THE GUN PRICE CARRIED HAUNTED WILSON IN THE FOLLOWING days of his recovery. It was an odd gun. It was more like an emblem, a stance. There was some kind of pride in it that a typical lawman would not foster. It nagged at Wilson. It was the kind of symbol that demands attention. One that forces you to take notice and never forget.
For three days and nights he lay in that hospital bed. A cycle of nurses. A doctor or two. A gale on the second night throwing water at the stalwart institution like a child with a garden hose. The morphine drip tilted the weather to something out of The Odyssey. Being there in bed with no company and no one to hold him accountable to separate fiction from reality, Wilson turned the image of Price’s gun over and over in his head. Had no idea why he was fixated on it. But it became an obsession. Every time he closed his eyes he saw it. Behind the black curtain of his eyelids the polished metal winked. It was on display. It taunted him. Cried out to be touched.
Then on the third night Wilson came reeling awake. Sweat coursing past his temples, the hospital gown wet against his skin. He sat up and pulled the IV from his arm. He rubbed his face. He kicked his feet to the floor. Went to the window and looked down the corridor toward the nurses’ station. At that late of an hour the post was held by three sleepy-eyed women. They were talking and drinking coffee. Wilson found his clothes in a drawer. He dressed in the dark room then went to the window again. He waited there ten minutes. Fifteen. Two of the nurses had left the station to do rounds. One still sat there looking at a magazine. He waited until he was sure she wouldn’t look up. Then he opened the door and walked down the corridor away from the nurses’ station, turning once to check that no one was following him. Slipped under a sign marked EXIT and then loped-ran down the stairs and out of the hospital.
At his hotel the night clerk nodded at him.
They let you out? he asked.
Something like that, Wilson said. He was holding his side. The clerk looked where Wilson’s hand was pressed. Wilson didn’t dare move his hand. He was afraid that if he did it would come away all full of blood.
Anyone to see me? Wilson said.
No one.
Don’t let anyone know I’m here quite yet. Can you do that?
Of course.
He went up to his room and sat down on the bed. Took his hand away from his side. He went to the bathroom and took a hand towel from the rack and pressed it into the blood. Then he went back to the bed and looked at the corkboard.
Doesn’t make sense, he said. Two guys with no record just happen to be found dead? Chief of police just standing around? Doesn’t make sense.
Then he picked up the phone and dialed a number.
Hello?
Deputy, Wilson said. Did I wake you?
Agent Wilson?
I wake you?
No sir. What can I do you for?
You hear anything back from the coroner on those two men, Evan Nesbit and Conor Hogan.
Yessir.
What’d you hear?
One asphyxiated. One from a gunshot.
How about the woman? Kimberly Roma.
Gunshot.
Yes, Wilson said. Anything in that report regarding their blood? Anything in their system?
No sir.
Nothing?
No sir.
Thank you, deputy, Wilson said. He hung up the phone without saying goodbye.
He went to the television and turned on the VCR and pressed rewind till he saw it. For three days and nights it had eluded him. He pressed pause. He stood there shaking his head. He was almost embarrassed. But there it was. Very discreet, seemingly out of the shot. Hanging from the wall. Slung in its holster. Desert Eagle .50.