by David Pierce
I never did use the permit after all, the lead I was on turned out to be a red herring, but I did run into a high school teacher from Missouri called Debbi, and oh my God I hadn't thought about her for a donkey's years. She ate banana sandwiches for breakfast.
I thought about old Nazis.
I conjectured about the difficulty of bringing some old Nazi to trial for atrocities he was alleged to have perpetrated almost fifty years ago—it is hard enough rounding up witnesses and evidence these days relating to crimes committed a year ago let alone a half-century. And that's not even bringing up details like the statute of limitations.
And who gains anyway by incarcerating some half-dead old geezer, no matter what he's done. Yes, Victor, all this is fine, but what some of those old geezers did was so unspeakably evil they deserve to be pursued by some avenging nemesis for hundreds of years let alone a mere two score and ten. Longer, even. We all know Who said, "Vengeance is mine," but who said, "Let justice be done though the world perish?" I happen to know, for once, who said something. It was Emperor Ferdinand the One. Whoever he was.
More creaks. A snuffling sound from outside, coming from a dog or maybe a raccoon, that American nocturnal carnivore related to bears who is a specialist at opening unopenable garbage tins. I shifted my weight uncomfortably on the narrow toilet seat; no chance of falling asleep on it, which is why I was on it instead of the floor. I flexed my arm and leg muscles regularly just in case I needed them.
The beam of light that swept over the bed was so tiny I didn't realize what it was for a moment; it flickered like a firefly over the supposed sleeping form. Then there followed a muted coughing sound, twice, in rapid succession. Two small indentations appeared in the dummy. Off went the light. Swearing under my breath, I pulled out my firearm and stuck my head gingerly out the bathroom door, almost at floor level. I snapped my light on and gave the room a quick sweep. The slight swaying of the window blind told me the would-be assassin had retreated the same way he'd come—along the fire escape, which had always been the logical choice. The window was partly open; I eased it up the rest of the way, took a cautious peek out, say nothing, then slid through it like a greased eel and crawled toward the stairs. I'd just got to the top of them when I heard the muffled footsteps of someone ahead of me heading down to terra firma and not wasting any time about it, either. I followed, in a crouch, both afterburners ignited.
I was on the fourth or fifth step down when one of my size twelves broke through the rotted timbers, closely followed by the rest of me. I landed on a rain barrel, back first, then bounced off that onto a pile of wooden boxes and discarded flowerpots. I thought at first I'd broken my back; when I tried to move, I was sure of it.
A dark shadow hurtled down the stairs above me. More coughs. I'd only heard that sound once before in my life, not counting upstairs; it was the sound a silenced handgun makes when it is loaded and someone pulls the trigger, as is no doubt highly obvious by this time. And, like the sound of a revolver being cocked by someone else an inch away from your ear, it is one of the truly chilling listening experiences. Moreover, like a Brooklyn accent, once heard, never forgotten.
Ka-pew! is what I heard next, ka-pew! twice, if that is the way to describe the noise an unsilenced, high-caliber sidearm makes when it is fired. Then a third ka-pew! Then, mercifully, silence, except for someone moaning. I thought it was me for a bit, then I belatedly realized it was coming from a shape lying on the ground almost right beside me. I turned my head and almost passed out from the pain. When the dizziness subsided somewhat, I saw, in the half-moon light, that the shape was Henry C. Clam, alias Nature Boy, also alias my best friend Benny, and he was bleeding to death from a gaping hole right in the middle of his back.
I shouted something, or tried to shout something, I don't remember what. I tried to crawl the few feet to him; it was a nightmare, I couldn't move. Blood was pouring out of him, I had to do something. I unbuckled my holster strap trying to stay calm, trying not to fumble. I got it off and chucked it and the revolver in the rain barrel I'd landed on; they made a satisfying splash. I was going to be in enough trouble without getting done for illegal possession. Anyway, I needed what was under the holster, my favorite wool shirt. I managed to fumble it off, wadded it up, got my courage together, and made a kind of lunge toward Benny, the hand with the shirt in it outstretched. I half fell, half collapsed on top of him but I had the goddamned shirt over the hole and that's all I cared about. Lights came on around us. I shouted some more and lay there until help came. Benny. Benny the Boy.
16
When I woke up, I was wearing a corset.
No, I had not died and gonw to some sort of transvestite paradise. It wasn't that kind of corset, there wasn't a bit of lace to be seen, and no peek-a-boo top, darn it. It was made of white, elasticized material, held together by a strip of Velcro down one side, and covered the area from the small of my back to the upper middle of the chest. Oh—my hands were tied by bandages to the sides of the bed, likewise my feet to the bottom. My head I could move; I moved it, carefully. I was alone in a four-bed hospital ward. There were no tubes coming out of me or IVs dripping into me, always a good sign. I was pretty groggy from whatever it was they'd given me to put me to sleep, but I've had a lot groggier awakenings in my life and ones that weren't the result of medication, either. Lubrication, maybe.
Benny. Silly fucker! What was he doing getting all shot up? Watching my back is what he was doing, instead of watching his own. My left hand touched something—it was one of those call things dangling from a cord that you press and then in rushes a pretty nurse to plump your pillow.
I pressed it. A minute later in walked a highly unpretty state cop, a tall, lanky type with a bushy mustache, one hand on his holster. He gave me an unfriendly look.
"I heard there was a nurse shortage," I said "but I didn't know things were this bad."
"She's comin'," he said.
"How're the others? I said, my heart pounding away anxiously. I couldn't bear to hear his answer; I shut my eyes.
"Two dead," he said. "One in intensive care."
"Oh Jesus Christ," I said.
"Yeah," he said, sucking at his teeth. I didn't know how to ask him who the survivor was. I couldn't ask him about Benny, because he wasn't Benny, he was Henry C. Clam. I couldn't ask him about Henry C. Clam because I wasn't supposed to know Henry C. Clam's name. I couldn't ask him about Solly because in the story I'd decided to tell there was no Solly, and anyway I only suspected the guy who came down the stairs after me was Solly. And I couldn't ask him about Cookie, because I wasn't supposed to know it was the feisty little cook from Dago Dan's who had come gunning for Theo. And anyone else who got in his way. Well, it had to be Cookie, he was the only man in town the right age and the right color that Theo had come into visual contact with, and I was with him every second. It might, also, be conjectured that Cookie did overdo the small-town American local character a trifle, although there may be honest citizens that still say things like "Come 'n' get it, if you want it' "—however, that may be hindsight on my part. But the cop unknowingly put me out of my misery.
"It was the guy you tried to help who made it," he said. "So far, anyway."
I turned away. "Thank you," I said silently. After a minute I said to the cop, "You must have been out there."
"Yeah," he said. He leaned against the wall. "First on the scene. Me and the sarge." He shook his head. "Bodies everywhere, never seen nothin' like it in these parts." A harassed-looking nurse bustled in right then.
"Out," she said to the cop.
"Don't go 'way," he said to me. "The lieutenant wants a word or two with you, he'll be by later."
"Tell him no grapes," I said.
The cop left. I opened my mouth to ask the nurse how I was; she immediately popped a thermometer in it. I closed it again. She took my pulse and wrote down the result. When she'd entered whatever my temperature was on my case sheet, I did manage to pop the question.
"You'l
l live," she said. She produced some scissors that were bent at the end out of her pocket and began cutting away the restraining bandages.
"What were those for?" I asked her.
"To keep you immobile while you slept. You are not supposed to move."
"And this darling corset?"
"To prevent a recurrence," she said.
"Of what?"
"Dr. Imre will tell you all the details," she said. "Now, do you want to go?"
"Love to," I said. "But I'm not supposed to move."
"Very funny, Mr. Daniel," she said. "Do you have to go to the toilet?"
I checked, then said, "No, thanks."
"Are you in any pain?"
I checked, then said, "Only when I laugh, and it doesn't look like there's going to be many of those around here for a while."
"This is a hospital," she said. "Not a circus. Water by your right hand. Lunch in an hour. Dr. Imre will be by before then. Your bell-push is only to be used in emergencies. I understand that policeman will remain outside the ward to prevent any other visitors until his superior arrives." She gave me a disapproving look and took herself out.
"It was a crime passionel," I said to her starched back. "I caught her in the act. With two acrobats and Rex, the wonder horse."
The door swished shut. Like babies, all doors should have rubber surrounds and thus be unslammable, is my new and revolutionary theory of a peaceful life. It didn't look like being peaceful for long. Thank God Benny was alive, at least. What a mess.
Last night. The first person on the scene, except for the combatants, was the hotel owner's son. He took one look and ran off to a telephone. The second was the lady doctor staying at the hotel; unfortunately she turned out to be a doctor of Islamic studies, not all that much help in the circumstances. Then other locals began appearing, jabbering away excitedly. I hung on. I could feel that Benny was still breathing. The receptionist came running back. There was no local doctor but ambulances were on their way, likewise the police.
The cops got there first, it wasn't that long; then two ambulances, sirens wailing, screeched into the parking lot and pulled up. Out jumped the paramedics.
"Him first," I said when the first one reached me and Benny. He took one look, ran back to the ambulance, and returned with a pile of absorbent pads of some kind. He said I could take my hand away now. I did. He slapped the pads on, over the shirt, held them with one hand, opened one of Benny's eyes with the other, had a look, then called his pal over, who took over the job of holding the pads in place while the medic got a shot of something into Benny. I couldn't see what the guys from the second ambulance were doing during all this, but a minute later they showed up wheeling a stretcher, lowered it, got Benny onto it with one practiced movement, and off they went. The medic turned his attentions to me.
"Gun shot?" he said, loudly and clearly, his head down next to mine. He looked about sixteen.
"Unh-uh," I said. "Back. Fell on it. Can't move. Hurts like fuck."
"Right," he said. Out came another needle. He slapped it into me. Almost immediately the stuff hit. I was suffused with warmth and love and truth and beauty, I knew the secret at last!
"Mighty good dope, Doc," I said sleepily, grinning foolishly at him. "Don't forget to write me out a repeat prescription later."
"Sure, tough guy," he said. Then it was my turn to get hoisted onto the stretcher and wheeled to the ambulance and then up and in.
"Whee!" I said happily. "Whee whee!"
Off we went, a cop car following us. They took us to the nearest hospital that was both open at that hour and had emergency facilities, which turned out to be St. Helen's in Sac, I remember the medic telling me just before I smilingly went down to visit the sandman. The sandman was home, he was thrilled to see me again. He tucked me into his coziest bed, brought me a glass of wa-wa, made sure I had my teddy, and then kissed me good night.
Then came morning, corset, cop, and nurse, as described. Then came me not moving, waiting for God in the form of Dr. Imre, and God-knew-what in the form of some nameless lieutenant.
The doctor was the first to show, the humorless nurse at his heels. He was skinny and bespectacled, with gleaming black hair, and lots of it. Indian, obviously. Or Pakistani. Maybe Persian. Possibly Ethiopian. He looked surprisingly alert and energetic for someone who'd been up half the night.
"A good good morning to you," he said breezily, scanning my case sheet that was hanging as per usual at the foot of the bed.
"Likewise, I'm sure," I said. "So what's up, Doc?"
"Not us," he said. "For a good few days anyway."
"What did I break?"
"We are not breaking anything at all, amazingly." He grinned widely down at me. "We are merely dislocating one of our lumbar vertebrae. Ouchy ouch! Screams of agony! Shoots of pain!"
"Tell me about it," I said. "So what did you do?"
"Wiggle, wiggle," he said, demonstrating with his hands. "Until it slipped back like a good little vertebra. Some weeny fraction of an inch is all we're talking about. 'Get back in there, you naughty boy!' I was saying. Tell me this, young sir, did we ever have a shoulder dislocate?"
"Probably."
"We are talking exactly the same principle here," he said gleefully. "We want to coax it back into its little socket where it belongs before the muscles stretch. Otherwise we might engender a permanent weakness which we do not desire, no no no, do we, Nurse?"
"No, Doctor," Nurse said.
"Permanent weaknesses we have enough of already," the patient said.
"We are expecting a certain amount of soreness," the doctor said. "Sadly, sadly, this is so. Mistreat any muscle in the body, and what results, Nurse?"
"Soreness, Doctor," Nurse said.
He beamed at her. "We'll ask my favorite osteopath in the whole wide world to drop by later and check you out, but we don't think there is much he can do for you right now except give you a lovely rub all over and . . . what do you think, Nurse, some deep heat? Oh, yes, please!" He squirmed at the thought of it. Nurse looked away. The doctor then looked down at me archly.
"This is far, far from being the first time we are being in a hospital we could not help noticing last night," he said, wagging one brown finger at me. "When you were lying naked as a baby child before our very eyes. Goodness me, no."
"You're right, Doc," I said, looking shamefaced. "I was in once before. For piles."
Dr. Imre laughed merrily. Nurse frowned.
"Thirty-two–caliber piles, you bad boy," he said.
"The worst kind," I said. "Talk about ouchy ouch."
"While you were going beddy-byes," he said, rubbing his hands briskly, "I took the great personal liberty of going through your pockets, you know, with the assistance of a gigantic policeman. We were thrilled to find an up-to-date health card, or at least I was. Goodness knows what would thrill that brute. So we do not have to worry about that part of it anyway, do we, Nurse, such a relief."
Nurse nodded. I could thank my mom for that; she always insisted on me belonging to some health scheme. And I have to admit that despite the lunatic premiums someone in my disreputable line of work, possessing my age and state of health, has to cough up every few weeks, the price is worth the paying. Mighty like a hangover.
"And this charming garment," the doc said, running his fingers coyly up and down the latest addition to my wardrobe, "is to prevent any slippage, you might say, until that muscle heals enough to take over. We are talking a week, ten days. We are taking sleeping on our back. We are talking being extremely careful getting in and out of vehicles and picking items off the floor. We get into a vehicle the same way a matronly lady does—rear end first. We pick fallen tissues off the floor by bending at the knees, not by stooping from our hips. Anything we've forgotten, Nurse?"
"We sit down putting on and taking off our trousers," she said primly. "We do not indulge in any athletic activities but swimming."
"Ten days, eh?" I said. "It'll be terribly frustrating for the lit
tle woman but she can always double up on her dance classes. Tell me, Doc, that other guy they brought in with me, whoever he was, how's he doing?"
"Ten minutes ago we were sound asleep," he said. "All systems going. Heart beating normal. Blood pressure way back up. We have three pints of fresh red blood circulating away. Our drainage is in place. If we avoid those nasty secondary infections such as pleurisy, we shouldn't have a thing to worry our poor heads about. Oh, golly, silly me, I almost forgot the best part! Our lung has been completely repaired and is now reinflating in a totally normal fashion."
"Lucky old Benny, I thought, lying there with hardly nothing at all to worry his poor head about. Nurse looked at her watch, then gave her frown lines another workout.
"I am making the assumption from his overall condition that Mr. Clam was not being a professional hockey player or a runner of the marathon, because in that case it is certainly possible that his future performance might be affected negatively."
That's a good one, I am thinking. Whatever Benny was, and he was many things to many people, it is safe to say he was not a long- distance runner. The only time in my life I ever saw him move even briskly was when he had diarrhea that time down in quaint old Mexico, and then his gait was no more than a slow trot.
"Doc, before you go," I said, "thanks for everything, first. Also, I'm curious, just how serious is Mr. Clam's condition? When would he, say, be able to move to another hospital if he wanted to, one closer to his home?"
The doc waved one hand negligently. "A week? If there's no complications. Three weeks, he should be out of hospital completely."