by G. M. Ford
Which was about three feet. The icy water took his breath away. The floating snow and ice made it like trying to swim in beef stew. He flailed with all his might, kicking his legs, trying to pull himself forward, toward the stairs and the circling red lights. Beating the water to foam as his clothes became saturated and began to pull him downward into the inky abyss.
A song. One he used to sing with his mother began to play in his ears. For reasons unknown, something about John Brown’s body lying moldering in the grave began to pump through his mind. He could hear her thin voice. Feel the warm glow of the old coal stove on his cheeks. He was swinging his arms but couldn’t remember why. She got to her feet. Turned off the kerosene lamp and held out her hand to him. He stretched his arm as far as it would go but could not find the comfort of her hand in the frozen darkness. He closed his eyes and went to sleep.
He didn’t dream of anything. No long passageways. No bright white lights. No welcoming relatives at the end of the journey. No harps. No wings. No halos. None of that stuff. Just the restful blackness and the calm quietude in the floating moments before he heard the words, “I’ve got a heartbeat here,” and he was born all over again.
“He may be some famous author or something, but that’s one tough son of a bitch,” he heard a deep voice say.
“Fucker was dead for five minutes.” A different male voice.
“He’s not out of the woods yet,” somebody female admonished. “It’s quite likely he’s nothing but a vegetable with a heartbeat. And watch your language.”
“Brain function is erratic,” another voice said. “Vital signs are marginal.”
“He’s carrying an organ donor card,” said the woman. “Healthy young specimen like this could keep a lot of other people alive for a long time.”
“Anybody looking for next of kin?”
“Records is working on it.”
“Famous guy like this…they’re gonna want to keep him alive till he grows moss on his north side,” one of the men said.
Corso wanted to speak. Wanted to reach out and take somebody’s hand. To say, “Hey there. It’s me here. Frank Corso. Don’t give up on me. I’m right here.” He wanted to, but his muscles wouldn’t cooperate. He couldn’t force so much as a syllable though his lips. Couldn’t get his eyelids to twitch. Couldn’t wiggle a finger.
“Core temperature is rising,” said another woman.
Corso strained in the darkness.
“Let’s get him down to ICU,” the skeptic said. “We’ll find out what next of kin has to say about keeping him alive and go from there.”
Corso felt a warm hand on his chest. Right over his heart. Then the cold metal of a stethoscope. “Heartbeat’s getting more regular, but it’s brain function I’m worried about.”
Corso put every fiber of his being into bending his elbow. He felt it move. Incrementally at first. A millimeter at a time. His shoulder muscles twitched from the strain. The hand on his chest began to slide out from beneath whatever he was wrapped up in. Made it all the way up to his throat before Corso caught the wrist in his hand. His arm shook uncontrollably, but his grip was iron.
“I’ll be damned,” he heard her say.
14
“T hey said it would be a week…at least,” Randy Sheilds sputtered.
Corso waved the hotel manager off. “Another day in that place and I’d have been dead,” he growled. “There’s no way to get any sleep in a hospital.” He held out his hand. “I seem to have misplaced my key.”
Took Shields two minutes to program another keycard. He limped out from behind the desk, then went back and retrieved a white envelope from one of the little cubicles. “You have a message,” he said.
Corso jammed the envelope in his pocket and started for the elevator.
“Let me have one of the bellboys…” Sheilds began.
“I’ll be okay,” Corso said with a great deal more conviction than he felt. Halfway to the elevator, his shoe caught on the carpet, sending him staggering for a couple of steps before he regained his equilibrium. He pushed the button and waited for what seemed like an hour before the elevator car appeared.
In the nearly sixty hours since he’d left the room, nothing much had changed except the weather. The snow had stopped altogether. The storm now nothing more than a dark line of clouds far out over the northern expanse of the lake. He double-locked the door behind him and walked over to the bed. He sat on the edge and ran a hand through his hair before allowing himself to lean back onto the flowered print bedspread for what he envisioned to be a few minutes’ rest.
When he opened his eyes again, it was dark outside. Sometime during the intervening hours he’d kicked off his shoes, crawled all the way up onto the bed and wrapped himself in the coverlet.
He pushed himself upright and started for the bathroom. He felt like the tin man. His joints felt rusty. His mouth was so dry his tongue stuck to his teeth. He moved slowly, holding on wherever he could.
He started the shower, closed the lid on the commode and sat down. By the time he managed to get fully undressed, the room was filled with steam. He used both hands to raise his leg high enough to clear the edge of the tub. He held on to the showerhead as he brought the other leg into the tub and pulled the plastic shower curtain closed.
He bent low, allowing the steaming water to cascade down the back of his neck. The heat melted whatever glue was holding him together. He dropped to one knee, then to both, and finally sat in the middle of the tub with his hands locked around his knees, as clouds filled the bathroom and the steaming torrent rained down from above.
He lost track of how long he sat there. All he knew for sure was that it was the longest shower of his life. His hands and feet were pinched and white by the time he dried off and found another set of clothes. He was moving better now, more fluid, less spastic. Still a little tremor in the hands, but otherwise no worse for the wear than a real bad hangover. That’s what he was telling himself anyway.
He was cleaning up his own mess. Some people would have just left it for the maid, but Corso couldn’t do that. He knew from experience that the little twinge of guilt he felt every time he thought about acting on whim…he knew how it made him feel…knew that little twist in his gut, knew it was a signal to be reckoned with. He was stuffing clothes into the plastic bag intended for the hotel’s valet service, when he noticed the white envelope protruding from the pocket of his jacket.
He pulled the package from its hiding place and looked it over. Purple ink on hotel stationery. His name printed on the front in angular letters. He turned the envelope in his hands a couple of times and thumbed it open.
A phone number. Two one three area code. He knew it well. L.A. Took him a full minute of going through his clothes and looking around the room to realize his cell phone hadn’t survived the swim. He cursed under his breath and picked up the hotel phone from the bedside table. Dialed nine to get out, then dialed the number.
“Yeah,” a voice said.
“You leave me a message?”
“You Frank Corso?”
The voice was husky but definitely a woman.
“Where are you?” he said.
“Right where you told me to be.”
Corso thought it over. “I’m in 1273,” he said finally.
“Five minutes,” and the connection broke.
Wasn’t that long. More like three when a single knock sounded on the door.
Corso was careful this time. Peering out through the little spy-hole in the door. Pushing his face over to the side so he could see up the hall in both directions. Satisfied it was a she, and she was alone, he unfastened both security devices and opened the door.
Somewhere around forty. Five-foot-six or -seven. Didn’t take much imagination to see the girl in her, but the lines around her eyes told a different tale. Gave the impression there wasn’t much she hadn’t seen. Hard to tell whether her short brown hair had been streaked by the sun or by a beautician. She wore jeans and a simple
blue shirt. Wasn’t much in the way of fashion, but it looked good on her. She clutched a pile of books and papers to her chest.
Corso stepped aside and allowed her to enter the room. When he’d finished double-locking the door, he turned around. She was a pace away, holding out her hand.
“Chris Andriatta,” she said.
Corso took her hand and introduced himself. Her hand was callused and dry. Her grip was firm. “Hospital said they were keeping you for a few more days,” she said.
“I had other plans,” Corso replied.
She looked him up and down. Shrugged. “Except for the ear, you don’t look much worse for the wear.”
“I absorb punishment well.”
Her laugh was deep and rich. “I wouldn’t make it a hobby if I were you.”
“God knows I’m trying not to. Believe me. You got a cell phone I can use?”
“I thought I was the only Luddite left without a cell phone.”
“I took mine for a swim.” He nodded toward the phone on the bedside table. “That one makes me nervous,” he said.
She looked around the room, then headed over to the desk, where she dumped the armload of books and papers she was carrying. She pulled out the padded chair and sat down. “I thought you were going to be out of commission for a while, so I started doing a little preliminary work,” she said.
“Like?”
She rummaged through the pile. Came out with what looked like a high school yearbook. “The Wilson High School Vikings,” she said. “Nineteen eighty-seven.”
A paper clip marked the spot. She flipped back the cover and pointed at the first picture in the third row. Nathan Marino. Kinda looked like his father. All slopes and angles, the face looked like it had been assembled from spare parts.
“Where’d you get the book?” Corso asked.
“From the high school.”
“They just gave it to you?” he asked incredulously.
“Speak softly and carry a big purse.”
Corso sorted through the pile of papers. “You didn’t let any grass grow under your feet now, did you?”
She shrugged. “I was here. New York’s paying me. It’s not like there’s anything else to do around here.”
Corso nodded his approval. “Anything interesting?”
“What’s interesting is what’s not there.”
“Like?”
“Like everything. He didn’t join anything. Didn’t do anything. He was like a shadow or something. One of those kids who just never found his slot.”
“A wall hugger.”
“I called just about everybody in his high school class.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Everybody remembered him of course…you get blown to pieces by a bomb and folks tend to recall…but you know, when you got past the bomb and the stuff that was in the newspapers, he was just as big a mystery to them as he was to me.” The hand again. “Same old, same old. Quiet guy, kept to himself. Yadda yadda.”
She thumbed to another paper clip, nearer to the back of the book. Nathan in a Madras tuxedo jacket. A thin young woman with a wan smile was attached to his arm.
“As far as anybody knows, this is the closest Nathan Marino ever came to an actual date. Her name is Nancy Weldon. She lives alone and teaches eighth grade at one of the local elementary schools.”
“She any help?”
She shook her head. “It was a parent thing. Nancy was a wall-flower. Nathan was a nerd. The parents put it together. The prom was the only time they were ever in each other’s company.”
“That’s it?”
“She said he was…” She used her fingers to make quotation marks in the air. “She said he was ‘nice.’”
Corso rolled his eyes. “What else have you got?”
“Everything.” She rummaged through the pile of documents. “Birth certificate. Graduation announcement. Twentieth reunion picture…”
Corso picked up the photograph. Maybe seventy or eighty people squinting into the lens. Corso was still trying to find Nathan Marino’s face when a loud knock sounded on the door. “You expecting anyone,” he asked.
“Not me.”
Corso moved gingerly toward the doorway, checking the locks again before bending over and putting his eye to the peephole. He straightened up and looked over at Chris Andriatta. Something in his expression tightened her jaw muscles.
“What?” she said.
Corso snapped the bolt and pulled back the security lock. The door opened on its own. Half a dozen men in suits and topcoats came rolling into the room. The one in front held up an ID case replete with gold shield. “FBI,” he said.
The other guys fanned out over the room like ants at a picnic. Scooping the pile of papers from the desk. Collecting Corso’s toilet articles from the bathroom. Throwing everything into his suitcase and snapping it closed.
A pair of burly field agents took Corso by his elbows and began to move him toward the door. He tried to dig in his heels but didn’t have the strength.
Corso jerked his arms from the agents’ grasp and braced himself in the doorway.
“What kind of bullshit is…” he began.
“The kind where you’re coming with us,” gold shield interrupted. “You are being held as a material witness to a federal felony investigation.”
By that time, the agents had reannexed Corso’s elbows and skidded him out of the room. “What about her?” one of the others wanted to know.
“Bring her along,” the lead guy said.
15
I n flight, the little jet was nearly silent. Only the occasional buffeting of the wind reminded Corso they were above the clouds. Across the aisle, Chris Andriatta had kicked off her shoes and spread herself out over both seats.
She’d been asleep for an hour, when one of the field agents emerged from the front cabin with a pair of sandwiches in plastic wrap and two Diet Cokes.
“Ham or turkey?” he asked Corso.
“Turkey,” Andriatta suddenly answered from across the aisle. She sat up and held out her hand. The agent dropped the sandwich and the can of pop onto the seat next to her and turned and handed Corso the remainders.
“You know,” Corso said, “this G-man thing doesn’t work out…you might consider a career in food service.”
The guy kept his face rock hard like Rushmore. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said before turning and heading back up the aisle.
“You still busting their chops I see?”
“Helps pass the time,” Corso said.
Corso picked at the plastic wrap and watched in awe as she consumed the sandwich in four mouth-stretching bites before downing the Coke in a single pull. By the time she’d crushed the can down to the size of a hockey puck and wiped her mouth with her sleeve, Corso’s face had broken into a full-blown grin.
“A woman of her appetites,” he commented.
She laughed and wagged a finger at him. “Don’t get your hopes up,” she said. “I’ve spent the past five months in Afghanistan. In that part of the world, you eat when you can, where you can and as fast as you can.” She muffled a belch with the back of her hand. “It’s a hard habit to break.”
She slid over to the window and pulled up the plastic shade.
“What are we over?” Corso asked between bites.
“Desert,” she said. “Lots of desert.”
Corso sat back in the seat and ate his sandwich while she peered out the window. The sandwich tasted more like cardboard than food. He rolled the plastic wrap into a ball, started to slip it into the handy pocket and then changed his mind and threw it on the floor instead. He took a couple polite pulls on the Coke and asked, “When was the last time you spoke to New York?”
“Day before yesterday.”
“What’d they say about my being in the hospital?”
“I didn’t tell them.”
He stopped chewing. “Really?”
Something in his tone got her attention. She turned back his way. “I decided not to say anything…yo
u know…what with the DUI aspect and all….
Corso held up a hand. “Whoa…whoa…” he said. “What DUI aspect is that?”
She searched his face for duplicity. Didn’t find any. “I mean…they didn’t come right out and say it or anything. Just said you’d been drinking in some bar before the accident and…”
“Accident? Who said it was an accident?”
“Everybody. The local news. The local paper. Said you’d been drinking and you know…lost control of the car and skidded into the lake.”
Corso’s laugh was devoid of humor. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “If somebody threw me out of a speeding car in that town, they’d charge me with littering.”
She stopped picking her teeth with her finger. “You’re saying it wasn’t an accident?”
He told her the story. Everything he could recall. “That’s all I remember,” he finished. “I’m told a woman in the hotel across the street called 911 and that a coupla firemen in survival suits pulled me out of the lake, but all that’s strictly hearsay. I don’t remember anything after I started swimming toward shore.”
She mulled it over. “I tell you one thing,” she said. “I’m certainly glad there was another side to the story. ’Cause I’m telling you…the idea of flying out to some frozen wasteland only to find out my contact’s managed to drunk drive himself into a lake…I’m telling you I had thoughts about doing a one-eighty and heading right back the other way.”
“Wouldn’t have blamed you a bit.”
She slid over into the aisle seat. “As long as we’re in the vicinity of the subject…” she began.
“What subject was that?”
“The subject of us working together.”
“Okay.”
“As a journalist…” She made an amused face. “As a journalist anyway, I’ve got a spotless reputation. I’m known for my ‘no bullshit’ reporting. People in the business believe what I tell them. They know I’m not going to make them look bad and they pay me accordingly. I like it that way and don’t want to be involved in anything that detracts from my credibility. Is that clear?”