DU PRÉ FELT THE prick of the needle and the scritch of the suture being drawn through.
“You want something for the pain yet?” said the doctor.
“No,” said Du Pré.
The doctor shrugged and went on with his tapestry work.
Well, I was right, Du Pré thought. And Lucky saved me some trouble there. If he had just asked me what the fuck I was talking about, I wouldn’t have known what to say.
The doctor finished stitching.
Du Pré stood up. He was just a little light-headed, maybe from the pain. He still had some blood stuck to his eyelashes.
He felt like an asshole.
“Thank you,” he said to the physician. But the man was hurrying off to another patient. There had been the approaching wail of an ambulance while Du Pré was on the table.
He looked down at his bloody linen shirt.
Damn head wounds bleed some quick, he thought. So much for Madelaine’s nice shirt that she made for me.
Bart was waiting in the lobby. He had his hands shoved in his hip pockets and he was looking at the ceiling, maybe counting the holes in the acoustical tile.
“I am all embroidered,” said Du Pré.
Bart looked at him. “I can’t tell,” he said. “You got a bandage on it.”
They went out to the Rover.
“Lucky took off like a streak of shit,” said Bart, “and they are after him for assaulting you. But they don’t have enough to get a warrant for anything else.”
“I won’t press charges,” said Du Pré.
Bart nodded. “I told Michelle I thought you might not.
“She pissed?”
“Uh,” said Bart, “I wouldn’t, you know, ask her for a kiss for a couple days.”
“Maybe it wasn’t even Lucky,” said Du Pré. “Maybe it was someone who was behind me and I didn’t know it.”
I barely saw Lucky move, Du Pré thought. He is very fast.
“Are you sure it is Lucky?” said Bart suddenly. “Absolutely sure?”
“Yes,” said Du Pré.
“Well,” said Bart, “what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know,” said Du Pré. “You won’t just kill him?” said Bart. He was remembering how Du Pré’s father had killed Gianni Fascelli, Bart’s brother. He was a little bit afraid of these Montana people.
“I don’t know,” said Du Pré.
The telephone in the car chirred. Bart picked it up and listened for a moment.
“Well,” he said, “I told you I thought probably he wouldn’t.”
He listened.
Du Pré could hear Detective Michelle Leuci yelling on the other end.
“You might as well yell at a stump,” said Bart. “Yes, you can.”
Bart handed the telephone to Du Pré and changed lanes.
“Goddamn it,” said Michelle, “at least we could hold him and grill him.”
“I don’t think that would do any good,” said Du Pré, trying to sound apologetic.
“Goddamn you,” she said.
“You catch him or something?” said Du Pré.
Silence.
“He will go back home,” said Du Pré. “He will go back home and he will wait. You can’t arrest him. You can’t hold him if you do.”
“The Mounties are checking up on his movements,” said Michelle.
“Big shit,” said Du Pré. “They are going to run into a lot of Indian time, what they run into. They ask their questions and no one remembers. When he came back here, I bet he drove, he come across the border with some other folks. He…”
They were passing a new building going up. The steel girders were partly assembled. The building wasn’t too tall yet. A couple of men lounged far up enough to kill them if they fell, casually as people lean against walls.
“Shit,” said Du Pré.
“What?” said Michelle.
“Nothing,” said Du Pré.
“Look,” said Michelle, “just sign the complaint, please. Humor me. At least if we find him, we can hold him on that.”
“Okay,” said Du Pré.
“Have Bart bring you downtown,” she said.
“I go and sign the complaint, I guess.” said Du Pré.
“Now what?” asked Bart.
“I changed my mind,” said Du Pré.
“Bullshit,” said Bart. “Something changed it for you.”
Du Pré sat silent.
“Okay,” said Bart, “we go down and play scritchy-scritch on the little piece of paper. While my bullshit detector melts down. Why did you go and change your mind?”
They parked by the big building that held Michelle’s office and went in. They found her talking quickly into her phone.
“Well,” she said, to the phone, “I don’t know where he might cross or if he will…I know that…I know that, too. Just hold him. We want to talk to him.”
She hung up.
“You asshole,” she said pleasantly, smiling at Du Pré.
“I will sign your form,” he said.
“Shit.” Michelle sighed. She took Du Pré by the arm and down a couple long halls and into a courtroom. A judge was waiting. Du Pré signed a complaint.
“Will he be available to testify, Detective Leuci?” the judge said offhandedly.
“If I have to bring him in a sack,” said Michelle sweetly.
They walked back out.
“What have you got on your tiny little mind?” she said, hurrying Du Pré back down the hall to her office.
“Couple hundred stitches,” said Du Pré.
“I don’t fucking believe it,” said Detective Leuci.
“You aren’t going to catch him,” said Du Pré. “You going to try to get the Canadians give him back, when I can’t even say for sure it was him who cut me?”
“Motherfucker,” said Michelle.
“I can’t say,” said Du Pré.
“Shit,” said Detective Leuci.
Bart was waiting out in the hallway.
They walked up to him.
“Gabriel,” said Michelle tiredly, “what are you going to do now?”
“Go see my daughter maybe,” said Du Pré. “Get my fiddle first.”
“I picked up your fiddle at the hospital,” said Bart. “They brought it in the ambulance.”
“Then I will go and see my daughter,” said Du Pré.
“Don’t do this,” said Michelle.
“What?” said Du Pré.
“Just don’t,” said Detective Leuci. She bit her lip and went into her office.