Return of the Magi

by P. J. Tracy

  ‘Moses didn’t know who he was either, remember? He had to be persuaded.’

  Gloria sighed. ‘Things would be so much easier if God were just a little more forthcoming with His chosen ones.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Emil was examining the structural integrity of the grate on his window. He gave it a test pull, but it was a no-go – it was bolted in. Now, if he could get his hands on a wrench that might change the game.

  He squinted out into the darkness. There were no stars tonight, no lights from any nearby buildings, because there weren’t any nearby buildings, but the glow of Vegas lit up the distant horizon like a beacon. It wasn’t that far away. As the crow flew, he figured he’d have a good chance of making it there before anybody even knew he was gone.

  He climbed into bed, and felt the day settle deep into his weary bones. Five minutes later, he was dozing off peacefully, with visions of sugar plums and escape dancing in his head. Suddenly his door creaked open and a sliver of light illuminated his face.

  ‘Emil?’

  His eyes flew open and he vaulted up in bed. Edith and Gloria were standing in his doorway. ‘Dang! Dang! What is it with you two, creeping around like ghouls? I could have had a heart attack!’

  Gloria and Edith entered, carrying a teddy bear and a Bible. ‘It’s a good place to have one. You’re in a health-care facility.’

  Emil shrank back in his bed as they approached him, his eyes wide and wary. ‘What do you want? What are you doing in here?’

  They sat on his bed and Emil yanked the covers up around his neck. ‘Hey, this isn’t a coed dorm room, you got that?’ He gasped when they started touching his face, and slapped their hands away. ‘Leave me alone!’

  ‘Does brown skin hurt when you touch it?’ Edith asked.

  ‘No, it doesn’t. I just don’t want you pawing at me! Now you get out of here! Shoo, shoo, shoo!’ He flapped his arms, but the sisters didn’t budge. ‘Nurse? Nurse! Is anybody out there?!’

  Gloria folded her hands in her lap. ‘Nurse Griffin is very busy right now. Ralph is causing a ruckus.’

  ‘Gloria, please, no vernacular. It’s vulgar.’

  Gloria leaned forward and whispered confidentially, ‘He was pissing in the corridor again.’

  Emil grimaced. ‘Oh, Jeez … Aw … Just get out of here, will you?’

  Edith laid a Bible on his chest. ‘We brought you the book.’

  Emil pushed it away. ‘I don’t want any book. I want

  to go to sleep!’ He sighed in exasperation when the two continued sitting on his bed, looking as content as cats in the sun. ‘Are you going to sit here all night?’

  Edith pointed to the distant glow of Las Vegas out of the window. ‘Do you know what that is, Emil?’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, yes, I know what it is. Lights from the city.’

  ‘Do you know how to get there?’ Gloria whispered.

  Emil frowned. ‘Sure. Why?’

  Edith finally stood up. ‘Well, one of us should know how to get there. Gloria and I certainly don’t.’ She patted his arm affectionately, and that was when Emil noticed some seriously nasty scars on her hands.

  ‘Oh, man, what happened to your hands?’

  Edith looked down at them in bafflement. ‘My goodness. Gloria, do you know how I got these?’

  ‘It’s that soap they use here. I told you it was full of chemicals, Edith.’ She turned to Emil. ‘You didn’t use the soap, did you?’

  ‘Uh …’

  ‘Well, don’t use it again.’

  Edith nodded. ‘We use our own soap. Ivory. We’ll give you a bar. Ninety-nine point four percent pure.’ She tucked the covers around Emil, just like Nurse Griffin did for her and Gloria every night.

  Gloria put the teddy bear by his head and pressed the Bible into his hands. ‘Read Matthew chapter two, verses one through eleven. Don’t bother to read John. We think he might have been just a little psychotic.’

  Edith gave him a winsome smile. ‘We love you, dear.’

  ‘So much,’ Gloria cooed.

  They both turned and left, closing the door gently behind them.

  Emil stared at it for a few moments in lingering disbelief, then jumped out of bed, dragged the chair across the room and propped it under the doorknob.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Foster dragged himself out of bed later than usual, his head throbbing, his tongue as fuzzy as an autumn caterpillar. He grabbed three aspirins from the bathroom medicine cabinet, rinsed out his mouth with Listerine, then went to the kitchen to dose himself up with a few cups of caffeine.

  He faltered when he saw the empty Folger’s can on the counter. It reminded him that he’d planned to stop at the store on the way home yesterday. But Emil Rice, the little punk, along with the unexpected road trip to Clark County Extended Care, had blasted those plans right out of his mind. His only consolation was the strong conviction that Emil was suffering right now, even more than he was.

  He banged around in the kitchen, like an angry bear, hoping he had some more coffee stashed somewhere he’d forgotten about, but that was just foolish, wishful thinking. Foster intentionally didn’t keep a surplus of anything in the apartment – even though he’d been in the bachelor dump ever since his divorce four years ago, he couldn’t bear to think of it as anything other than a temporary pit stop on the way to something better. The only trouble was, he didn’t have a vision of what better was anymore.

  He regarded the remains of yesterday morning’s coffee, still languishing in the carafe, then finally dumped it into a mug and tossed it into the microwave.

  While his coffee radiated into sludge, he opened the door to grab the morning paper and saw his neighbor, Arnold, huffing and puffing as he struggled to drag an enormous Christmas tree down the hallway.

  Foster smiled smugly. ‘Table-top tree, Arnie. That’s the ticket.’

  Arnold paused to catch his breath. ‘Yeah? Try telling that to the wife and kids. God, why do holidays have to be so much work? I’m supposed to be on vacation, and instead I’m dragging a ten-foot spruce up two flights of stairs.’

  ‘I can commiserate with you there, buddy. My ex was the same way. Had to have the biggest bloody tree on the lot every year, even though we ended up cutting half of it off so it would fit in the house. Put my back out on the last one and missed two weeks of work. Then she got mad because we couldn’t pay the Christmas bills.’

  Arnold shook his head morosely. ‘It’s totally out of hand. And it’s the women that do it, you ever notice that?’

  ‘The women?’

  ‘Yeah. I mean, look at the first Christmas. The way I figure it that was the last one men had anything to do with, and was that such a big deal? They had a couple people over, that’s it. Some shepherds and a few kings. No food, no tree, no shopping … That’s all the stuff women threw in later, you know?’

  ‘Good point.’

  ‘So what about you, Foster? You got any big plans?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m going to sit on my butt and watch football all day.’

  ‘You see? No women, no problems. You don’t know how good you got it.’

  ‘Luckiest guy in Vegas …’ Foster’s phone started ringing. ‘Hey, I’d give you a hand, but that’s my phone. I should get it. I’ve got a real problem case I’m dealing with right now.’

  Arnold smirked at him. ‘Yeah, right. Merry Christmas, Foster.’

  Foster hurried back into his apartment and tossed the place for his cell, which he finally found stuck between the sofa cushions, nestled in old popcorn detritus and a pile of pocket change. ‘Foster here.’

  ‘Daddy?’

  He dropped down onto the sofa, like a boulder, stunned by the unexpected voice – how long had it been? Six months? Eight? ‘Annie, honey? Is that you?’

  ‘Of course it’s me,’ she said, a smile coloring her voice all the way from Boston.

  ‘Hi! Wow! What a surprise! Uh – a great surprise! How are you, sweetheart?’
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  ‘Good. We’re all good. How are you, Daddy?’

  Foster got up and started pacing nervously, a kaleidoscope of emotions suddenly painting his world all kinds of crazy colors. Was there appropriate etiquette on how to act when you took an out-of-the-blue call from your semi-estranged offspring? Did you pretend that an ugly divorce hadn’t polluted the waters and forced a sweet, innocent soul to pick sides? Did you act like nothing had ever happened, hoping that denial would eventually repair the damage and erase the guilt? Did you forget all about the unreturned phone calls at both ends and start over?

  He didn’t know. He’d never known, which was probably why he and Annie had lost touch since the divorce. So he went with his gut and answered her question honestly, as a father, all the history and baggage be damned. ‘I’m great now, honey. It’s so good to hear your voice.’

  ‘I’m sorry it’s been a while.’

  ‘No, no, don’t be sorry! Just tell me all about what you’ve been up to, besides giving me a new grandbaby. I was hoping we could get together … sometime.’

  ‘Mark and I were thinking the very same thing.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Do you have any Christmas plans?’

  ‘Me? No. None at all.’

  ‘So, are you up for a visit?’

  Foster froze for a moment, then started scurrying around his bachelor-hell apartment, suddenly seeing the thick dust on the window sills, the dirty dishes piled in the sink, the teetering stacks of paperwork consuming every flat surface. ‘Are you serious? Of course I am! When can you come?’

  ‘We can be there Christmas morning. We could stay just a couple days because Mark has some business in Reno.’

  ‘That’s terrific! Just great!’

  ‘Good. I’ll call you with the details tomorrow, okay?’

  ‘Looking forward to it. I love you, honey.’

  ‘You, too, Daddy.’

  When Foster hung up, he just stared at the phone for the longest time, almost afraid to let himself believe the call had been real.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Emil was used to the klaxon call over the PA that wakened prisoners at precisely six in the morning. Klaxons he could handle. The gentle knock on his door scared him to death.

  ‘What? What?’ He jumped out of bed and stood there in his skivvies with his bare toes curling on the cold linoleum floor, wondering what kind of a nut-job was going to break into his room now. If the old sisters had the run of the place, probably the other patients did too, and who knew what level of crazy lived within these walls?

  He grabbed a blanket off the bed, wrapped it around his shoulders and tiptoed over to the door. ‘Who’s out there? What do you want from me?’

  A little-girl voice came through the closed door while the knob jiggled. Damn. It was like a horror movie. ‘It’s Nurse Thompson, Mr Rice, and it’s seven o’clock and a beautiful day. Time to rise and shine and have some breakfast.’

  Oh, man, she was just too chipper, and everybody knew chipper people were weird. Emil felt goosebumps rising on his arms. ‘I don’t know no Nurse Thompson. What happened to Nurse Griffin?’

  ‘Her shift doesn’t start until four. I’m the day nurse. There seems to be something wrong with this door.’

  ‘What’s wrong with this door is that I’ve got it blocked so no more crazies break in here while I’m lying asleep and defenseless.’

  There was a soft giggle, which sounded pretty harmless, and then the knob stopped jiggling. ‘Sorry to frighten you, Mr Rice. Take your time. I just didn’t want you to miss breakfast.’

  Emil bent from the waist to look through the crack under the door, just in case the alleged Nurse Thompson had scales on her feet and claws on her toes, but all he saw was a pair of white nurse’s shoes. He straightened, feeling a little silly. ‘Oh. Well … thank you for the wake-up call. You beat a klaxon call any day.’

  ‘A klaxon call?’

  ‘Never mind. I’ll be down directly, ma’am.’ He tried to sound respectful and cooperative.

  ‘That’s wonderful, Mr Rice. Have a lovely day.’

  Actually, the day didn’t start out too badly. He’d had an extra hour of sleep and a really hot private shower for the first time in six months. The bar soap in the bathroom worried him a little after seeing Edith’s scarred hands, so he used shampoo instead. Then a leisurely shave and tooth-brushing in front of a reflective stainless-steel mirror, just like the ones in jail. All that was missing were some tunes and a cup of coffee.

  He was humming as he went to retrieve his suit from the closet, then gasped when he saw the yellow-white splash marks all over it. Bleach from the mop bucket, he suddenly realized. He’d totally trashed his only suit and now there was just one wardrobe alternative. ‘This is just great,’ he hissed, pulling a set of stupid puke-green pajamas off a stack in his closet. His humiliation was complete.

  Once he’d dressed, he gave himself a once-over. Actually, the whole effect wasn’t too bad – he could pass himself off as a hospital employee, no problem, wearing something like this. If he could just lift a stethoscope or an ID from somebody, he’d have himself some fine props for a convincing con. Besides, it beat an orange jumpsuit any day.

  He skipped the elevator and took the service stairwell down to the cafeteria, hoping to avoid the two sisters. Those old gals were twenty kinds of nuts squared, and it didn’t take a genius to know they had him in their sights.

  When Emil hit the steel door that opened onto the first floor, he cracked it open just a hair and did a quick visual recon. No people around, just the faint sound of knives and forks and plates clanging together, and the intoxicating aroma of bacon and pancakes.

  He ventured out into the hallway cautiously, keeping himself pressed against the wall as he slunk toward the open cafeteria doors, then peered in. There were just a few patients scattered around the tables, eating their breakfast. Most seemed like they were handling the job okay on their own, but some orderlies were spoon-feeding a few. All in all, it looked pretty tame in there, and Edith and Gloria were nowhere to be seen, so he strolled in with a powerful growl in his belly and a spring in his step.

  ‘Morning. Morning, loonies, one and all,’ he greeted everyone, as he walked up to the buffet where a tattooed monster with a murderous expression was dishing up the goods. He got a few nasty glances from the staff, who obviously didn’t appreciate his sense of humor. ‘And good morning to you, my man,’ he said to the cook. ‘I’ll have a side of bacon, make that crisp, two eggs, no, make that three, over so easy they just kiss the griddle. And a rack of toast with strawberry jam.’

  The cook gave Emil a sociopath stare, then dipped a big spoon into a pot of gray gruel, plopped it into a bowl, and shoved it across the pass.

  Emil stared down at the gunk in dismay, then looked back up at the cook to assess his mass and his potential mental instability. ‘You know, I think I’ll skip the oatmeal. I’m a working man, and I need a working man’s breakfast, if you know what I’m saying.’

  The cook added another spoonful of slop to his bowl.

  ‘Or today’s special is just fine. Mmm, mmm, thank you, sir.’

  On his way to the table, he passed the violin lady, who was sitting alone, staring mindlessly. A succulent Danish lay untouched on her plate. Emil stopped and put on a smile. ‘Well, good morning, ma’am. Wow, that’s a mighty fine pastry you’ve got sitting there. Mind if I ask where you got it?’

  She continued to stare. She didn’t even know he was there.

  ‘Uh … hello? Oh. What’s that you said? No kidding? You really don’t want it? You sure you want me to have it? Well, thanks!’ Emil snatched the Danish and ate it as he walked across the room to an empty table. It was gone before he sat down and looked morosely at his bowl of gruel. ‘O-kay. How hungry am I?’

  He had his first spoonful halfway to his mouth when he heard two sing-song voices call out in unison, ‘Good morning, Emil!’

  He winced and turned in his seat to see Edi
th and Gloria making a beeline for his table. Too late to run. At least they were wearing little-old-lady dresses today instead of those weird costumes. They looked almost normal, which was really scary when you knew they were both flat-out out of their minds.

  He gave the sisters a sick little smile as they sat down opposite him. ‘Uh … somebody else was going to sit there.’

  ‘Did you read the book we gave you last night?’ Edith asked.

  ‘They’ll be here any minute.’

  ‘You have to read the book, Emily. It explains everything.’

  ‘Emily?’

  Edith looked confused. ‘Who’s Emily?’

  ‘I don’t know. You just called me Emily. My name’s Emil. Emil, E-M-I-L, no Y.’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘Oh, man.’ He dipped his spoon into the gruel.

  Edith shot up from her chair. ‘No, no, no. Emil, don’t eat that. We think it might have a laxative in it.’ She left abruptly and headed for the service counter.

  Gloria stayed at the table, her chin cradled in her hands, smiling at him. It was a creepy smile. He gave the ring on his finger a workout. ‘What? What are you looking at?’

  ‘It’s just so good to see you, dear. You can’t imagine. But it might take me a bit of time to get used to the way you look now.’

  Emil plucked at his scrubs. ‘I had to wear this. My suit got ruined yesterday.’

  ‘I didn’t mean your clothes. I meant …’ Gloria leaned toward him and whispered ‘… we were just so certain you would be a woman.’

  Emil stared insanity in the face. ‘You know what? I’m just going to sit over at that table there, okay?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Instead of staying put, Gloria trotted after him to his new table and sat down.

  ‘No, no, no, no. You’re not getting it. I don’t want you hanging with me, comprende? I want to be alone. So I’m just going to take my little bowl of slop here and go to my room.’

  As he got up to leave, Edith returned with coffee, orange juice, a plate of bacon and eggs, and another Danish. She set it down in front of him. He sank back into his chair, staring at the food, then risked an upward glance at Edith. ‘Wow. Thank you, Edith.’