“WHERE’S THE CEMETERY?” I asked Noble. I turned to Marie. “Let’s get him ready. I want to get out of here before Bruno and Mack get back.”
“It’s Forest Lawn in Hollywood, not far from here,” Noble said.
Marie got up and shut off the television, then went over and pulled the IV from his arm, taped it, and checked his pulse and blood pressure.
Noble watched her with great interest, watched her every move. I watched Noble.
She finished. Looked up at me.
“Well?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t recommend that he leave this bed for at least two weeks, but I guess we don’t have that luxury, do we?”
“Not hardly,” Noble said. He tossed off the blankets and swung his legs over the side as if nothing ailed him at all. “Hand me those pants, please.”
Marie got his pants. I helped him stand by holding onto his arm. Up close, the gray in his hair showed. In another year or two he’d look like Dad, he’d look like Willy Jessup, a cotton-top. My hair didn’t have as much. Prison life could do that to a person.
He got his pants on and his shoes. The little bit of physical exertion stressed his body and showed by the sweat on his face and his labored breathing. We helped him out to the rental, the sleek black Cadillac STS parked at the fleabag motel conspicuous among all the beater cars driven by sketchers and thieves and people of the night.
We put Noble in the back. Marie got in the front, and I drove. I started up and looked around again for Mack and Bruno, hoping they wouldn’t happen in before we got away.
I flipped on the turn signal and waited for westbound traffic before pulling out to make a left.
“Bruno?” Noble said from behind me.
The way he said it, I looked around for my nephew. I continued to pull out across the westbound lanes, waiting for the last few cars to go by eastbound before completing my turn.
Noble yelled, “Bruno!”
Marie yelped like a puppy a split second before I looked to the right where the westbound lanes should’ve been empty.
The huge truck hit us broadside on Marie’s door. Traveling fast. Traveling far too fast.
The whole world exploded.
The airbag deployed and slapped my face. Broke my nose. The big Caddy spun. The powder from the airbag shoved out all the oxygen and made it impossible to breathe.
In the same instant:
Glass shattered.
Tires screeched.
The sound of rending metal on asphalt pierced the havoc.
I fought the airbag, shoved it down in time to see through Marie’s mangled side window. This time a second, smaller truck, still a full-sized half ton, smashed into Marie’s door. The intrusion from the already damaged door shoved her all the way over into my lap.
“Marie? Marie?” I spoke the words in my head. They wouldn’t come out audibly no matter how hard I pushed on them.
How could she be all the way over on me? What happened to her seatbelt? What happened to her airbag? My head lolled to the side. I tried my best to stay conscious and failed.
* * *
“Bruno? Bruno?”
I rose up out of the blue-black darkness to find Mack’s face close to mine. My head hurt something fierce. I’d banged it good on the support beam during the impact from the second truck. My ears rang and I could hardly hear Mack at first. The bright blue sky haloed his head. The siren in the background grew louder, then faded away.
I tried to sit up. A hand on each shoulder pushed me back down on the gurney. I grabbed Mack’s hand. “Marie?”
“Bruno. Bruno, listen to me, they transported her to the school. That was her ambulance that just left.”
“Huh? Her ambulance. To a school? What’re you talkin’ about?”
But I knew. I’d been a street cop too long. I knew how all this worked.
“They’re taking her to an airship. They cleared the school grounds for an airship. They’re airlifting her to the hospital.”
My adrenaline surged. I tried to rise up. Mack and the paramedic leaned in, put all their weight on me. “Take it easy,” Mack said.
“Sir, I think you have a concussion,” the black-haired paramedic said. “You need to lie perfectly still. We need to immobilize your neck.”
I grabbed him by the throat. “Let me up, now.”
He choked and clawed at my hand.
“Better do what he says,” Mack said. “I’ve seen him like this before. We let him up or he’ll take us all on. And the bad part is that he’ll probably win even in his condition.”
I let go.
The paramedic choked and coughed. “Bullshit. Bullshit. I’m filing charges. He can’t do that.”
Mack whispered in his ear.
“All right,” the paramedic said, “but he’s gonna sign off AMA, against medical advice.” The paramedic’s features smeared together in a mess of eyes, a nose, and a mouth and then returned to focus.
“I’ll sign and take full responsibility,” Mack said. He showed him his sheriff’s star, the gold blurred in my vision. I did have a concussion, no doubt about it.
Mack sighed and helped me to my feet. The world swirled out of control in an unholy vortex that threatened to pull me down to the earth’s core. I didn’t have time for the out-of-control part. I needed full control to get to Marie. I had to get to Marie.
Mack put my arm over his shoulder. I closed my eyes tight for a long minute and then opened them. It helped. We moved through the people, the LAPD officers, the firemen, and around the tow truck backing to hook up to the wreck.
I froze, stopped us dead.
The wreck sat a few feet away. Not one square inch of smooth metal remained on the sleek new Cadillac that we’d only minutes before been riding in. The passenger-side intrusion—Marie’s side—reached across almost to the inside of the driver’s door. How could that be? That had been where Marie sat.
“Mack, where’s Marie?”
“I told ya, pal, she’s on her way to the hospital.”
Nausea rose up. I couldn’t hold it. I threw up. Sno Ball and chocolate milk spattered the glass-strewn asphalt. My knees went weak. I wilted to the ground. Mack eased me down.
“Get that gurney back over here, now.”
They lifted me onto the gurney, immobilized my neck with sandbags on each side, my forehead taped, my arms and chest strapped down. Someone started an IV.
“Mack?” My voice came out in a horse rasp. My eyelids screwed down tight to keep out the violent spinning world.
“I’m here, buddy.”
“Come closer.”
I opened my eyes. He came into view, his face close to mine.
“Don’t let them … I mean, I don’t care about me, but don’t let them figure out who Marie is, how she’s—”
“You trust me, Bruno?”
I tried to nod and couldn’t. “You know I do,” I said.
His lips close to my eyes, he said, “Then listen to me when I say, you have nothing to worry about. No one, I mean no one, is going to get at Marie, not the bad guys and not the good guys, no one. You hear me? You rest easy, pal, I got this.”
They put me in the ambulance, slammed the doors, and turned on the siren.
“Mack,” I said over the siren.
“I’m here, Bruno.” Mack came back in my field of view.
“Noble? What happened to Noble?”
“They got him, buddy. They got your brother.”