“Eddie, don’t shoot,” Bailey said, appearing out of nowhere. “Allie is old and harmless.”
“His mouth is open like he wants to eat me whole.”
“That’s how he suns himself. He’s not interested in you. The lake is stocked with fish, and he eats all day.”
“What about the cats on his back?” “Are they safe?”
“They’re too fast for him, and they know it. Put the gun away.”
“Where were you just now?” I asked, sticking the Cobra back in my pants.
“In the ladies’ room washing up. You want a toothbrush? I have an extra.”
I was brushing my teeth in the public men’s room when my cell phone rang. It was Chief Burke.
“It’s about time you answered,” he started the conversation. “I called you a bunch of times last night.”
“I turned off my phone.”
“Why?”
“I spent the night at the home of a homeless woman and didn’t want to be disturbed.”
“Your head injury is worse than I thought,” Frank said.
“What’s up?”
“Your friends Lou and Joy are up.”
“How are they?”
“Physically they’ll survive. They’ve got second-degree burns, concussions, and it appears that Lou lost some hearing in his left ear. You know about Joy’s leg.”
“Did anyone tell Lou about Joy?”
“That’s when the screaming started,” Frank said.
“I’ll get there as fast as I can.”
I offered to take Bailey to the hospital, but she asked to be dropped off near Pearl City. “I’ll scrounge for some breakfast at McDonald’s,” she said. “Then I’ll walk to Friendship Baptist for lunch. Chef Trager is making knishes today. You want me to bring you one?”
I passed.
When I got off the elevator at intensive care, I saw Chief Burke. “How is he?” I asked.
“They put both of them to sleep with medication a few minutes ago. They couldn’t control them any other way. They could be out for a while. I’m sorry I had you rush over.”
“That’s okay. I should have been here for them last night.”
You should have been here for yourself last night,” Frank said. “You’re not in such great shape either.”
“I have things I gotta do, Frank. I have no time to rest right now.”
“You ready to tell what’s going on?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, I’ve got something to tell you,” Frank said. “We found things at Joy’s house that indicate the explosion was no accident.”
“What did you find?”
“Fragments of a Teflon-coated wrench were embedded in the fibers of a mattress that was leaning against the garage wall. A Teflon-coated tool leaves no evidence of tampering … no scratches or scrapes on a gas pipe. Whoever did the tampering knew enough to use the right tool but didn’t clean up before the blowup. Very unprofessional.”
It was a last-minute job.
“A small piece of electrical wire was found connected to a lightning-arrestor wire. An expert would have used combustible sodium wire that disintegrates at 200 degrees … leaving no evidence. These guys missed that, too. We’re looking for more.”
“Nice work.”
He nodded. “You weren’t really with a homeless woman last night, were you?”
“Not in the biblical sense. I went looking for a client who lives in Rutherford Park.”
“So you’re the guy.” Frank pointed at me. “I should have known. A patrolman picked up some stoned punks this morning on Federal babbling about being attacked by a crazy man at Rutherford Park.”
“It’s a dangerous place. I hear kids go there to beat up the homeless.”
“They said this guy was about ten feet tall,” Frank said with a smile.
“That leaves me out.”
“How’s your head?”
“I’m having hot flashes and seeing red all the time. My behavior is unpredictable. Outside of that, I’m fine. How’s Joy?”
“Stable but she refuses to see anyone.”
“Even Lou?”
“Especially Lou.”
“That’s bad. What does her doctor say?”
“You can ask him,” Frank told me. “He’s in with her now and should be out soon.”
A few minutes later, a tall, dark, middle-aged doctor in a white coat exited Joy’s room. “Chief Burke,” he said, holding out his hand, “you’re still here.”
“She’s a good friend,” Frank said. “Eddie Perlmutter, meet Dr. Barry Unger, Joy’s surgeon.”
“I know Dr. Unger.”
“Have we met?” the doctor asked.
“You hit a golf ball through my window. It had your name on it.”
“Oh, yes.” He looked at me. “I remember. Are you armed?”
“Always, but I’m taking an anger-management class. I’m much better.”
We laughed and shook hands. “How’s Joy?” I asked.
“She’ll survive her injuries, but I’m very concerned about her. She’s an emotional wreck. She won’t allow us to examine her and she refuses to move. Normally we have an amputee in a wheelchair within two days, but she won’t budge. We can’t begin her rehabilitation without her cooperation.”
“Will she get better with time?” I asked.
“I’m concerned she could get worse. She seems to have lost her will to live. She’s said several times she wishes she was dead.”
“What’s her physical condition?”
“Surprisingly promising,” Dr. Unger said. “We amputated below the knee, which means she has a functioning knee joint. With a properly designed prosthesis and a lot of hard work, she could walk again, maybe even run.”
“Have you told her?”
“Of course. But she’s not listening. She just stares off into space. We can’t help her unless she helps us.” The doctor looked at his watch. “I have to go. I’ll be back later.”
“Is there anything we can do?”
“Try to get her to work with us, or she’s going to wither away,” he said and moved on.
“Lou’s the only one who can get through to her,” I said to the chief.
“But she won’t talk to him,” he said.
“I’ll figure out something.”
After Frank went back to work, I went to Lou’s room, sat down on a comfortable chair beside his bed, and watched him sleep. When I woke up two hours later, he was watching me.
“Hey, Lou,” I said in a groggy voice and sat up straight from my slouch.
“Where were you?” he asked, sounding like a little boy who was lost and found. Tears were in his eyes.
“I got here as soon as I could, Lou.”
“Joy lost her leg,” he told me, choking on the words and covering his eyes with his arm.
“I know.” I bit my lower lip. It’s a good thing I don’t cry.
“Can you believe it … a gas explosion?” he said incredulously. “What are the odds of that?”
He had no idea the explosion was manmade. No one except Frank Burke and I suspected anything. Jerry Small had a hint … but Lou didn’t have a clue.
Should I tell him?
Would he want me to tell him?
Would I want him to tell me?
Yes!
“Lou, I have to tell you something that’s going to upset you. Do you want to hear it now … or wait until you’re feeling better?”
He removed his arm from his eyes. “Tell me now. I can’t feel any worse.”
That’s what you think.
I started with the end of our meeting with Grover and told him everything. He didn’t interrupt once, though his facial expressions told me what he was feeling. When I reached the part about the shoot-out at Kugel’s, he looked at my injured forehead. “I didn’t even notice,” he said sadly. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. You’ve got a lot on your mind.”
“Are you seeing red now?”
“All the time. I hardly notice it anymore.”
“Jesus, Eddie, look what I did,” he said, his voice cracking and his hands trembling. “Nine dead, you’re hurt, Joy-”
I interrupted him, “We did it together. I should have stopped you.”
“No, it was my fault,” he insisted. “You warned me a meeting with Grover was dangerous, but I didn’t listen. I wanted the satisfaction of looking the son of a bitch in the eye when I told him. It was stupid.”
Yes, it was.
“We were both stupid,” I said. “I let you do it. We underestimated Grover.”
“I overestimated myself.”
“Whatever,” I said dismissively. “What do you want to do now?”
“Nothing,” he said, turning away from me. “I can’t take a chance with Joy’s life again.”
I told him about the police guards I hired and my stall call to Jim Hunter. “I don’t know if Grover called the dogs off or not,” I said. “But after you release the story, Grover has no reason to come after you. The damage will be done.”
“I’m not doing anything until I talk to Joy. And she won’t talk to me. I’ll have to give her more time.”
“According to her doctor, the last thing she needs is time to lie in bed feeling sorry for herself.” I told him what the doctor said.
“She said she wanted to die?” he asked, horrified at the thought.
I nodded.
“I have to talk to her,” he said. “Why won’t she see me?”
“You want my opinion? I don’t think she wants you to see her. You’re her whole world, and she doesn’t think you’ll want her with one leg. She’d rather die.”
“That’s ridiculous. I love her more than anything in the world.”
“You have to tell her, not me, Lou.”
“How can I tell her anything if she won’t talk to me?”
“She doesn’t have to talk to you. You have to talk to her.”
“You’re right, let’s go,” he said, throwing off his covers, swinging his legs off the bed, and falling on the floor, screaming. He had pulled the intravenous needles out of his arms and torn the urine catheter from his bladder and urethra.
Holy shit, Mr. Johnson said and winced. I hadn’t heard from him since the last Viagra pill.
Two nurses ran into the room and saw Lou on the floor holding his groin and moaning. “Jesus, God,” one of the RNs said. “He broke the balloon off his Foley catheter. I’ve never seen that before.”
They started lifting Lou, and he started screaming. I left the room and waited in the corridor while he was reconnected, soothed, and drugged.
“What the hell happened?” one of the nurses said as she waved me back into his room.
“He got upset. He tried to get out of bed.”
“Well, he can’t. He’s attached to a bunch of stuff. If we want to move him, we have to take all his attachments with him. No more excitement, understand? We just gave him some pain pills.”
I nodded.
When I reentered, Lou looked at me sheepishly. “I guess I’m not cut out to be a hero.”
“After what you just survived, you’re my hero.”
“What do we do now?” Lou asked, his eyes growing glassy from painkillers.
“First we figure out how to move you without giving you a sex change.”
“I’d appreciate that.” His eyes began to close. The drugs were doing their job.
“Then we’ll worry about step two, getting you in to see Joy. We’ll do it.”
He smiled and fell asleep.
While Lou slept, I wandered the floors and corridors of the hospital formulating a strategy. I borrowed a male nurse’s green, baggy uniform from an open linen closet and put it on in an empty men’s room stall. The round surgical linen cap covered the red spots on my forehead, and the surgical mask covered most everything else. Incognito, I wandered into the maternity ward and froze when someone grabbed my arm.
“Hey, Doc,” a beaming, red-faced young man said to me. “Would you mind taking a picture of me and my new son?”
“Not at all,” I said, relieved.
A black female nurse, inside the nursery, held up a screaming Caucasian baby boy who could have been anyone’s except hers and or that of an old Chinese woman standing next to me. I was handed a camera, snapped a picture of the beaming father and screaming son, declined an it’s a boy cigar, congratulated everyone, and hustled away. I passed a woman in a wheelchair and got an idea. Her wheelchair had a portable IV pole attached that carried three intravenous bags.
Perfect.
I saw a similar wheelchair against the wall, without a lady in it, and borrowed it just before I got on the elevator. No one gave me a second look on the ride up to intensive care, and I confidently pulled my face mask down for the duration of the ride. I got off the elevator wheeling the chair in front of me.
Head down, mask up.
I walked to Lou’s room. He was still sleeping. I was sweating like a pig. I took off the uniform and hid it in the closet. I sat in the chair next to the bed and took deep breaths. A real male nurse entered the room, nudged Lou awake, and took his vital signs. He seemed satisfied and nodded to me as Lou closed his eyes again.
“A friend?” the nurse asked.
“My best friend,” I confirmed. “I’ve got another friend on the floor named Joy Feely. How’s she doing?”
“Not so good. She lost a leg, you know.”
I nodded.
“She won’t talk, eat, nothing.” He sighed. “She won’t even let me take her vital signs. She hides under her blanket. They’re going to have to do something about her before she makes matters worse.”
“Can I visit her?”
“We’re not allowed to let anyone in to see her. Those are her orders, not the doctor’s.”
“What if you don’t see me entering the room?” I said with a wink.
“I can’t stop someone I don’t see,” he said understandingly. “But all visitors have to check in at the reception desk to get in the ward.”
“I’m already in the ward.”
“Indeed you are,” he said, giving me a thumbs-up and departing.
I was leaving Lou’s room when two cops arrived. I recognized them from police headquarters, and they knew me.
“Hi, guys. Are you here to guard Feely and Dewey?” I asked.
They nodded, and one of them said, “Chief Burke said we’re working for you.”
“Come back in an hour,” I said. “I may have different instructions for you.”
“We’ll go to the cafeteria and hang out,” the other cop said and handed me a card with his cell phone number. “Call if you need us.”
I located Joy’s room, four doors away. The door was closed. I returned to Lou’s room and nudged his shoulder. His eyes opened slowly. “What?”
“I’m busting you out of here.”
“Where we going?” he said, still groggy from the drugs.
“Joy’s room.”
“Okay,” he said, placing his hands over his crotch. “Just be careful.”
I moved his intravenous bag and catheter tube to the wheelchair holder. Lou edged himself off the bed into the chair. Miraculously the transfer went without a hitch. He watched and smiled as I put on my Nurse Eddie disguise. “The things we do for love,” I said, pulling up my face mask. “Do you have any idea what you’re going to say to her?”
“I’m going to ask her one question,” Lou told me, still sounding mildly under the influence.
“The last time you did that we almost got killed.”
“I’ll do better this time.”
I wheeled him to Joy’s room. Her door was closed. I knocked.
“Leave me alone,” we heard a weak voice say.
I opened the door and pushed Lou into the room. She was lying in bed, looking out the window, away from us. “I told you to leave me alone,” she said and turned.
“Hi, Joy,” Lou said and waved timidly.
�
��Go away,” she said, starting to cry. “I don’t want to see you.” She pulled her covers over her face like a frightened child. “I don’t want to see anyone.”
Lou motioned for me to push him closer to her bed and I did. I could see the where her leg was missing under the covers. I don’t cry, but I almost did.
She sensed that we had moved closer. “Go away. Please. I don’t want you here,” she pleaded.
“I understand, Joy,” Lou said calmly.
“No, you don’t,” she said, her head still covered. “Go away.”
“Okay, I’ll go away if you answer one question for me.”
“No questions,” she said, her voice muffled by the blanket. “Get out.”
“You only have to give a one-word answer. And I’ll leave.”
Oh, boy, this sounds familiar.
“My one-word answer is no.”
“I haven’t asked the question.”
“I don’t care, go away,” she insisted.
“Not until you answer my question.”
“Just one word and you’ll leave?”
“One word,” he confirmed.
“You promise.”
“I promise.”
“Okay,” she agreed, still hiding under the blanket. “Ask your stupid question.”
“Will you marry me?”
Wow! That’s some question.
Dead silence. Her eyes peeked above the covers. “W-what?”
“That’s not an answer,” Lou said.
“You don’t want to marry me,” she said, stunned. “I’m a cripple.”
“You lost part of your right leg. You’re not a cripple. You’ll walk again, and I’ll walk with you.”
“But I’m a one-legged freak now.” She wept.
“Are you kidding me? You could win the One-Legged Miss America contest, you’re so beautiful.”
Don’t push it, Lou.
Joy lowered the blanket below her chin. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Don’t make fun of me, Lou,” she said, sniffling.
“I’m not making fun of you. I’m proposing to you.”
“You don’t mean it.”
“Yes, I do. And what happened to the one-word answer I wanted?”
“Why would you want to marry me? I’m a mess.”
You’re making progress, Louie.
Boca Daze Page 13