I’d had it with the hospital, but even I ain’t crazy enough to try an’ drive home with a three-day-old bullet hole in my leg. So after Rye left, I called Martha an’ axed her to scare me up one of our two unofficial cabs.
“What for, Homer?” she axed.
“I’m fixin’ to blow this pop stand, an’ my wheels are at the town hall.”
“They can’t be releasing you so soon.”
“They got nothin’ to do with it.”
I said I’d be ready in a half hour; Martha said she’d see what she could do. Then I rung for the nurse an’ axed for my clothes. I got two nurses, who come in empty-handed.
“You can’t get up,” the first one said. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“That explains why I feel like a quart low.”
But that weren’t the case, the nurse tole me. “When folks heard you needed blood, Sheriff, they just flocked in to donate. You must be related by blood to half the county now.”
That weren’t nothin’ new.
“Yeah,” the second nurse said. “You even got some colored blood in you.”
“What color?”
“Why, red of course.”
“That’s good enough for me.” That seemed to confuse her. I turned to the first nurse an’ said, “You gonna get my pants, or do I have to walk outta here buck nekked?”
She blushed, an’ they scurried off. When the first nurse come back, she was carryin’ a set of those blue pajamas doctors wear in the operatin’ room. “I’m sorry, Sheriff,” she said, an’ she really did seem sorry. “The state police took your clothes for evidence. Since you’re bound an’ determined to get up, you can borrow these.”
I thanked her an’ told her to clear out an’ let me have some privacy. After a bit of back an’ forth, she did.
By the time I was dressed, the nurse come back with reinforcements. The doctor repeated what she’d tole me, an’ when I tole him I was still leavin’, axed me to sign a paper promisin’ I wouldn’t sue him or the hospital if I died from leavin’ against their advice.
Think about that.
They insisted on wheelin’ me out the front door in a wheelchair—it give me a new perspective on Ben’s state of affairs. Martha was waitin’ in the van she drives Ben around in. She had Haysoos with her.
I axed her, “Where’s Ben?”
“Maria’s watchin’ him for a while.”
I was feelin’ pretty ropey by the time they got me in the van. Martha tole me she was takin’ me to her house to convalesce; I was too far gone to argue. I closed my eyes an’ tole her to wake me when we got home.
But there’s no rest for the wicked. We hadn’t got outta the hospital driveway ’fore Rye came on the air to ask Martha to get in touch with me.
I got on the radio. “What is it, Rye?”
“Homer, you’re sprung!”
“That’s right. What do you need?”
“Nina an’ me followed your orders an’ we got two prisoners in custody. What do we do next?”
“Bring ’em to Rooney’s.”
“Sure thing.”
“An’ Rye, swing by the post office an’ fetch that city fella, too.”
“Ten-four.”
By the time we got to Rooney’s I was ready to go back to the hospital. I noticed there was some new outdoor furniture in the yard—half a dozen Adirondack chairs. An’ a matchin’ chaise newly made outta old cedar boards. I remarked on it, an’ Martha told me Haysoos was a carpenter. “He’s been earnin’ his keep fixin’ things an’ makin’ us these nice chairs.”
I axed could I maybe try out the chaise ’til Rye an’ Nina got there.
Martha said, “Just make yourself t’home.”