“Must be shift change,” said the new guard. “Back at the hospital you’d hardly notice shift changes.”
“Why’s that?” asked the veteran guard.
“Because things were more hectic at the hospital,” said the new guard. “And because at the hospital there were a lot more exits.”
“Were they monitored?” asked the veteran guard.
“Yeah. That’s another reason I like this place better. My eyes used to get sore staring at all the monitors. Here you only got a few. And we hardly ever see anyone on them at night.”
Both guards nodded toward a group of employees who were leav ing, taking turns holding open the unlocked door to the side of the locked main doors.
“We should do a sociological study on the employees in this place,” said the new guard.
“What do you mean?” asked the veteran guard.
“I was just noticing how many of the folks arriving and leaving by the front door are minorities. Too bad we don’t have a monitor on the loading dock to see how many minorities come and go that way.”
“We don’t need a monitor back there,” said the veteran guard. “Whoever’s on kitchen duty makes sure only employees use the back door. But if we did have a monitor there, what do you think we’d see?”
“I think,” said the new guard, putting a finger to his chin, “we’d see a higher proportion of minorities in and out the front door, while a higher proportion of non-minorities would be going in and out the back door. Kind of ironic when you think about it.”
“You use the back door,” said the veteran guard, smiling.
“That’s because I’ve got a set of wheels,” said the new guard, also smiling. “These folks without wheels use this entrance because it’s closer to the bus stop, whereas folks who go out the back door, through the proverbial bowels of the building with all its noisy machinery, tend to be driving to their split levels in the suburbs.”
“I live in a crumby one-bedroom apartment in the suburbs,” said the veteran guard.
“I guess we’re both exceptions. Me, because I’ve got wheels. You, because you don’t own a split level. But I bet you will some day.”
“On this salary?”
“Yeah, you got a point there, man.”
The two guards watched as several late night shift stragglers rushed into the building, running through the door at the side of the lobby that led to the time clock.
“It’s going to be a long night,” said the new guard, standing and retrieving some change from his pocket.
“Yeah,” said the veteran guard, staring off into space.
“How about I buy us a couple cups? You like yours black, like your women, right?”
The veteran guard turned to the new guard and grinned. “Yeah, thanks. Except you bought last time.”
“I know, but these extra quarters’ll wear out the pockets of my new uniform.”
The veteran guard watched as his partner for the night strode to the side door that led to the vending machine room. After his part ner was gone, the remaining guard turned and stared out at the dark night, his face reflected back to him from the glass of the front doors.
“What kinda night is this?” Steve said aloud to himself as he turned the Lincoln into the lighted entrance past the bus stop kiosk. Several people stood inside the kiosk, and several more were walking along the entrance road toward the kiosk, their heads down in the wind.
Once past the overhead lights at the entrance, he could see the darkened area resulting from the blown left front headlight of the Lin coln. Because he had slowed the Lincoln after the rush to get back here, the front end stopped rattling and shimmying and he could hear sirens in the distance. He had driven a different route back to avoid the area where the Christ Health Care truck and the Lincoln had side swiped a double-parked car. At one intersection he had seen flashing lights a few blocks over and turned on the scanner. He heard several calls for the area go out, one of them significant. Someone had called to report seeing a truck off the road back at the expressway and a man lying in the weeds. An ambulance had already been dispatched. If Jan were here with him—if only she were here with him—he would repeat the words to her. “What kinda night is this?”
As he drove into the front parking lot, he saw the squad car was still there parked next to Jan’s Audi. Inside the squad car, silhouetted against the bright lights at the main entrance in the distance, he could see the passenger hoist a large drinking mug to his lips. He looked at the tires on the squad car, then at the tires on Jan’s car, then at the mud caked on the downslope of the Audi’s fenders.
Tires. The word tires meant something. He had just said, “What kinda night is this?” and now, because of the pain in his right side, a wave of confusion and nausea came over him. It was as if all the confusion he’d had while in residence at Hell in the Woods had come flooding out the door of the main entrance and into the park ing lot, the confusion spilling out like vomit, the pain throwing up a smokescreen.
He’d been here before. He’d heard the radio call about Jan’s car being found and now he was back at Hell in the Woods. He was sup posed to look at tires, but as the police scanner chattered beside him, other words got mixed in. And when the word tired emerged in his brain, he had to acknowledge that, yes, he was tired. Or was he re tired? Seeing the cop drinking from a mug had stirred another mem ory. He was tired, and he was retired.
Confused, he drove up an aisle and came back around to drive past Jan’s car once more. This time, because of the lack of reflection, he saw the driver’s side window was open. No, not open, idiot! Busted out! You’ve been here before!
And he was here again because he’d seen tire marks south of Orland, then he’d heard the call go out about Jan’s car being found. Tire marks south of Orland, and among those tire marks were the dis tinct tread imprints of rain tires with their deep center grooves.
He began driving slowly up and down the aisles of the parking lot looking carefully for cars with rain tires, glancing down to read the list of vehicles he’d gotten from Tamara to see if any of those vehicles, or a vehicle with rain tires, or both, might be here somewhere at Hell in the Woods. He’d seen rain tire tracks in the mud, and although it was a long shot, he felt Jan would be here at Hell in the Woods.
For a moment he speculated about the wobble in the Lincoln’s front end and the unevenness he could see on top of the left front fender. Details raced around in his head and he had difficulty asso ciating the damage to the Lincoln with his reason for being here until he recalled the run-in with the flat-nosed man on the expressway over pass. What if he’d had another seizure? Or, worse, what if his search for Jan had brought on another stroke that had already begun to plun der bits and pieces of memory trying to make connections, trying to rebuild the case?
The case! Marjorie Gianetti’s case. Marjorie Gianetti dead at the far end of the nursing home wing. Marjorie Gianetti whose husband was a mob boss. Marjorie Gianetti who had kept secrets inside her for many years. Had the secrets come out in rehab? Without realizing it, did he now own those secrets? Family secrets that might have some thing to do with mob money or health care scams, or anything for that matter. Even Presidential elections. There was something about Presidential elections that bothered Marjorie whenever the topic came up. Something.
As he reached the end of an aisle and saw the narrow service road that led around the nursing home wing, he recalled the Christ Health Care truck coming toward him. He had turned around and chased it and confronted the flat-nosed man! The man had said, “Oh shit, what kinda night is this?”
No! The flat-nosed man had said more than that. Men had taken Tyrone out to a van in the back parking lot.
Headlights came down the narrow service road as he drove into it. Instead of driving to the side he held his ground, straddling both lanes and slowing down. The car coming toward him slowed. Then, when it was almost stopped, it veered off onto the grass and eased past him. The driver’s window came down and he sa
w a young man shaking his fist at him and shouting something. Although he could not hear what the man said, he recognized the man. Young guy. Comes into his room after dinner to empty the wastebasket and replace the liner. New guy, no name yet because they haven’t paraded him through name-recall therapy.
It was shift change. He pulled the Lincoln to the right in case other cars came out. If it was shift change, he could be an employee coming in for the late shift. An employee who had reason to drive into the back lot and look for a spot.
The back lot was dark compared to the main lot out front. There were lights at the perimeter of the lot, and lights at the loading dock, but the center of the lot was unlit, parked cars appearing as shadows flecked here and there with pinpoint reflections from windows and chrome. He recalled seeing employees use the nursing home wing for an indoor shortcut. He recalled that the door to the loading dock was alarmed, and assumed employees probably exited through the kitchen with its Employees Only sign on the door. But there were no employees to be seen and he realized the shift change must have come and gone.
Despite the blown left headlight, he did not turn on the Lincoln’s brights. He drove neither too fast nor too slowly. As he drove up an aisle amongst the parked cars, he scanned the tires of the cars on both sides as soon as the single right low beam illuminated them. He also scanned the shapes he passed. Most were cars, but there were a few pickups and vans. When he reached the end of the aisle he had seen one set of rain tires with the characteristic center groove, but the tires were on an older small Nissan, not one of the vehicles on his list.
He pulled into a spot at the end of the aisle and turned off the lights, watching for any movement in the lot. He picked up his notepad from the seat beside him and held it up in the dim glow from an overhead light some distance away. He read through the vehicle regis tration information he’d gotten from Tamara. Things were beginning to fall back into place in his head. He hadn’t had a stroke or a seizure earlier, but simply a lapse in his already feeble memory. He was tired, physically and mentally, and for a moment, when he’d first driven into the front entrance, he’d forgotten why he’d come back here.
After studying the registration information for a minute or so, he put the Lincoln in drive and allowed it to inch ahead by using the parking brake rather than the foot brake so the brake lights would not illuminate. After he had moved the Lincoln ahead two aisles, he turned on the lights and drove down this aisle neither too fast nor too slowly so he would appear to be an employee leaving after work.
Rain tires. The deep center groove. And above the tires, mud coming out from inside the rear fender wells, mud dripping from the fender wells onto the asphalt of the parking lot.
It was a Ford van. He could see the Ford insignia above and to one side of the rear plate. The plate on the van had a handicapped em blem, and it matched one of the plate registrations he’d gotten from Tamara.
Although the van had rear windows, they were very darkly tinted. But as he drove past, one of the overhead lights at the loading dock lined up just right and he could see its muted glare through the inside of the van. It was enough to make out the shadows of two people sit ting at the back of the van. He was given a vague impression of heads and shoulders, that was all.
He kept moving, the Lincoln inching ahead. Next to the van was a full-size Crown Victoria. The plates on the car were on the list he had just studied. A van and a car, both registered to Lamberti Produce. Because the car was lower than the van, light from the loading dock did not shine through it. But as he passed the car, he could see that the rear window of the car on the side facing the van was partially open.
He did not stop, but kept the Lincoln moving up the aisle. Then, on the other side of the aisle, several parking spaces away from the car and van, he saw what appeared to be two men sitting in another Crown Victoria. He could see shoulders and heads, but no other fea tures. Because of the shapes of the heads, he assumed both men were wearing close-fitting hats. The plate on this car was also on the list, also registered to Lamberti Produce.
Vehicles registered to the company owned by Marjorie’s nephew were here. And from what he’d seen, he had to assume all three ve hicles had passengers inside.
The nephew—Max the Fly, the fly in the ointment—was here, or at least his men were here. The son and his attorney dead in a so-called accident. Jan, obviously having been at the scene of the acci dent. Rain tires on the van …
All three vehicles faced the building, the van and one of the cars parked side by side, the other car parked across the aisle several spaces away. Steve studied their locations in the rearview mirror as he contin ued down the aisle. Rather than turn back up the next aisle, he kept going, driving out the way he’d come in on the narrow access road, steering the Lincoln with his left hand, but doing his best to assist in the steering by using his right hand.
Legless said, “Be my guest, sweetie.”
“What the fuck you talkin’ about?” asked Jimmy.
“That’s what she said to call her,” said Legless. “Ain’t that right, sweetie?”
When a car drove slowly past behind them, Jimmy turned to look out the rear window. “How many times they change shifts in this place?”
“Who cares?” said Legless. “We don’t care, do we, sweetie?”
“That’s the same wreck with one headlight that came in a minute ago,” said Jimmy.
“Young lovers lookin’ for a place to make out,” said Legless, touch ing her cheek.
Trying to cut the tape using her fingernail had not worked. But now, although her wrist felt like it would break, she managed to get a finger beneath the tape on her wrists. When the tape began to curl she pulled at the tape as hard as she could, not to tear it, because she knew she could not do that, but to take some of the pressure off the finger she had bent to such an excruciating angle. As she pulled at the tape, she realized it was slipping ever so slightly down her wrist. She shifted her weight to help the tape along.
“Look at this,” said Legless, moving his hand along the side of her face and cupping the back of her head. “See? She wants more of what an experienced guy like me can give her. Ain’t that right, sweetie? She’d say yes if it wasn’t for the tape on her mouth.”
Legless let go of her head and lifted himself by his arms, moving closer to her. Then he rolled over onto her the way he had in the van. His weight pressed down on her, pushing her back into the seat so she thought she would break her finger. She pushed harder at the tape, easing it farther down her wrist to relieve the pressure on her finger. When his weight pressed down on her leg, her foot was shoved for ward beneath the front seat, her ankle bending sideways causing her to moan in pain.
Hearing this, Legless eased off, letting the weight of his torso slide off onto the seat, repositioning himself on his back so his head was in her lap.
“What the fuck you doin’, Legless?”
“Takin’ care of my sweetie. And she’s takin’ care of me.”
“Yeah, real sweet,” said Jimmy. “She probably pissed in her pants and you’re layin’ in it.”
“It’s coffee. She had an accident in the van.”
“You spilled hot coffee on her?” asked Jimmy, with a touch of dis gust in his voice.
“So what if I did?” said Legless.
“Yeah, I guess you would,” said Jimmy.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Legless.
“Forget it,” said Jimmy, lowering his window slightly and lighting another cigarette.
Legless rolled himself upright. “You gotta fuckin’ stink it up in here again? How’d you like it if I cut a big one? I could pump out a good one after that burger and fries.”
“That how you blew off your legs?”
“Oh, that’s real funny. I bet the lady’s impressed by your clever wit. We all got our crosses to bear. You, because you’re a lousy grunt instead of in the driver’s seat like you used to be. And me? Why, my cross pales by comparison.”
; “What the hell’s the purpose of bringing that up?”
“The purpose of it was to have a conversation that would show the lady we’re not complete barbarians.”
“I think that would take some doing.”
“You mean I have to do something more than simply talk to im press her?”
“No, I mean you’d have to spit out the Encyclopedia Britannica.”
“Kinda like a saying a hundred Our Fathers and Hail Marys?”
“Yeah, something like that,” said Jimmy, taking a deep drag on the cigarette, lighting his gaunt face orange, then exhaling and throw ing the cigarette out before closing the window.
Keeping his face turned toward the window, Jimmy said, “Fine, I don’t gotta fuckin’ stink it up in here. But if I can’t smoke, the least you could do is show a little respect.”
“Respect for who?”
“Well, not me. But I think you owe it to her.”
Legless leaned forward, whispering so he wouldn’t shout, his foul breath on her face as he spoke harshly to Jimmy. “I don’t owe nobody nothin’! Gook bitches who turned into Vietcong at night got my legs blown off, so as far as I’m concerned, I don’t fuckin’ owe nobody!”
Jimmy turned from the window. “And as far as I’m concerned,” he said in an equally harsh whisper, “they fuckin’ blew off the wrong fuckin’ end of you!”
She thought Legless would roll over her lap and attack Jimmy. But instead, he grabbed her face and began kissing her.
“You’re crazy,” said Jimmy.
“I know,” said Legless, smacking his lips on her neck.
“Fuck this,” said Jimmy. “I don’t need this shit. Why does there always have to be crazy shit? It’s bad enough we do what we do, but why do we have to go crazy all the time?”
“Because that’s the way God made us,” said Legless.
As Legless rolled his bulk onto her lap once again, he said, “In the beginning God made Adam, and then he took one of Adam’s ribs …”
Final Stroke Page 39