-workers were stunned into a rare silence. She said nothing as she slipped into her chair and began taking calls.

  “This is Gina. Yes, I do remember. We talked last week. You still have that infection? Even after you tried what I suggested? Guess we better bring you in and have a look. How about tomorrow at ten?”

  While she waited for the patient to check her schedule, she started entering notes in the computer.

  “Okay. Sorry things haven’t cleared up.” She said, clicked off, and said aloud, “I swear, if I have to talk to one more female about a yeast infection, I’m going to go bonkers.”

  “Yeah, you’re already bonkers,” Shelly said. “Besides, you’re supposed to be on your honeymoon, not here ta
king yeast infection calls.”

  “Cut to the chase, Mazzio,” Tina said. “What happened? Why no big, rosy I-got-fucked expression?”

  Tina and Shelly cocked their heads, waited for her to explain.

  “We didn’t get married. That’s it! What else do you need to know?”

  “So the Bronx bombshell really bombed, huh?”

  “Just like you to blame it on me, Tina. How do you know it wasn’t Harry’s fault?”

  “Give me a break,” Shelly said. “That guy would do anything for you.”

  “Admit it,” Tina said, “you don’t want to get hitched, no matter what kind of bullshit story you make up.”

  “You have such a professional way of expressing yourself.”

  “If you don’t grab that guy while the grabbin’s good, someone else is going to come along and steal him right out from under you … so to speak.”

  “Man, he can park his naked buns between my sheets any time,” Shelly said, shaking her shoulders to jiggle her ample breasts.

  “Don’t you guys ever listen to me? I’m seriously gun-shy about getting married again.”

  “Oh-oh!” Tina said. “I think we’re back in the middle of that boring, never-ending ‘Will Mazzio Ever Get Married Again’ soap opera. I can hear the violins now as you chatter on about the abusive ex-husband.”

  “You don’t know the whole story.”

  “So you’ve been messed with, been through the wars,” Tina said. “It’s time to move on, baby.”

  “The milk of human kindness just gushes through those skinny veins of yours,” Gina snapped.

  Shelly pointed at Tina. “Hey, she’s got a point there, girl.”

  “So, maybe you’re both right.” The room turned silent except for Gina blowing her nose into a tissue.

  “It’s not that we don’t empathize with your past,” Shelly said, “it’s just that you keep living in it.”

  “I wish it were different, but when it comes to marriage, something always makes me turn and run.”

  “To hell with that,” Tina said. “Marry them and worry about it later.”