The bright lights hurt my eyes. The sight of Willie Rhoden did not.
“What happened to you?” she asked, concern etched on her face.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, not knowing where ‘here’ was. I turned my head to one side, instantly regretting the movement. A dull throb pulsed behind my eyes. An oxygen tube poked up under my nostrils, and something warmed on my brow. “Where is here?” I asked, scrunching my eyes shut.
“You’re at Denver Health,” Willie said, laying a gloved hand on my forehead. “An ambulance brought you in a while ago. Seems like a nice couple saw you pass out and they called for help.”
That explained how I ended up at the hospital.
“What time is it?” Wasn’t it night? I gazed at Willie. “What are you doing here?” I repeated. She usually worked at Saint Joseph’s Hospital, at the front desk.
“I’m moonlighting here.” She pursed her lips as she daubed a piece of gauze on my head. “Reed, what happened to you? You’ve got a gash the size of Texas over your ear, and your face looks like a bruised banana.”
A fog surrounded my brain. I shut my eyes, but I couldn’t remember what had happened.
“I went to the office,” I said. “But I don’t remember why. I remember seeing stars. Pretty ones, blue, green, orange. A man skiing, you know, with a black mask that covered his whole face. And the parking lot. I remember the parking lot,” I said triumphantly.
Willie looked at me like I’d lost more than a little blood. “You probably have a concussion. That can affect your short-term memory.”
“Someone assaulted me,” I concluded, as any great detective would. As I talked, I became aware of my side hurting.
She gave me a no-shit-Sherlock look. “Who?”
I opened my eyes, squinting at Willie. “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”
She worked on the side of my head, cleaning out the cut. I gritted my teeth and focused on something other than my body hurting. My attacker was male. Either that or a very masculine female, a la the 1970’s East German athletes. The last thing I remembered clearly was playing pool with the Goofball Brothers. That was it.
“They need to take some X-rays,” Willie said, breaking me away from my thoughts.
For the next hour I endured a series of tests that determined that I indeed had a concussion, along with two broken ribs and a bruised back, but no damage to my lungs or kidneys. I received eight stitches on my scalp, complete with the obligatory shave around the wound area. The rest of my hair wasn’t long enough to cover the wound, so that part of my anatomy looked akin to the Frankenstein monster’s head. I had a black smudge under my left eye, a couple of other small bruises on my cheeks, and a tiny cut on my chin that required nothing more than a Band-Aid. Now I just wanted a lollipop and my own home.
“Here’s your insurance forms,” Willie said. I leaned on the bed in one of the emergency room cubicles. As Willie helped me ease back into my shirt, she did a first-class job of avoiding eye contact. “They need you to sign a release form out front. I called a taxi for you.”
“Hey, what’s wrong? I’m the one who’s hurt.”
Willie stared at the floor. I tilted her chin up and gazed into wet emeralds as tears formed at the corners of her eyes.
“What?”
“This is exactly what I was talking about,” she said, her lower lip quivering. “What if we started going out and something happens to you? Something worse than this?”
“I could get hit by a bus, too. We take risks every time we go out our front doors. As a matter of fact, our own homes are more dangerous than a lot of places.”
She sniffled. “You’re not funny.”
“I’m not trying to be.”
She jerked her head away, and grabbed a clipboard off the end of the bed. “My father was a cop, Reed. When I was little, I worried what might happen to him. Every day he left for work, I didn’t know if he would come home. It’s a terrible way to live, the not knowing.”
Without turning around, she squared her shoulders and scurried out of the room.
*****
Something squawked. I rolled over and immediately regretted it. A gray filter of light oozed in between the cracks in the blinds. Rain pattered lightly on the roof.
Damn birds, I thought. Don’t they know only Gene Kelly sings in the rain?
The squawk sounded again, only shriller. This time I diagnosed the noise correctly.
“Hello?” I said, picking up the phone from the nightstand.
“Hello, dear.” My mother’s high-pitched voice carried over the phone lines like a parrot on cocaine. “You sound groggy. Why is it every time I call, you’re asleep? Does this have something to do with that detective work? Are you on drugs? Paul,” she yelled away from the phone, “your son’s on drugs, I just know it.”
My mother’s worst fear, other than the fact that I might not marry and produce offspring, was that I was secretly doing drugs. It didn’t help that I’d never had a history of drug or alcohol problems, nor that my worst experience with illicit chemicals occurred more than ten years ago in college, when Cal and I bought a package of tortillas smothered in flour and wrapped in foil from a man on the street, thinking we’d purchased a brick of Columbia’s finest. And how she always managed to call right after I’d had some kind of mishap, I’ll never know.
“I’m not on drugs, Mother.” Except for some pain medication, and that came from the emergency room doctor. I had left Denver Health in a taxi with enough pain pills to last until I could get a prescription filled. Once I got home, I woke up the Goofball Brothers, explaining my predicament – I had a concussion and needed to be monitored. After some haggling, they decided that Deuce would stay with me through the night, and then Ace would check on me in the morning, and then both would periodically come by to see me, as their schedules permitted. I dozed on the couch and Ace woke me every two hours throughout the remainder of the night, following the instructions I was given for treating the concussion. The next morning, Deuce filled my prescription once the pharmacy opened. Each brother checked on me a couple of times, both in person and over the phone. The last time, when Deuce came, we decided that I was doing better, and I crawled gratefully into bed and let sleep take me. Until the phone rang.
“What time is it?” I mumbled to my mother.
“It’s six o’clock. I called you yesterday at the office, and again last night at home. Deuce answered and said you were taking a nap. He’s such a nice boy. All of the Smith boys are nice, now that you mention it.” I hadn’t mentioned it, but didn’t bother to say so. “Deuce said he would leave you a note. I think it’s terribly rude of you to not call me back, Reed. I didn’t raise you to act that way...”
“What time is it?” I asked again. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up, immediately aware of dull pain throughout my body.
“I told you, it’s six o’clock, dear.”
That meant it was four o’clock in Colorado. “What day?”
“What?” She huffed into the phone. “Why, it’s Sunday. Reed, what is going on?”
I stared at my toes. I’d been asleep, or out of it, for more than a day. And I still felt groggy.
“Reed?” my mother chirped. “Paul, find out what’s wrong.”
“Wait, Mom...” I said into the receiver, but was too late. My father’s gruff voice came on.
“Son, look what you’ve done. Your mother’s in a panic now, and you know I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“I’m fine, Dad,” I said, and proceeded to explain that I’d encountered some minor trouble with the case I was working on. I left out my meeting with a man in a ski mask and the trip to the hospital.
“Don’t know why you can’t get a decent job,” he said. I pictured him in his khaki shorts and polo shirt, sitting on the deck of their ritzy south Florida condo, overlooking the ocean, with his neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper hair gelled into place, and his gold jewelry and Rolex watch glinting in the late afternoon sun. The model of respectability and wealth. And here I was, tarnishing the family name and money in my quest for independence.
I sighed heavily and gingerly put a hand to my side. Little breaths, I told myself.
“I like what I’m doing,” I said. “It beats going to work in a suit and tie every day.”
“I know, son. As long as you’re happy,” he said halfheartedly. I’d been doing the detective gig for over a year, and I knew my father secretly hoped that it was a passing fancy, like many of the other jobs I’d had since college. But since my grandparents left me some money, I could be choosy about what I did and how much money I needed to make.
We did the small-talk routine for a couple of minutes. “Tell Mom I’m okay, and I’ll call her in a few days,” I said when I could tell that he’d covered all his bases.
I hung up the phone and cautiously stood up. Once the stars subsided, I plodded to the bathroom where I surveyed myself in the mirror. My left eye was purple with a tinge of yellow around the edges, and the other bruises on my face looked like smudges of charcoal. My hair stuck out in all directions, and the stitches looked like a black ladder running along my head. The band-aid on my chin appeared the least threatening.
I shuffled into the kitchen and made a PB&J, poured a cold glass of milk and took them to the living room. I ate slowly while I checked my phone messages. Three were from the Goofball Brothers, checking in and wondering how I could sleep so soundly. One from Cal, asking me to call him, no reason. One from Bob, inquiring if I was okay, and that he was available if I needed anything. A message from Jack was next, asking about progress in the case. Then Willie, wondering how I was doing, and that she was sorry she’d gotten upset with me the other night, but that she hoped I would understand her feelings. And finally Henri Benoit, asking me if I’d gotten the notes he had left at the office.
What notes? I had to think back until I remembered that I had talked to Henri the other night. I was at B 52’s and he said he would leave notes about The Maltese Falcon poster under the door. I looked around the room but didn’t see anything. I wondered if I had left them at the office.
I put the phone down and finished my sandwich. I’d lost a day on an investigation that was going nowhere, I’d scared Willie off, and I’d gotten my ass kicked. I finished off the glass of milk and leaned back, dozing.
Who was I threatening? That question popped into my brain as I awoke with a start. The empty milk glass lay on the carpet, where I had dropped it.
I set the glass on the coffee table and picked up a pen and paper to jot down some of my thoughts when I spied the note.
“Dude,” it read. “We watched the house like you asked. Deuce saw a man go in with a black bag yesterday around lunchtime. I didn’t see anyone last night, but maybe there was a light on in the back window. I got scared and left. Sorry. Bob says to call us when you get up.” Deuce’s scrawled signature was at the bottom of the page. Underneath that: “P. S. – We got your car yesterday and took it to the shop. It should be ready in a day or two.” For a Goofball Brother, this was practically a novel.
I sat back and shut my eyes. On top of everything else, the 4-Runner had been vandalized. I’d forgotten that piece, but I must’ve told the Brothers about it. They were doing a good job of watching over me. I owed them plenty.
I read through the note again. There was a lot of activity at the house on Madison Avenue. I wondered if the owners were doing some remodeling before it sold. But didn’t Edna Mills tell me that she just wanted to be rid of the place? Maybe she had to repair a few things in order for that to happen.
My files for the house on 210 Madison were at the office, but I got lucky and found Edna’s number online. The clock on the wall said it was 5:30. I hoped that Edna was enjoying a Sunday evening at home.
She picked up on the third ring.
“Oh, the man interested in the architecture of the house,” she said after I identified myself.
We exchanged a few pleasantries, and then I asked her about repairs to the house.
“We’re taking care of some stuff,” she answered. “Even though our price was so low, there were a few things this couple asked to be changed, and they weren’t all the big items like that young man wanted. My husband said we should turn them down and wait for the next buyer and we wouldn’t have to hassle with contractors and whatnot, but the buyers are such a nice couple, you see. I couldn’t bring myself to do that to them. And I didn’t want to go through finding another buyer, after all. We do want to finish all this and move on.”
I thanked her for her time and hung up. That explained the activity at the house. And it meant I was barking up the wrong tree. But I was closing in on someone, or I wouldn’t have been assaulted.
I grabbed the phone again and hit autodial. Ace picked up on the third ring.
“Reed, how’s it going?”
“Better,” I said, even though I didn’t really believe it.
“Did you get our note? Bob said not to worry about your car. He’ll make sure it gets fixed, and let you know when it’s ready.”
“Thanks. I appreciate his help. And you guys, too.”
“No problem. Hey, you want to have dinner with us?”
“I just ate, but thanks.”
“You still want someone watching that house?”
“No. You guys did a great job, but I don’t need you there anymore.”
“Okay.” Ace sounded relieved. “That place is spooky.”
“It’s probably just someone doing repairs. Thanks for your help.”
“Deuce wants to know when he can carry a gun.”
“Tell him when he gets his detective license, we’ll talk.” You didn’t need a license to be a detective in Colorado, but I knew Deuce would never discover this. He’d worry that he would have to take a test to get a license, and that would be enough to deter him.
Ace hollered my answer to Deuce as I hung up.
Next, I called Willie but she wasn’t home or wasn’t answering the phone. I left a message, thanking her for her kind treatment at the hospital – leaving out any snide remarks about walking out on me – and I let her know that I was home and recuperating okay. I said if she wanted, she could come over for a while.
I got up and looked around the house but didn’t find any notes from Henri. His notes were either at the office, or I must have dropped them during the attack. I couldn’t remember anything right before or after I was assaulted. The emergency room doctor had informed me that this was a common occurrence after sustaining a concussion, but it didn’t help the frustration I felt of not knowing what happened.
I didn’t have any energy left so I eased back onto the couch and watched part of The Killers, an apt choice given my investigation. The 1946 movie was based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway. It had plenty of deception, dark characters, and a femme fatale, but even with all that I fell asleep halfway through. At midnight I awoke just long enough to realize that Willie never called. In a semi-stupor, I turned off the television and sprawled into bed.