I welcomed the nothingness.
Chapter Six
My eyes opened to the muted light of dusk. Or was it dawn? I couldn’t tell for sure. I was under blankets on a bed in a room I didn’t recognize. The mattress felt and smelled new. The only other piece of furniture in that room aside from the bed was a Chippendale chair to the right of the door. There were two windows, one of which was open a few inches. The curtains moved slightly and I smelled crisp November air coming over the sill. The walls were bare except for a few small framed prints, the details of which I could not make out. The door was opened to a lighted hallway. I lay still and listened for a while. My muscles felt raw. Eventually I realized there was a cold compress on my forehead. I touched it with my hand. It was a folded wash cloth.
I tried to figure out which was coming, day or night. Somewhere in the middle of this thought I must have slipped into unconsciousness again. When I came to I was no longer confused; it was full night outside the windows. The hallway beyond the open door was dark, too. I thought about this for moment, then finally realized that someone was standing beside the bed.
I thought of sitting up but knew I wouldn’t get too far. It came to me that I was in my jeans and a clean T-shirt that was too large for me. Her husband was a big man, six foot something, and athletic. It must have been his.
“You’re awake,” she said.
I found her face in the darkness and muttered, “Gale.”
She touched my forehead with the back of her hand. “You’re fever’s down. How do you feel?” Her voice was a late-night whisper.
“Like shit.”
“That’s a lot better than what I thought you were going to say. You’re in pretty bad shape. You’ve got a few bruised ribs, and you’ve obviously taken some blows to the head. And the cut on your shoulder is pretty deep.”
I became aware then of a bandage over my left shoulder cap. I looked at that arm; there was no blood on it.
“That’s a knife wound, isn’t it?” she said.
I nodded.
The only light in the room was what came in through the windows, from the moon and the broad sky of stars. The night must have been a clear one, the first in a week.
“You were smart to come here, Mac.”
“I can feel stitches.”
“Gary sewed you up.”
“Your husband?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s a veterinarian,” I said. “Right?”
She nodded. “You took eleven stitches.”
“Thank him for me.”
“What’s going on, Mac?”
She was dressed in jeans and a red flannel shirt over a blue turtleneck. I could see the veins in her long, athletic hands. Her legs were crossed at the ankles, one foot flat, the toe of the other touching the floor. Her legs, too looked long. She was leaning on one hip, her arms folded under her breasts. She looked concerned, even a little bit nervous. Out of her nurse’s scrubs she seemed somehow taller, or maybe that was because I was lying down.
“I’m not sure yet, Gale.”
“I thought you were out of this line of work.”
“I never was in it.”
“Well, you’re out of it for a while now. You’re not going anywhere. You need to rest.”
“What time is it?”
“It’s almost midnight.”
“How long have I been out?”
“You’ve been here since this morning. Don’t worry. Just try to rest.”
I looked up at her. Neither of us said anything. In the silence I became aware of the house around us. It was completely still. I could feel my body sinking.
“You can stay here as long as you want, Mac. I’ll take care of you. All right?”
I nodded. “All right.”
“Good. Now get some rest. If you need anything, I’ll be right here.”
I nodded again and felt my eyes close as if at her command. I gave myself over to her, as I had done years before, at Southampton Hospital, when she kept me company on sleepless nights, when all I could do was lie there in bed and think of her and close my eyes and smell her when she had gone.
I fell asleep now to the sound of my own breathing. When I awoke again before dawn the bedroom door was closed and Gale was asleep beside me on the bed. She was on top of the covers, an afghan over her. She was on her right side, facing me, her hand on my chest. Her left leg was bent and draped over my knee so that hers was between my legs. I wondered where her husband, the man whose life I wanted, was. I listened for sounds of him in the house but could only hear our breathing. I kept still and looked at her face. Our breathing was in sync, though her breaths were much deeper than mine. I remembered then the silver duck tape Eddie had wrapped around my ribs, but looking down, I saw that it had been replaced by neatly wound surgical tape.
Gale’s head was resting on a pillow that lay just inches from mine. I could smell sleep on her breath, that mix of sweet and stale. Her mouth was closed, her lips parted only slightly. Her eyes were still beneath their lids. I felt such peace all around me, and within me. I could feel it move through my broken body like a hit of morphine.
I didn’t fall back to sleep for a while. I lay there beside her with her body against mine and watched her as the room gradually filled with light. It wasn’t till daylight had come that I felt the need to sleep come over me. I closed my eyes and drifted off. I knew when I awoke this moment would be gone, but there was nothing I could do about that.
***
We awoke together at a little before nine. It seemed to me that she had not moved at all as we slept. She was looking at me now, not just me at her, and we said good morning. Her hand was still on my chest and her knee was between my legs. The thought of kissing her crossed my mind but I knew better. She asked me how I felt and told her I was okay and that was close enough to the truth.
Augie was still in trouble, and out there somewhere was the man who had killed Amy Curry. I couldn’t stay away from that even if by some miracle I could remain in Gale’s life, if I could sleep every night with her hand on my chest and her leg between mine.
She helped me down the stairs, my right arm draped around her neck, her shoulder wedged against my torso. I felt utterly broken. She said I should have stayed in bed but I knew I needed to move and see what I could and couldn’t do. I needed to know how far I could go when the time came.
Gale made a breakfast of eggs and toast, but all I could eat was part of a nectarine and some red grapes. I felt exhausted but tried my best to hide that from her. My thoughts were clouded, fragmented. I felt like a hand in a loose-fitting glove, separated, distanced, a little lost.
After breakfast Gale rolled up the left sleeve of the oversized T-shirt she had given me and removed the dressing from my shoulder. We both studied the wound. It seemed, oddly, the least of my problems, till I remembered that it had come from a knife. The black, bristly stitches looked good to me, and there was a green stain on the skin around the cut where an antiseptic had been applied. Gale dabbed some vitamin E lotion as carefully as she could along the crease of the wound, then applied a fresh dressing over it. I felt a fever tingle behind my forehead again but said nothing to her about that. It was probably just from the sight of the tear in my skin and from her touching it, from her inadvertently moving the stitches and the freshly split flesh around as she tended to it.
Sometime after lunch I thought I’d better call George and let him know where to find his car. After that I called Eddie to let him know that I was okay and where I was. Chances were he was probably looking for me. I didn’t see myself leaving Gale’s anytime soon and I knew he would get word of my resurrection out to the few people who would care. As usual Eddie’s wife, Angel, was working the dispatch and answered on the second ring.
“Eddie’s Cab Company.”
“Angel, it’s Mac. I need you to get a message to Eddie.”
“Mac, oh my God, you’re alive. For the love of God, where have you been? Eddie spent all night lookin
g for you. He’s out there now. He hasn’t taken a fare since yesterday. He’s been worried sick. Where have you been?”
“I’m sorry, I should have called sooner. Radio him and tell him I’m okay so he can get back to work. I’ll call him in a couple of days -- “
“ -- Mac, you don’t understand, there’s trouble. You’re in trouble.”
“What?”
“He told me to find out where you were if you called. He says he has to talk to you, in person.”
“Angel, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know the whole story. Eddie’ll tell you when he gets there. Where are you?”
I glanced at Gale. She had stopped in the middle of washing dishes and was looking at me. The water was running from the tap, a low pitched, steady hiss. Gale looked both concerned and uncertain.
I told Angel the address. Then I hung up and turned and looked at Gale. Neither of us spoke. I went out to the glassed-in porch and sat in a rocking chair and waited. After about a minute Gale came out and sat in the chair beside me. She didn’t speak. Together we sat and watched the driveway and waited.
“What is it with you two?”
“What do you mean?”
“With you and Eddie. What is it with you two? He does whatever you ask him to. Why?”
I shrugged. “He left Jamaica for America because he was in trouble. The trouble followed him here. I helped him out of a jam. I just happened to be there when he needed help. I was a kid and ran in blind to help a stranger. I used to do that a lot.”
“You saved his life.”
I nodded.
“And that’s how you two became friends?”
“It didn’t really happen over night,” I explained. “But over the years we ended up for one reason or another doing things for each other. Most of it was probably chance. For some reasons our paths just seem to keep crossing. We aren’t even friends really, not like Augie and me. We don’t hang out together. He doesn’t pry into my life and I don’t pry into his. The daughter of an ex-girlfriend of mine was kidnapped a few years ago. No one could find her. Out of desperation she asked me to see what I could do. I went out looking, but it was Eddie who told me where to find her. On one of his fares through Hampton Bays he had seen a man and a young girl go into a house that was up for sale. Eddie knew no one was living there. I wouldn’t have known where to start looking for her if it wasn’t for him. But that’s the kind of man he is. “
“So you found her? Your ex-girlfriend’s daughter, I mean.”
The answer was there but I wasn’t sure how to speak it.
“I found her body, yeah. My ex-girlfriend had come to me and asked me to look for her daughter. It was late at night. I told her I would and had a few drinks to work up the courage. A few drinks turned into a few drinks too many. I didn’t end up going out till the next morning. When I found her she wasn’t even an hour dead. Anyway, I turned to run out of the house to call the cops and came face to face with her killer. That’s when I caught the bullet in the shoulder that brought me to you.”
Neither of us said anything for a while. We watched the sky. Several minutes passed before one of us finally spoke.
“You have three bruised ribs,” Gale said flatly. “God knows how many blows you’ve taken to your head. And then, of course, there’s that cut in your shoulder and the blood you’ve lost. I just want you to know that if you go back out there and start playing this game you boys play … well, I don’t want to begin to count all the ways it could go bad for you.” She waited a moment more, then said, “I just want you to know that.”
I didn’t say anything, just looked ahead through the windows at the driveway at the end of her yard. A minute later Eddie’s red cab pulled in and stopped less than halfway down. Gale watched, then rose from her chair, went through the porch door, down the steps, and strode with those long tennis-player legs of hers across her lawn. She stopped halfway between the house and Eddie’s cab and waited for him to come to her.
Eddie walked toward her on legs so bowed he was almost hobbled. I had forgotten how odd he looked, how he seemed, in his baggy trousers and shirt, so small outside of his cab.
He walked stiffly, as if years of sitting had weakened him beyond all reason. He reminded me then of a man come back from space, burdened by gravity. When Eddie reached Gale he stopped, and they faced each other for a moment on the leaf-covered lawn. Gale had left the door opened, and the cool air smelled crisp and felt good on my face. They spoke to each other briefly, but I didn’t hear what they said. When they were done Gale turned and led Eddie across the lawn to the porch.
As he entered he looked at me in a way that made me think Gale had told him what to expect as far as my condition was concerned. He stood above me and tilted his head to get a better look at my face.
“Jesus, Mac, where you been? A war?” He tried to joke, but his smile was less than convincing.
“Have a seat, Eddie,” I said. He sat down and leaned toward me in that way people do when they address the infirm. My mood was dropping fast. I wanted to be alone with Gale, in her home, safe. Eddie had brought the outside world into my hiding place.
“What’s going on, Eddie,” I said.
He spoke softly. “The cops are looking for you. They’re everywhere. Patrol cars everywhere you turn. I’ve never seen so many cops out in my life.”
I was confused. “What are Montauk cops doing in Southampton?”
Eddie wasn’t sure what to make of this. He glanced up at Gale, then back at me. “What Montauk cops, my friend? I’m talking about the Southampton cops. The Chief’s boys. They’ve been to the Hansom House, they’ve been to Augie’s house, they’ve even been to my house. They are serious about finding you, my friend. They are looking everywhere for you, calling on everyone who knows you. They made poor George almost piss his pants.” He glanced at Gale again. “Sorry, ma’am.” Gale shrugged.
“But it’s the Southampton cops?”
Eddie nodded. He was still speaking low, leaning toward me. “They’ve pulled me over twice already today.”
All machines have their friction, and my brain was beginning to heat. It turned like a motor without oil. Thinking was a physical thing, like lifting heavy rocks and moving them from one place to another.
“Why are they looking for me, Eddie?”
He glanced at Gale again, then back at me. Even in my confusion I could read him.
“It’s okay,” I assured him.
Eddie looked at me directly. “I guess you haven’t heard. It’s been on the radio.”
“What has?”
“The geologist.”
“What about him?”
“He’s dead, Mac.”
“What?”
“That geologist, the one from the college, he was murdered.”
“Concannon?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. He was killed last night. Someone tied him to a chair and cut his throat. They say the cut was so deep his head was almost half sawed off. I guess he was cut more than once. Whoever killed him must have been really pissed off about something.”
I glanced at Gale. She looked puzzled in a way that reminded me of Tina the night she was attacked by the Chief’s son.
Eddie said, “If you don’t have any money, I can give you some, Mac. You’d better leave town as soon as you can. Not right now, it’s not safe on the roads during the day. But tonight. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why are the Southampton cops looking for me? Are you telling me they think I killed Concannon?”
“From what I hear the knife they found on the scene was a Spyderco, just like the one you carry. And there are prints all over it.”
“It’s a popular knife. A lot of people carry it. Why are they so certain it’s my knife?”
“I don’t know. Apparently, someone in the department has got it in his head that it belongs to you.”
I thought then of the man who had attacked me, and the weap
on he used. I thought of his initial charge, a football player’s low, lifting tackle.
“I need to get to my apartment,” I said quickly. There was a touch of panic in my voice. “I need to check something.”
“It’s time for you to get out of town, Mac.”
“I have to check this first. I have to know something. Will you take me there tonight?”
Eddie looked up at Gale again, then back at me.
“Please don’t fight me on this, Eddie. I need to get into my apartment.”
In a warning tone he said, “If we can’t get you in, if we see one cop car parked outside, anything, we don’t stop, I take you straight out of town. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“If it is a set-up, Mac, if this is the Chief finally getting his revenge, then I think he’s probably got you good. He’s not a stupid man.”
“That’s what I hear.”
“I’m serious, Mac.”
“I just have to know that for sure, Eddie. I just have to know exactly what it is I’m running from.”
Eddie nodded. He understood that. He had fled his country twenty years ago after a rival for the woman he loved dropped cocaine in Eddie’s car and turned him in to the cops.
“Okay,” he said. “You look and we leave, no matter what you find, right?”
“Right.”
“I’ll come back for you when it’s dark.”
Gale followed him outside. She spoke to him as they walked but I didn’t hear a thing she said. Then, at the edge of the driveway, she stopped and waited as Eddie got into his cab. She waited till he was backing down the driveway before she turned and crossed the lawn again.
She stepped onto the porch but remained in the doorway, looking at me. In the light I saw threads of gray in her hair. I had to look away, she looked that good.
“You have no intention of leaving town tonight, do you?”
“Is that what you and Eddie talked about?”
“No.”
“I can’t just abandon Augie.”
“He’d be the first one to tell you to go.”
“And I’d tell him to go to hell.”
Gin Palace 02 - The Bone Orchard Page 15