(Day Eight)
Noise woke me. Someone fumbled with my bedclothes. My eyes opened and the brightness of daylight forced them to a squint. A nurse fiddled with my burning thigh. Jill sat beside Rusty’s wheelchair. They chatted, and Jill laughed the good laugh, the laugh I loved to hear. The laugh that said I wasn’t dying, or that she wouldn’t let a little thing like my dying spoil her day.
I tried to speak, but a weak squeak was all I could muster. A great weight sat on my chest. The nurse turned her head. I squeaked again. She leaned toward me.
“What, Mr. Morris?” Jill and Rusty stopped talking and turned our way.
“Leg,” I whispered with all the effort of a soliloquy.
“Leg?” she asked.
I tried again. “Leg … there?”
She laughed—another good sign. Jill stood beside the nurse, and Rusty had rolled up. “Yes, Mr. Morris, both of your legs are still there. The left one is awfully chewed up, but we’ll make it work again just fine.” The weight lifted. I think I smiled.
Jill and Rusty began talking at once and the load of information became too much to process, so I closed my eyes. But I knew I was smiling.
I ate a little at lunch. Jill helped as my left arm was immobilized and the right wouldn’t pay proper attention to the task. Actually, I only ate a few bites, but I guzzled a whole glass of orange juice and would have downed another had they let me.
After lunch, I found some success whispering, short sentences. No flowery bullshit for this guy for a while. Rusty told me Chief Myers would come around that afternoon, and the Chief didn’t want me talking about the case to anyone beforehand.
“Answer one question,” I whispered with great effort.
“You need to rest now, Boss,” Jill said, and she wheeled Rusty out.
Chief Myers, accompanied by a police stenographer, showed around 3:30. A doctor and a nurse met them at the doorway. I had been awake a while and felt more alert. Also, the pain had ratcheted upward.
“Five minutes,” the doctor said. “Nurse, you stay here and make sure they don’t overstay their welcome.”
What welcome? I wanted them out and something in me, something to relieve the pain.
“Can you speak?” Myers asked.
“Little,” I answered. “Happened?”
Myers said the boy, Tom Junior, had survived and already spilled his story to the D.A. Apparently, Tommy had run a giant con on the Black Hand mob, ingratiating himself with them. The kid, with the knowledge and good graces of Mike Leary, leader of the dwindling Irish mob, had set up a phony kidnapping. My mouth must have been hanging open, for Myers added, “Yeah, that’s right. The kid really has some stones.”
“The kid was using the six hundred G ransom to hire the Detroit mob. The Detroiters would then pare the Black Hand down to a more manageable size.” Myers chortled as he told me that part. “And then that ballsy kid was going to make it look as if Palmisano and his boys pulled off the kidnapping.”
“Hannerty?” came out so softly the stenographer asked me to repeat it.
“Hannerty,” Myers said. “Conor Hannerty, the Holloway butler.” The stenographer scribbled.
“The butler didn’t make it. Was he the bagman?” Myers asked.
I tried to nod my head without moving it and settled on nodding my eyes. Myers acknowledged.
“Survivors?”
“Just you and the kid.”
“Cresto?” I was fading, but I needed to hang on.
“Funny thing. There never was a Cresto.” Myers smiled and leaned forward. “See, the kid and his sister were also scamming Harman, who was dirty by the way, and so was Detective Patterson. The kid and his sister never could quite finish their play on Harman and Patterson because of the gun battle. The kids had their sights set on some or all of the six hundred grand Harman was supposed to turn over to the Detroit mob. That would have left Harman in dutch with the Detroiters.”
Myers nodded in admiration. “The D.A. is working a plea-bargain deal with the kid and his father. He won’t do much time.”
“Sister?” I tried to ask it with authority, but my voice fizzled.
Myers shook his head. “Took two in the torso. Dead before the first officer arrived.”
“Colleen?” I choked and coughed and the chest pain soared.
“Yeah, that was the sister’s name. Now, can you tell me how it all went down?”
The nurse, not Rusty’s nurse from hell but one from the same neighborhood, stepped to the far side of the bed. “He’ll do no such thing. Your time’s up, officer.”
“It’s Detective Chief, ma’am.”
“I don’t care if it’s Charles Lindbergh. You two,” she pointed a lean finger at them. “Out of here.”
Myers acquiesced. “Tomorrow then, Mr. Morris. You get better.”
My nurse shut the door behind them, closed the drapes, and shut off all but one small light. She saw that tears streaked my cheeks. “Here now,” she handed me some pills. “These will get you to sleep.”
I took them and she helped me drink a little water.
“They’ll help with the pain too.”
But I knew they wouldn’t.