Cross thought the dingy X-ray department resembled a well-equipped flophouse. An equally cheerless X-ray technician stepped into the waiting area and counted how many people were waiting.
On the outpatient bench, a man stopped reading Sports Illustrated and looked up to plead, by way of expression, to be taken next. At his feet, a boy who favored him played truck and auto smashup, oblivious to all but his self-generated engine noises.
A nurse came through pulling an emergency room gurney. On it lay a deathly pale girl of eleven or twelve. Cross noted that no one accompanied the sleeping child—no distraught mother, no somber, silent father.
“Is that the overdose?” the tech asked. “Are her parents here?”
“Can't find 'em,” the ER nurse replied. “They didn't come in.”
Cross looked at the waxen face and visualized the child alone, taking pills or some kind of poison off a shelf, hoping someone would pay attention.
The man across from her glanced over the top of his magazine and regarded the girl with an air of bored indifference, as if the child at his feet were somehow superior to this damaged one.
Overcome with compassion for the child, Cross reached through the siderail and stroked the girl's thin arm.
“Excuse me!” The technician fixed her with a hostile look. “Keep your hands to yourself. This isn't a petting zoo.”
Stinging with embarrassment, Cross pulled her hand away and met the concerned gaze of the boy, who watched her carefully, gauging how a grown-up handled scolding.
She hung her head, uncomfortable under the boy's scrutiny, and busied herself with making a fold in the muslin sling around her cast. Several minutes later, her eye was drawn to an approaching masculine figure. At the sight of the newly familiar face, she smiled, surprised by the delight she felt.
“You got the six cents you owe me?” Corky sat down next to her. “I need to pay the doctor's bill.”
The boy had a spicy scent about him that stirred a clean, comfortable memory of drying herbs and flowers.
“What a pushy winner!” Cross laughed. “I still say I'm the expert rummy player.”
“No way, cheater. You were making up new rules as you went along.” He beamed, still elated over having made her laugh the night before. Twice he'd had to remind himself not to try and kiss her.
There had been whole blocks of time while they played cards that he felt normal. His internal unrest had retreated and lay dormant at the back of his mind like a rabid, but presently sleeping dog. For the first time in months he'd slept two hours in a row, undisturbed by nightmares.
While they waited for their X-rays, he expanded on the list of his positive attributes: did she know that he could bench-press 270 pounds and run a five-minute mile? Did she want to squeeze his pecs or test his abs? Artistically, he had a sensitive eye, and musically, his piano teacher said he had perfect pitch. As a scholar, he’d never had to crack a book in his entire twelve years of schooling—his brilliance came naturally.
Having convinced himself he was one hell of a highly evolved person, he dared to stretch boundaries and hold her hand, adding to his list of credits that he was an honest, gentle dude who could be trusted.
Somewhere between the story of his world-acclaimed perfect pitch and the one about doing an impromptu stand-up comedy routine in Golden Gate Park, he quietly admitted that the real reason he was in the hospital was because he'd tried to kill himself.
Touched by his confession and the naive embellishments, Cross wished she was seventeen again and starting over, or that he was thirty-one and still unjaded. Between them she felt an alliance in which there was no room for judgment.
“I feel good around you,” she said hesitantly. “You make me forget the pain.”
His spirits soared despite the increasingly noisy and chaotic waiting room. Normally, it would have driven him crazy, but as long as Lucy was there, he felt he could deal with anything.
Together, they were safe.
* * *
Doll looked up as the morgue cart passed their room. He knew what it was. He'd seen the rush of medical staff and heard the commotion in the room down the hall. Twenty-five minutes later, he watched them walk out, silent and defeated. Maybe next time.
He continued to massage the damp, loose skin of his lover’s back. Someday, he thought, this would be him, skin mottled with sores, shitting himself raw, then rolling down the hall on a steel table to the basement.
The professor tried to turn his head but was too weak to finish the maneuver.
“What do you need, my love?” Doll stood, eager to give whatever gifts he could to his love on his journey to death.
“Uhn.”
Doll searched for the need. A wasted hand rose one, two inches and the finger bent, beckoning him.
“I'm right here. Tell me what you need.”
“Hur…ry.”
Out of habit, Doll grabbed for the bedpan, then stopped, realizing that was not the need. The cassette tape was played out to the end. He found a new tape and put it into the player. “Last one, love,” he said apologetically, not wanting to invite any more sorrow.
* * *
Cat's lower back burned from being on her feet so long without a break. Ignoring the ache, she singled out the narcotics cabinet key from the set of keys jingling in her pocket and fit it into the lock. Above her head, a bright red light flashed on and off, signaling that the narcotics were being raided.
Among the various boxes and bottles piled together loosely on the three small shelves, she found the red and white box containing the morphine cartridges.
Nora appeared, arms folded across her chest. Folded arms always meant crappy news.
“There are two acute admits; one from recovery room and one from emergency. Gilly wants you to take them both. She says you've got the lightest assignment. I’ll help as much as I can.”
Already calculating which of her patients could go without attention, Cat slumped and closed her eyes long enough to let the ball of anger explode and fade.
Certainly Stella was self-sufficient, except for getting her on and off the commode. Cross's dressing change could wait. There would be no noon assessment on either one, but they were stable and who the hell read nurses' charting anyway?
Nora could see to it that Corky was on time to see Dr. Barza. Walker was heavy, with all the medicating and the kids and the wife asking the walking-wounded type questions. Detlef was gone, but Professor Dean was heavy. She had a fleeting hope that he might go before the end of her shift so her charting wouldn't take so long, felt guilty and retracted her wish. It wouldn't matter anyway; if it wasn't the charting that made her day longer, it would be tending to Doll in the ugly aftermath of the death of a loved one.
“Give me a quick run down on the patients I’m getting.”
“The patient from the recovery room is a fresh post-op patient of Dr. Gillespie's. Fifty-two year-old male with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. He's in fair condition, but you've got to do vitals every fifteen-minute for the first two hours.
“The one in ER is Dr. Cramer's intentional Elavil overdose who needs monitoring and suicide precautions.”
“How old?”
“Eleven.”
Cat closed her eyes. Okay, she thought, I've just got two hands and legs, and I can only do what I can do.
The prickles of sweat forming on her scalp told her she was going to do a lot more.
* * *
“Can't you pulleeeeeezzzz bring them up to the ward for me? I’m swamped.”
The dull, impersonal voice of the X-ray tech whined back at her, “Sorry, but we're swamped too. You'll have to get them now because they're in the way down here. We don't have the kind of cushy staffing you nurses have. We work just as hard as the nurses. You think you're the prima donnas of the hospital, and you're not.”
Both parties slammed the phone down simultaneously. So much for remaining a calm and loving spiritual receiver, Cat thought, handing the syringe of morphine to Nora. “Give Walker ten milligrams. I'll retrieve Cross and Corky before they're trampled to death by the crowds besieging X-ray.”
Jogging toward X-ray, Cat was rounding the corner of the empty Procedures Unit when she saw Jo Atwood advancing toward her. She’d never seen anyone move so fast except in special effects movies.
Ducking back around the corner, she searched for a place to hide. To her left, Dr. Cramer was leaning against the wall mumbling. Instinctively veering to the right, she sprinted toward a cart half full of soiled linen. On impulse, she stepped over the side; crouched down, and covered herself with a sheet. To muffle her breathing, she was tempted to stick the corner of a towel into her mouth to muffle her screams, but as a medical professional, she was destined to be a lifelong prisoner of bacteria paranoia.
Seconds later, squeaky footsteps approached and stopped. There was an exasperated sigh, and then the footsteps squeaked on. Cat waited for the footsteps to fade out, and was about to disembark from the cart, when another set of rubber-soled footsteps, slower than Jo Atwood's, came near and stopped. The person was whistling. Medical personnel didn't whistle, so it had to be housekeeping. Something heavy landed on her back, and the cart began rolling.
Bumps. The elevator. Gravity said they were going down. They were headed to the basement where the vending machines and laundry facilities lived.
She pictured the giant washers with the enormous blades, the ones that did three hundred pounds of laundry at a time. She imagined the laundry people emptying the carts one by one into the loading chutes, not paying attention to what spilled out, not even if it was a hundred and forty pound screaming redhead. No one would hear her over the din of the washers, and with all the bloody sheets and towels, no one would blink if the water were to momentarily turn sanguineous.
The elevator door dinged and opened. In the distance, she heard the hum of the washers. The cart rolled, and the washers grew louder, the big blades getting closer.
She could scream, but the thought of making a fool of herself again, was almost too much to bear. The ruckus over her last escapade of getting locked inside the hospital meat locker had just died down.
The cart stopped so suddenly and with such force, her head smashed against the side. As the washers grew louder, the antiseptic smell of the germicidal detergent blasted her nose. The cart swung side-to-side and bumped into something solid.
It came to her in a flash that there was a big difference between riding on washers and taking a spin inside of one.
“Wait!” she screamed, trying to stand under the weight of the laundry. “There's somebody in this cart!”
The laundry person stepped back, struck speechless at the sight of a woman emerging from the sheets and towels.
She pointed a finger at the man. “If you ever tell anybody about this, I swear I'll have you castrated by that moron of a deputy coroner down the hall.”
She was pulling herself over the side, one foot precariously placed on the floor, when the cart began to roll. The laundry guy made no attempt to help, but of course, he wouldn't, considering that she’d just threatened to have his balls cut off.
As she was about to slam face first into the coffee vending machine, a hand grabbed for her.
“Need some help there, Red?”
She didn't need to look to know who it was; David Padcula had come to save the day.
She blushed scarlet then shrugged. He would have to understand that Woody Allen, Ernie Kovacs, Gilda Radner and Soupy Sales had been her mentors growing up. They were in her blood, like a close-knit crazy family.
He made no references to the linen cart. All he did was ask how she was doing and walk alongside her as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
“I want to explain,” she said, finally.
He opened the door to the stairwell. “To be honest, I was a little surprised to see you pop out of a laundry cart, but I'm sure there's a logical explanation. At the moment, I can’t even begin to imagine what that might be, but—”
“Okay, so, I was on my way to X-ray to bring Cross and another patient back upstairs, but I saw this woman who I wanted to avoid and I…”
She searched her mind, desperate for some kind of normal-sounding explanation and proof of her stability, but couldn’t think of one thing that would cover rolling around in the bottom of laundry carts.
“It’s okay, Red, don’t worry about that right now. However, I would like to know more about hurting the duck. I was awake half the night thinking about it.”
She restrained herself from looking directly at him—she didn't want to lose track of what she was supposed to be doing. “Unfortunately, I can't tell you much of anything right now because I'm swamped with new admits and I’ve got to run.”
At that moment she hated her job. She wanted to be able to take a break like a normal person, to go with him for a cup of coffee without having other people's lives depending on her. There had to be something less stressful, where she didn't have to grow ulcers over who was going to die next and how she was going to deal with tragedies like children overdosing.
“I don't need any long explanations, just something to tide me over until…” He stopped, and drew her close to him.
“I know you,” she said faintly. “Are you aware of that?”
“Yes, and I'm thunderstruck because I believe you really do.”
Because she was afraid to go any deeper into the moment, she turned and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. “Are you here to see Cross?” she called over her shoulder.
“Yes.” He was out of breath after only one flight. On the spot he decided to start working out at the gym again.
“Could you do me a huge favor?”
He nodded, trying to cover his gasps. “For you, Red, anything.” Maybe he'd start running in the mornings too.
“Cross and a teenager named Corky Benner are both in X-ray waiting to be reclaimed by Ward Two. Would you escort them back to the ward for me?”
“Sure, but what about the duck?”
“The duck must wait.”
“The duck waits for no man.”
“Will it wait for an eleven-year-old who intentionally overdosed?”
He adjusted his glasses and paused for a count of two. “For that, the duck waits.”
She opened the door and pointed to her left. “X-ray is three doors down the hall. Tell them you're picking up Miss Cross and Mr. Benner, and give the lovely woman behind the desk my very special regards.”
“May I call you at home later to talk about the duck?”
“Sure. I live in Mill Valley, the home of the terminally hip. I'm the only Richardson in the book who lives on Twill Lane, because I’m the only person who lives on Twill Lane.”
“Mill Valley, home of the hip,” he repeated. “Twill Lane. The only one there. Got it.”
As soon as the door closed, she covered eight flights, two stairs at a time, in twenty seconds.
7:01 P.M.
It truly was, Cat thought, a dark and stormy night. The wind blew the garbage can cover across the creek as easily as if it were a Frisbee. She turned back to her book and mechanically read the same sentence for the fifth time: ‘Another voice began speaking, taking over her brain.’
With the amount of time she’d put into it, she should have been into the next chapter, but she couldn’t concentrate long enough to make the words mean anything. It was a clear-cut case of readus interruptus.
With a sigh, she threw the book onto a pile with the others and turned her attention to the sheets of rain sliding down the window in smooth miniature waves.
She summoned up the image of David Padcula. He hadn't called. He hadn’t said exactly what time he’d call, but how rude of him to make her wait. Did he think she had nothing better to do than sit on top of the phone waiting for it to ring?
Obviously, he wasn't calling because she was waiting too hard. It made her feel like forty-two going on fifteen. Since junior high school, she'd probably spent two or three years of her life waiting for some man to call. As far as she was concerned, any kind of waiting, but especially that kind of waiting, was worse than carcinogens. It was like being plucked from the flow of life and put on ice for an indefinite length of time.
Jumping off the couch, she dressed in her warmest running clothes and prepared for the five-mile run to the center of town and back.
She would not put her life on hold for any man. Her life was bigger than David Padcula's measly phone call, and besides, she didn't want to be home when he didn't call.
She made an about-face at the driveway gate on which hung her ‘No Jehovah's Witlesses’ sign, and returned to the house to change her phone message.
“It's seven-fifteen,” she recorded in a sensual, but respectable tone. “If you call, I'll be home in exactly forty-five minutes.”
8:00 P.M.
He hadn't called by the time she returned.
Cat slipped the remote handset into the pocket of her sweatshirt along with a page of key words and witticisms she’d jotted down. She would shower. That was sure to bring on his call. It was a given that the minute her hair was full of shampoo with suds seeping into her ears and eyes, the phone would ring.
It didn't.
After her shower, she sat in front of a triple-power magnifying mirror dejectedly examining her face. From enormous pores, she squeezed minute amounts of yellowish waxy stuff, then plucked her eyebrows and lamented the threatening crow's-feet and pending mouth wrinkles.
She had ruled out the possibility of ever having a facelift. She hated the way people looked afterward: stuck with wearing that constant, wide-eyed, tight-lipped expression of surprise, as if they'd just seen a famous person, or had been told of a death in the family.
She glanced at her watch and sighed. What was it Nora always said about a man who said he would call and never did? ‘No calls, no balls’.
8:32 P.M.
Cat was dancing wildly around the living room when the phone rang. Turning down the theme song from Flashdance, she waited three more rings before she caught her breath and answered in her rehearsed Sunday conversation voice with the slight English lilt.
“Yes, hello?”
“Catalina Richardson?” The deep masculine tone of his voice made her smile.
“Yes?” she said coolly, as in, ‘Do I know you?’
“This is David Padcula.”
“Oh yes, I remember now, you’re the one with the rabid swivel chair.”
He chuckled. “I was going to call you earlier but I got caught up working on Cross’s case and—”
“No problem. My evening is barely getting started. Matter of fact, I just came in from doing my daily five.” She wanted to impress him, let him know she was not the ‘eat-bonbons-in-front-of-the-TV’ type of woman.
“Daily five?”
“Miles. I run five miles every day, and I usually don't—”
“At night? You run after dark? Alone?” The disapproval in his tone was deafening. The swivel chair was silent, and she could tell his smile was gone.
“It’s okay. I carry a can of mace, which I know how to use. I take it you don't approve?” Her Irish hackles rose and the English accent returned at the thought that he was going to be another domineering male who would try and tell her what she should and should not do.
“Let me put it this way. I'm glad you carry mace, and, I’m willing to bet you're extremely capable of handling yourself in any situation, but if I told you I smoked a pack of cigarettes a day, and that I couldn't get cancer because I smoked only filtered cigarettes, what would you tell me?”
“I’d say that you’d been misinformed and that I’ve seen a lot of people who smoked filtered cigarettes die of lung cancer.”
“Okay, so when I tell you that I've talked to a lot of women who were carrying mace which they knew how to use when they were raped and/or killed, you won't think I'm an arrogant, know-it-all male trying to lecture, will you? Until we can stop the men who do this to women, women still need to be aware of that danger.”
She let her hackles smooth out. Okay, so she liked him because he was sensitive. Big deal. “Touché, Detective Padcula.” Without any reason other than being happy he’d called, she laughed.
“You’ve got one of those low-pitched, wheezy laughs, Red—my favorite kind.” The infamous swivel chair squeaked.
“I hear your friend whining in the background. You must still be at the office?”
“Yes, the office is my home.”
She was too exact an observer to miss the tired, sheepish tone of his answer. Adding ‘workaholic’ to her list of David Padcula’s qualities, she immediately guessed it was at least half the reason why he was divorced.
In her mind's eye, she saw a tall woman standing in a courtroom wearing the expression of a person weary of trying to change someone she now knew would never change.
“May I ask you a personal question?”
“Anytime.”
“Were you married to a tall, attractive brunette who wore her hair in a French twist and her eyes in oversized glasses?”
“Yes. Have you met my—”
“And part of why you divorced was because she felt you didn't spend enough time at home?”
“How do you know Pamela?”
“I don’t. But other than Gage assuring me I’ve got second sight, nurses are trained to be observant. I piece things together like voice inflections, body language, eye movement, etcetera. It tells you a lot about people.”
“Except I'll bet you had no idea what I was thinking the first time I met you in the hallway.”
“What was that?” She held her breath, although she knew he would not disappoint.
“When you first turned around and looked at me, I thought, ‘Here she is, David. What are you going to do about it?’ That's why I didn't talk much. I was bowled over by you. You've got a powerful presence.”
“Is that why you didn't remember me when I called you at your office the very next day?”
He groaned and laughed at the same time. “Perfect example of my workaholic nature. One-track mind. It’s been a long time since I’ve had someone as nice as you to think about.”
Unable to speak, she reclined on the windowseat, then stood up and started pacing the length of the living room, grinning all the while. Not only sensitive, but sweet as well.
His voice turned weary. “Pamela is an amazing woman but she didn't approve of my work. To be perfectly honest, I don't blame her for divorcing me. It was hard on her. She resented the long hours.
“I wanted kids, but she felt my job was too risky and she didn't want to be left raising a family by herself. I couldn't blame her for that either. What I couldn’t live with was the fact that she didn't respect my work, and my job means a lot to me.”
“What made you want to be a cop?”
“Long story.”
“I love long stories. They keep me from spending money on going to the movies.”
“Okay, but just remember, you asked for it.” He took a breath. “When I was ten, my eight-year-old brother, Daniel, was on his way home from school when a psychopath got to him, raped him and bashed his head in with a rock.
“The only witnesses were two of Daniel's friends who saw the guy run from under the bridge where he'd tried to hide the body. The kids couldn't give a good description and the guy was never traced.
“I spent the rest of my childhood reading everything ever written about crimes and the criminals who committed them. Eventually the police let me go through their files on Daniel's case and I did my own investigation and search. I didn't come up with much more than what they had, but I knew from then on that law enforcement and investigations was what I wanted to do.”
The swivel chair gave a mournful creak, as if it were concurring with his story.
“I’m so sorry,” she said and fell silent, thinking how a man's entire life had been turned around and molded by a tragedy that took probably all of ten minutes to happen.
“That's not to say I don't love to play,” he continued, “I'm not a total anal-retentive, but I believe that what I do makes a difference in the balance of good and evil.”
Sensitive, sweet, and decent. Where, the suspicious, nagging worm in her throat wanted to know, was the major flaw?
“Do you like your mother?”
She was so taken aback by her own question that they both asked ‘What?’ at the same time. The ugly-love books were having more of an effect on her than she thought. The last love advice book she’d read, suggested that one of the first things to find out about a man was how he felt about his mother, since he was sure to view other women in a similar light.
“I love my mother. She's a doll. Both my parents are nice people. They gave me all the basics: love, right and wrong, football, a good education, backyard barbecues, and the work ethic. Why do you ask?”
“Just wondered if you held any grudges against your mom because of, you know—” She used a stage whisper, “—the chair.”
He laughed in harmony with the squeaking chair.
“Do you have a hobby?” A man's hobby, the ugly love therapy books told her, revealed a great deal about his character.
“I carve birds from wood, and when I have the time and the muse is present, I bleed a few lines of poetry onto paper. It's a kind of self-therapy.”
Sensitive, sweet, decent, and creative? She suddenly felt like crying.
“Do I get to ask you questions too?”
Cat blinked. He wanted to know about her? He didn't want to monopolize the entire conversation with stories about his wonderful self? This was a switch.
“Not only will I answer every one of your questions, Detective, but I'll be so tactlessly honest, you may want to be careful to ask only those questions you really want answers for.”
“It’s a deal, but I think we should continue questioning each other in person so we can watch each other closely for signs of deception.
“Which reminds me—you might be interested in knowing that Michael Lake's car was found today at a truck stop outside of Santa Barbara. The waitress said he was there three days ago, left his car and hitched a ride with a trucker she was pretty sure was headed for San Francisco.
Lake obviously knows we're looking for him, but he's leaving tracks a mile wide, so either he wants us to catch him or he's deliberately playing a cat-and-mouse game.
“I called the hospital and told them there's no need to panic, but everyone needs to be watching for strangers hanging around. I'm going through the red tape to get a twenty-four hour guard posted outside her room by tomorrow.”
“I’ll spread the word in report tomorrow, make sure the nurses all keep an eye on her.
“Speaking of checking on people, I was wondering if you could do me a small favor and get a lead on a long-lost relative of one of my patients?”
“I’ll try. Who are we looking for?”
“A man in his late forties by the name of Otis Gallagher the Third. His mother took him to Arkansas when he was about three years old. The mother’s family is from…” She searched through the deep recesses of her purse for the slip of paper Stella had given her. Frustrated by the jumble of contents, she dumped the mess onto the couch. The yellow scrap of paper fluttered out. “…Nolan County, which is also the mother’s name. Daisy Nolan Gallagher.”
“Otis Gallagher? That name rings a bell. Hold on for a second.”
The swivel chair squealed like a pig as the detective strained to lift a ten-pound book off a shelf behind him. “I've got a reference book right here of criminal history.”
“You don't have to do that. This guy isn't a criminal, he's somebody's grandson.”
There was the sound of pages being turned. “Yeah, but that name is really familiar. I think I might have done a paper in college on…”
He snapped his fingers. “I found it! Oakland, October of forty-three. Two men, a father and son, Otis Gallagher senior and junior, were gunned down and mutilated by mobsters.
“Apparently, old man Gallagher was in the import-export business. Around 1936 he got involved with a couple of underworld bosses. By 1943 things got too hot for him and he snitched to the feds about importing narcotics for the underworld in exchange for immunity.
“The son wasn't in on any of it, but he was unlucky enough to have been in the car when they killed his father.”
Cat was stunned. “Oh my god. She lied to me, but then again, who wouldn’t about something like that?”
“Who lied?”
“My patient, Stella Gallagher, the wife of Otis senior.”
“She's the one who found them,” he said. “Says here, they were on their way to downtown Oakland, driving through an apple orchard about a mile from the Gallagher estate when they were hit. The wife got suspicious when they didn't return after a couple of hours and went looking for them. The story was sensational front-page news back then.”
“Do you think you could get a lead on the grandson?”
“I'll look into it but only on one condition: You have to answer all my questions, and then you have to tell me everything you know about the duck.”
8:36 P.M.
Jaws clenched tight, Corky lay on his bed agonizing over the unexpected visitor—the way the asshole had just showed up—to remind him.
Fucking A. Just when I was feeling nearly normal. The fucker comes in and ruins everything. I should have killed the bastard. Should have broken his fucking neck.
The rabid dog inside him was awake and howling. Now the sick weird feeling was back, burning into his temples and crushing him until he couldn’t see over the top of it. It would never go away. People would know just by looking at him.
Getting off the bed, he picked up the new backpack the visitor brought as a gift and punched it, wrestling the frame until it bent in on itself. Then he opened the window and hurled it over the iron railing.
‘No hard feelings.’ Is that what the son of a bitch said? Pushing his face into the pillow, Corky sobbed. Nothing was going to make it right. Not Lucy, not his parents, not some fucking puke-head shrink. He was through.
My life is over. I’m destroyed forever. Dad said everything passes and that nothing is forever, but Dad was talking about things like stealing a beer from the corner store, and getting kicked out of school for hitting the teacher in the back of the head with spitballs. He doesn't even know about this kind of sick shit.
He covered his mouth to muffle a scream. If only he could go back in time and change everything. Barely able to see, he picked up the felt tip from the side table and scribbled on the back of his dinner menu.
TO LUCY CROSS:
Dear Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,
You are beautiful. Don't let anybody hurt you ever again, because you're too good for that. I'm sorry I couldn't stay around, but my life was turning into a pile of garbage. I couldn't get it straight.
Hope you’re happy someday because you deserve everything. I’m not too young to have loved you. I think we would…
He ripped the paper to shreds and threw it into the wastebasket. Notes were bullshit—he just had to do what needed to be done.
9:11 P.M.
Gage pulled the hood of his rain slicker down over his watch cap and let Tom Mix lead him through the rain down the hospital steps. The ache between his eyes that had been torturing him all day suddenly grew worse until his hands shook so violently he dropped the dog's harness. “Go on back inside, Tom. We still got business here.”
Making his way to Ward Two, Gage felt the hospital settling into its second metamorphosis. The first change, the deceleration of noise and easing down of high-strung nerves, began as soon as the business part of the hospital closed up and went home. The second transformation came after visiting hours ended, the tranquility spreading like a ripple throughout the building.
On the evenings he kept the stand open, he could go into the spirit effortlessly, in sync with the relaxed pace of the people around him. It was the best time to check on the sick folks, listening to their thoughts, feeling where their pain lived and trying to ease it out.
That was how he’d finally found the artist who had painted his cabin and the view with words. Her voice, muddied and fractured, had come through a sea of other voices, searching for rescue from pain.
The signal of distress pressed in on the foreground of his consciousness. Letting himself into the Ward Two linen closet, he explored the shadowed corners of the spirit for the danger. Clear, then nebulous, the source of the tension eluded him, choosing its own time to show its true nature.
A secret, a lie, a wish to die.
From the darkness came a stinging wind, and on it the muted cry came crystalline. He clapped his hands over his ears, deafened by the resounding cry of a boy.
Led by Tom Mix, Gage ran through the halls and into the room the boy had recently occupied. He felt the boy's misery on the wind blowing through the open window. The suffering had taken the form of a millstone that pulled the two of them down together.
He started for the empty window, and then thought better of it. He couldn't walk into the center of the cyclone and expect to survive. He needed to approach the boy and the presence holding him, cautiously and from a distance.
Gage stumbled to the next room and crawled out over the window bars and onto the wet ledge. Hugging the face of the building, he inched forward following the boy's fear.
“Boy?” His voice competed with the wail of the wind, was overtaken and erased. There was no time to lose. In his mind’s eye he saw the young man crouched on the ledge, consumed by the power of his depression.
Corky looked down into the street and readied for the jump. Below, the traffic light went from green to yellow to red. Trained response caused him to put on the brake and pause.
He was repositioning his toes over the ledge when he felt a strong force jerk his head to the left. His eyes snapped open wide at the sight of a black man inching his way toward him on the rainy ledge.
He blinked the rain out of his eyes and squinted. Was it normal to have hallucinations before dying?
Gage shrieked over the wind. “Boy, don't you give in to the dark powers! On my soul, don't let the darkness take you.” He reached out his hand in the direction of the boy's energy. “Get back inside, away from the wind! Don't you blaspheme your life in this way! This ain't the way it supposed to be with you.”
“No!” Corky shouted. “I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t stand it!”
With the boy's energy just under his fingertips, Gage saw the abominable images of his suffering. He pressed his face against the side of the building, and prayed: “Lord of Light hear me! I beg you to release him from this foul wickedness. Ease the weight from this boy’s spirit.”
The oppressive shadow howled. It was not to be pushed away so easily.
Corky again leaned out.
“Boy, listen to me! The Lord don't want you doin' this. The wicked shall perish and the good shall persevere. Don't you turn your back on that. Have faith.”
“I can’t! There isn’t any other way! I’m ruined. The bastard ruined my life!”
“It ain't your fault, boy. Your soul is beggin' to live. You ain't killed, only scraped up. Don’t let the evil in that man take your spirit. You got to spite that shame inside you. Cut it away. Don’t let the wickedness pull you down. Don’t let the evil win. You’re meant to live. You got important things to do yet.”
The wind whipped at Gage, weakening his hold on the building. With the last of his strength, he thrust himself against the viselike grip of the dark power that held the boy.
A hard force pushed Corky back against a small protruding section of concrete. He grasped it and swung back in time to see the black man lose his hold and stagger backward into the sea of howling wind.