“Is it always this exciting down here?”
She poured his cognac. “Sometimes…but not always this exciting.”
The surrounding patrons murmured about how violent Oakland was getting as they watched the breaking news footage. His drink arrived. “Here you go, babe. That’ll be five dollars. Do you want to pay cash or use a card and run a tab?”
Darius took a long swig. “Cash…I have to get moving soon.”
After taking his money, she picked up a remote control and turned up the volume. They watched as the reporter held his microphone up to the mouth of a balding firefighter. As the fire-fighter pointed, the camera followed. As the bartender walked away to serve another customer, Darius watched as the cameraman followed the firefighter over to a small crowd of people.
As the last drop of Hennessy trickled down his throat, he slammed his glass down so hard it shattered on the bar top. On the TV screen, he saw a green-eyed woman with an oxygen mask on her face being wheeled to an ambulance. “Hey, what are you doing?” the bartender asked as she hurried over to Darius.
Ain’t no way! Ain’t no fuckin’ way that’s…I’ll be damned! That’s Trenda! So shocked was he, all he could do was stare at the screen as the bartender angrily cleaned up the broken glass. Finally, his vocal cords thawed out. “I have to go.”
“You are going to have to leave the oxygen mask on, ma’am,” the Vietnamese paramedic said to Trenda during her ride to Highland Hospital.
“I told you I’m oka—,” was her muffled response behind the oxygen mask before a surge of pain from her headache caused her to black out. What seemed like an eon later, she awakened to the feel of something cold on the side of her head. Groggy and disoriented, she mumbled, “What the hell are you doin’?” to the elderly Mexican nurse applying the cold compress to the lump just above her left ear. It looked as though someone had cut a hard-boiled egg in half and stuck it under her skin.
The gaze from the nurse’s warm brown eyes washed over Trenda’s face as she used an ace bandage and gently wrapped the compress to Trenda’s head. “Ahhhh! It’s good to have you back in the land of the living. You were sleeping so good, I didn’t want to wake you. How is your head feeling?”
Trenda reached for the bandage around her head and saw her arm sticking out of a light-green gown. “What the?” She pushed back her covers and saw her clothes had been changed. “Where are my clothes? How long have I been here? Why am I here?”
“Well, Ms. Collins, while you were asleep, thanks to the painkiller the doctor gave you, we needed to make sure you didn’t have any other injuries other than the nasty concussion you suffered. You have been here since about nine last night; about eight hours.” The nurse gently took Trenda’s left hand and inspected the bandage on her wrist. She then looked at the healing cut near Trenda’s eye. “I see you have a few other fairly new injuries. I had to clean up the one on your shoulder; it was mildly infected. It required five stitches to close it properly.”
Trenda rubbed the new bandage on her shoulder. The cut no longer throbbed as much as it did prior to the nurse’s treatment. “Are you serious? I have been here since last night?” She rubbed the bandage on her head as she tried to peek through the fog obscuring her memory of what had happened to her. All she could recall was going into her purse and getting her knife before leaving the hotel. Oh, shit! That reminds me; where is Baby? “Thanks for fixin’ me up, ma’am.”
The nurse put her hand on her hips and gave Trenda a mock scowl. “I am not old enough to be called ‘ma’am.’” She tapped the name badge on her white smock. “Call me Gloria.”
Trenda chuckled at the stern but friendly nurse. “Okay, Gloria, my bad. Can you tell me where my clothes and stuff are?”
Gloria wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Trenda’s arm and nodded to Trenda’s left. “I put most of your things in that closet over there.” She squeezed the bladder in her hand, inflating the blood pressure cuff. “I’ll get them for you in a minute after I check on your roommate over here.”
For the first time, Trenda noticed there was another patient in the bed across the room. All she could see was a leg in traction behind the curtain bordering their beds. Trenda examined the jade crucifix around the nurse’s neck. It featured a gold image of a crucified Jesus. Jade was her favorite shade of green. “How long do I have to stay here?”
“Since your concussion falls between the simple and complex category, the doctor suggests we keep you under observation for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”
After looking at the bandage on her wrist, she looked at the window and saw the sun rising in the crack between the floral-pattern curtains. “I can’t stay here…I am supposed to go to work. I can’t afford to get fired.”
Gloria noted Trenda’s blood pressure numbers, released the air in the cuff and removed it. “Honey, the last thing you need to be concerned with is that job. You need to be more concerned with finding out why your car blew up.” She shook her head, did the sign of the cross and kissed her crucifix. “If you had gotten any closer to that car…”
Ignoring the dull ache under the lump over her ear, Trenda, shocked, sat straight up in bed. “What? Did you say my car blew up?”
Thirty-Nine
“Oh hell no! What the fuck you mean, Piper is dead?” Tyrone asked as Darius sat in his rental car, outside the bar. “What happened?”
“I was watching the news and saw somebody shot her down in a robbery attempt.”
A long pause as Tyrone took a long drag off his cigarette. “Oh really…is that what happened, partner?”
The sarcasm in Tyrone’s voice spoke volumes; it was clear Tyrone had his doubts about Piper’s demise. “Yeah, that’s what I heard.”
“I can’t say I’m sorry to hear that. What about your other business? Is that taken care of?”
Scheming, Darius drummed his fingers on the passenger seat as Tyrone poured a vat of stress on his head. “Not yet…working on it now. It won’t be long.”
“I sure-the-hell hope not! I’m gettin’ tired of havin’ to worry about her gettin’ away!”
Darius’s tension volcano erupted. “Listen, scary muthafucka! I’m tired of you whinin’ about this shit! Just sit your worried-ass down somewhere and shut the fuck up! All I need now is for one of the Internal Affairs snitches to see you acting like a pussy to know something is up…and quit smokin’! You look nervous enough as it is. That change in your behavior is sure to draw unwanted attention…Man up, son! This ain’t your first picnic! I’ll holla at you later. Keep the phone on.”
After tossing the phone on the dash, he ran his hands down his face. “I don’t know how many Guardian Angels you have watchin’ over you, Trenda, but they ain’t gonna always be there.” He grabbed the phone and called Jet Blue reservations. Luck was with him; the next flight to Newark, New Jersey was leaving in two hours. “It’s gonna be too risky to take her out in the hospital—especially without a gun.” He started the car and headed for the airport. “That’s okay…I’ll just have to resort to plan B, draw you to me.”
A devilish grin shaped his lips. “I think I have just the way to do that.”
Forty
“That’s right, hon. All that’s left of that poor car is a smoldering shell. The police are still trying to figure out what happened. They say it burned too fast to be an electrical fire.” Trenda still couldn’t remember what happened to her after leaving the hotel. All she could see was a wall of fog. The more she strained to remember, the more the knot on the side of her head ached. “Gloria, can you pass me my clothes?”
Gloria sat her clipboard on the chair next to the other patient, a white woman who looked to be unconscious, and walked over to the closet. Inside, she picked up a large plastic bag, walked over and sat it on the bed next to Trenda. A bit of the warmth left her eyes. “There you go.”
“Thanks.” She looked over at the other patient. “Is she okay? I haven’t seen her move since I got here.”
Gloria shook her head w
ith a sad look on her face. “No…she was struck by a car last night while trying to run from the police during a prostitution sting and is now in a coma. Poor baby had no ID on her and her fingerprints are not in the system. The police think she may be a runaway. It’s a shame no one has even tried to claim her.”
“That’s messed up.” Trenda rummaged through her stuff. Where is Baby? She glanced over at Gloria standing a few feet away with her hand in the pocket of her smock. “Is this all? I think I’m missin’ some stuff.”
Gloria drew the curtain between the beds and walked over to Trenda’s side. “May I ask you a personal question?”
A layer of tension coated Trenda. “Uh…okay…”
Gloria let her hand play with something in her pocket as she lowered her voice. “I am concerned about your variety of wounds. I have been a nurse for over forty years. I have seen just about everything you can imagine. Your cuts appear to have been made by the same weapon; I can tell that by the dimensions of the wounds. My instincts tell me the cuts you have are defensive wounds, most likely from a knife. Is there anything you would like to tell me? Do you need help? Is someone after you?”
The concern in those brown eyes was unmistakable. Even as Trenda’s mind automatically searched for a lie as an answer, as she had been conditioned to do in these situations, there was something soothing about those soft eyes. “Kinda…I had a boyfriend I got into some mess with…”
Gloria continued probing with her eyes. “Well, that’s not good. Maybe when Detective Winslow returns, you can tell him about your crummy boyfriend.”
Trenda’s eyes widened. “Detective? What detective?”
“Oh! That’s right, you were asleep. A detective from OPD came by to get a statement from you. I told him you were heavily sedated and for him to return later this afternoon when you were lucid.”
“Did he say when he was comin’ back?”
Gloria continued to play with something in her pocket as she placed a hand on Trenda’s head. “Can I share a little something with you?”
Trenda mentally flinched from Gloria’s touch. Memories of how, under the football field bleachers, her ex-boyfriend from high school forcibly grabbed her by the hair and made her swallow his dick flashed in her mind. She recalled passing out from lack of air. Instead of getting her some help, her punk-ass boyfriend jacked off on her face and left her there. When she woke up minutes later and found herself alone and with the sticky mess, she almost stroked out with rage. Unfortunately for that ex-boyfriend the following day, all the interior in his new Camaro Z-28 and the tires were slashed while he was at football practice. His parents ended up taking the car away from him and selling it. He lost his super car and his superstar girlfriend on the same day. To this day she’s still very particular about anyone touching her head. She gulped. “Yeah, sure…what you wanna tell me?”
Gloria took her hand out of her pocket, rolled up her left sleeve and showed Trenda her forearm. “You see that tattoo?”
Trenda looked halfway up the bottom of Gloria’s forearm at a tattoo shaped like a small teardrop with a dagger piercing it. “Yeah…it looks like you had it for a while.”
“Yes, I made that mistake sixty years ago when I decided to join a street gang in East L.A.”
Trenda adjusted the cold compress on her head. “You look like you was a bad ass back in the day.”
Gloria put her hand back in her pocket and fidgeted with the item inside. “Yes…but now I am a soon-to-be-retired nurse, great-great-grandmother, wife and lover of the Lord.”
Trenda eased back on her pillow. Oh great…now granny is gonna try and get me to join her church or some shit… “Cool.”
Gloria took a deep breath, pulled the object out of her pocket, and showed it to Trenda. “Is this what you were looking for?”
Trenda sat straight up. “Yeah! Where did you find it?”
Gloria looked over the butterfly knife in her hand. “I found it on you while I was changing you into your hospital gown…it looks like it’s been through a few wars. I was lucky to find it just before the detective showed up.”
Taking Baby from Gloria, Trenda quickly put it under the covers next to her. “You could say that.”
Gloria peered into Trenda’s eyes. “Normally, I’m supposed to report these things, especially in a case like yours, but the Lord told me to keep quiet.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Ms. Collins…I have to tell you, I am a bit concerned for you. It may be—”
Sensing a sermon coming, Trenda had enough. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I am not in the mood to be preached to. I do appreciate you giving me my property back, but to be honest, my life is my life. I have always taken care of myself and always will.” She fluffed up her pillow, closed her eyes and laid her head down. “Now, if you don’t mind, I wanna get some rest.”
Gloria just stared at Trenda, crow’s feet wrinkles framing her warm eyes. “Fine…but let me say one last thing before I go.” She proceeded to unbutton her blouse and leaned close to Trenda. “You see this?”
Trenda opened her eyes. What the hell is this old broad doin’? I hope she ain’t some kinda old lesbian freak! “Whoa! Wassup, woman?”
Gloria pulled her white bra down just enough for Trenda to see an ugly zipper-like scar between her breasts and a quartersized scar about four inches from her heart. “You see this? This happened to me one night about fifty years ago when I was about your age. Being too cocky, thinking I was untouchable, me and a couple of fellow gang-bangers went to a Halloween party on the border of our turf, and of one of our most vicious rivals. As expected, some of them were there—double the number we had actually. As we tried to escape, four of our five were shot to death. I alone survived. I was shot twice, point blank in my chest.” She tapped the smaller scar. “This one bounced off one of my ribs and ended up missing my heart by an eighth of an inch. Good thing for me the gun was only a .22-caliber and not something more powerful.”
Shocked at the display, Trenda stared at the wounds. “Damn…”
Gloria buttoned up her blouse, then took off her watch and showed Trenda an equally ugly scar on her wrist, hidden by her watchband. “Since the gun only had two bullets left, the heathens, in hopes of making sure I would die, decided to slit my wrist.”
Trenda’s mouth went dry. “No shit?” She sat up on her elbows. “How did you get away?”
Gloria put her watch back on and rolled down her sleeve. “I didn’t; the scum just left me in an alley behind the house party.” She fingered her jade crucifix. “This is what saved me; the love of our Lord.”
Again, Trenda rolled her eyes and lay back on her pillow, the knot on her head reminding her it was there. “I’m glad for you but I need some rest. My head is startin’ to hurt.”
“Do you believe in God, Ms. Collins?”
“Not really.”
She began unwrapping the bandage holding the cold compress against Trenda’s head. “I didn’t either until that Halloween night when I was shot. And believe me, I had done far more than my fair share of sinning before that night. I can tell by the looks of your knife that you’ve had it for a while.” She rolled up the bandage and set it and the blue ice pack on the table next to Trenda’s bed. “And chances are you have used it. I’m not here to judge, just here to do my job as a good Catholic and pass along a bit of the Lord’s word.”
Irritation gnawed at Trenda’s patience. “Look…I told you once—”
Gloria lowered her voice to a stern but warm whisper and pointed a slightly shaky and wrinkled finger at her. “No, you look, Trenda.”
Trenda nearly lost her urine. “Wha? Who did you call me?”
Gloria didn’t flinch. “Yes, I know your real name; you were so relaxed from the sedatives you were on last night you gave me your real name—a few times. As it stands, I am the only one here that knows. I could have given that information to the detective, but I decided against it.”
Trenda’s mouth sought a rep
ly, but all her brain gave her was, “Oh shit!”
Unmoving, Gloria went on. “As I told you, I have unshakable belief in my faith. While I was lying in that alley with my blood running into the gutter and flipping between being dead and alive, a voice told me to go back in time and recall the faces of everyone I had stolen from, beat up, lied to, let down or otherwise hurt in my life. The guilt I felt was so powerful I couldn’t close my eyes. Each time I did, as I was about to give in to death, the guilt of looking into all those faces forced me to keep my eyes open. Through the pain, I did my best to focus on the blurry stars overhead and the sound of a bird singing in the distance. What seemed like years later, the bird song grew so loud it began to hurt my ears. The next thing I knew, I was surrounded by flashing red lights; the bird song was an ambulance. My blurred vision was the result of my tears of repent being spilled. And I finally realized that the voice I heard was the same one I often ignored while I was in the clutches of Lucifer.”
Trenda couldn’t stop looking into the old nurse’s eyes. They reflected great wisdom and more compassion than Trenda had ever encountered. She was momentarily torn between wanting to give Gloria a tight hug and jumping out of the bed and running her ass off. “I see…”
Gloria finally broke her gaze, checked her watch and gathered up her clipboard. “Well, Ms. Collins, my shift ended about eight minutes ago; if your head gets any worse, use the button on your bed rail and call the nurse immediately. Other than that, use the ice pack as often as you can; it will help get that walnut on the side of your head to shrink.” She smiled and brushed Trenda’s forehead. “Just remember this, honey; no matter how rocky, lonely, filthy or dark the road is you travel, God allows U-turns.”
With that, Gloria quietly left. The only sound in the room was the ventilator her unconscious roommate was connected to. Trenda lay staring at the ceiling in silence long after her Catholic devotee left.
Forty-One
Sins of a Siren Page 22