Eyes Wide Open

by Andrew Gross

  “You know the score here . . . I give this blade a little twist into your carotid artery, you last what, ten, fifteen seconds, before irreversible brain damage begins to occur? Thirty, maybe, at the most, before you bleed out.”

  Yes, those were about the numbers.

  “Now this may hurt a little, doc . . .” He laughed. “You know, I bet you’ve probably said that to people a thousand times.”

  He seized me by the collar. I was listing in and out of consciousness, trying to will myself not to give in.

  “Your brother and his wife are going to be dead soon.”

  His words reverberated through my brain like far-off echoes, echoes that filled me with remorse that I couldn’t do anything about it. And dread.

  And sadness. For Kathy and Maxie and Sophie. Knowing I would never see any of them again. Thinking of the agonizing way they were going to hear of how I died. Probably believing I’d lost my mind out here.

  “Oh, and one last thing. You better listen closely, doc . . .” He raised my face, so close to his I could almost feel his smile, the intensity of his eyes.

  And as I passed out, he said the words that turned my last nightmare into an even greater hell.

  Chapter Seventy

  Officer Tim Riesdorfer had been on the job only a little more than a year now, but that was long enough to know he hadn’t been handed the plum assignment that night.

  He sat in his patrol car down the block from 609 Division Street, watching the ground floor apartment on the other side of the courtyard.

  Maybe he’d pissed off his sarge by being a little overzealous with that tourist in town the other night, catching him making an illegal turn and not liking the guy’s attitude and all—and showing him who was boss by slapping on the cuffs and threatening to throw his ass in jail.

  Okay, he knew he got a little jumpy now and then. I mean, he’d spent eighteen months in ’Stan, and if that didn’t make you jumpy, nothing would. But being pulled off his regular assignment and told to sit here all night by the tracks and watch over this rat trap . . . As what? A favor for some coroner’s detective. Not even a real cop.

  All he was told to do was watch out for this car—and if he saw it, to radio in.

  Not even go for the arrest!

  He glanced at the two APBs on the passenger seat. One was for the car: navy Kia wagon with the license plate 657 E4G.

  The other was for a woman, Susan Jane Pollack. A photo from DMV. She looked like she was around fifty. Short, light brown hair. Not pretty. So far he hadn’t seen anyone down here but two teenagers, winding their way into the woods, most likely on their way to get high.

  By all means, light one up on me!

  Suddenly something caught his attention. A vehicle turning into the building, into the carport.

  He rolled down the window, focusing on the model and the plates. Nah, it was a Honda. A person stepped out. One motherfucking, heavyset Latino, not a woman at all, who went around the car and opened the hatch. He watched the dude head into the courtyard with an armful of groceries, climb the outside stairs to his second-floor apartment.

  Hot shit, Timmy boy.

  He heard Dispatch send out a call for an officer to be sent to 407 Hilltop. A domestic dispute. He was only a couple of blocks away. He could be on the scene in seconds.

  Anything was better than this.

  He went to ask permission to investigate when suddenly there was a rapping on his passenger window.

  It was a woman. Dark glasses and a kind of baseball cap down over her eyes. Her short hair barely peeking through. She was trying to ask him something, indicating for him to lower his window.

  He did, just slightly, leaning forward. “Sorry, I’m off duty, ma’am . . .”

  She asked, “Do you know where 730 Division would be?”

  That was just down the street, in the other direction, which Tim Riesdorfer was about to tell her when his eye went from her face to the photo on the seat, and he felt his whole body jolt like when his convoy was ambushed as he noticed the slightest resemblance in her eyes.

  Instinctively he reached for his gun, leaning toward her, but the only thing that came out of his mouth was “Hey . . .”

  The initial shot burst through his jaw and out the side of his neck, blood suddenly all over his chest. No pain, no panic, just this sense that he was really, really confused, and he turned toward his lowered window in the direction of the shooter . . .

  The second shot was only a bright yellow spark that made his world colorless forever.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  I blinked.

  My eyes opened.

  I tried to turn, my head seemingly held in a restraint. My arms and legs were numb. My thoughts completely blurred. I ratcheted my eyes from side to side.

  As I tried to get my bearings, I heard a voice:

  “We’ll be arriving at the hospital in five minutes.”

  How was I alive?

  There was a mask pressed over my face, oxygen flowing. I stretched my eyes and saw a green-clad EMT, a woman. Red hair tied back in a ponytail. I felt an IV tube coming out of my arm. My vitals beeping back on a monitor. The EKG needle going crazy.

  “You were attacked,” the med tech said. “You’re on the way to the hospital. Just hold on . . .”

  Through the haze, I strained to recall what had happened.

  I remembered running back to my room, looking frantically for something. A book? After that, everything was a complete blank. I felt a stinging pain on my neck and a throbbing on my palm. I lifted it slightly to look. It was wrapped in gauze.

  Then it hit me, there was something I needed to say . . .

  Something important.

  “I just want to prepare you,” the EMT said. “When we get to the hospital, we’re going to wheel you into the ER. They may want to ask you some questions there, if you can concentrate. About what happened, who did this to you.”

  I know, I said to myself. I know all this.

  I suddenly remembered. I’m a doctor . . .

  My brain was buzzing. I tried to focus. There was something I needed to tell them.

  Was that it?

  No, it was something much more vital, but my mind was totally clouded and whatever it was bobbed farther and farther away on a wave of unconsciousness, drifting out to sea . . .

  I could hear by the beep that my heart rate was slow and my blood pressure was falling. You can’t let me die.

  I heard the siren and the ambulance swerved into a turn. I tried to speak and latched on to the tech’s arm.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, “we’ll be there in a minute. You’re a lucky man your door was left open and people found you when they did . . .”

  Door left open . . . ?

  I suddenly saw Dev, the knife at my throat. Saying good-bye to Kathy and the kids. Knowing I was about to die.

  And then the words he had said as I slipped into darkness.

  Words that jarred me all over again—my mind sliding backward; my pulse starting to dive; the beeps growing louder and louder as I conjured up Dev’s face, his chilling smile, and his knife dancing before my eyes:

  “We’ve got your son.”

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  I woke again just as we arrived at the hospital. My head was still in a daze, and woozy.

  The EMTs briefed the ER doctor and a nurse they had radioed ahead to. “Patient’s name is Erlich, Jay . . . Lacerations on his hand and arm. Cranial trauma. Blood pressure one sixty over eighty. Heart rate one thirty . . . He’s been drifting in and out of consciousness . . .”

  “Okay, sir,” the Latino ER nurse said confidently to me, “we’re going to take care of you now . . .”

  They eased me out of the ambulance and onto a gurney. I grabbed the ER doctor by the arm. Even my own voice was a reeling echo. “I’m a doctor. I need a policeman.”

  “We’re all aware of that. You can be sure a detective will be here shortly. In the meantime we’re just gonna check you o
ut.”

  They wheeled me inside the ER, a nurse stabilizing the IV line alongside. I knew my brain was still swollen from being beaten, and most likely, I had a concussion. And multiple lacerations. Even dazed, I knew they’d be sending in an investigative team when they checked me out. That was standard procedure.

  I still didn’t even know what I was doing alive.

  Suddenly I flashed to what Dev had said as I blacked out.

  About Max.

  I had to let Kathy know.

  I tried to force myself up, tugging against the binds. “Hold on there, sir.” The ER nurse restrained me. “We’ll have a room set up for you as soon as we can check you out.”

  “No, no, you don’t understand . . .”

  I was seized by an onrush of panic. My mind was still in a haze. I had no idea how much time had elapsed since Dev had attacked me. He had told me Charlie and Gabby were next. They might even be dead by now. Or any minute, as I lay there.

  I grabbed the nurse’s wrist and tried to force myself up. Even words were difficult. “My brother, I need to call him . . .”

  “Someone from the detective’s unit is on his way,” the nurse answered me. “They’ll be here soon.”

  Soon? Soon wouldn’t work. I need someone now!

  I fell back, still numb, and they wheeled me into a hallway in what appeared to be the triage area. “We’re just going to leave you here for a moment while a station opens up. It’ll only be a minute. Then we’ll check you out . . .”

  Slowly, I felt my wits beginning to come back to me. My head throbbed and my recollection of the beating was a blur, but I knew I couldn’t wait around for some detective to arrive. And then have to explain the whole thing to him. Dev had said my brother and Gabby were in danger. And I needed to find out about my son. Fear and worry seemed to cut through the haze.

  I needed to do something—now.

  I saw that I was alone outside a line of curtained treatment rooms. The two EMTs were no longer around. The ER nurse had gone to get an admitting form. A few patients were crowded around the admitting station, clamoring to see a doctor.

  I had to get to a phone.

  I raised myself up. My head felt about twice its normal size. I was still wearing the clothes I had on when I was beaten, and there was blood dried all over me. Every minute I waited was a minute Charlie and Gabby might be in trouble. My thoughts suddenly flashed to Sherwood—what had happened to him?

  But my first priority was to call Kathy about Max.

  I pulled myself up to a sitting position, steadying myself on the gurney rails, trying to determine how I was going to explain everything to a new detective.

  That was when I knew I had to leave.

  Impaired or not, I had to find out about Max. And I had to go to Charlie’s.

  I looked around and, for that second, couldn’t spot any of the medical team who had wheeled me in. Or the EMTs. I disengaged the IV, slipping the needle out of my forearm with a sharp sting; grabbed a sheet off the gurney; and dabbed away a spot of blood. A Hispanic mother and son who’d been injured seemed to be occupying the attention of the front desk.

  I pushed off the gurney and headed in the direction I had come from, fully expecting to hear someone shouting, “Stop! Stop!” any second, but no one did. I thought about going to the front desk and calling the police, but whether my reasoning was rational or flawed, the voice inside my head kept on telling me I had to get out of there now.

  I ran toward the exit.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  “I can still see the police car out there,” Charlie said, peeking through the curtains at the vehicle in the shadows across the street.

  He and Gabby had sat around all afternoon and into the night, looking through old photos of their families and Evan as a kid. They hadn’t told anyone about what they had found. Evan’s sneaker. They had decided that this was their fate to bear. How they wanted this to end. They’d decided not to put anyone else at risk. Especially Jay. This was where all the reversals of their ruined lives had led them. Charlie strummed a few of his songs on the busted Stratocaster. The splintered neck to his acoustic guitar sat on the mantel above the fireplace. The broken body leaned against the wall, like a boat without a mast, a reminder of all his busted dreams.

  Periodically he stirred and jumped up to the window, whenever they heard a noise outside.

  “It’s just someone passing by,” Gabby would say.

  “He’s still just sitting out there,” Charlie said, parting the curtains.

  “Look,” Gabby said. She went to show him the album. “Do you remember this?”

  The photo was of Evan, Charlie, and her at Hearst Castle, sixty miles up the coast. Evan was sixteen then, already more than six feet and fully grown. That was the last time they had left their town. He still had that innocent, freckled face. The truth was, even at that time, he was already taking his anger out on them, beating up on them, using slurs and ugly names. Threatening to kill them one day. Yet there they were—smiling, a family. The same day they had watched a colony of sea lions on the rocks.

  Gabby smiled tenderly. “We had some good times, didn’t we, Charlie? We did.”

  “Something weird is going on out there.” He was ignoring her. “The passenger window, it’s been down for a while. I can’t see anyone in the car. What if something’s happened, Gabby? What if something’s gone wrong?”

  He was ranting, Gabby knew. But this time he actually had something to fear. She went over to the window and looked out too. “Of course, it’s dark. The streetlamps are out, this godforsaken place . . . Come back over here and sit with—”

  They saw it at the same time. Both their eyes grew wide. They gasped in unison.

  A woman. Outside. In a cap pulled down, with her hair barely showing through. Standing there, staring directly at them. Like a ghost had suddenly appeared.

  Gabby, whose imagination ran to things like that, screamed.

  The woman stood there in the cone of yellow lamplight, smiling at them.

  Then, in the next instant, she headed toward the front door.

  “Charlie, quick!” Gabby shouted. “She’s trying to get in.”

  Charlie darted to the door just as the woman got there, twisting forcefully on the handle.

  “Charlie, make sure it’s locked!” Gabby instructed him, her heart flailing.

  They heard the handle rattle as she kept tugging on it. Frantically, Charlie clung on to the other end. This wasn’t right. They were supposed to wait for instructions. Not here. Even locked, it felt like she might tear the handle off the door.

  He looked back at Gabby, his eyes white with fear.

  “Who is it, Charlie? Who is that woman?” Gabby screamed.

  She had changed. She was only a shadow of what she looked like back then, Charlie thought fearfully. A grotesque shadow. He hadn’t seen her in thirty-five years.

  But he knew. He knew who she was. And he knew why she was here.

  “Gabby, call the police!” Charlie said.

  She backed away, immobilized with fear. “I can’t, Charlie, I can’t! I’m scared.”

  “It’s locked!” he said, trying to reassure her. “She can’t get in. Just call!”

  Suddenly from behind them they heard the clinking sound of glass splintering.

  His heart almost climbed through his chest.

  Someone was coming in.

  Charlie ran around to the kitchen almost like someone reacting to multiple leaks on a sinking ship. He grabbed a chef’s knife he had left out on the counter.

  A hand had already smashed through the pane and was reaching in, twisting the inside lock.

  It opened. It was too late.

  Charlie lunged at the hand with his knife, but the door thrust open, smacking into him like a linebacker powering him to the floor, the knife clattering off to his side.

  A man entered. He and Gabby stared at him in fear, Charlie from the floor. The intruder wore a torn flannel shirt and soiled b
aggy pants, his hair receding under his cap, with long sideburns and a thick mustache.

  “Who are you?” Gabby looked at him with terror. “What are you doing in my house?”

  “Get on up, Charlie,” the man said, his grin suggesting any resistance was useless. He shut the door behind him. There was a gun in his hand. “Don’t go for the knife, guy. You’ll ruin all the fun.”

  Charlie sat there on the floor, transfixed by the blade. He would do it, he thought, go for it, try to end it here. But who would protect Gabby? And there were things the man knew that he and Gabby needed to hear.

  So he just sat there staring, at what he knew was the end of his life. “Hello, Dev.”

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  I headed out the same doors I had entered—my head still throbbing, my steps unsure.

  I spotted the medical van that had brought me there parked in front of the entrance. I looked around for a policeman, at the same time wondering just how I was going to explain things. A bloodied man, staggering about, barely coherent. Going on about how his son was in danger back east. And how the only detective who could corroborate his story was possibly dead. How he had to save his brother and sister-in-law.

  How would that go over? It sounded insane. They would probably just escort me back inside and order a sedative.

  I had to do something.

  I ran out of the drop-off area and made my way, disoriented, onto the street. I spotted a taxi parked in front of the hospital. I headed toward it, shaking out the cobwebs in my head, trying to remember Charlie’s address and what the hell I was going to do when I got there.

  I climbed into the back.

  “Six-oh-nine Division Street,” I told the cabbie. “In Grover Beach.”

  The driver, a Pakistani, barely even looked at me, putting the car in gear. “Okay, sir . . .”

  He pulled a U-ey and headed in the opposite direction. I sank back into the seat. Within seconds, I was clear of the hospital. The craziness of what I was doing was starting to sink in.