Jack held up the necklace. "This is what you beat up an old lady for?" he said in a low voice, feeling the rage pushing toward the surface. "She's all busted up in a hospital bed now because you wanted to rip this off, and then you threw it away."
"Look, man!" Patch said, pointing his good hand at Jack. "You've got it wrong—"
Jack saw the hand gesturing in the air two feet in front of him and the rage suddenly exploded. Without warning, he swung the sap hard against Patch's right hand. As before, crunch and a howl of pain.
As Patch sank to his knees, moaning, Jack walked past him back toward West End Avenue.
"Let's see you roll an old lady now, tough guy."
The darkness within him began to retreat. Without looking back, he started toward the more populated sections of town. The necklace tingled uncomfortably against the inside of his palm.
He wasn't far from the hospital. He broke into a run. He wanted to be rid of this thing as soon as possible.
20
The end was near.
Kusum had sent the private duty nurse out into the hall and now stood alone at the head of the bed holding the withered hand in his. Anger had receded, as had frustration and bitterness. Not gone, simply tucked away until they would be needed, leaving a void within him.
The futility of it all. All those years of life canceled by a moment of viciousness.
He could not dredge up a shred of hope of seeing the necklace returned before the end. No one could find it in time, not even the highly recommended Repairman Jack. If it was in her karma to die without the necklace, then Kusum would have to accept it. At least he had the satisfaction of knowing he had done everything in his power to retrieve it.
A knock at the door. The private duty nurse stuck her head in. "Mr. Bahkti?"
He repressed the urge to scream. It would feel so good to scream at someone.
"I told you I wished to be alone in here."
"I know. But there's a man out here. He insisted I give you this." She held out her hand. "Said you were expecting it."
Kusum stepped toward the door. He could not imagine...
Something dangled from her hand. It looked like—it wasn't possible!
He snatched the necklace from her fingers.
It's true! It's real! He found it!
Kusum wanted to sing out his joy, to dance with the startled nurse. Instead, he pushed her out the door and rushed to the bedside. The clasp was broken, so he wrapped the necklace about the throat of the nearly lifeless form there.
"It's all right now!" he whispered in their native tongue.
"You're going to be all right!"
He stepped into the hall and saw the private duty nurse.
"Where is he?"
She pointed down the hall. "At the nursing station. He's not even supposed to be on the floor, but he was very insistent. "
I'm sure he was. Kusum pointed toward the room. "See to her."
Then he hurried down the hall.
He found Jack dressed in ragged shorts and mismatched shirts—he had seen better dressed stall attendants at the Calcutta bazaar—leaning against the counter at the nursing station, arguing with a burly head nurse who turned to Kusum as he approached.
"Mr. Bahkti, you are allowed on the floor because of your grandmother's critical condition. But that doesn't mean you can have your friends wandering in and out at all hours of the night!"
Kusum barely looked at her. "We will be but a minute. Go on about your business."
He turned to Jack. He looked hot and tired and sweaty. Oh, for two arms to properly embrace this man, even though he probably smells like everyone else in this country of beef eaters. Certainly an extraordinary man. Thank Kali for extraordinary men, no matter what their race or dietary habits.
"I assume I made it in time?" Jack said.
"Yes. Just in time. She will be well now."
The American's brow furrowed. "It's going to patch her up?"
"No, of course not. But knowing it has been returned will help her up here." He tapped his forefinger against his temple. "For here is where all healing resides."
"Sure," Jack said, his expression hiding none of his skepticism. "Anything you say."
"I suppose you wish the rest of your fee."
Jack nodded. "Sounds good to me."
He pulled the thick envelope from his tunic and thrust it at Jack. Despite his prior conviction of the impossibility of his ever seeing the stolen necklace again, Kusum had kept the packet with him as a gesture of hope and of faith in the goddess he prayed to.
"I wish it were more. I don't know how to thank you enough. Words cannot express how much—"
"It's okay," Jack said quickly. Kusum's outpouring of gratitude seemed to embarrass him.
Kusum, too, was taken aback by the intensity of the emotions within him. He had given up hope. He had asked this man, a stranger, to perform an impossible task, and it had been done! He detested emotional displays, but his customary control over his feelings had slipped since the nurse placed the necklace in his hand.
"Where did you find it?"
"I found the guy who stole it and convinced him to take me to it."
Kusum felt his fist clench and the muscles at the back of his neck bunch involuntarily. "Did you kill him as I asked?"
Jack shook his head. "Nope. Told you I wouldn't. But he won't be punching out old ladies for some time. Don't worry. He's been paid back in kind. I fixed it."
Kusum nodded silently, hiding the storm of hatred raging across his mind. Mere pain was not enough—not nearly enough. The man responsible here must pay with his life.
"Very well, Mr. Jack. My family and I owe you a debt of gratitude. If there is ever anything you need that is in my power to secure for you, any goal that is in my power to achieve, you have merely to ask. All efforts within the realm of human possibility" —he could not repress a smile here— “and perhaps even beyond, will be expended on your behalf.”
"Thank you," Jack said with a smile and a slight bow. "I hope that won't be necessary. I think: I'll be heading home now."
"Yes. You look tired."
But as Kusum studied him, he sensed more than mere physical fatigue. There was an inner pain that hadn't been present this morning...a spiritual exhaustion. Was something fragmenting this man? He hoped not. That would be tragic. He wished he could ask, but did not feel he had the right.
"Rest well."
He watched until the American had been swallowed by the elevator, then he returned to the room. The private duty nurse met him at the door.
"She seems to be rallying, Mr. Bahkti! Respirations are deeper, and her blood pressure's up!"
"Excellent!" Nearly twenty-four hours of constant tension began to unravel within him. She would live. He was sure of it now. "Have you a safety pin?"
The nurse looked at him quizzically but went to her purse on the windowsill and produced one. Kusum used it as a clasp for the necklace, then turned to the nurse.
"This necklace is not to be removed for any reason whatsoever. Is that clear?"
The nurse nodded timidly. "Yes, sir. Quite clear."
"I will be elsewhere in the hospital for a while," he said, starting for the door. "If you should need me, have me paged.”
Kusum took the elevator down to the first floor and followed signs to the emergency room. He had learned that this was the only hospital serving the midtown West Side. Jack had hinted that he had injured the mugger's hands. If he should seek medical care, it would be here.
He took a seat in the crowded waiting area of the emergency department. People of all sizes and colors brushed against him on their way in and out of the examining rooms, back and forth to the receptionist counter. He found the odors and the company distasteful, but intended to wait a few hours here. He was vaguely aware of the attention he drew but was used to it. A one-armed man dressing as he did in the company of westerners soon became immune to curious stares. He ignored them. They were not worthy of his concern.<
br />
Less than half an hour later an injured man entered and grabbed Kusum's attention. His left eye was patched and both his hands were swollen to twice their normal size.
No doubt. This was the one! Kusum barely restrained himself from leaping up and attacking the man. He seethed as he sat and watched a secretary in the reception booth begin to help him fill out the standard questionaire his useless hands could not.
A man who broke people with his hands had had his hands broken. Kusum relished the poetry of it.
He walked over and stood next to the man. As he leaned against the counter, looking as if he wished to ask the secretary a question, he glanced down at the form. Daniels, Ronald, 359 W. 53rd St.
Kusum stared at Ronald Daniels, who was too intent on hurrying the completion of the form to notice him. Between answers to the secretary's questions, he whined about the pain in his hands. When asked about the circumstances of the injury, he said a jack had slipped while he had been changing a tire and his car had fallen on him.
Smiling, Kusum went back to his seat and waited. He saw Daniels led into an examining room, saw him wheeled out to x-ray in a chair, and then back to the examining room. After a long wait, Daniels was wheeled out again, this time with casts from the middle of his fingers up to his elbows. Kusum listened to him whining about the pain.
Another stroll over to the reception booth and Kusum learned that Mr. Daniels was being admitted overnight for observation. Kusum hid his annoyance. That would complicate matters. He had been hoping to catch up with him outside and deal with him personally. But he knew another way to settle his score with Ronald Daniels.
He returned to the private room and received a very favorable update from the amazed nurse.
"She's doing wonderfully—even spoke to me a moment ago! Such spirit!"
"Thank you for your help, Miss Wiles," Kusum said. "I don't think we'll be requiring your services any longer."
"But—"
"Have no fear: You shall be paid for the entire eight-hour shift." He went to the windowsill, took her purse and handed it to her. "You've done a wonderful job. Thank you."
Ignoring her confused protests, he guided her out the door and into the hall. As soon as he was sure she would not be returning out of some misguided sense of duty, he went to the bedside phone and dialed hospital information.
"I'd like to know the room number of a patient," he said when operator picked up. "His name is Ronald Daniels. He was just admitted through the emergency room."
There was a pause, then: "Ronald Daniels is in 547C, North Wing."
Kusum hung up and leaned back in the chair. How to go about this? He had seen where the doctors' lounge was located. Perhaps he could find a scrub suit there that would enable him to move more freely about the hospital.
As he considered his options, he pulled a tiny glass vial from his pocket and removed the stopper. He sniffed the familiar herbal odor of the green liquid within, then resealed it.
Mr. Ronald Daniels was in pain. He had suffered for his transgression. But not enough. No, not nearly enough.
21
"Help me!"
Ron jerked awake. He’d just been drifting off into sleep.
Goddamn that old bastard!
Every time he started to fall asleep, the old fart yelled.
Just my luck to get stuck in ward with three geezers. He elbowed the call button. Where was that fucking nurse? He needed a shot.
The pain was a living thing, grinding Ron's hands in its teeth and gnawing his arms all the way up to the shoulders. All he wanted to do was sleep, but the pain kept him awake. The pain and the oldest of his three ancient roommates, the one over by the window, the one the nurses called Tommy. Every so often, in between his foghorn snores, he'd let out a yell that would rattle the windows.
Ron hit the call button again with his elbow. Because both his arms was resting in slings suspended from an overhead bar, the nurses had fastened the button to one of the side rails. He’d asked them over and over for another pain shot, but they kept giving him the same old shit: "Sorry, Mr. Daniels, but the doctor left orders for a shot every four hours and no more. You'll have to wait."
Mr. Daniels…he could almost smile at that. His real name was Ronald Daniel Symes. Ron to his friends. He’d given the receptionist a phony name, a phony address, and told them his Blue Cross/Blue Shield card was at home in his wallet. And when they'd wanted to send him home, he'd told them how he lived alone and had no one to feed him or even help him open his apartment door.
They'd bought the whole package. So now he had a place to stay, three meals a day, air conditioning, and when it was all over, he'd skip out and they could take their bill and shove it.
Everything would be great if it wasn't for the pain.
"Help me!"
The pain and Tommy.
He hit the button again. Four hours had to be up. He needed that shot.
The door to the room swung open and someone carne in. Not a nurse. It was a guy. But he was dressed in white. Maybe a male nurse. Shit! He didn’t need no faggot trying to give him a bed bath in the middle of the night.
But the guy only leaned over the bed and held out one of those tiny plastic medicine cups. Half an inch of colored liquid swirled in the bottom.
"What's this?"
"For the pain." The guy was dark and had some sort of accent.
"I want a shot, clown!"
"Not time yet for a shot. This will hold you until then."
"It better!"
Ron let him tip the cup up to his lips. Funny tasting stuff. As he swallowed it, he noticed the guy's left arm was missing. He pulled his head away.
"And listen," he said, feeling a sudden urge to throw his weight around—after all, he was a patient here. "Tell them out there I don't want no more cripples coming in here."
In the darkness, Ron thought he detected a smile on the face above him.
"Certainly, Mr. Daniels. I shall see to it that your next attendant is quite sound of limb."
"Good. Now take off, geek.”
"Very well."
Ron decided he liked being a patient. He could give orders and people had to listen. And why not? He was sick and—
"Help me!"
If only he could order Tommy to stop.
The junk the geek’d given him didn't seem to be helping his pain. Only thing to do was try to sleep.
He thought about that bastard cop who'd busted up his hands tonight. Said it was private, but Ron knew a pig when he saw one. Swore he'd find that sadist bastard even if he had to hang around every precinct house in New York until winter.
And then Ron would follow him home. He wouldn't get back at him directly—Ron had a bad feeling about that guy and didn't want to be around if he ever got real mad.
But maybe he had a wife and kids...
Ron lay there in a half doze for a good forty-five minutes planning what he'd do to get even with the pig. He was just tipping over the edge into a deep sleep, falling...finally falling...
"Help me!"
Ron jerked violently in the bed, pulling his right arm out of the sling and knocking it against the side rail. A fiery blast of pain shot up to his shoulder. Tears squeezed out of his eyes as breath hissed noisily through his bared teeth.
When the pain dropped to a more tolerable level, he knew what he had to do.
That old fucker had to go.
Ron pulled his left arm out of its sling, then eased himself over the side. The floor was cold. He lifted his pillow between his two casts and padded over to Tommy's bed. All he had to do was lay it over the old guy's face and lean on it. A few minutes of that and poof, no more snores, no more yells, no more Tommy.
He saw something move outside the window as he passed by it. He looked closer. A shadow, like somebody's head and shoulders. A big somebody.
But this was the fifth floor.
Had to be seeing things. That stuff in the cup must have been stronger than he thought. He bent closer to the
window for a better look. What he saw there held him transfixed for a long, long heartbeat.
A face out of a nightmare, worse than all his nightmares combined. And those glowing yellow eyes...
A scream started in his throat as he lurched backward. But before it could reach his lips, a taloned, three fingered hand smashed through the double pane and clamped savagely, unerringly, around his throat. The rough flesh was cool and damp, almost slimy, with a rotten stench. He caught a glimpse of smooth dark skin stretched over a long, lean, muscular arm leading out through the shattered glass to...what?
And then Ron felt excruciating pressure against his windpipe, crushing it closed against his spine with an explosive crunch! He arched his back and clawed at the imprisoning fingers, but they were like a steel collar. As he struggled vainly for air, his vision blurred. And then, with a smooth, almost casual motion, he felt himself yanked bodily through the window, felt the rest of the glass shatter with his passage, the shards either falling away or raking savagely at his flesh. He had one soul-numbing, moon-limned glimpse of his attacker before his oxygen-starved brain mercifully extinguished his vision.
And back in the room, after that final instant of crashing noise, all was quiet again. Two of the remaining patients, deep in chemical dreams, stirred in their beds and turned over.
Tommy, the closest to the window, shouted "Help me!" and then went back to snoring.
Chapter Two
Bharangpur, West Bengal, India
Wednesday, June 24, 1857
It's all gone wrong. Every bleeding thing gone wrong!
Captain Sir Albert Westphalen of the Bengal European Fusiliers stood in the shade of an awning between two market stalls and sipped cool water from a jug freshly drawn from a well. It was a glorious relief to be shielded from direct attack by the Indian sun, but he could not escape the glare. It bounced off the sand in the street, off the white stucco walls of the buildings, even off the pale hides of those nasty hump-backed bulls roaming freely through the marketplace. The glare drove the heat through his eyes to the very center of his brain. He dearly wished he could pour the contents of the jug over his head and let the water trickle down the length of his body.
The Tomb (Repairman Jack) Page 8