Groaning, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, the oxygen tube pulling out from beneath his nose. He tugged an IV from his arm, saline pattering on the floor, then tore some excess paper tape from his biceps.
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Garner said. ‘There’s a naggy nurse looking to live up to her adjective.’
Mike stood up and wobbled a bit until his legs firmed beneath him. ‘They found Hank’s body?’
Pinching his gown closed, he made progress gingerly toward the door, Garner following at his side. ‘They did,’ Garner said. ‘LAPD’s on the warpath – he was one of their own. Parker Center, FBI – everyone’s shoehorned into this thing.’
‘I can see that.’
‘Hank Danville may not have looked like much, but he was very well regarded in the law-enforcement community.’
Mike paused for the first time. Looked over at him. ‘Rightly so.’
‘And with the evidence?’ Garner shot a breath skyward, fluttering his bangs. ‘Brian McAvoy might as well give himself the lethal injection. There hasn’t been a case this airtight since O.J.’ He scratched his nose. ‘That was a joke.’
‘Sorry,’ Mike said. ‘I’m still back on Hank.’
‘You’ll have a chance to say good-bye properly. LAPD’s planning a big to-do, ceremony, all that. He’ll go out a hero.’
Mike didn’t trust his voice, so he just nodded and kept on toward the door.
‘You really shouldn’t be up,’ Garner said.
‘Feels like that,’ Mike said. ‘Which way’s my wife?’
‘Down that hall there.’
‘Shep?’
‘Around somewhere, I’m sure. He hasn’t strayed far from your side since he was released.’
Mike leaned against the doorway, breathing hard. ‘Released?’
‘He’s under investigation,’ Garner said. ‘Your lawyer turned over the security recording from Graham’s house, as well as all the other documents. This is a high-order mess, clearly, but we’ve persuaded the AUSA and the DA to offer you full federal and state immunity in exchange for your truthful testimony and for your cooperation as pertains to the case against Brian McAvoy. Let me repeat: That’s full immunity.’
‘So I don’t sue the state,’ Mike said. ‘Which I assume is why you’re being good enough to check in on me. In a quiet hospital room before anyone else can get to me.’
Garner affected a bored expression. ‘While they’re willing to make some allowances for you given the early investigative . . . missteps, someone has to answer for the string of felonies you and Shepherd White left in your wake.’
Mike’s lip curled. ‘You need a fall guy.’
‘There were laws broken. Stolen vehicles, battery, robbery, the murder of an important state law-enforcement agent in his bedroom at night. There’s you, family man, honored community leader. And there’s a convicted felon. Someone fired that shot from the balcony.’
‘Graham was a murdering piece of shit.’
‘It might be less complicated for everyone if it doesn’t get advertised that way.’
‘Less complicated for who?’ Mike started forward again.
‘Let’s just stop a moment, Mike.’ Garner placed a hand gently on his shoulder, halting him. ‘You could end up in prison. This is no joke. You’re gonna want to think carefully about what you do here.’
Mike steered Garner’s arm away. ‘There’s a picture of your boss hanging in McAvoy’s trophy case in the casino. He was even good enough to sign it – “To Deer Creek Casino, friends of mine, friends of California”. You guys took in soft-money donations by the truckload from a guy who snuffed his opponents for generations with abandon while the cops, DAs, judges, and – yes – the governor looked the other way.’
‘Lower your voice, please.’
‘Not only is Shep not going down for any of these so-called crimes, but the governor has twenty-four hours to issue a full pardon or he can spend the last weeks of his campaign explaining why he’s not responsible for his corrupt police force and how the hundreds of millions that McAvoy gave the state budget didn’t have anything to do with how he got away with murder for decades.’
Mike stepped out into the hall, Garner scurrying at his side.
‘We can still make your life extremely difficult,’ Garner said.
‘You don’t know what difficult is.’
Two agents approached at a half jog, and Garner waved them off. They hesitated, not retreating, and Mike asked them loudly, ‘Am I under arrest?’
‘Sir, you’re not to leave the—’
‘Am I under arrest?’
The surrounding movement in the hall came to a halt. The agents looked at Garner. Garner looked back at them. They seemed to blink a lot, and then one of the agents said, ‘No.’
Mike kept going.
‘You’re in the catbird seat right now,’ Garner said, walking sideways next to him and doing his best to lower his voice. ‘You and your family have won the lottery a thousand times over.’ He skipped in front of Mike. ‘You’re prepared to throw all that away to protect a felon buddy?’
‘He is family.’
Garner’s stare stayed even, but his lips stretched a bit with concern.
Mike gritted his teeth against the pain. ‘Now, get the fuck out of my way.’
Garner contemplated for a moment, then complied.
Leaving him in his wake, Mike continued down the hall. He grabbed a pair of scrub bottoms from a passing cart. Pulling them on hurt more than he could have imagined, but the staples didn’t burst, and he finally managed, and let the gown fall to the floor. Every cough, every twist brought with it a fresh jolt of pain. He did his best to bend at the hips to avoid using his stomach muscles, but even that made his eyes water. Shirtless, he continued down the hall, eyeing the charts on doors, the names printed on the tabs, and finally, worn down by the pain and exhaustion, he started shouting his wife’s name, turning circles.
He heard her faint reply from around the next corner and took one jogging step before the blast of heat in his stomach reminded him to walk. Around the bend, Detectives Elzey and Markovic were standing near a partially open door. Elzey had a gift-shop bouquet in her hand, probably wondering how much leniency a fistful of carnations would buy when it came time for Annabel’s official statement. When the detectives saw Mike tottering toward them, scowling and stitched together like a low-rent Frankenstein, they turned sheepishly and slinked off.
Heat roared in his face, in his chest, in the mouths of both cuts as he finally reached the doorway. She was on the bed, her skin pale and smooth, her hair lying limp against her scalp. One of her hands moved self-consciously toward her face but froze halfway up from the sheet, the tiny, instinctive gesture rending him. He gripped the door stile, wheezing against the pain, the two of them drinking in the sight of each other. Her father faded from the room like an apparition before Mike had even registered his presence. Mike couldn’t take his eyes off her, couldn’t move; he was frozen in pain and ecstasy.
‘You cut your hair,’ Annabel said.
She mustered a smile, then immediately started crying, the sight sending him, finally, into motion. He pressed his face to the top of her hair, breathing her in, the scent of her still there, deep beneath the iodine and dried sweat. A nurse was suddenly at his side, talking at them with great agitation, but he wasn’t processing her words.
Annabel hovered her fingers above his scars. He parted her gown, checked her bruised skin, the line of the wound. He felt helpless and grateful and full of rage, the emotions cycling through him like a tornado.
Annabel turned her pale face up at him, and he thumbed a tear from her cheek. ‘Let’s go get our daughter,’ she said.
The nurse came in then at full volume, ‘You are not going anywhere with that nicked artery, Mrs. Wingate.’ She wheeled on Mike. ‘And you. You’d best march back up that hall and get horizontal. And you’re due for some Percocet.’
‘Can’t take it,’ Mike said. ‘I
have to drive.’
‘Drive?’
Annabel said, ‘Go.’
He kissed her softly on the mouth and walked out.
Shep was waiting in the hall, slumped with his shoulders against the wall like a Chicago gangster.
Mike said, ‘Can you get me some ibuprofen?’
‘How much?’
‘A million milligrams.’
Shep put a hand across his back, and they started for the elevator. Mike said, ‘You got a car?’
‘What kind you want?’
‘No, Shep. I want to borrow yours.’
Shep pulled the keys from his pocket. ‘It’s not a Pinto.’ He plunked them in Mike’s hand. ‘With your driving record, I’m just sayin’.’
Shep leaned over the counter at the nurses’ station and swiped a bottle of Advil from the back shelf. Mike swallowed six pills dry, and Shep shoved the bottle into the pocket of his scrubs, along with something else. Mike saw the furry white arm protruding and smiled.
Riding down in the elevator, Shep nodded at the bruises covering Mike’s torso. ‘What you did for your family . . .’ He shook his head with admiration.
‘You idiot,’ Mike said. ‘I learned it from you.’
The doors dinged open, and they walked across the lobby and outside, the breeze reminding Mike that he was, inanely, bare-chested.
The ’67 Shelby Mustang was waiting across the lot, spit-shined, the wide grille sneering. Shep said, ‘Gassed up and ready to go.’
A town car eased up to the curb nearby, and a white-haired man in a gray linen suit emerged quickly, waving at Mike and hurrying over to catch them. He had to walk briskly to match their pace.
‘Mr Wingate?’ he said. ‘I came immediately to offer our condolences about this terrible situation.’
‘You are . . ?’ Mike asked.
‘Now that Brian McAvoy has been detained for his egregious crimes, I am the senior trustee of Deer Creek Tribal Enterprises, Inc. And I come here on behalf of the board to tell you that we had no knowledge of any of Mr McAvoy’s indiscretions. And that we cared for your great-grandmother at the end of her life. I knew her personally, in fact. She wanted for nothing. If there’s any way we can assist you in this transition or anything you need—’
‘Yeah,’ Mike said. ‘I need a shirt.’
The man’s mouth came ajar, the fringe of his white mustache hanging over his upper lip.
Mike said, ‘Give me your shirt.’
The man pressed a smile onto his face. Shep helped him out of his jacket, and then the man loosened his tie, unbuttoned his shirt, and handed it to Mike.
Mike pulled it on, grimacing, and began pushing the buttons through the holes. ‘Thanks. You’re all fired.’
He and Shep continued on toward the Mustang.
‘You need us,’ the man called after him. ‘Who will run the casino?’
Mike said, over his shoulder, ‘You’ll have to talk to my chief of operations.’
The man, bare-chested beneath his suit jacket, climbed back into the town car, and the dark car eased away. They came up on the Mustang, and Mike ran a finger along one of the racing stripes.
Shep said, ‘Chief of operations?’
Mike tilted his head at him.
‘Yeah?’ Shep said. ‘How much?’
‘How much you want?’
‘Can I still pull jobs?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll think about it.’
Mike tugged open the door, and Shep gripped his hands and helped lower him down into the bucket seat. Shep tossed in a wad of cash and his cell phone – the sole surviving Batphone – and Mike rested both by the e-brake and swung the door closed. The engine roared to life, but before Mike could back out, Shep tapped the glass.
When Mike rolled down the window, Shep said, ‘They always say it doesn’t solve anything. Revenge. But when you killed them, did it feel good?’
‘Yes,’ Mike said, and drove off.
Chapter 59
The few times he stopped for gas, food, or caffeine, he drew odd stares. Fair enough – with his dress shirt, scrub bottoms, and bare feet, he did look like he’d escaped from an asylum. He popped Advil for the pain, but it was mostly adrenaline that kept him pushing through. The drive was long, and he dreamed a little.
He’d get immunity or wouldn’t, but either way he’d return Kat and Annabel to their home and they’d have enough money from the casino to be taken care of for the rest of their lives. He could repay his countless debts of gratitude – to Hank’s survivors, to Jocelyn Wilder, to Jimmy. Hell, he could repipe all of Green Valley with vitri-fucking-fied clay or pay back the fraudulent green subsidies. Those houses would be the first place he’d spend the casino’s money, a public penance for the lie that had put all this into motion.
And whether as a free man or on prison release, he would have a quiet little ceremony for his parents. John and Danielle Trainor. Proper caskets. He would lay them in the ground and turn over the first spadeful.
At long last he would put them to rest.
At a truck stop an hour away, sipping Coke and eating a Snickers, he caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror. A few drops of blood, probably from a dripping IV line, had dried on the lobe of his ear, and whoever had shaved him had missed a patch of stubble at the corner of his jaw. He licked his thumb and tried to wipe the blood off, and it wasn’t until he saw how badly his hand was shaking that he realized how nervous he was. He went into the bathroom, washed his face, and did his best to make himself look human again. Still, by the time he got the Mustang back on the road, his pain had taken a backseat to the hum of fear running like a current between his ears.
He entered Parker, Arizona, passing the movie theater where he’d taken Kat, the little dress shop, the diner at which they’d eaten their last meal. Nausea returned like a muscle memory, and, flustered, he lost his way. He got turned around, winding through suburban circles, his frustration bringing him to the verge of tears.
The Batphone rang. Praying for help, he answered.
‘Graham, it seems, was shot during a random home-invasion robbery.’
It took him a few seconds to place the voice. Bill Garner.
Garner continued. ‘Would you like to contradict that account?’
Mike thought of how far back it all went with Graham. Mike’s father, Just John, struggling to the death. The last name that Mike had been saddled with as a four-year-old, assigned by a faceless smart-ass in Social Services. And now it had come full circle. The record would show that Graham had been killed by an unidentified suspect – a John Doe.
‘No,’ Mike said.
‘I had to go to the wall to get Shepherd White included under your immunity deal,’ he said. ‘It was closer than you’d ever like to know. I’ll say one thing, Mike, you’ve got stamina.’
Mike said, ‘And loyalty.’
A street opened up off a curve. He’d looped past it twice before but somehow not seen it.
Garner was saying, ‘—DA can send the documents on to—’
Mike came off the turn, and there ahead was the rambling ranch house and the backyard filled with play structures and girls in motion. ‘I have to go.’
‘We’re talking about your immunity,’ Garner said. ‘You got somewhere more important to be?’
‘Yeah,’ Mike said. ‘I do.’
He eased in to the curb where he’d parked before, where he and Kat had struck their dire deal.
You will come back for me.
I will come back for you.
Before he could brace himself, he saw her, off the front porch, pouring water from a plastic bucket onto a wilted fern. She was wearing the yellow gingham dress he’d bought her, though the sleeve was torn and the hem ragged.
He got out of the Mustang, his legs barely able to sustain him. At the slam of the car door, she looked up, a smudge of dirt on her cheek. She looked right at him.
And then she turned and walked inside.
A breeze blew
across his face, an empty, desert sound, and for a moment he actually thought it would shatter him. He stood trembling. He did his best to put himself back together, piece by piece, before he felt steady enough to follow her in.
An older girl answered the door. ‘Are you . . .?’
He said, ‘Yes.’
A husband. A father.
The girl stepped aside.
Over on the couch, Jocelyn took note of him and beckoned the swirl of children in the room, corralling them magically around her. They hushed and looked with darting eyes.
Jocelyn said, ‘She’s outside.’
Mike’s mouth moved twice before he could speak. ‘Thank you.’
Kat was sitting past the swing set on a patch of cracked asphalt, playing with a doll. Legless Barbie. She was mumbling to herself, manipulating the arms this way and that. Her hair was uncombed and her nails dirty.
Mike reached her. She did not look up. Given the staples and sutures, it took him a while to lower himself to the ground opposite her. He watched her play. Still she did not raise her head.
He reached into the pocket of his scrub pants, tugged out Snowball II, and set it on the ground between them. In a burst of anger, Kat picked up the tiny stuffed polar bear and threw it off into the weeds at the base of the fence.
Mike said, ‘Okay.’
The staples gnawed at his skin, but he wouldn’t move. He watched her hands, the scab on her knee, the top of her head. He was aching to hold her, but he forced himself to sit still, to let her arrive at this moment on her own time. She tilted her head, and he caught a glimpse of her cheek. It was quivering. She banged Barbie against the asphalt.
He said, ‘How’s she feel about having one leg?’
Kat said, ‘She’s angry.’
‘I bet.’
He wanted so badly to reach out and touch her arm, to stroke her hair, to take her hand. Overhead, a woodpecker knocked its face against a telephone pole.
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